Grand Prix Rejects

1. Lewis Hamilton. A lapped 13th, in the type of conditions he used to be nigh-on unbeatable in. All while his young team mate finishes 4th in the same car? Yeah, that's a slam-dunk ROTR.

2. Mick Schumacher. Mark my words, there is absolutely NO chance he's ever racing for the Scuderia in F1.

Honourable mention to Ferrari, is this a blip or the start of the typical Maranello collapse.

1. Hamilton

2. "Rain in 20 minutes"

Ferrari Strategy - the tradition lives on.

Mick Schumacher - yeah, a severe case of "not it", dearie.

(1) Hamilton - so far behind his team-mate and seemed unable to pass

(2) Ricciardo - so far behind his team-mate and seemed unable to pass

Lewis Hamilton. Self-explanatory.

Ferrari & Leclerc. No need to take a risk to trying and get p2 and fastest lap with a massive points advantage.

Hard to really see a compelling case from Ferrari to pit him, and then Leclerc binned it just be sure. He was very lucky he's driving in the era of heavy, robust F1 cars, cos a few years ago that would've broken a suspesnion arm and been a DNF.

1. HRH Lord Lewis Hamilton. His teammate finished 4th. He finished 14th on pure pace. I don't want to hear rubbish from him about cannot overtake. Others did it. He couldn't. Maybe less focus on buying a share in Chelsea (who you don't even support) and more focus on f1.

2 Mick schumacher. Oof. Bad Sunday. Spun twice and took Alonso out of the race. Couldn't even do a safety car bringing out Spin.

HM Ferrari. Sainz going out was no-ones fault (barring Danny Ric) but Pitting Charles was silly and cost them a poduim. Charles pushed too much.

Hm Danny Ric. Norris still has the thrashing of him. Last as well. He really has fallen off a a cliff since 2020 (barring Monza 2021)

1. Hamilton: I have never enjoyed seeing him hogging so much screentime in my life. That blue flag- simply delicious.

2. Ricciardo: Retire not-so-old man.

HM. Ferrari's Plan D: Should have stuck to the previous "let's not" radio message instead of going for it.

HM. Schumacher: I do remember his father fighting it off against Alonso on this very track, in two classic races. His performance today wasn't quite the same, to put it mildly.

HM. Latifi: What is his purpose, exactly?

Slamdunk for HRH Sir Prince Lewis.

Plus forecasts of rain.

But also mentions for the Sky F1 commentary team as they kept promising that enabling DRS would increase excitement and overtaking; in my opinion it made no difference whatsoever. They overpromised. It was .a good race with or without it. Overtaking happened with or without it.

1. Lewis Hamilton: I'm aware that I'm quick to criticise him, so I don't make this vote lightly. Absolute crap from someone who has the entire world on their side to will him to success. Sky were begging for DRS when he got bogged down in 14th place. He ended up there for 40 laps even with DRS. Honourable mention goes to Toto Wolff, who post-race grovelled to Lewis, apologising for daring to provide him with a car that wasn't good enough for his supreme talents, while Russell was 4th! It's like Bizarro World.

2. Mick Schumacher: another driver whose teammate is making him look like absolutely garbage. Was he always this bad? Was he just the luckiest ever driver to have Nikita Mazepin as a teammate? As with Latifi last race, it seems like a curtain has been raised.

Honourable mentions go to: Sky for not giving nearly enough credit to Russell and absolute pandering to Hamilton. Demanding DRS and coming up with more excuses than if Rubens Barrichello had forgotten his wife's birthday.

Daniel Ricciardo: another driver who, in comparison to his teammate, looks unworthy of Formula 1. Spent almost every lap in last.

If it hadn't have been for Hamilton I'd have said Ferrari for choking at home - though the way the championship is going, their errors are far more costly than anything Hamilton was or wasn't doing!

Schumacher, Zhou, Latifi and Ricciardo are all being obliterated by their teammates too.

1) Lewis Hamilton: Nine places behind his teammate, lapped by Verstappen and an embarrassing performance all round.

2) Daniel Ricciardo: A sloppy mistake at the start of the race, turfing off Sainz, left him at the back of the pack and he never looked like he was going to vacate that place.

1. Lewis Hamilton. Bad performance all-around when team-mate gets 4th.

2. Mick Schumacher. Two full-time drivers without points this year. He is one of them, while team-mate has 15.

1. Lewis Hamilton - Lapped on merit, finished miles behind his teammate, stuck behind Gasly for ages in true Bernoldi Monaco throwback. This might have been the worst Grand Prix performance of his career and definitely the worst since the 2009 season based on pace alone.

