ROTR Australia 2012

[BlindCaveSalamander]

Has to be Ferrari at the moment - that was just embarrassing.

[stupot94]

Eric Boullier - For being such a Crybaby to Charlie Whiting over Merc's F-DUCT, and forgetting the fact that his driver out-qualified BOTH Mercs!

He probably had Raikkonens position in his head. Any excuse to ban a great innovation

[Shadaza]

Eric Boullier - For being such a Crybaby to Charlie Whiting over Merc's F-DUCT, and forgetting the fact that his driver out-qualified BOTH Mercs!

He probably had Raikkonens position in his head. Any excuse to ban a great innovation

I can see why Lotus feel aggrieved, they had their active ride hide system declared legal for a whole years worth of development only to be told it was illegal and now another questionably legal device appears.

[CoopsII]

He probably had Raikkonens position in his head.

[Kobacrashi]

I have to say it goes to BBC, I watched it on sky this morning, my Girlfriend wanted to watch highlights and after about 10 minutes we had to turn it off and wait for the re-run on Sky. Seriously did they just send Jake and DC to the race, i may have missed Eddie Jordan but i didn't see him. As mentioned earlier the mainQ3 is ten minutes long and the highlight of the day, how can you have an hour long show and not even show the main event. If the race highlights are that bad I feel sorry for anyone watching on the Beeb.

After one proper session there is already no doubt which broadcast I will be watching for the rest of the season.

[AndreaModa]

After one proper session there is already no doubt which broadcast I will be watching for the rest of the season.

I wish I had that luxury

[Nuppiz]

If the British coverage is so bad as you're telling by both Sky and BBC, I consider us lucky to have MTV3 Max and a pair of decent commentators.

I won't nominate ROTR until the race is over, although Ferrari is looking strong for that, with a honourary mention to Räikkönen.

[The Passenger]

If the British coverage is so bad as you're telling by both Sky and BBC, I consider us lucky to have MTV3 Max and a pair of decent commentators.

Calling Erkki Mustakari a decent commentator these days is a bit of a stretch, but I agree that our coverage really isn't too bad overall.

[Minardi Man]

Ferrari all the way, just for the fact it looks like they've regressed to early-mid 1990's standards

[dr-baker]

Seriously, for those complaining about British TV coverage: I cannot have Sky at the moment (I am uni halls until the end of May) and the BBC highlights package was inadequate, particularly the brevity of seeing Alonso's gravel-bound incident in Q2. But I already knew about it having listened to the whole thing live on the radio and just using the highlight package to put images to the more significant moments of the session. (Because Bernie obviously wouldn't want me to try using YouTube for that purpose... ).

So radio live with highlights is adequate. Not ideal, but it works.

BBC, if you're reading this, I WANT LIVE PICTURES WITH THE RADIO COMMENTARY!!!!

[Boomstick]

me: for running into bernie thismorning (FFD paddock), and not knowing if i should hate him or hug him bout his comments of this event?

[The Passenger]

Pastor Maldonado. Doesn't get much more rejectful than crashing out of the points on the last lap.

[Ferrim]

I would like to nominate myself for predicting Maldonado to unrejectify himself this year, one minute before he crashed out of the race.

[East Londoner]

Pastor Maldonado - I've never seen anyone bin it there before. And on the final lap as well, what a bloody idiot, after the race he had...

Caterham - Double DNF. Not good news.

Felipe Massa - Just fire him already!

Turns out, this is my 1300th post. Sweet!

[Valrys]

Seriously, for those complaining about British TV coverage: I cannot have Sky at the moment (I am uni halls until the end of May)

Sky Go on your computer!

Anyway, rejects:
Caterham - double retirement, neither due to crashes, and Hekki made it sound like his car was literally falling apart
Massa - embarrassing, especially compared to Alonso, and a silly crash with Senna
Senna - sure, he had an early pitstop, but was nowhere after that
Mercedes - flattered to deceive

[Cynon]

Pastor Maldonado - I've never seen anyone bin it there before. And on the final lap as well, what a bloody idiot, after the race he had...

