2021 Reject of the Year thread

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Pick your 2021 Reject of the Year!

Poll ended at 23 Jan 2022, 12:00

Alfa Romeo
5
16%
The FIA, Liberty Media, Michael Masi and Race Control
18
58%
Haas
1
3%
Nikita Mazepin
5
16%
The Show™
2
6%
 
Total votes: 31

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rachel1990
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2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by rachel1990 »

So I thought I would start this as it's all be confirmed now who won the title.

1- Max Verstappen- Led the most Laps and won the most races. Deserved the title. However, his actions on and off the track were very questionable at times and it did seem like the pressure did get to him at times. Still you can't argue with success.

2- Lewis Hamilton. I wouldn't have been upset however if Hammy won his 8th. Hammy drove well especially in the last 3rd of the year (in particular Brazil and Abu Dhabi when Masi robbed him of the win) however the whinging got on a lot of people's nerves and the pressure got to him with Mistakes in Imola, Russia (which he got away with) and in Hungary when he trusted the team too much. 2022 will be an interesting time for him with Russell in the team...

3- Carlos Sainz- I was torn between Sainz and Norris for 3rd but in the end I went for Carlos for his consistency throughout the year. Ferrari made the right choice going for Saiz and he repaid them in droves with quite a few top drives and a handful of podiums. It's a shame he didn't win a race but he beat Leclerc and came 5th in the standings. Was the main reason why Ferrari came 3rd in the constructors.

4- Lando Norris. If Sainz was the star of f1.5 in the second half of the year then his former teammate was the star of the first half. Lando thrashed his teammate and even lapped him in Monaco (that had to hurt). Lando should have won in Russia until the rain gods decided that Hammy had to win. Solid results and solid podiums have established him as a good if not great driver for f1.

5 Charles Leclerc. It was a funny year for Charles. He almost won in Britain and got pole in Baku and Monaco. He again was always there to rack up the points for Ferrari. And yet Sainz beat him in the standings. The mistake in Monaco was bad but I don't think he would have won the race anyway so it's a moot point. Still helped Ferrari get 3rd place.

6 Sergio Perez. I was torn about this about who to place here. However, Sergio did come into the team blind and was driving a car that was based around Max Verstappen. And he did the job the team wanted him to do. Help win the title for Max Verstappen. He was there in Baku. He was there to help in quite a few races. But he made mistakes as well that cost Red Bull the constructors. But the Red Bull team couldn't care less.

7 Fernando Alonso. Return of the master. At times it was. A few mistakes but not as many as I thought. Got his podium in Qatar which was well deserved and helped Ocon get his win in Hungary with some magnificent defending (and clean). The mistakes in Turkey blotted his copybook but overall Alsonso showed he wasn't past it.

8 Pierre Gasly. Too good for the junior team but not good enough for the main team. Pierre is the Norwich of the F1 world. Dragged Alfa Tauri to the near heavy heights of 5th in the constructors. May be holding out for Lewis to go at Merc to get a crack again at a top team.

9 George Russell. Another driver who was too good for where he was but he has been rewarded. Mr Saturday got results on Sunday this season as well including great races in Austria, France and finally getting points in Hungary. Then Belgium happened. Should get more of those next season. I'm trying to ignore Imola and Silverstone though. Bad bad.

10 Valterri Bottas. On his day you wonder how he isn't a contender for the title. However those days are now very few. Basically just Italy and Turkey this year Too many times he has faded in races and should have been the buffer that Hamilton needed in Abu Dhabi. Still it's over now and he did help win the constructors for Merc so it isn't all bad for the Finn. But the memories of Imola, Baku, and Hungary will live long in the mind.

11 Estaban Ocon. Yes he won in Hungary. However, he was extremely lucky to win. Too many times this season Ocon has just disappeared and not done anything at all of note. I just shrug my shoulders at him. Nothing that exciting this year barring 2 races.

