Your Reject of the Race - Canada!

[Captain Hammer]

Yeah, it's that time again.

Personally, I nominate the Catholic church for Reject status. If we could somehow fuse Daniel Ricciardo (the better qualifier at Toro Rosso) with Jean-Eric Vergne (the better racer), we would have a very capable racer. But for some reason, that would be considered unholy.

[AndreaModa]

That's the most left-field, bizzare nomination I think I've ever seen!

For me, after qualifying my candidates would be Vergne for his rubbish qualifying, Marussia for just being completely inept at translating car development into pace, and both Williams drivers for crashing at the same wall.

[Captain Hammer]

That's the most left-field, bizzare nomination I think I've ever seen!

For me, after qualifying my candidates would be Vergne for his rubbish qualifying,

I was going to suggest Vergne for being eliminated again, but looking back over the season, he's been a very weak qualifier, but a strong racer. Conversely, Ricciardo has had some great qualifying runs, but poor races. So if we could take Ricciardo's qualifying ability and meld it with Vergne's racing, Toro Rosso would actually have a decent driver. Unfortuantely, this merging of two drivers into one would likely be considered an abberation, so I nominated the Catholic church because they would inevitably condemn it.

[Ed24]

I'd probably say Williams so far.

[mario]

:shock:

That's the most left-field, bizzare nomination I think I've ever seen!

For me, after qualifying my candidates would be Vergne for his rubbish qualifying, Marussia for just being completely inept at translating car development into pace, and both Williams drivers for crashing at the same wall.

I'll agree that Captain Hammer's nomination is perhaps one of the most surreal ones to ever crop up here, and that is saying something...

On a serious note, Williams are making a decent case for themselves - they brought a new type of rear wing that has confused most observers (with most people wondering why Williams were shrinking the central section of the wing when that region is normally more efficient at producing downforce than the outer sections), both of their drivers have ended up crashing into the walls and during qualifying their times ended up getting slightly worse as the session wore on (whereas most of their rivals found a few tenths, both Williams drivers actually went two tenths slower in Q2 than Q1).
It may be the case that they can rescue the situation in the race itself, but they haven't looked all that competitive in the practise sessions either, so it remains to be seen what they can do, especially since strategies seem to be fairly limited (Pirelli, and a number of the drivers, reckoned that a one stop strategy would be feasible here, as was the case in Monaco, since the tyres seemed to be holding up fairly well in practise).

[Ataxia]

:shock:

That's the most left-field, bizzare nomination I think I've ever seen!

For me, after qualifying my candidates would be Vergne for his rubbish qualifying, Marussia for just being completely inept at translating car development into pace, and both Williams drivers for crashing at the same wall.

I'll agree that Captain Hammer's nomination is perhaps one of the most surreal ones to ever crop up here, and that is saying something...

On a serious note, Williams are making a decent case for themselves - they brought a new type of rear wing that has confused most observers (with most people wondering why Williams were shrinking the central section of the wing when that region is normally more efficient at producing downforce than the outer sections), both of their drivers have ended up crashing into the walls and during qualifying their times ended up getting slightly worse as the session wore on (whereas most of their rivals found a few tenths, both Williams drivers actually went two tenths slower in Q2 than Q1).
It may be the case that they can rescue the situation in the race itself, but they haven't looked all that competitive in the practise sessions either, so it remains to be seen what they can do, especially since strategies seem to be fairly limited (Pirelli, and a number of the drivers, reckoned that a one stop strategy would be feasible here, as was the case in Monaco, since the tyres seemed to be holding up fairly well in practise).

Nah, I'd go with what Capt. Hammer said on that basis...

Williams are usually better in race trim...though there's the chance Senna will be nowhere again. We'll see...

[Bob]

Whatever the result, my vote goes to the BBC.

They have demonstrated a masterclass in how to royally bathplug up the radio coverage to a sporting event. No radio coverage for the first half an hour, only online audio which was 20 seconds behind the pictures. Thank God I have a vague understanding of German and using the Live Timing app.

[MyHamsterRacedAnOnyx]

Button. To paraphrase Mr O.Wilde to have one bad set of tyres may be regarded as unfortunate. Two or three is just careless.


ETA:16th when your teammate is the winner is not good....

[Ed24]

BUTTON!!!

Another terrible weekend, and made so much worse by Hamilton's excellent pace.