Caterham - Double DNF. Not good news.

Felipe Crasha - Just fire him already!

Fixed.

[DOSBoot]

1: Maldanaldo - So close to unrejectifying himself, only to choke at the last minute.

2: Massa - Ferrari needs to get rid of him.

[Klon]

1: Maldanaldo - So close to unrejectifying himself, only to choke at the last minute.

He'd still needed another top 6 finish anyhow. While we are talking about Williams:

Bruno Senna - he, how's that feel of being utterly useless?

[sswishbone]

1) Maldonado: - Might seem harsh but to score you have to finish and there was never a passing place, terrible decision and what a waste for both him and Williams

2) Grosjean; - qualify 3rd and unfortunately lose placs, but then leave space for a driver and smash your steering arm letting him through (ironic thing here is that both my nominees were involved!)

[Wizzie]

My nominations:

Felipe Massa: Alonso managed to haul that crapbox of a car to places it had absolutely no right to be in. Massa spent his afternoon being dictated by a crapbox
Mercedes AMG: Qualifying heroes, race absolute zeros
Caterham: To finish first, first you have to finish

But, my ROTR is:

Williams F1: Senna got involved in the start line crash before being collected by Massa later on and the less said about Maldonado's last lap gaff, the better.

[fjackdaw]

Too many to count, all listed above - Massa, Senna, Grosjean, Caterham, Marussia. I'd let Maldonado off the hook because he did so well throughout the rest of the race.

[fjackdaw]

By the way, are we still going to get eytl's official pronouncement at the end of this?

[solarcold]

IIDOTR: PASTOR MALDONADO (honorary mention to Checo)
ROTR: PASTOR MALDONADO (honorary mention to Felipe Baby)

[fjackdaw]

re. Massa - I'd also like to nominate Ferrari's loyalty and family ethic. Any other team would have ditched Filipe yonks ago. They need to get Jaime or Seb B in there.

[WeirdKerr]

re. Massa - I'd also like to nominate Ferrari's loyalty and family ethic. Any other team would have ditched Filipe yonks ago. They need to get HWNSNBM in there.

fixed.....

[Ferrim]

By the way, are we still going to get eytl's official pronouncement at the end of this?

That's the plan, I think.

[Bob]

Has to be Pastor Maldonado. All he had to do was hang on and bring it home, but bins it on the last lap

[DonTirri]

If the British coverage is so bad as you're telling by both Sky and BBC, I consider us lucky to have MTV3 Max and a pair of decent commentators.

Calling Erkki Mustakari a decent commentator these days is a bit of a stretch, but I agree that our coverage really isn't too bad overall.

Erkki is beyond criticism just like Kyllönen is. He's been doin this for so long no wonder he's slipping. I miss Lehto though. (COMON GUYS, GET SALO INTO THE BOOTH ALREADY!)

My nominations:

1: Caterham. Double Retirement... not a good way to start the season.
2: Maldonado. 57.5 laps of IIDOTR, one corner of RotR.
3: Felipe Massa. It's time to go Felipe, you're embarrassing yourself out there.

[the Masked Lapwing]

Mercedes - Oh dear. They haven't actually improved, have they?
Ferrari - Did you notice both Williams went out right near Ferraris?
Grosjean - Eurobrun, you were only a lap and half off with your prediction. Good work!
ONE - See the million posts me and Wizzie made.
Maldonado - That wall is impossible to hit. In real life, anyway.

[superimu]

Well I was gonna vote for Felipe Massa as ROTR until Pastor Maldonado made his last second move to steal ROTR. When he went off early I thought its clear he doesn't have the talent to stay at the front of the grid. At the end as he was fighting Alonso I thought the team should be telling him to NOT try to pass. The inexplicable thing is why Pastor was pushing so hard to crash on the last lap. He was never gonna catch Fernando and only had positions to lose. Annoyingly, this will probably seriously hurt Williams in the Constructors Championship. As Sauber, Toro Rosso, and Force India are more likely to develop their cars faster, Williams will need every point they can get early. So, they can't throw points away.