12 Sebastian Vettel. Started Badly at Aston Martin but did improve. However didn't really do that much on the track that made me excited or think Woah, Ferrari have made a massive mistake here. Ferrari got it right to let him go. Podium in Baku and a DSQ from Hungary when he came second were the highlights of the year. (or lowlight for Hungary I suppose)

13 Lance Stroll. To be honest I seriously forgot he was even in the race most of the time. Did nothing really of note (even when he took out a bunch of cars in Hungary, Bottas made more of an impact when he took off more) barring a few top 10 finishes. Still will never get dropped.

14 Kimi Raikkonen. One season too many? Possibly but he did get most of the points for Alfa this season. But there were too many errors as well. At least he goes out on his terms and I highly doubt he will be back for a third time

15 Yuki Tsunoda best of the rookies this season but that wasn't hard. But at the same time he was poor in many races. Too many accidents and too many times we saw him make the mistakes that cost the team valuable points. Needs to shape up next season otherwise, he might be out earlier than he thinks

16 Nicholas Latfi. Too many times he was racing (and occasionally being beaten) by one of the Haas. He did beat Russell once or twice overall in the season which was a improvement from last season. So it's a start. Albon will be a more interesting test. Needs to up the pace though.

17 Daniel Ricciardo- he won in Italy. His day of Glory. Now for the rest of the season when he was thrashed by Norris. Danny Ric just couldn't get his head around the McLaren the way that Norris did. Maybe the reset of 2022 will get him back to his best. Or are we seeing a downward trend...

18 Mick Schumacher. Its slightly hard to judge him too much seeing how much of a crapbox the Haas was this season. And a couple of Q2 appearances isn't too bad. And he did beat his teammate and had the beating of Latfi a couple of times. However He pushed the Haas too much and had too many incidents for many peoples liking. Next year is the acid test.

19 Antonio Giovinazzi. International Man of Mystery. I barely saw him all season and scraped a couple of points. The writing was on the wall last season when he was bloody lucky last season to keep his seat and I don't think anyone is too upset to see him go. Just not good enough. Formula E might be better for him

20 Nikita Mazepin Ignoring the off-track stuff (which should have meant he shouldn't have been anywhere near a F1 seat) he should have been okay. He did win in f2 and showed some talent there. Well if there is any true talent it certainly didn't show this year. Racked up the penalty points, clearly had no idea what blue flags were half the time, sometimes nearly 1 Minute behind his teammate (who would be in 19th), and caused his fair few number of incidents. However, he won't be going anywhere anytime soon so best get used to him in F1

Hm Robert Kubica- Called in at the last minute to cover for Kimi and did fairly well. In fact his results meant he was ahead of Mazzy in the standings.

Teams
1 Mercedes. They did win the constructors and seemed to be less Karen like than Red Bull. Sometimes the complaints (Silverstone for example) was a bit ott but red bull was so much worse. So they kind of win this by default.

2 Ferrari. The drivers led the clowns to 3rd place. Charles and Carlos do better jobs than the team. Mostly.

3 Mclaren. Would have come first in the rankings if the team didn't have the end of year downwards spiral. Won in Italy and would have won in Russia if not for the damm rain. But they lost 3rd to Ferrari so its not all good

4 Red Bull. The karen of F1. God help us all if the Abu Dhabi result was the otherway around. Was it the fastest car? Who knows but the complaining by Marko and Horner was just too much this year. But still they got what they wanted in the end.

5 Alpine They won a race!! They actually made some progress. And the team doesn't actually look too bad (on or off track ) and 5th place overall is a fair reflection.

6 Alfa Tauri Tale of two Garages. On one side the team leader who pushed the team and nearly got them the best ever result in the constructors. On the other side is a rookie who was promoted a season too early and it showed. The car was very good this year and maybe they should have got 5th in the end.

7 Williams. Finally progress!! Russell got beyond the maximum out of the car and his quali results were beyond expectations. Then came Hungary where the team took advantage of their former drivers brain fades (Bottas and Stroll) and got a double points finish. Faded at the end of the year but was the 9th fastest team and got 8th. High achievement all round.

