Grand Prix Rejects

1. Mick Schumacher. If gap, car. If no gap, car anyway. Spectacular way to throw away a maiden points finish.

2. TV Director. DAE let's show the freeway junction instead of any action.

Honourable mentions to Nicholas Latifi, who is clearly the reincarnation of Deletraz, Pierre Gasly, he may have had damage but that incident with Norris was dangerous, and Ted Kravitz for two hours of utterly imbecilic commentary.

1) Miami. If Lando hadnt have crashed it would have been garbage.

2) Gasly. What an idiot move if he wasn't paying attention to the track.

1. Mick Schumacher - It's Eurovision week, so he made sure Germany scores 0 points today
2. AlphaTauri - Tsunoda was nowhere, Gasly crashed

Aston Martin -- Started from the pit lane due to their own incompetence, Stroll weaved around so much that he should be breathalyzed, and Vettel took himself out by chopping off Schumacher. Very easy call.

FIA Stewards Notice Chyrons -- Kept investigating Kevin Magnussen for incidents he wasn't involved in.

1. TV Director Very much suspect someone slipped him a Benjamin to not show any cars below P4 all afternoon.

2. Mick Schumacher Oh Mickey you’re so lame, oh Mickey!

1) Mick Schumacher, throwing away his first points like that
2) Alpha Tauri, absolutely nowhere in the race

HM: TV director, missed all the action in the midfield

1. TV Director, for missing all of the action.
2. Mick Schumacher

DHM: Stewards for investigating Magnussen when his team mate bathplug up

Mick Schumacher & Fernando Alonso
Two very similar "if no gap, car anyway" incidents into T1. Mick's was worse in the sense that he really needed the result, but Alonso's is worse in the sense that he's done 10,000 races (or whatever) and Mick hasn't.

And as per usual with an F1 driver who's committed a murder, there's the radio message protesting innocence. Just once I'd like to see a driver "ah I kinda bathplug that one..." (waits for someone to point out when that happend)

Pierre Gasly
MIRRORS PIERRE!

Carlos Sainz & Sergio Perez
Never really in contention with their team mates. Perez at least had the excuse of some power loss, but I still don't think he'd have been able to impact Max' or Charl's races.

Willy T. Ribbs doing the post race interview
Is he ok?

1) Mick Schumacher: Ruined his opportunity at a maiden points finish.

2) TV Director: I would have liked to have seen some more overtakes since they were clearly happening.

Dishonourable Mention: Pierre Gasly - sloppy couple of corners leaving him in a position to turf off Lando Norris.

Not getting why everyone's pulled up Mick but not Alonso who did nearly the same move.

A race of "survival": the commentators expected the track to punish drivers regularly, but honestly other than a few wide runs at the hairpin, all the retirements and incidents were from drivers being clumsy oafs.

Charles Leclerc's must-win Lap: in the early laps, after being passed by Max, Charles had more than one opportunity to keep with his rival and return the favour. Egged on by his engineer, he proceeded to lose time on all three sectors, go wide in the last one, and drop 1.1 seconds more behind Max. Until the safety car helped him, he was totally out of a race it seemed he would control.

Nicholas Latifi: proper classic reject stuff today as he guns for a ROTY nomination already this early into the season. 30 seconds off his teammate barely halfway into the race, he was so isolated he probably bumped into Nikita Mazepin before the safety car came out.

Mick Schumacher: had his strongest race until he threw it away again. Like Latifi he is pointless, and is likewise aiming for an early ROTY nomination.

Manufactured Hype: various publications all in the pocket of the promoters trying to hype up a Valencia lookalike with a long straight. Led to a dull race that only clumsy driving could come to the rescue of.

1- Mick Schumacher.

FFS. You were going to get points then you do that. Foolish move. More questions for Haas...

2- Pierre Gasly-

Mirrors are there for a reason mate. Lando has every right to be peeved with you because you did not look.

Hm- Fernando Alonso - Meant to have all that experience blah blah blah then does a move like that on Gasly causing a chain reaction.

Hm HRH Lewis Hamiltion- well more like his whinging again. Russell beat him (again) and it is all the team's fault again.

Hm-Aston Martin- I mean both cars starting from the pitlane because of fuel irregularities. Not good. Driving wasn't the best either.

Hm- Tv Direction- FFS we missed loads!!!

