Grand Prix Rejects

Gonna be a heated one today, try and keep it civil chaps. I'm absolutely fuming.

1. Lewis Hamilton for trying to kill his title rival.
2. Lewis Hamilton for trying to kill his title rival.

DHM for Lewis Hamilton for trying to kill his title rival.

DHM for the stewards for not disqualifying Lewis Hamilton.

DHM to Sebastian Vettel for that silly spin.

DHM to Sergio Perez for an awful weekend.

1) The result: I'm going to charitably lean on the side of "racing incident" while also acknowledging that Lewis Hamilton taking 25 points when Verstappen had to settle with a sprint race victory and a destroyed car is a deeply unsatisfactory result.

2) Sergio Perez: Destroyed his chances on the Saturday and didn't do enough to acquit himself on the Sunday.

F1 Stewards, for effectively telling the drivers that any mistake made during an overtaking manoever will be penalized.

If the FIA wants drivers to race in a "race", they should tell the stewards to let them and accept that sometimes, mistakes will happen. Penalties should be reserved for clear intent to drive an opponent off the track.

DHM: RBR's whining on the radio to race control

1. The stewards again. You know why.
2. The C4 fanbois.

1. Toto for emails
2. Cross man for being cross
HM: Lewis for getting away with murder again

I know the driver of a certain number 44 car is going to get some pelters in this thread (and rightly so, I’m doing it myself elsewhere) but let’s keep it civil because others were letdowns

Sergio Perez: I just knew that if any car was going to fall foul of the new format it would be the driver in the poisoned chalice that is the number 2 Red Bull because no other car on the grid could fall into those traps. Also for a man renowned for taking care of quickly degrading tyres it really was surprising that Sergio was the first to pit, whether it was him or the team that decided that I know not. In the end the only good thing he did all weekend was take the bonus point for fastest lap off Hamilton

Sebastian Vettel: Arguably the least pressured and most laziest spin I’ve ever seen and considering his record that says something.

Horner/Wolff: stick these 2 in a dark room for Hungary and don’t let them out. I could put 2 actual babies on the pit wall and they still wouldn’t cry as much

The weekend format: Sprint qualifying was all a bit “meh” for me. Had Alonso not excited us i wouldn’t have remembered it happening. Plus the 2nd practice session being before it meant we saw pretty pointless running where times were 3 seconds slower than Friday. I don’t see F1 fans unanimously agree on something but the timing of that 2nd practice was one of them

Londoner, its difficult to play nicely after Fetzie's response.

Spectoremg wrote:Londoner, its difficult to play nicely after Fetzie's response.

Not going to apologize for thinking it was an accidental contact that should have been judged to be a racing incident and that I think the stewards made a mistake. Ultimately it didn't affect the end result, but still.

"Sir" Lewis Hamilton - The man who for years told us he was equal to Senna, pulls a Senna and takes his title rival out on purpose, never apologizes, and then cries at the slap on the wrist penalty he gets. At least he hasn't called the stewards racist this time. Not yet anyway.

I would nominate Red Bull for scoring no points, but today wasn't the team's fault. So I'm (again) voting for Sergio Pérez who had another pretty bad weekend. I hope we don't get a repeat of the last couple of seasons for the second Red Bull driver...

19 July edit: I've had some time to sleep on it, so here's my revised picks:

1. David Croft, please just bathplug off to Merc's marketing department.
2. Red Bull, for sacrificing Checo and a handful of WCC points just to deny Lewis a fastest lap point.

FWIW, as many will know, I am no Lewis superfan but I don't think there was any serious intent there and stuff from the Red Bull camp about banning him is just ludicrous.

Lewis has earnt my respect over the last year by taking his driving to another level. Horner and Marko, for many and varied reasons, never have and never will. And given their total devotion to the corporate hell that is Red Bull these days and since I'm here, I think I should give my nomination to the Sky F1 lackeys.

I have to say Perez.

1. Christian Horner and Toto Wolff. Given their behaviour during the red flag period, F1 should take a page out of NASCAR's rulebook and suspend the pair of them from attending the Hungarian GP paddock.

2. Sergio Perez. Wrecked his entire weekend with that appalling unforced error in the sprint race, points that Red Bull can ill afford to throw away in the battle for the constructors.

Londoner wrote:1. Christian Horner and Toto Wolff. Given their behaviour during the red flag period, F1 should take a page out of NASCAR's rulebook and suspend the pair of them from attending the Hungarian GP paddock.