8 Aston Martin. Yeah. Not great was it. Maybe escaped the Jaguar tag but not by much. Was more badly hit by the new regs more than anyone else on the grid and Vettel was more impressive off the track than on. Could be worse though.

9 Alfa Romeo. I think the car was better than the drivers. If they had Bottas or the hulk in the car I think 8th would have been easily achieved. But no. Silly mistakes all around from the team and the drivers.

10 Haas. 0 points. Slowest on the grid. Slowest driver seen since 2016. And THAT livery. Just no.

Overall ROTY

3rd
Antonio Giovinazzi- for what I mentioned above and I forgot to add that is disobeyed team orders which cost the team points which they needed.

2nd
Nikita Mazepin
Possibly the most Out of his depth driver seen since 2016. I don't know how he could have been as bad as we have seen this year but he has.

1st....
FIA and Michael Masi.
What a crapshoot f1 has been this season. Starting in Bahrain and finishing in Abu Dhabi. Caring more about the DTS audience than actually following the F****** rules this year. There was the farce of Belgium, inconsistent penalties, (5 place grid drop for Bottas for Hungary??? Wtf) and not following actual rules set out in their own rulebook and all of this set out to promote the 'show'. Ruined an excellent season of f1.
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Row Man Gross-Gene
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Row Man Gross-Gene »

Rachel, overall I agree with your order for the most part, with a couple of exceptions (Daniel R. should be higher for instance, I'd put him 13th and move everyone below him down 1, and Giovinazzi wouldn't make the reject podium for me). You're a fair bit harder on everyone than I would be, but I think I understand the reason why. My thought is that doing so makes it easier to express the differences without just descending into vague impressions, so nice job and nice list.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by rachel1990 »

Row Man Gross-Gene wrote:Rachel, overall I agree with your order for the most part, with a couple of exceptions (Daniel R. should be higher for instance, I'd put him 13th and move everyone below him down 1, and Giovinazzi wouldn't make the reject podium for me). You're a fair bit harder on everyone than I would be, but I think I understand the reason why. My thought is that doing so makes it easier to express the differences without just descending into vague impressions, so nice job and nice list.


I have to admit I was torn about 3rd place and I might review it. There are a few things coming up in my head that might knock Gio off the poduim.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by RAK »

The thing about Giovinazzi is that while he has not been an impressive driver, I rate his replacement as worse still. At least Giovinazzi only had the one season of GP2 before moving up to Formula One; Zhou came third in what looked like a two-horse race most of the season in his third year in Formula 2, being beaten comprehensively by a rookie.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Butterfox »

to be fair F2/GP2 success does't always translate to F1, see Vandoorne... though nothing suggests Zhou will be quick from the offset, he always did show an upward development curve, albeit not very spectacular. Meanwhile Gio seemed to remain stuck at the same level forever. I think that Zhou has more long-term potential, but i don't think he's hired for the long term, so that means they're a bit equal. Gio has had plenty of chances though and being outscored by an unfocussed Kimi is inexcuseable. Then complaining its all about the money when he just wasn't good enough to be kept, regardless of who replaced him, also didn't help him any favours at how i look at him. Though there are other drivers/teams who also deserve that 3rd spot on the ROTY podium.


Anyway here's my driver points, i made them up as i feel at the moment, so my opinions might change over time. They're not static.