Hm- Sky Sports Commentary- So many sodding mistakes. Stupid puns and mixing up drivers. AGAIN!! and they cut to ted right at the wrong bloody moment!!

Hm- Nicholas Latifi- Until Mick and Pierre hds their brain fades, Nicky was over 30 seconds behind. On pure pace. Williams has a problem.

The whole post race: A new low for American spectacle. A ridiculously long and policed route to the podium and NFL helmets on the podium? Honestly can’t wait until we’re back in the normal European stretch

Alonso: Ruined Gasly’s race, Hit Hamilton on the first lap and May still lose those points for cutting a corner

HM: Mick Schumacher for undoing his chance at points

HM: AlphaTauri: Tsunoda was nowhere with fading tires and Gasly fell to pieces after Alonso’s move

HM: Stewards graphics: How many incorrect messages did we see?

What everyone else has said.

The race and circuit. It looked like junk, the circuit is unimaginative, safety is poorly thought out, the "spectacle" was worthy of a Mayday fairground in Essex, and we get another nine tears of this?

Driving standards (or the absolute abscence of) down the grid. Weaving, cutting corners, ignoring mirrors, driving like a Kabul cabbie at the end of a 48 hour shift.

1. Mick Schumacher - five laps until his first F1 career points and he shuts the door on Vettel like a Formula Ford driver resulting in another duck. You have to know better. The excuses are running thin on this guy.

2. TV Director - it seems like we missed a lot of action in the pack especially after the SC.

3. The Race/Track - until the SC this track gave it's best Valencia SC impression but it got slightly better in the closing stages with the cars bunched again. Would have been a clear ROTR winner w/o the safety car.

HM: Danica Patrick as Sky expert. Bish, please...

1. Mick Schumacher. Easy slam dunk for throwing away points with a hail Mary move like that.

2. The Race. They hype suggested we would get Miami Vice the show, the race turned out more like Miami Vice the movie. The saving grace is the circuit is a parking lot so they can reconfigure the layout... we can hope.

HM: Latifi. He wasn't my number 1 choice because it's cherry picking at this point, but he was so far back he couldn't capitalize on the chaos ahead of him. Oh and his teammate once again scored a point.

1. The football helmets: Rather silly on F1 drivers

2. Mick Schumacher: He blew a certain points finish.

Haas: The home curse strikes again! Difficult qualifying, both drivers climbed in the race but got involved in a lot of incidents (to the point that the stewards no longer knew which one was involved in each of them!). Especially a shame to see Mick lose his first points in a silly crash.

My only nomination is Mick Schumacher. He's a complete bust, full stop.

I have no idea who to really pick for a #2, so here's a bunch of mentions:

Stewards- How the bathplug do you NOT give Mick a penalty for destroying Vettel's car, but give Alonso one? Are the morons that judge Formula Drift events the ones making the calls today?!

TV Director - Please, keep pointing the camera anywhere except for where stuff is actually happening on track. Better yet, let's maybe show it long after the fact!

Pierre Gasly - For providing the best F1 rendition of "Lepaging" to date.

Fernando Alonso - A lesser, but still unacceptable, idiotic divebomb move that ruined someone else's race.

1. Haas - Mick ramming into Seb (no steward action) and Magnussen running into Stroll, costing them both points.

2. Alonso & Ricciardo - Penalties for cutting corners lol. Both didn't score points.

HM - McLaren as a whole with a weird strategy and both cars out of the points - Latifi bruhhhhhhhhh

Now that we've had time to process the results, Alonso is making a strong bid for ROTR after copping a second time penalty. As was mentioned on Discord last night, this race felt like the first time we could justify saying "retire old man" in response to Fernando's performance...

I should always wait to look on the Monday on Autosport to see which driver got the lowest mark out of 10 as that should base the RotR decision, and it was Alonso (he got 3, Schumacher got 4).

Thought none of the veteran champions are looking very good at the moment in all truth. Did anyone expect Russell to have beaten Hamilton in all but one race so far (and even then was right behind him)? Even Vettel was outclassed by Stroll of all people. Luckily Kimi retired!

1. Schumacher
2. Alonso

I only just noticed that now Albon sits ahead of Alonso in the championship, 3 points to 2.

1. Mick Schumacher

2. TV Direction

DHM: Fernando Alonso

The reasons for these have already been detailed in earlier posts so I need not elaborate.

The TV Race Direction gets my vote as well, for missing out on a lot of things.