[Shizuka]

Jenson Button. He should get one RotR award by now.

[Ubik]

1. Jenson Massa.

2. Ferrari strategists.

3. The Gods who control Michael Schumacher's fate - seriously, just leave him alone for one weekend, eh?

[sswishbone]

Jenson Button - Monaco I could understand but that was absolutely pathetic, what a contrast one year gives

dishonourable mentions

Bruno Senna - Button had three stops and massive chance to beat him and he failed

Ferrari & red Bull strategists - absolute folly to not react to hamilton, especially with 1 second plus lap time

[East Londoner]

Bunsen Jetton. No contest whatsoever.

Honourable mentions:

Ferrari & Red Bull strategies - Blew up in their collective faces in the last 10 laps. Yet Lotus managed to make the same strategy work.
Williams - Wasting away their potential with these idiots for drivers.
Nicole Shirtslinger - Just go home already!

[Shadaza]

Jim Batten.

Jenson's talentless knockoff.

I don't even want to name anyone else.

[DOSBoot]

1. Button: Off the pace all weekend, and finishes 16th while his teammate won. What's happened to this guy?!

2. Senna: Coming close to be a victim of the Wall of Champions not once, but twice!

[Barbazza]

1) Button, I'm afraid to say
2) Marussia - behind an HRT until it went bang and WAY behind the Caterhams

[WeirdKerr]

Jenny.... nuff said

[Dan B]

1: Jenson Button: For becoming like Felipe Massa at the beginning of the season (while Massa is improving!). Also, finished sixteenth. While Hamilton wins, and Hamilton had the bad pitstops. Utterly disgraceful.
2: Ferrari strategists: A 1 stop strategy was never gonna work with the temperatures today. Should have called Alonso in right away.
3: Bruno Senna: Anonymous as ever.

Dishonorable Mentions:
Fox Sports: For the number of commercials in the bathplugging race. Seriously? 5 minutes of race and then commercials so soon?
Toro Rosso: Mired back in the lower-midfield. Why did they replace Buemi and Alguersuari again?

[the Masked Lapwing]

Jenson Button - Remember last year? Drive like that.

[Nuppiz]

Button, no question about that. He's the new Massa now.

Honorary mentions to showing Nicole Scheisseslinger's reactions every time Hamilton did something, yet another poor showing by the McLaren pit crew and Williams, especially Senna who seem to have returned to their 2011 form. Oh, and Michael Schumacher's luck, or lack thereof.

[JeremyMcClean]

Dishonorable Mentions:
Fox Sports: For the number of commercials in the bathplugging race. Seriously? 5 minutes of race and then commercials so soon?

Good thing I watched the BBC feed today!

Anyways,

1. Jenson Button - When was the last time he finished a lap down? 2008?

2. Marussia - For being as anonymous as ever

Dishonourable mentions (with a u)
Bad Luck Schumacher - Needs no explanation

Toro Rosso: Mired back in the lower-midfield. Why did they replace Buemi and Alguersuari again?

This.

Felipe Massa - Went anonymous in the race, but at least he kept trying...

Luca di Montezemolo - So you think Perez is inexperienced, huh?...

[LellaLombardi]

Where do we begin?!

1. Jenson Button - what has gone so wrong with him?
2. Schumacher luck - this really can't continue, it would be awful for the last year of his comeback if it doesn't change
3. Ferrari strategy - has probably cost Alonso the WDC. Some cars/drivers can pull off a one stop, others, well...
4. Williams/Senna - the team do seem to be improving, but they are just going to stagnate with these drivers. I thought Alex Wurz was meant to be coaching them? Bruno is well on course for ROTY
5. Massa - looked so promising, then binned it while his likely replacement had a great day. Awkward
6. Toro Rosso - given their objective as a team is to find the next big thing, they seem to have lost that to Sauber and Lotus

[Dj_bereta]

Jenson Button, nuff said.

Button is a strong contender for ROTY now.

[Ed24]

Jenson Button, nuff said.

Button is a strong contender for ROTY now.

And to think how well he was going in the first 1 1/3 races. I would say he transferred his powers to Karthikeyan when he hit him in Malaysia, but if so, there's no sign of it yet.

[Pamphlet]

The F1Rejects Community - Are you seriously comparing the Toro Rosso of this year with the ones from the previous seasons?