Lewis Hamilton 9,5 Apart from maybe Silverstone, didn't put a foot wrong all year and really drove extremely well. Would be a deserving champion.
Valterri Bottas 5.5 It was at times painful to see how Valterri lost his sharpness and in the end also seemed to no longer really care. I hope he can recharge at Alfa next year.
Max Verstappen 9,5 A deserving champion as well, at times drove better than anyone expected, though near the end we excpected him to drive better than expected. You could argue he was driving like an ass at times, but i blame Masi for allowing it, not Max for trying to exploit it.
Sergio Perez 6 The second Red Bull seat remains cursed, and Checo had a really poor start of the season, but in the second half he started to improve and bring in those podium places. Still too inconsistent and the gap with Max is still too large.
Lando Norris 8.5 The first half of the season he at times looked to be the best driver in the field, but after Russia it seems his momentum broke, McLaren also stopped improving and everyone else around him started to get their act together. Still an amazing season and i hope to see more from him.
Daniel Ricciardo 3,5 this one hurts. He's my favourite driver, but he seemed so clueless as to what is going wrong. I really hope he gets himself together over the off-season. That one win was a nice moment though, and over the course of the years, i hope that's what we remember from his 2021
Charles leclerc 8 Did what we expected of him, has good pace, became very consistent, had some dificulties with the twitchy Ferrari but so did his teammate.
Carlos Sainz jr. 9 Smooth operator did it again, performing really well in the shadows of other drivers. Made a few mistakes, but adapted really well at Ferrari very quickly.
Esteban Ocon 7,5 Most races he was decent, but anonymous, but that win an 4th place show that on a good day, Esteban's a force to be reckoned with. Did really do much wrong either. Oconsistency is back.
Fernando Alonso 7.5 Honestly my expectations were low, but at times he showed he's not 'over it' but rather an 'old fox' who knows his tricks to shine at the right moments. Might still have 1 or 2 good years in him.
Pierre Gasly 10 I'm always cautious to give someone a 10/10 but what a season did he drive, man. Sure some mistakes happened, but this was an underdog drive for the ages. Fast, consistent. Not things we originally associated Gasly with.
Yuki Tsunoda 5 He has shown glimpses of talent, so the talent is there. But he's either trying too hard, either too anxious or either totally losing his temper. He's a rough diamond, but will Alpha Tauri have enough patience to polish this one?
Sebastian Vettel 6.5 Just like alonso he had his 'old' fox moments, and his off-track actions made him one of the most loved drivers of today. But he didn't have the consistency and was anonymous most of the season.
Lance Stroll 6 Talk about anonymous, copying Bottas in hungary and that replay in Monaco are the only 2 times we noticed he was in a race. But generally made far less mistakes, did score his points now and then. Just nothing suggests that Stroll would outdrive this car.
Kimi Raikkonen 3 Oh god retire, old man! Oh you did? Thank you. look at times he still showed he had talent, but most of the time he give an unfocussed interest. This was the year too many and it was painful to see.
Antonio Giovinazzi 4 His quali pace was actually really good all year, but his race pace mediocre, worst of all, he kept throwing away good results, which could have put Alfa Before williams. Had plenty of chances, didn't improve at all over the course of 3 years.
George Russell 6 Showed glimpses of what he could do at times, but still made too much silly mistakes, and kinda dissapeared after that fluke result in Spa secured williams the 8th place. He needs to work on his consistency before we can consider him the next big thing.
Nicholas Latifi 6 We never expected much from Latifi, but he did exactly what we expected, being a solid driver who can be at the right time at the right place when resuls are a bit weird. Near the end started to get closer to Russell's pace, but also made a bit more mistakes than usual. He's certainly not the next world champion, but if he keeps being that dependable nr2 driver, he might stay another few years.
Mick Schumacher 5,5 Really hard to rate. Did make a lot of rookie errors, did show a few flashes of promise, but too few of them to be convinced. Haas is not exactly a great environment to be in and he kept his head cool in that environment. Hopefully Haas has got their stuff together next year so we can properly see how good he is.
Nikita Mazepin 2 Yeah what can i say... towards the end he would stop spinning at least, but being in the way was always a theme. The pace gap with Mick at most races was also really too high. Thankfully for him Haas are desperate enough to keep him. Who knows if he proves us all wrong next year but i wouldn't put my money on it.
Robert Kubica 6 now a driver whose talent doesn't need any polishing. Because he's polish...
Well nevermind, he did a few solid stand-in drives for Alfa but not much can be judged over 2 races. Did his job.

ROTY: the unholy triumvirate of Michael Masi, Liberty Media and The Show™

I might add teams later when i feel like it.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Fetzie »

I'm not going to give everybody an individual rating.