No no, right sport, wrong "penalty". Eddie Gossage once set up a boxing ring at Texas Motor Speedway for two drivers that were feuding (Harvick and Busch IIRC).

Londoner wrote:1. Christian Horner and Toto Wolff. Given their behavior during the red flag period, F1 should take a page out of NASCAR's rulebook and suspend the pair of them from attending the Hungarian GP paddock.

2. Sergio Perez. Wrecked his entire weekend with that appalling unforced error in the sprint race, points that Red Bull can ill afford to throw away in the battle for the constructors.

I'm too hot to bother so what Londoner said but HM should go to Vettel for ending his resurgence in his usual way and Luck thy name is Hamilton for still winning the race.

Oh and the British Gp organizers for NOT getting Geri Horner to sing God Save the Queen and the British Government for allowing such a crowd at the race. Worrying times

Since I know that there are likely to be some rather strong emotions flying around right now, I would like to add an appeal for calm and consideration. I trust those here to be much more sensible than on other sites, but I'd ask that people do something - go walk the dog, or play with the kids, or whatever else might help you wind down - to give yourself time to think and not to say something rash in the heat of the moment that you might regret later on.

Sadly I have seen elsewhere that some individuals have let rip with some extremely dark and disturbing comments, with a vocal minority that are now spewing forth a wave of racist hatred and bile in Hamilton's direction. I fear that, though there are many who would condemn such behaviour, there is sadly that darker side to the fandom that is putting some parts into a very bad light.

Max himself has nominated Lewis, putting him on blast on his verified Instagram, calling Lewis "disrespectful and unsportsmanlike".

Get your popcorn ready!

The people attacking Lewis are really making me angry.

If you directly compare the incide ts to the great intentional crashes of the past by Schumacher and Senna, this one is nowhere near intentional. It is clumsy, foolish and could have had disaster written all over it but it was not on purpose. I still blame Ham for the crash - he should have backed out - but calling it intentional and worse manslaughter is salacious and unfair.

Some of the comments do come from a place of frustration as this did ruin a battle between the two, but it really bothers me some of the inflammatory rhetoric.

Not that it should matter but - no, I am not a Ham fanboy as I actually support Verstappen. People need to wind their necks in. Mario is completely right.

On topic:

Sadly, Sergio and and Vettel are my picks. They just got cannot string a set of results together.

Just to throw a totally different nomination into the ring, and to avoid the obvious, I'm going to say George Russell. Why? For getting my hopes up for a good weekend result on Friday evening, only to see him going backwards in both the sprint race and the Grand Prix.

Haven't posted in a while, but that race was something else (and not in a good way); might as well get the nominations out:

1st) The FIA/Stewarding: Wading through the utter shite that is the Motorsport.com comments sections, there was one comment that seemed to have it right. Either this was a racing incident, and no penalty should be given out, or this was avoidable, and a proper penalty should have been given. The FIA did think it was the latter, however, the 10 second penalty was absolutely useless. I'm not saying that hard racing should be penalized (and really, should be encouraged as that is what people want to see, and we saw just that in France), but bonehead maneuvers, especially ones that cause competitors to be sent to the hospital should carry stiffer penalties. A 10 second stop-go would've been appropriate. A simple 10 second penalty clearly did nothing, and drivers have been penalized harder for these sorts of moves.

2nd) Lewis Hamilton: Yeah, that was a pretty dumb move. I certainly do not think it was malicious, but this is right up there with Pastor Maldonado Battlebots-ing Esteban Gutierrez in 2014 and Grosjean's incident with Will Stevens at Montreal a few years back. And the celebrations were tasteless; come on man, optics. You just punted your title rival into the wall, sent him to the hospital (granted for precautionary reasons, but the point stands), and then celebrate like your country won the Euros? I'm no fan of Max Verstappen in the least (Verstappen is probably my least favorite driver), but that was uncalled for.

Dishonorable mentions:
Vettel: Bruh
Perez: Yeah, that is one race to forget
Helmut Marko, Christian Horner, and Toto Wolff: Stop whining
the Motosport.com comments sections: My expectations of comments sections are low enough as they are, but man could you please not be racist for once?

Dan B wrote:Helmut Marko, Christian Horner, and Toto Wolff: Stop whining

In the case of Horner, I do find one aspect a little hypocritical about his comments - only a few races earlier, back at the Spanish GP, he'd been praising Max for his first lap move on Hamilton and that he'd forced Hamilton to either back off or "end up in the fence". It does give the impression that he's fine with what he has called "dangerous" and "reckless" racing if it is Max who is making those moves and Hamilton on the receiving end, but demands harsh penalties when it is Max who is on the receiving end.

