Grand Prix Rejects

Post your nominations (obvious this one I think Biscotti!).

Has to be Nico Rosberg for losing it and giving Lewis the championship. While Lewis was 99% of chance of winning it, Nico could have won that race and at least taken it to Mexico.

Nico Rosberg - If it wasn't for Power and Montoya hitting each other and giving up the title in the final race in IndyCar, that would've been the biggest choke of the year.
Red Bull - Wow, did this race get away from them.
Williams - Were they even in this race?
Nico Hulkenberg - Completely misjudged the corner and ruined Force India's best hope. Again.
Daniil Kvyat - How many times did he fall off the track? Like 4 or 5, I think.

Red Bull. They were challenging for the win and then they simply fell to pieces, with Ricciardo saving a point.

Kimi Raikkonen - Kimi Raikkonen 0 - 1 Rolex Board
Nico Hulkenberg - Ruined his race with a very silly move, but probably could've done it hadn't he gotten front wing damage.
Williams - Massa took Alonso out, and then both cars retired. Manfred continues to have full time employment as well.
Red Bull - Hadn't it been for once certain german, they would be my pick for ROTR. Ran very good early on, but ruined their race by not pitting under the VSC, and then Kvyat preceded to crash into the wall like a moron, while Ricciardo clashed with Sainz while defending and had to pit.. Also, bathplug Renault.

But the obvious winner for this is...

Nico Rosberg - Only one thing can describe this, and those aren't words:

Loads of candidates, but Red Bull. From a potential 1-2 finish (really?) to 1 measly point, taken from an ailing Alonso on the final lap.

Williams too, for yet more poor wet weather pace, a collision and a ridiculous slicks gamble for Bottas and finally their first double-DNF since 2012. Not good.

Honorable mention to the race result, I saw it coming but having the same race order even when events attempt to prevent that sums up just how fast the Mercedes and Vettel are.

Williams - Double DNF, for the first time since 2012, I think.
Red Bull - Went from being kings of the wet to also rans in the dry in a flash.
Nico Hulkenberg - Yeah, this chump really doesn't deserve a top car.

But ROTR has to go to:

NICO ROSBERG - Get out, now.

I agree with most of the nominations of both Nicos, Red Bull and Williams, but on the tradition of comedy it's gotta be Kimi for his battle with the advertising hoarding. Oh and Vettel is thoroughly wiping the floor with him.

Nico Rosberg - enough said.
Attrition rate - two cars more and GPR would collapse under massive amounts of euphoria

James1978 wrote:I agree with most of the nominations of both Nicos, Red Bull and Williams, but on the tradition of comedy it's gotta be Kimi for his battle with the advertising hoarding. Oh and Vettel is thoroughly wiping the floor with him.

If the board caused him to retire or won the fight in the end, then Kimi.

Aguaman wrote:

James1978 wrote:I agree with most of the nominations of both Nicos, Red Bull and Williams, but on the tradition of comedy it's gotta be Kimi for his battle with the advertising hoarding. Oh and Vettel is thoroughly wiping the floor with him.

If the board caused him to retire or won the fight in the end, then Kimi.

It is likely that the reason why his right front brake overheated was because the cooling ducts were damaged/destroyed when he hit the wall. So yeah the accident caused his retirement, although with a slight delay.

Nuppiz wrote:

Aguaman wrote:

James1978 wrote:I agree with most of the nominations of both Nicos, Red Bull and Williams, but on the tradition of comedy it's gotta be Kimi for his battle with the advertising hoarding. Oh and Vettel is thoroughly wiping the floor with him.

If the board caused him to retire or won the fight in the end, then Kimi.

It is likely that the reason why his right front brake overheated was because the cooling ducts were damaged/destroyed when he hit the wall. So yeah the accident caused his retirement, although with a slight delay.

If so then the Rolex Board is my hero.

To be fair to Red Bull they've never been on the pace in the dry this year so my nomination has to go to Nico Rosberg, still managed to lose a race just by making more mistakes by Lewis. Basically sums up his current quandary, anything he can do, Hamilton can do better.

I'm going for Nico Rosberg too. It would've just delayed the inevitable, obviously, but still a frustrating mistake.

I have a special nomination for ROTR: the bathplugs whining about grid girls. Yes, they're at it again!

I didn't really pay attention to most of the race (was busy winning a pub quiz), but I did notice something that really annoyed me:

Asafa Powell and Elton John - the heck were they wearing?

East Londoner wrote:Nico Hulkenberg - Yeah, this chump really doesn't deserve a top car.

I'm fully aware this is probably bait, but bathplug it, I'll bite.