DHM: Giovanazzi
Who? Was he racing this season? I don't remember seeing him anywhere...

3rd place: Yuki Tsunoda
His attitude, lack of driving skills and spacial awareness and a strange affinity for finding a barrier to crash into in qualifying sessions get him third place.

2nd Place: Christian Horner and Helmut Marko
They both spent the entire year complaining about the Mercedes car, protesting something about it pretty much every day from the first day of testing through to the end of the season. Every race they were on the blower to Michael Masi, when they weren't they were on the Sky broadcast whining to Brundle and Crofty about how life is so unfair. And then after the final race, playing the innocent kid and saying "we would never have turned up with a lawyer", gaslighting the entire paddock.

1st Place: FIA and Liberty Media
Spa. Inventing rules on the spot, screwing the fans out of a refund, running a two-lap "race" under safety car just to have had a race.
The last ~8 minutes of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and then the next week of excuses.
Throughout the year we have given them RotR for questionable, oftentimes potentially dangerous decisions, such as releasing cars on a track that still has workers on it, late red flags, late safety cars, red flags and safety cars when they weren't necessary just to bunch the field up. Then there is the homologation of the Saudi track, multiple 300 kph blind corners and potential crash sites. We got lucky that the only injuries were a fractured ankle and some bruises. Not only that, but they failed to post enough extraction points to get cars off the track.
The FIA, Race Management and Liberty Media won or shared nearly half of the RotR Awards this season, and were often nominated when they didn't win. I think it is justifiable to give them RotY for their consistent presence in RotR polls, along with these other reasons.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Row Man Gross-Gene »

Butterfox wrote:Daniel Ricciardo 3,5 this one hurts. He's my favourite driver, but he seemed so clueless as to what is going wrong. I really hope he gets himself together over the off-season. That one win was a nice moment though, and over the course of the years, i hope that's what we remember from his 2021


You're being way too hard on Danny Ric. He underperformed his sky-high expectations sure, but in real terms he was not the third-worst driver of the year. He was definitely better than Lance Stroll, Yuki, Antonio, Mick and others rated higher. His natural level has been an 8 or 9 out of 10 for most of his career, this year he probably was at a 5.5 or 6 in my opinion. He didn't come close to matching Norris overall, but he was never less than competent. Plus he won a race!

Otherwise, it's a good overall list. You went out on a limb for Gasly, I respect that, even if I would have put him a little lower.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Butterfox »

Row Man Gross-Gene wrote:
Butterfox wrote:Daniel Ricciardo 3,5 this one hurts. He's my favourite driver, but he seemed so clueless as to what is going wrong. I really hope he gets himself together over the off-season. That one win was a nice moment though, and over the course of the years, i hope that's what we remember from his 2021


You're being way too hard on Danny Ric. He underperformed his sky-high expectations sure, but in real terms he was not the third-worst driver of the year. He was definitely better than Lance Stroll, Yuki, Antonio, Mick and others rated higher. His natural level has been an 8 or 9 out of 10 for most of his career, this year he probably was at a 5.5 or 6 in my opinion. He didn't come close to matching Norris overall, but he was never less than competent. Plus he won a race!

Otherwise, it's a good overall list. You went out on a limb for Gasly, I respect that, even if I would have put him a little lower.

I gues i'm hard on ricky exactly because i'm a big fan of him. Because it hurts.
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Re: Driver and Team Reviews 2021 and the ROTY podium.

Post by Row Man Gross-Gene »

Guess I should come up with some of these instead of only commenting. I like reading others’ ratings, you guys are a big influence, both on this thread and over the course of the season.

Max Verstappen 9.5 Supremely skilled and confident and fast. More aggressive than anyone else on the grid. Does feel like he’s found a philosophical hole in the rule book with some of his overtaking moves (going in too fast/deep to make the corner at speed, but staying on track while forcing the other driver to leave it or back out). I don’t like it, but it’s up to the FIA to stop it, not Max.