Tiptoeing gently into the arena...

Karun Chandock did a frame by frame step through of the incident from both cars cameras and that from the helicopter. The video from Max's car shows him:
(i) checking the right mirror (and presumably seeing where Lewis was)
(ii) turning in slightly (presumably to try and get Lewis to lift)
(iii) straightening up (presumably because Lewis did not lift)
(iv) turning in again (a second attempt to intimidate/persuade Lewis to back off) and then bang into the gravel

My take from this and other replays is:
(i) neither driver was ever ahead in the classic sense
(ii) there was room for both cars to go round the corner side-by-side, Max was not being squeezed from the left so forcing him to turn in - he could have opened the steering and continued with a wider line but would have lost the place (as Leclerc did later in the race under similar circumstances).
(iii) Lewis might have understeered. He could have moved to his right but he was close to the kerbs, or he could have lifted and lost the place.
(iv) Max changed direction (albeit slightly) twice by turning inwards, had he not made the second manoeuvre there would have likely been no contact
(v) no-one deliberately causes an accident at those speeds, Senna, Prost and Schumacher always made sure the accidents they used to try and win championships happened under braking and at low speeds

Just writing it out forced me to think about what happened. I believe this was a racing incident in which Verstappen under-estimated Hamilton's desire for the win on the day. His perfectly reasonable attempt to force him into lifting by the second right turn caused the accident because Hamilton had not lifted.

The way Max's rear tyre jumped off the rim was worrying. That seemed to be the cause of the total loss of control. The tap against Lewis' wing end-plate should have just caused oversteer which might have ended in a spin. And that Techpro needs to be extended another 50 metres down the edge of the circuit.

However, the noise from the Red Bull and Mercedes team principals (both of whom had axes to grind, neither of whom had had time to fully review all the video) was inappropriate, unacceptable and unsporting, and thus gets my Reject of the Race award.

His Royal Highness Sir Lewis "If you don't go for a gap" Hamilton: Did he do it on purpose? I hope that not. Was a stupid, reckless, desperate move to prevent another defeat? Absolutely. And the icing on the cake, his antics celebrating his victory after having sent his main rival to the hospital. Classy Hamilton.

F1 rules/Stewards: Hamilton taking advantage of a red flag for the second time time this season, thanks to the "repair anything" card. And the 10 second penalty was a total joke, that proves how cheap ruining other driver race can be.

British Government: Seeing the crowds without any masks or social distance is worrying and embarrassing.

Honorable Mentions
Vettel: For trying to imitate Mazespin.
Perez: Horrible weekend.
Verstappen: Obviously he's not the one to blame on the accident... but he should have been more cautious knowing that Hamilton would go all in. Losing 7 points would have been better than losing 25.

I really only have one nomination:

Red Bull and Mercedes whining - It might be they are broadcasting the connections with Masi, but that whole ordeal was lamentable. I'm not really a Hamilton or Max fan, but that was just... something to watch. Bear in mind, I do think that Max and Lewis rivarly being spicy can be good to some degree. But watching the team principals act like diva's - especially Horner (c'mon man, have you seen the moves Max has pulled over the years?) - was just the icing on the cake of how dumb that whole ordeal was.

An additional note about the penalty: I think the penalty was deserved, as I do think Hamilton tried a Jason Plato-esque move. You put the car into the gap and you pray the other car backs out. But Max was also expecting Lewis to back out. The end result was there for everyone to see. I don't think this is the last crash we'll see by both of them, but I do think its quite hilarious that Hamilton got this penalty (and Russell's penalty in the sprint race) after Masi told they would be treating first lap incidents in a less severe way. It does seem they are continuing to hand out penalties based on consequences, which is just a horrible precedent.

Honorable mention to Sergio Pérez, Sebastian Vettel and to Boris Johnson for doing his best bet of creating a new variant.

Tho the real reject of the weekend is ART for the Lundgaard pitstop in F2. It was the worst thing I've ever seen.

I'm not going to involve myself too much in that Max/Lewis discussion; though they need to be mentioned. Lewis wouldn't make the corner without crashing, and Max wouldn't make the corner without running off the track. They've both not been using their brain, and Horner and Wolff keep whinging so much that that it annoys me.Yet i'll let it slip because i love myself a fair bit of drama. Just don't try this at eau rouge please, as people will end up injured or worse.