Regardless, it's not his fault. The pass was on, but for whatever reason Hulkenberg ended up coming in a bit deep. If it was to do with a slightly broken front wing as Brundle suggested, then that might answer it; if not, then you have to take into account the track yielding less grip than before. He didn't lock up or do anything untoward, he just ended up deep. It happens. Other than that, he was mega impressive today, more so than Perez who ended up 5th.

I think that the nominations for Rosberg are a bit harsh; yes, he "gave" the championship to Hamilton, but Hamilton had it under lock and key regardless. We now go to Mexico where people have nothing to lose, so perhaps he's done us all a favour by sorting it out early.

So, I've got to give this to Williams. They could've taken something big here today, and instead end up heading for an early bath.

Where to begin.

Red Bull First part of the race looked strong, then it all went wrong why double stack in the VSC then Kyvats crash and Ricciardo problems only scored because Alonso car decided not to work properly
Williams Anonymous and Unreliable
Nico Rosberg For the first time in what forever you had Hamilton beat in a straight fight and then you do that.

A mention to Honda for not being unreliable enough had they both broke down like they normally do Manor would have scored a point

I'm with Ataxia, Williams gets my vote. Terrible race for them. Rosberg made some errors yes, but Hamilton was massively lucky with the Kvyat safety car. Without that we'd be going to Mexico with the title still up for grabs.

Virtual Safety Car: What a joke. Many drivers clearly got an unfair advantage, most notable Rosberg. VSC is one of the worst things that I've seen in the last years. Just bring the safety car instead.

Dj_bereta wrote:Virtual Safety Car: What a joke. Many drivers clearly got an unfair advantage, most notable Rosberg. VSC is one of the worst things that I've seen in the last years. Just bring the safety car instead.

I do not support this statement.

Rosberg - An appalling unforced error showing the world why his championship challenge was never really a thing.

Rosberg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZTfnhob2A

I was going to nominate Fox Sports Asia editor for putting race encore in such a brainless way for the first half. But then Rosberg happened. Oh my God

CoopsII wrote:
Rosberg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZTfnhob2A

Yeah, because your teammate chucking something at you that says "2nd" on it wouldn't be infuriating in the slightest. Don't start this again, Coopsy...

Ataxia wrote:

CoopsII wrote:
Rosberg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZTfnhob2A

Yeah, because your teammate chucking something at you that says "2nd" on it wouldn't be infuriating in the slightest. Don't start this again, Coopsy...

But you accept my reasoning for my first nomination? Fair do's.

CoopsII wrote:

Ataxia wrote:

CoopsII wrote:
Rosberg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njZTfnhob2A

Yeah, because your teammate chucking something at you that says "2nd" on it wouldn't be infuriating in the slightest. Don't start this again, Coopsy...

But you accept my reasoning for my first nomination? Fair do's.

Already discussed it, mate. Nice to see someone reads my posts! Heheh...

I think Rosberg was actually aiming for the hat to hit Hamilton square in the face but under pressure he flubbed it and missed.

Nico Rosberg – After a fighting drive, once again Nico choked under (no) pressure and handed his team-mate the title on a silver plate.

Dishonourable Mentions
Danny Kyvat – With Max waiting in the wings, this wasn’t the best time to stuff it into the wall. He’s fast for sure but still a bit too erratic imo.
Kimi Raikkonen – Come on, what did Rolex ever do to you?! Please retire.
Williams – A terrible race all round really.

Nico Rosberg He had the win in the bag before his wobble late in the race. And after the race Lewis Hamilton tosses the hat to him but Nico throws it back at his championship-winning teammate like a spoiled brat.

Red Bull Sure the track drying would slowly hamper their chances of a 1-2, but the fact that both drivers made mistakes throughout the event seemed a bit amateurish. Heck, Max V drove better than both Ricciardo and Kvyat and acted more like an 18-year veteran of the sport, and not an 18-yr old.

Alonso's new engine And Jenson Button hoped Alonso would "annihilate him" during the race.

2 fewer cars retiring Oh what could have been.

Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

Izzyeviel wrote:Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

And what exactly would that achieve? They haven't wronged him. The team gave him an equal opportunity to Lewis to win titles and he didn't take it. He's probably more angry at himself than anything. The title was realistically out of reach for some time now, but to have Hamilton secure it mathematically well ahead of time down to a driving error is really rubbing salt in his own wounds for Nico.

As one could expect from a race where so few guys see the finish line, there isn´t shortage of good options as ROTR this tiem around but I have to give this to Williams as they had a horrible race for a team that has scored 3rd most points during the year.

