Grand Prix Rejects

1. Jolyon Palmer - What an absolute joke of a driver. It's only a matter of time before he gets handed his P45.

2. Felipe Massa - GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU PILLOCK.

Honourable mentions to Lewis Hamilton for driving like he couldn't care less, and Honda as per the norm. I can't wait for Alonso to do IndyCar full time in 2018.

1. Palmer - even allowing for the disruption that he had in practise, the sight of him climbing back out of a car with a wheel or two missing was happening a bit too frequently this weekend. As East Londoner notes, it looks more like a question of when, not if, Palmer will be replaced.
2. Grosjean - in some ways, his early exit after clashing with Palmer summed up his weekend, as he shouldn't have been in that position to begin with. He was consistently a long way off Magnussen's pace throughout the weekend, and the comments that Steiner has made imply that the problems were all with Grosjean rather than with the car (given Magnussen didn't have any of the problems Grosjean had).

1. Grosjean; much slower than Magnussen and then went into a space that wasn't there
2. Massa; that was a good last lap but it could have been amazing

1. Romain Grosjean: Bad qualifying, followed by a silly crash.
2. Red Bull Racing: Not a particularly bad race from them but these reliability problems (especially on Ricciardo's car) are getting quite annoying.

1/ Sochi Autodrom - For being shite.

2/ Honda - For being shite.

HM/ Jolyon Palmer - For being shite.

1) The track: Contributing to a boring race almost from start to finish.

2) Romain Grosjean: Poor qualifying and a crash. An ignominious weekend.

HM: Vladimir Putin.

1. Massa. In a Williams you have to mind blue flags mate.
2. The coverage. Everywhere it shouldn't have been.

1. Sochi: The track is a universal bore

2. Grosjean: Nothing went right for him followed by a silly shunt with Palmer. For once it wasn't Palmer's fault.

Dishonorable mention: Red Bull for having an anonymous race aside from Ricciardo's brake failure.

1. Jolyon Palmer, Romain Grosjean - The former... just go away, The latter just had an outright terrible weekend.

2. Takuma Sato - Taku caused a caution at the Phoenix IndyCar race... in the midst of drivers making green flag stops. Now a ton of drivers were scored a lap down, except for five drivers. This effectively handed the race on a silver platter to the Penske boys (Pagenaud in particular) and Hildebrand, ruining whatever chance the desert had at producing a good race. Thanks, Taku.

1. Palmer; hopelessly slow compared with Hulkenburg, and then also managing to crash three times over the weekend, the third time needlessly into Grosjean, and being arrogant and oblivious to his tema's efforts to repair the car over the weekend (couldn't he have been just a little grateful-sounding considering they swapped the entire monocoque !). Please, Renault, just replace him with Sirotkin already (actually even Maldonado would do, at least he was fast sometimes...)
2. McHonda; they are now probably less competitive than they were at the start of their partnership, and about as reliable (in fact, a distant 14th and a parade lap retirement is actually worse than Australia 2015! )

DHM:
Grosjean; strangely off the pace, and seemingly in a bad mood all weekend
Hamilton; lots of moaning
Sochi Autodrom; the Bottas/Vettel chase was the only thing keeping viewers semi-awake around this dull course

1- Palmer- Where to begin... Another awful weekend. His team-mate got into the top 10 qualifying he managed to get knocked out in the first qualifying. Then surprise surprise he crashes in the first lap. Plus his team-mate scores more good points. If Alonso Doesn't get on with IndyCar then I am sure Renault will give him Palmer's seat with no hesitation.

2- Mchonda- Every Bloody race. Something with the engine goes. It was Fernando's power unit that failed on the WARM UP LAP!! Does anyone expect them to even score a point this year. I don't. ROTY!!!! (and its still only April!)

HM- The Race- Thank God for Bottas. Otherwise it would have been even worse. Hamilton- Had a weekend to forget.

1. Race - boring
2. People voting McHonda for ROTR

1) Jolyon Palmer - Badly needs to score some points.
2) Sochi racetrack - I've given it enough time, while 2015 was rather good, the last two races have been very dire beyond lap 1. (this race had a good ending tho)

HM: Lewis Hamilton: I know he had problems but this was a bad race by his standards (over 30s behind a teammate?)