For the rest think Perez is an obvious candidate because, other than that FL, he didn't do a single thing right this weekend. Also mentions to Vettel and Raikkonen for throwing away potentially decent results and Russell for his very poor starts in each race. Also honourable mention that Mazepin spinning no longer deserves a nomination because we're so used to it.

1. Those petulant divas leading Red Bull and Merc - The faster those dopes realize neither driver is totally innocent, the better.

Horner deserves more [__] for the rather idiotic take on overtaking in Copse. I'm pretty damn sure I saw some passes happen there.

Also, really, Wolff? I don't even want to go into that email bit.

2. Perez - Does he want to end up like the last two Red Bull #2's? Judging by the way this weekend went, he's thinking about it.

1. Toto's Emails - I love how Masi shut him down and then on his way to the stewards, Toto got lost and nearly walked into the media center (per Ted). Ted had to show him the right way. Hilarity.

2. Seb & Checo - Their spins. Checo spun off in the sprint and Seb during the race. Costly spins.

1. Lewis Hamiltion - won a race because he wrecked his main rival out of it. Later blamed the crash on Verstappen. A well deserved ROTR.

2. David Croft - for having an orgasm on live air like Hamilton just won WW3. His fanboy commentary is even more evident when you consider Martin Brundle tries to be more objective and does a much better job in the booth overall.

3. Sebastian Vettel - another self-inflicted mistake in wheel-to-wheel situation. How we missed this version of Vettel. Anonymous race after that, capped off by DNF while running 17th.

After sleeping on it, I believe that there are 2 clear candidates:

Toto Wolff: Neither Wolff or Horner came out of the Max/Lewis collision aftermath entirely smelling of roses, but Toto went even further beyond with those emails and getting lost.

Sergio Perez:
A pair of races to forget for the Mexican really. A bad start in the Sprint, then spinning, getting stuck in DRS trains in both races unable to overtake for several laps, and had a tangle with Mr. Kimi. A finish of 16th is pretty embarassing.

1 - Christian Horner - Drop the faux-outrage mate. Sit down.
2 - Toto Wolff - Emails? Get out and don't come back.

On one hand it has been great to see such an engagement with F1 and such drama, but on the other hand there has to be some form of nomination to the reaction to the crash. I'm not really sure anyone covered themselves in glory. We had one driver claiming a deliberate hit, another celebrating a little distastefully under the circumstances, a pile of fans being absolutely horrible, and the team principals somehow being the least measured and mature of the lot.

In terms of the race itself, I would say that Sergio Pérez and Sebastian Vettel are the strongest and most obvious choices. Sergio just never pushed through the field after being the only major sprint loser, and Vettel did a classic unforced error that then saw him retire from an anonymous position.

Hey friends! I forgot to comment last race.

Going to overlook a lot of the BS conspiracy theories. You want my opinion on fault? 75-25 against Lewis. There was no malice. They are both VERY aggressive drivers in a fight for the championship, so a clash was inevitable. Had both drivers been taken out of the race a lot of this saltiness wouldn't be here. We can't really hate one driver because F1 cars are designed like snowplows at the front and vulnerable at the rear. 2022 cannot come soon enough when we get rid of these absolute weapons we call front wings.

I digress.

1: Perez. Fastest lap was the saving grace.

2: Vettel. a poor, poor spin to end up no where and an ultimate retirement (I don't know if the incidents were related)

As far as I can see the first lap was just two racers giving 100% fighting for the championship; one wanted to get past, the other wanted to prevent that. Even people outside the two teams said racing incident.

But of the fallout, my biggest mention goes to Helmut Marko. He had never had anything good to say even going back to the team being founded.

Of the rest of the race, Perez and Vettel were both pretty useless for their respective track records!

Hamilton; the whole lap up untill the incident just looked like impending disaster...

Stewards; a penalty should not be something so easily overcome.

Vettel: spun lap 1 (okay, of the restart), never relevant again
Pérez: spun before lap 1, never relevant again

Don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but surely The Helicopter that almost caused Stroll to crash beats everything else.

Despite the abundance of candidates, a man-made hazard like this is my choice. That a helicopter was that close to an F1 car is frightening.

1) The Helicopter. A classic rejectful blunder if there ever was one this season.

2) Red Bull. They should have told Max to back off, he can afford a 2nd place once in awhile this season. Perez's strategy made little sense, and it cost the team dearly in both championships.

(Dis)honourable Mentions:
Helmut Marko (That was a racing incident, no need to rage like that)
Sebastian Vettel (Amateurish mistake and was off the pace all day)