2. Mick Schumacher - Without Mazepin as benchmark, he's being made look VERY ordinary by Magnussen. I don't think he's scoring points anytime soon and that 11th place in Bahrain might be his season-best at this rate unless there is some high attrition race later this season.

Whilst I imagine that Hamilton will be nominated a lot, I would argue that Ferrari and both of their drivers made some fairly poor decisions.

Whilst Sainz did recover ground during the sprint race, he shouldn't have put himself in that position given that he'd crashed out in qualifying by making a pretty unnecessary mistake - the fact that he then ended up out of the main race kind of summed up their weekend, and another DNF was the last thing he needed when trying to recover from the DNF in Australia.

As for Leclerc, there has been some criticism that he can be a little error prone at times, and some were feeling that it might only be a matter of time before he made a mistake in a pressure situation - that said, Ferrari's strategy was perhaps debatable in that respect too. As it is, that spin cost Leclerc what would, at a minimum, been a comfortable 3rd place and 7 extra points - considering what was expected of them coming into this weekend, their final results were nowhere near what they should have achieved.

The entirety of Mercedes, except George Russell: What a horrible weekend, both cars out in Q2. Especially a shocking performance from Hamilton, pacewise one of the worst weekends of his entire career. The only positive (a very big one!) was Russell's race, I have no idea how he managed to do that (the start played a big part, but he actually managed to overtake Magnussen and build a gap over the cars behind). It's incredible that they're still third in the WCC.

Dishonorable mention to Mick Schumacher for another disappointing performance – I hoped to see him score his first points, but instead we saw a few spins.

Everyone at Mercedes bar Russell: A team looking like Ferrari 2005 and a lead driver looking like Vettel 2014. That was a shocking weekend. No car in Q3 since Japan 2012 and I’m willing to bet if Russell hadn’t taken advantage of the start they wouldn’t have got so much as 4 points. Hamilton getting shuffled down the order, being unable to overtake drivers who he’s had no business with for 7 years before finally getting lapped by Verstappen painted a desolate picture (And I laughed through every minute of it)

Mick Schumacher: That wasn’t the best way to get revenge for your Dad’s defeat to Alonso in 2005 son. Throw in another spin and a track limits warning and it’s another weekend in the bin and casts further doubt on whether he can actually cut it at this level

Pierre Gasly: A sight we’ve rarely seen since the start of 2021: Gasly being outperformed by Tsunoda all weekend and that was even when both AlphaTauri’s fell in Q1 on Friday. Couldn’t pass Albon’s Williams which had no DRS when it was turned on,

Everyone moaning about no DRS: Yes it was strangely long until the race director activated it but I was quite enjoying seeing the drivers having to actually use the old fashioned way to get past. SkyF1’s consistent crying about it got on my nerves.

1. Charles Leclerc - Dude spun on his own accord after going off the sausage kerb, and lost 7 points while his championship rival won the race. Also was hilarious that we saw it happen while we got the onboard.

2. Lewis Hamilton - Got stuck and couldn't overtake while his teammate got a solid 4th (a bit lucky he even admitted).

Surprised that Charles is getting off scot free here. He crashed in the last part of the race chasing more points while leading the championship.

Eunice Whaamilton; Whined about lack of DRS but even so couldn't overtake when available... Russell showed the car is driveable but like the year the McL was poor (against Heikki 2010? 2011?) LH was pretty much 'absent'.

1) Sir Lewis Hamilton. All he had to offer for his team this weekend was a lot of TV time while being stuck behind Gasly.

2) Charles Leclerc. Throwing away a secure podium is not what you need in a championship fight. Maybe these lost points will prove costly in the end.

HM: "Rain in 20" and McLaren's strategy for Daniel Ricciardo.

1. Hamilton: Definitely the worst weekend I saw from Hamilton I have seen in years. And what’s worse is Russell finished 4th.

2 Ferrari Not the best weekend for the Scuderia team.

Amazed no one else has nominated the slam dunk ROTR and hell ROTY so far:

Carlos Sainz: Your annoying TV camera seeking out brother gets you an extension you dont deserve so you reward him by having another accident in qualifying, which puts you at the back and at the mercy of Danny Ric. Two races, two DNFs, not a single lap completed. P5 in the WDC in by far the fastest car. Repeat after me: "Charles is faster than you, can you confirm you understand this message?"

As the website was down, we ran voting for ROTR and IIDOTR on our Discord. However, we have counted up the votes and written for you a lovely race report about the highs and lows at Imola! Read it here.