2. Felipe Massa While Alonso was putting in a heroic drive hauling the awful Ferrari to 5th, Felipe was slumming around on the edge of the top ten. The gulf in talent has never been more evident. ...Then he ran into the side of Bruno Senna.

3. Caterham The year Caterham moves to the midpack is off to a slow start. There's still a big difference between them the midfield teams and to make matter worse steering issues sidelined both cars. They Still have a long way to go.

[RealRacingRoots]

Caterham.

So the steering issues wasn't just Trulli being sour. This isn't how you start a season with high expectations. You would think their testing would fix these kind of issues, because HRT had similar issues with their power steering but had NO testing at all! But hey, little bit of benefit of the doubt for Fondmetal Team Malaysia, although I bet Glock is laughing down another pint of Wine with these persistent issues.

[WeirdKerr]

im nominating the rev too.....

[Pedestrian]

It's very hard to make a nomination after this race, since most of the "loosers" also had some very non-rejectfull quality:
Williams - double DNF but showed a huge improvement over last year.
Caterham - double DNF but still the best of the "new" teams
Mercedes - no points and almost double DNF but still a top team and possibly better than last year.
Grosjean - crashed out but had P3 in qualy.
Lewis - lost a second place due to bad luck but had "only" third place and can definitely be happy with the car he has.
How can you call these people "rejects"?

On the other hand:
Red Bull team - poor pace (compared to last year's performance) but scored big points
Alonso - poor pace but scored big points
TR and FI - poor pace but scored some points
I can't nominate them either.

I think I'll settle for Massa. He was bad all week-end, caused a colision and DNF on top of that.

[DOSBoot]

1) Maldonado: - Might seem harsh but to score you have to finish and there was never a passing place, terrible decision and what a waste for both him and Williams

2) Grosjean; - qualify 3rd and unfortunately lose placs, but then leave space for a driver and smash your steering arm letting him through (ironic thing here is that both my nominees were involved!)

Even more ironic that one crashed on the first lap, the other on the last lap.

Oh yeah, wait for it....

[Boomstick]

pastor-maldar-nooooooooo! Argh! I had a pastor shirt on and the works! Argh!

And young danny ric, stupid twit punted senna on turn 1, the car was rooted after and to add insult to injury scored a point...Twit.

[tommykl]

Felipe Massa

I would have nominated Pastor if it wasn't for those brilliant 57.5 laps.

[WIDD]

I'm stuck between the South American contingent.

Massa was abysmal all weekend, with today being the beginning of the end of his Ferrari career one would guess. But it's Badoer-esque that Pastor binned a solid points scoring position on the last lap. Except it wasn't Badoer's fault, Maldonado only has himself to blame. And he took Grosjean out.

Senna was just...urgh.

Think I'll plump for Massa though, he was embarrassed by Alonso today (again).

[Shizuka]

For me, it's obviously the formerly-known-as-Team Lotus-now-Caterham.

For so much overhype, they are almost exactly at the same place as last year. Seems like they will be eternal 18th and 19th placed in qualifying, unless Marussia puts themselves together. And in the race, they were yet again hurt by something that could cost them heavily in the end: reliability. With Glock scoring a 14th place, who knows if Caterham can overcome these.

Massa is also a close second, he is in clear no-man's land. If I was Stefano Domenicali, I'd think about firing him mid-season, if he can't up the ante. Sure, this might be a dejavu of 2009 when the second car scored 0 points from Hungary onwards, but seeing Felipe suffer this much, is just showing he's not there anymore.

Maldonado is third, due to only being amazing from Saturday, only to bin it in the end. If the aforementioned nominations wouldn't have competed like they did, it would clearly be Reverend for RotR for me.

[TheBigJ]

The Reverend was just brilliantly rejectful. Taking out Grosjean and others, superb blocking and all around dogged. Only to bin it in the last lap.


You've got to love him though...he's just...insane!



Mercedes and the new teams (who are nowhere near the midfield, especially with Williams improving) are runners-up.

[Sunshine_Baby_[IT]]

Maldonado, for sure.