Lewis Hamilton 9.5 The greatest driver of all time now in my opinion. Jim Clark was my greatest until sometime this season. Of course, Clark was a bit mythologized as I never watched him race-by-race like I have with Hamilton. If I had to pick someone to drive for my life, it would be Hamilton. Probably should have been more uncompromising with Max this season, but I kind of like that he wasn’t.

I couldn’t choose between the next 4 other than I tend to think Leclerc’s ceiling is the highest.

Charles Leclerc 9 Supremely fast while still being likeable and able to admit his mistakes. Even his teammate is effusive in his praise of Leclerc’s qualifying pace.

Carlos Sainz Jr 9 Fast, smart, consistent, probably the best possible pick Ferrari could have made to pair with Leclerc. Sainz would be my next choice after Hamilton for someone to drive for my life.

Lando Norris 9 He’s very much like Sainz in overall style. He might be the best choice for Mercedes when Hamilton retires.

Pierre Gasly 9 Gasly is good and he needs to be in a top car, there just aren’t enough of them to go around to all the drivers who deserve them. Would be another good choice for Mercedes when the time comes.

George Russell 8 He might be artificially low just because he was driving the second-slowest car on the grid, and I rarely got to see him do anything in the race. Now he’ll have a chance to do some great things on a Sunday too.

Esteban Ocon 7.5 Won a race and pretty much matched Alonso. And doesn’t crash much. Did feel like he could lose pace at times for no apparent reason, but knowing he’ll pretty much always bring the car home is worth a lot.

Fernando Alonso 7.5 Cool to have him back, though I don’t think he could touch his old self for outright pace. Definitely belongs in F1.

Sergio Perez 7 Checo was pretty close to my expectations for him this year. His reputation has always been more for racecraft, tires and cleverness more so than speed. He made a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes, but not many. I think Red Bull got nearly all they expected from him and were perfectly happy to sign him for next year and hope for a little bit of improvement.

Daniel Ricciardo 6 Definitely underperformed this year, but was never not competent. Only really slow a few times. Otherwise he ranged from adequate to quick. And he won as well! I expect a full recovery to form in the future.

Sebastian Vettel 6 Wasn’t as good as he could be, but not bad, and Aston got their money’s worth just from the upgrades to their processes and practices that came as a result of his feedback and way of working. Hoping for some more improvement next season.

Valtteri Bottas 5.5 Not sure what was going on this year other than the result of being a continual number 2 driver for 5 years always on a 1-year contract. I think he’d have done better with a little bit more job stability over his career.

Lance Stroll 5 A good year for Lance, he’s a competent F1 driver with a turn of speed on the right day. Would every driver I’ve rated higher have done better in the same car? Yes

Mick Schumacher 5 Hard to know what to say, he was really miles better than his teammate in a car that is comfortably the slowest on the grid. Unfortunately there is not really anywhere for him to go, hopefully Haas builds a decent car for 2022.

Nicholas Latifi 5 I feel a lot of the same way about Latifi as I do about Stroll, in fact maybe Latifi should be higher than him, but it’s hard to know in a car this slow.

Antonio Giovinazzi 4 He’s plenty fast, I’m hoping he ends up in Ferrari’s WEC program going forward. I think the writing being on the wall for most of the season sapped him of motivation.

Kimi Raikkonen 4 I think the grind of F1 finally overwhelmed the joys of F1 for Kimi and as a result his motivation suffered.

Yuki Tsunoda 4 Too many mistakes this year, but I’m so glad he’s back next season! In a normal season, he’d be on the reject podium, but just too many standouts in the sport over 2021.

Nikita Mazepin 2 If he’s totally on it, he’s capable of navigating a racing circuit in an F1 car.



Reject Podium:

3: Nikita Mazepin

2: Various dumb drama mentioned by others

1: FIA/Race Control
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Rob Dylan »

Image

I was going to open a new thread regarding this topic, but seeing as there's already a topic for this, I might as well hijack it and claim I am being productive. Therefore I am officially...continuing the discussion of Reject of the Year! What I want is for everyone (who hasn't already done so above) to give their Reject of the Year nominations in a podium structure, as the decision is going to made soon - by you!