Ferrari - No question about it. They threw away the championship lead. They brought Massa (who was already making his, by now, characteristic mistakes) in early almost specifically to test for Alonso, screwed up his strategy, kept him out for an extended period of time after he hit the cliff, and even with all that knowledge they still decided to keep Alonso out and hope for a miracle. Guess what, Ferrari - miracles rarely ever happen. Have fun catching Hamilton.

Jenson Button - Madre mio...did the Heikki Kovalainen of 2008-9 switch places with him? Or maybe the Massa of last year?

Bruno Senna - Go. Home. You do NOT belong in F1.

Mercedes - You screwed Schumacher over in 6 out of 7 races. Good thing Grosjean was there to cover the last one so you wouldn't have to keep a perfect record!

[Ataxia]

Where do we begin?!

1. Jenson Button - what has gone so wrong with him?
2. Schumacher luck - this really can't continue, it would be awful for the last year of his comeback if it doesn't change
3. Ferrari strategy - has probably cost Alonso the WDC. Some cars/drivers can pull off a one stop, others, well...
4. Williams/Senna - the team do seem to be improving, but they are just going to stagnate with these drivers. I thought Alex Wurz was meant to be coaching them? Bruno is well on course for ROTY
5. Massa - looked so promising, then binned it while his likely replacement had a great day. Awkward
6. Toro Rosso - given their objective as a team is to find the next big thing, they seem to have lost that to Sauber and Lotus

Maybe that's the problem?

My nominees are:

Button - Was a little bit dreadful, needs to sort it out.
Helmut 'The Helmet' Marko - For ensuring that Jaime Alguersuari was left seatless, and replacing him with a shite racer and a shite qualifier.

[sswishbone]

Jenson Button, nuff said.

Button is a strong contender for ROTY now.

A race winner as roty? That'd be a tad short-sighted

[pasta_maldonado]

1 - Jenson Button If I'd just woken from a 4-year long coma, you'd have a hard time convincing me hae was champion in 09 and best of the rest last year

2 - Bruno Senna Is this Nelson Piquet Jnr or Michael Andretti in disguise?

3- Schumi bad luck Why HWNSNBM, why? Is this revenge for lapping you?

[mario]

I think that Button is probably going to take this nomination pretty handily - it is true that his weekend started out badly with those clutch and gearbox problems, but he never really looked like recovering from them at any stage.
Added to that, he burned through his tyres far more quickly than anybody else, yet his lap times were around a second a lap off Hamilton's times, and whilst we criticised Massa for finishing in 15th in Malaysia, at least he finished - just - on the lead lap, whilst Button had the indignity of being lapped and finishing in 16th (which is his worst finish since the Chinese GP in 2008, where he also finished in 16th).

It is incredible to see how far Button has fallen back - from being 2nd in the WDC in China, he has now fallen to 8th and now has barely half the points that Hamilton does right now. I suspect that part of the problem lies with the upgraded front nose that McLaren introduced in Mugello - since then, Button has consistently struggled for pace and complained quite a bit of understeer and low front tyre temperatures, whereas Hamilton seems to be managing his tyre temperatures much more effectively.

Further back, you have to wonder what is going on at Mercedes with Schumacher's car - if it could go wrong, it did, and it's especially surprising that his DRS jammed open given that they are supposed to be designed to default to the closed position as a fail safe. You do have to wonder what is going on there given the regularity with which he has hit problems, given that Rosberg's car has run pretty much flawlessly throughout the year (OK, Rosberg did have a few problems in the final practise session yesterday, but otherwise his car has been pretty much bulletproof).
Ferrari's strategists, too, deserve a nomination for effectively backing themselves into a corner - although they might have believed that a one stop strategy could be made to work given that Alonso was still in the 1m18's at the time, once Hamilton started gaining a second or more a lap they should have pitted him in response. They might have lost ground to Hamilton and Grosjean, but Ferrari could have at least covered off Vettel and held onto 4th - and, by extension, the lead in the WDC (Alonso and Hamilton would have been tied on 88 points, but Alonso would remain ahead on count back due to that 2nd place in Spain).

[Dan B]

The F1Rejects Community - Are you seriously comparing the Toro Rosso of this year with the ones from the previous seasons?

