Your Reject of the Year - 2016 edition

[Dj_bereta]

So, the season is over. Rosberg wins the title after a thrilling battle with Hamilton. Red Bull got stronger, Ferrari got weak. Force India got their best result ever. Everything went wrong for Williams. Massa and Button had a emotional farewell. Alonso snark as ever. Gutierrez got a scoreless season. Etc, etc.

There is a topic for the awards, but no one for the ROTY podium. You know the system. Make your ROTY podium. The three most rejectful drivers/teams/people/etc of the year.

3rd - Scuderia Toro Rosso: A very difficult decision, but Toro Rosso team win a place in the ROTY podium thanks for overestimate Ferrari engines and underestimate Renault ones. In the first race it worked pretty well, but the team threw away a solid double points finish with a bad strategy call. After this, the inevitable slump happened. The last race was the last nail in the coffin with the team fighting with Manor and Sauber for position. No wonder they switch back to Renault for the next season.

2nd - Felipe Massa: I dare to say 2016 is the worst season ever for Massa by a huge margin. He had a decent first half, but a very poor second half, especially around the end of European races. He said he made the decision to retire around June and this could explain part of his slump. He was soundly beaten by Bottas (especially in the qualify) and finished the season behind Alonso which missed one race. His last race in Abu Dhabi was good like his entire career, but this isn't enough to save him from the ROTY podium. He needs to improve if he wants to be a winner in other racing series and personally, I think this is going to be a bad move if he goes to DTM or WEC.

1st - Esteban Gutierrez: I have to give some credit to Gutierrez. He got some mechanical failures in this season and one of the was while he was in the points (Bahrain). I could have nominated the entire Haas team instead, but he did worse and his outburst only added more salt to the injury. He was beaten by Grosjean by a huge margin in the first half, while Haas had a decent package. In the second half he was pretty close on the Frenchman but it was too late. His bad start at Italy and his spin in Suzuka are examples of his mistakes. Looks like he will return to be Ferrari's reserve drive. A bitter way to end his second stint in F1.

Special Mentions:

Felipe Nasr: Almost earned a place in ROTY podium. His amazing drive in Brazil saved him. He was outclassed in this season Ericsson and the conspiracy theories created by his fans (like he was sabotaged by Sauber) didn't help either. Now with BB leaving Sauber, he is a extremely difficult position for the next season. He is a good driver and deserves a place in F1, but looks like this is the farewell for him for now.

Jenson Button: Like Massa, had a bad 2nd half and as beaten by Alonso by a huge margin. I think he still has talent and maybe did a bad decision in retiring too (which he is already regretting).

[Meatwad]

3. Renault: Woeful season for the most part. Both Magnussen and Palmer struggled with the car which appeared undrivable or even dangerous at times. They're a distant third here, as they have some excuses for the poor performance (the team being built around the ruins of an almost bankrupt Lotus) and had a couple of highlights. Regardless, they have to improve a lot next season.
2. Sauber: Almost repeated the disaster of 2014. They were outpaced by Manor several times and Nasr's drop in form didn't help them. Nasr saved them with a 9th place in Brazil and Ericsson had a few impressive qualifying performances and a great race in Mexico; otherwise, not the greatest year for Sauber.
1. Esteban Gutiérrez: The winner hands down. On pure pace, he often matched or beat Grosjean, only to ruin it all in the race. Losing 29-0 to your team mate in points is truly rejectful, especially considering that Magnussen, Palmer, Wehrlein and Nasr all managed to score in worse cars. He did finish 11th five times and occasionally lost out due to misfortune (errors by other drivers or mechanical problems), but surely there were a few opportunities for him to score, if only he had taken them...

[Aguaman]

3. Joylon Palmer - Seemed a lot of his depth for most of the season

2. Sauber - Back of the pack but all considering I mean it wasn't that bad. But really dire

1. Esteban Gutierrez - Oh Esteban...

[Normal32]

3. Esteban Gutierrez

2. Daniil Kvyat

1. Felipe Nasr

[TomWazzleshaw]

3rd - Scuderia Toro Rosso: A very difficult decision, but Toro Rosso team win a place in the ROTY podium thanks for overestimate Ferrari engines and underestimate Renault ones. In the first race it worked pretty well, but the team threw away a solid double points finish with a bad strategy call. After this, the inevitable slump happened. The last race was the last nail in the coffin with the team fighting with Manor and Sauber for position. No wonder they switch back to Renault for the next season.

No. No. No. No. Nono. No.

Considering the handicap of the year old engine they had to start the year, and the fact the Ferrari engine deal was only confirmed in early December last year, James Key, Carlos Sainz and Toro Rosso did a sterling job over the course of the year. There was a good two month period where Sainz was one of the most impressive drivers on the grid, and even when the team did hit the limit of what they could have achieved with the 2015 Ferrari engine, they still could pull out performances like Kvyat's last stand at Singapore, or the pair of 6ths for Sainz at Austin and Brazil. To even contemplate the idea that they were anywhere near as bad or worse than both Sauber and Renault is a gross disservice to both the team and James Key, who has one of the most enviable track records in the entire paddock over the last 8 years or so.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here's my ROTY podium:

3rd - Daniil Kvyat - The poor lad was a persona non-grata at Red Bull long before the Russia accident, and while he was clearly not with the program for most of the summer, there's one damning statistic that puts him on the podium: In the 17 races they did together, Sainz scored 42 points. In that same time Kvyat scored 4.

2nd - Esteban Gutierrez - If it wasn't for his attitude and weekly rants to anyone who would listen, you'd have forgotten this guy was on the grid this year. Romain Grosjean proved that the car was more than capable of scoring points, so to finish behind a Manor and BOTH Renaults on merit is a pretty poor showing.

1st - Renault F1 - Most people expected it to be pretty rough this year, but to score a paltry 8 points (six of them due to a fluke 7th at Russia), and being comprehensively thrashed by a team in its first year was about as low as it could have possibly gotten. Magnussen and Palmer both quickly found the limits of the Yellow Submarine, and consequently ended up finding new and interesting ways to bring the car back on the back of a tow-truck. Coupled with the saga trying to find a driver which resulted in having to retain Palmer because literally nobody else wanted to drive for them, despite having both Ollie Rowland and Louis Deletraz on the books, and the constant rumours of infighting amongst senior management, it was about as close to Annus Horriblus as it could for the French manufacturer.

[Ataxia]

3. Felipe Nasr - Whilst he was the Sauber driver who scored points, Nasr spent most of the season being beaten by Marcus Ericsson despite being considered his superior last season. A chassis swap didn't seem to yield any further performance, but managed to find a 9th place amongst the rain at his home race...which was probably his one good race all year.

2. Esteban Gutierrez - He got comprehensively outscored by Grosjean. Now, the counter-argument is that he was close to Grosjean, that mechanical issues stopped him from scoring, et cetera. However, what Gutierrez has shown all season is a complete ineptitude to perform when the car is on song, and he's wasted good grid slots as he wilts under the limelight. He has a pretty bad attitude as well; F1 would be better without him.

1. Elimination qualifying - Remember that? The FIA brought it in with the intention of having a two-way shootout for pole at the very end and to keep cars running on track to beat the clock. Sounds good, right. Instead, we had an over-complicated mess of a system which did nothing more but help wrap things up early. One of the worst rule changes I've seen, and I've seen aggregate qualifying.