You must give it in a
3rd
2nd
1st

structure so that the votes can be easily counted by yours truly. As always, you're free to give your dishonourable mentions as well. From there, next week we'll start up a poll to do the final voting. Thanks as always for your patience in getting this organised.


To get the ball rolling again I'll give my nominations for the 2021 Reject of the Year:

3rd The Rookies: Yuki Tsunoda, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin
2nd Michael Masi, race control and the FIA
1st Antonio Giovinazzi

Dishonourable mentions absolutely go to Haas in general, The 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, and Kimi Räikkönen
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by pi314159 »

3. Haas. I am not placing Haas on the reject podium for being slow. In the team's situation, choosing to work on 2022 instead of 2021 has likely been the right decision, though we won't know if it paid off for a few more weeks. But unfortunately, the slow car wasn't Haas' only problem. For a large part of the season, Nikita Mazepin looked out of his depth in Formula 1. Maybe it was fortunate that the Haas was too slow to allow him to fight for positions, because even with no one to race against, he was a liability on track. For a lack of comparison, Mick Schumacher's pace remains unproven. While he managed to beat his teammate by a considerable margin, his sessions also frequently ended in the wall. All things considered, Haas are heading into 2022 with arguably the weakest driver lineup. But not just the drivers are the issue. The team is by far the slowest at pit stops, which will hurt them once they can fight for points again. Furthermore, the key issue that has plagued the team since its debut has been an inability to make the most of their material, and the unexplained performance gain towards the end of the season suggests this is still an issue. They have a lot to prove this year.

2. Race Control: In 2019 and 2020, Michael Masi's errors could be written of as inexperience. After all, he had no chance to prepare, having to take over Charlie Whiting's role on extremely short notice following Whiting's unexpected death. In his third year as race director however, Masi proved to be well out of his depth. Under the pressure from team bosses Toto Wolff and Christian Horner, as well as Liberty's insistence on delivering a show, Masi's direction became increasingly inconsistent and erratic as the season went on, significantly interfering with the championship battle on more than one occasion. Admittedly, he was caught between a rock and a hard place here. Inexcusable however are his shortcomings in several situations in which he failed to ensure the safety of competitors, most notably the delay in sending out the Safety Car in Azerbaijan.

1. Alfa Romeo: Alfa Romeo's 2022 is a tale of missed opportunities. The car wasn't terrible, in fact, they were the teams with the best gain in performance relative to the top. Nonetheless, the team finished behind Williams in the championship, a team which had a considerably worse car at its disposal. Williams, of course, had George Russell leading the team, who has proven to be one of the strongest talents in the sport and has earnt a place at Mercedes next year. Alfa Romeo lacked such a driver this year. They had no Kobayashi, no Perez, no Leclerc. They had Kimi Räikkönen whose retirement was at least a year overdue, and Antonio Giovinazzi, who despite flashes of pace did too little to prove he deserved to remain in Formula 1. But the blame for Alfa Romeo's season doesn't rest on the drivers alone. Too often, unforced errors by the team caused them to miss out on points finishes. In a season that had little in the way of outright terrible performances, Alfa Romeo's underperformance earns them my ROTY nomination.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by girry »

3rd Antonio Giovinazzi
Initially had Alfa Romeo down here but changed it to Gio. Had the speed to retain his seat for 2022, had not the ability to convert. And that was the frustratingly rejectful thing about him. Nice bloke though.

2nd Nikita Mazepin
We knew he would not be a world beater, we did not know he would be the slowest driver F1 has seen since Yuji Ide. Minus points for taking up Vettel's mantle at the spinning stats and for being just a general human penis.