1st Palmer - The in-race collision wasn't really his fault, but his dumping it in the wall in qualy and generally being made look average by Hulkenberg all weekend is. He hasn't had a passable weekend yet this season, much less a good one, and that starts to mount up.

2nd Aero Push / Dirty air effect - It's worse than ever. Leading drivers were being effected by backmarkers 2 seconds up the road, and despite having a much faster car, once Vettel was within 1.6 seconds of Bottas, he struggled, chipping it away only a tenth or two at a time.

1st - Grosjean: He was very, very optimistic with that move in turn two. 100% his fault.

2nd - 2017 rules: It's the second very boring race in four races. I believe the excessive downforce is the main cause of this, as well the lack of cars. Barcelona is going to be a huge boredom.

1 - Palmer. It pains me a little to nominate him as a fellow countryman and I like to give people a chance but he's simply getting nowhere.
2 - Vladimir Putin

1. Lewis Hamilton - Thrashed by his teammate, spent the whole race moaning, yet his legion of fans starts crying and screaming "conspiracy" everywhere.
2. Jolyon Palmer - Only 20 drivers can be in F1. Why does he have to be one of them?

Palmer never thought he deserved the drive this year... how long can this go on? Renault must have more ambition than to stick with this guy.

McLaren.

1- the race, booooooring

2- mclaren honda: come on guys! Enough it's enough ( insert image of Samuel Jackson)

1. Red Bull Racing ; brake failure, again. If you really are putting safety first and you're a cutting edge , high tech F1 team you shouldnt have repeated brake failures. F1 brakes should not fail .

2. McLaren Honda..DNS, and slow

1 Jolyon Palmer: I don't put the clash with Grosjean all on his shoulders (he was having to watch those alongside him as well as behind) but the crash in Q1 which knocked him out of that session anyway as well as the lack of pace compared to Hulkenberg is certainly on him I'm afraid. Agree with some here that he's walking a tightrope currently and I'd be interested to see where Renault would be if Alonso was in his place

2 Lewis Hamilton: Poorest weekend from him since the ones he had at the back end of 2013 when he seemed lost and spooked with Vettel dominance. Finished 36 SECONDS behind his winning team mate with no excuses. Couldn't even keep up with Raikkonen in the slower Ferrari. His only saving grace is those 12 points could still be vital come the end of the campaign.

HM's
The race itself. Let's face it if it hadn't been for Bottas's performance then there'd literally be nothing to remember from it. Not a single registered overtaking move after lap 1? Christ even Barcelona during the Schumacher era produced one or two

Romain Grosjean: Horrible weekend after seemingly turning a corner in Bahrain. The only reason why I don't put him in the first 2 is because he probably wouldn't have started 19th had his last lap not been compromised by Palmer crashing

McHonda: In football you'll often get a comic relief player who you probably forgot still played for you. I put Everton vs Chelsea on after the race finished and I honestly didn't know Arouna Kone still played for Everton (To be fair that lot have had their fair share of those down the years). Evertonians Twitter responses were hysterical about him coming on. That's basically McLaren in 2017 for you. Only in this case I forget that McLaren once dominated the sport once upon a time when I see the pale shadow they are now. The engine is embarrassing, the drivers talents are being wasted, they've scored no points and the car is about as reliable as used toilet roll. And all this after finishing 6th last year and looking like making some steps.

The results are, as they say, in, and forum favourite Slowyon Palmer wins the coveted ROTR at Sochi this year! Scores as follows:


1 Jolyon Palmer 101
2 Sochi Autodrom 56
3 Romain Grosjean 53
4 McLaren-Honda 36
5 Felipe Massa 22
6 Lewis Hamilton 16
= Red Bull Racing 16
8 FOM (the coverage) 6
= Takuma Sato 6
= People voting McLaren-Honda 6
= Aero-push / dirty air effect 6
= 2017 Rules 6
= Vladimir Putin 6

The circuit that hosts the Russian Grand Prix bore a huge brunt of the criticism, landing it second-place in the scores. After another dull race the forumites are not happy with the track layout, whilst Rmn Grsjn's weekend landed him a close third place.