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix had both Toro Rossos finishing in the points. The one before that had Buemi lead a lap of the Grand Prix. In addition, Buemi scored in 4 races, and Alguersuari in Canada. This year, none of the drivers have scored since Malaysia.

Let's face it; Vergne needs to qualify better and Ricciardo needs to race better.

[Bleu]

Easy choice.

[Pamphlet]

The F1Rejects Community - Are you seriously comparing the Toro Rosso of this year with the ones from the previous seasons?

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix had both Toro Rossos finishing in the points. The one before that had Buemi lead a lap of the Grand Prix. In addition, Buemi scored in 4 races, and Alguersuari in Canada. This year, none of the drivers have scored since Malaysia.

Let's face it; Vergne needs to qualify better and Ricciardo needs to race better.

I'm talking about the car. Last year's was much better at any point in the season.

[Dan B]

The F1Rejects Community - Are you seriously comparing the Toro Rosso of this year with the ones from the previous seasons?

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix had both Toro Rossos finishing in the points. The one before that had Buemi lead a lap of the Grand Prix. In addition, Buemi scored in 4 races, and Alguersuari in Canada. This year, none of the drivers have scored since Malaysia.

Let's face it; Vergne needs to qualify better and Ricciardo needs to race better.

I'm talking about the car. Last year's was much better at any point in the season.

Which makes me wonder; did Toro Rosso use some kind of blown defuser like Red Bull? Because if they did (and again, I don't know if they did or not), that might be their weakness.

[Rusujuur]

Button for lack of pace obviously, but the true rejects are the Ferrari think-tank - they had the data from Massa and should have seen how the true one-stoppers did it- 30-40 not 20-50. I was sure the top guys were all on 3 stoppers when they came in, Alonso was just a little bit longer, but not nearly enough to pull it off.

An honourable mention to Kimi, who sould have been where Perez was had he not neatly 0,5 sec missed all his targets of the day. Shamefull, and very bad in terms of title hopes.

[James1978]

Bronze: Schumacher's rear wing
Silver: Jean-Eric Vergne - being outqualified by both Caterhams and getting a drive-through was pretty rubbish really

Gold: JENSON BUTTON - lapped by his winning teammate for god's sake

[QuickYoda41]

If we go for on rejectful moment:
Massa for a nowadays really rare spin, throwing away the chance he finally had for a really good result.

For the whole race:
Button - no comment

[Priceless]

3rd: Mercedes AMG - more like 'Mercedes OMG!' especially for Schumacher's (un-)reliability record. That's 5 DNFs out of 7, even HRT and Marussia have a better finishing record.
2nd: Bruno Senna - showed flashes of pace in the first few races, but seems to be constantly slipping back.
1st: Jenson Button - was rather painful to watch Hamilton lap him. And that's a string of poor performances now - he seriously needs to refocus on his racing.

Dishonorable mentions:
Scuderia Ferrari - Seems like the strategy guys couldn't handle the problem at hand. At first it seemed to work, with Alonso leading and Massa 5th, but they clearly stretched it too much.

[Mister Fungus]

Jay Bee, there can be no other

[dr-baker]

3rd: Mercedes AMG - more like 'Mercedes OMG!' especially for Schumacher's (un-)reliability record. That's 5 DNFs out of 7, even HRT and Marussia have a better finishing record.
2nd: Bruno Senna - showed flashes of pace in the first few races, but seems to be constantly slipping back.
1st: Jenson Button - was rather painful to watch Hamilton lap him. And that's a string of poor performances now - he seriously needs to refocus on his racing.

Very sadly this. And my favourite driver happens to be Jenson, with Williams my favourite team. Today's result made me sad.

[mario]

Which makes me wonder; did Toro Rosso use some kind of blown defuser like Red Bull? Because if they did (and again, I don't know if they did or not), that might be their weakness.

Toro Rosso certainly did have the benefit of a Red Bull style blown diffuser in more ways than one - there were reports that Red Bull Racing were pushing the limits of the rules by transferring a lot of useful data on their blown diffuser to Toro Rosso via Red Bull Technology, which helps explain the upturn in performance of the STR6 later on in the season.
However, with the design philosophy of the STR7 and RB8 seemingly diverging, and with both teams adopting different exhaust solutions (Toro Rosso using the McLaren style design and Red Bull the Sauber design) there is less potential for sharing research, so Toro Rosso might struggle to make the same sort of headway that they did last year.