Dishonorable Mentions:
Räikkönen: Another race, another mistake. Räikkönen aren´t known to make this many errors so maybe it´s just temporary but that combined to beating he gets from his teammate second year a row makes me wonder if he just should have retired instead of going for another year.
Red Bull: First half´s MVP and that saves them from getting nominated by me but boy was that second half awful for them.
Rosberg: Seems to be making a bit of a trademark on making small but crucial mistakes when on lead, that does not a champion make.

Off topic but going with the Rosberg comments; it's a huge assumption but you could believe as Lewis passed him at that mistake the full weight of being 30 years old with a teammate* you're never going to beat might have born down on him.
*including any potential teammates.

Biscione wrote:

Izzyeviel wrote:Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

And what exactly would that achieve? They haven't wronged him. The team gave him an equal opportunity to Lewis to win titles and he didn't take it. He's probably more angry at himself than anything. The title was realistically out of reach for some time now, but to have Hamilton secure it mathematically well ahead of time down to a driving error is really rubbing salt in his own wounds for Nico.

If anything it looked like, only a handful of laps earlier, Mercedes had given Rosberg a major strategic advantage when they chose to pit him under the second virtual safety car and left Hamilton on track on worn tyres and an instruction to try and get to the end of the race on tyres that were unlikely to last the distance. Without that final safety car, Hamilton would either have had to pit again or probably would have worn out his tyres - either way, Rosberg would have effectively been gifted the win in those circumstances.

Ultimately, Nico has to blame himself for the situation - it looks like he hammered his tyres too hard at the beginning of the stint when Mercedes were suggesting that he should pace himself a bit more, and then ultimately it was Nico who made a driving error and spun the car off track.

Im gonna nominate the Rolex board for not putting a up a better fight against Kimi
and an honourable mention to Everyone who is nominating Rosberg, ok he made 1 mistake and then appeared to be a sore loser, but I feel he was just being a bit slightly pissed off with himself for making that mistake

Izzyeviel wrote:Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

Nico makes the briefest of contact with Lewis's car and all hell breaks out in the Mercedes garage. Lewis runs Nico off the road several times and it's all 'OMG Lewis you are da bestest!!! We Lovez you big time'

WeirdKerr wrote:Im gonna nominate the Rolex board for not putting a up a better fight against Kimi
and an honourable mention to Everyone who is nominating Rosberg, ok he made 1 mistake and then appeared to be a sore loser, but I feel he was just being a bit slightly pissed off with himself for making that mistake

I think that "slightly" is a bit of an understatement there, although I agree that Nico was probably more riled by the fact that he knew he shouldn't have made that mistake.

Izzyeviel wrote:

Izzyeviel wrote:Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

Nico makes the briefest of contact with Lewis's car and all hell breaks out in the Mercedes garage. Lewis runs Nico off the road several times and it's all 'OMG Lewis you are da bestest!!! We Lovez you big time'

I guess that, from the point of view of the team, the difference comes down to the fact that, although Hamilton has been hard with Rosberg on track, Hamilton hasn't yet made a move that has caused Rosberg to retire from a race or damaged his car.

Ultimately, although Hamilton's moves against Rosberg have been forceful, they haven't cost the team anything given that Rosberg has always been able to continue his race afterwards without damage to his car. By contrast, the collision in Belgium quite clearly cost the team another victory at a time when the team were publicly aiming to have the most dominant car in the history of the sport and were aiming for a record number of 1-2 finishes - so Rosberg's clash did a lot of damage to the image that the team wanted to put out.

Izzyeviel wrote:

Izzyeviel wrote:Nico for not shoving his cap up Lewis/Toto/Niki's rectums.

Nico makes the briefest of contact with Lewis's car and all hell breaks out in the Mercedes garage. Lewis runs Nico off the road several times and it's all 'OMG Lewis you are da bestest!!! We Lovez you big time'

To be fair, the "briefest of contact" that Nico had with Lewis' car in Belgium 2014 ended Hamilton's race and prevented Mercedes notching up another 1-2 (which is what Mercedes race for), while Hamilton running Rosberg a bit wide in Austin had zero implications on the outcome of the race (as Nico threw the win away with Hamilton a good 200 metres behind him).

Daniil Kwjat - While the Toro Rosso rookies did a great job, he, despite not being a rookie anymore, looked like he had never even seen some corners in picture.

Nico Rosberg - Bad luck played its role, but at the end it was just his mistake which gifted Hamilton the championship. Plus, his start was embarassing.

Williams - Back to its 2013 form.

Nico Hülkenberg - Definitely not back to his 2013-14 form.

1. Rosberg: Pretty much threw away any hope he had in the drivers championship with that silly little error.

2. Red Bull: Also threw away a possible podium result with their silly little errors as well.

Dishonorable Mentions:

Williams: Double DNF.

Hulkenburg: Yet another silly move that cost him dearly.