1st Michael Masi & the Race Control
I'll give them that it was an unusually difficult season to call, but the unforgivable thing is that it's very difficult to pin-point any one thing Michael Masi did right this season. Given that he went from being decisively unable to consistently devise a sensible prodecure to supervise track limits in the first few races, to bending the rules at Baku in order to put the show over safety, then to frantically reading through the rulebook as the race dwindled away at Spa-Francorchamps (and in the end making the worst possible call of them all by putting money over both the show and the safety), then to having no cojones to properly penalize Lewis for taking out Max at a high speed, then to having no cojones to penalize Max for repeatedly and intentionally crowding Lewis out time and time again, then to listening and bending to the requests of the team principals as he went on negotiating they were gonna get... the utter farce that happened at Abu Dhabi was, in hindsight, not even surprising anymore.

The greatest irony in Masi was how he only, appeared confident exclusively when he got it wrong, symbolized by his iconic comeback as the cherry on the cake of his tenure - "Toto, this was a motor race"...
Last edited by girry on 13 Jan 2022, 17:28, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Pinkd56 »

3. Formula E
2. Alfa Romeo
1. The Show™
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Butterfox »

1 The Show (and their main characters)
2 Nikita Mazepin
3 Kimi Raikkonen
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by went »

3 - Alfa Romeo. They had some chances to fight for a decent position on the constructors. They wasted every one.
2 - Aston Martin. I remember the promise, the hype, the pre-season hopes that they would be up there fighting for podiums when Merc/RB slipped. Instead, they delivered a mediocre season, with just one honestly good result (Vettel's P2 in Azerbaijan), a rejectful DSQ when they were about to grab another one, and a bunch of nothing.They only had the two drivers scoring in three races! And they finished a distant seventh, way behind the midfielders. The team wasn't a disaster, mind, but the level of disappointment merits a mention on my books.
1 - Haas. I'm not nominating Mazepin in particular because the entire team was a clown show, but frankly, any team that needs to hire Nikita Mazepin in order to stay alive deserves this position.

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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Aerond »

3rd - Red Bull & Mercedes politic games and publicocrap

2nd - Alfa Romeo - Simply disappointing

1st - Haas - The epitome of rejectfulness
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Enforcer »

For ease of counting:
3rd: Alfa Romeo
2nd: Nikita Mazepin
1st: Race control, stewarding and the FIA

Detailed:

3rd: Alfa Romeo
Miserable and irrelevant for the whole season. Car not good enough. Gio not good enough. Raikkonen over the hill and disinterested. And a couple of times in the late mid season when they had decent qualifying positions they threw them away pretty quickly. Only out performed Haas who overtly did not give a fiddlers about this season.

At least they let us see Kubica in an F1 car again.

2nd: Nikita Mazepin
Mazepin came in with a reputation of being crash-prone, dangerous, dislikable, and even with due consideration to this being the era of the pay driver, just there cos his Daddy has money.
Similar accusations were thrown at Stroll when he arrived in F1, but Stroll proved himself a competent driver quickly. Mazepin has not. In fact, he spent the first half of the season just reinforcing his poor reputation.

Whilst Mazepin's machinery meant he was never going to appear on the podium like Stroll managed in his 8th race, he could've at least put respectable performances. Instead he was outperformed by his equally inexperienced team-mate for the whole season, made the occasional questionable move on said team mate, his debut lasted about 3 corners, and he spent a good portion of the season pissing off other drivers and not understanding what blue flags are for.
Whilst he did manage to stay out of trouble more late in the season, he's done nothing to dispell his reptuation and one can't help but wonder what havoc he might wreak if he's in a position to race anyone other than Schumacher Jr next season.

1st: Race control, stewarding & the FIA.
It's hard from the outside to pin exactly who's fault it is. Is Masi just in over his head? Are the stewards up to task, particularly in terms of consistency making race decisions? Were they both under pressure to 'maintain the spectacle'? Is it something else or a combination of these things?

Whatever it is enforcement of driving standards and race control has not been as hot a topic in any season I can remember, and I started watching regularly around 95/96.

Even before we had the SC mess in Abu Dhabi, before we had "I'll make you an offer" at Saudi Arabia, before the farce of Belgium, we had Baku where it seemed to take an eternity to deploy saftey cars for Stroll and Verstappen stranded on the notoriously fast main straight.

For these things, and to placate Mercedes and stave off Hamilton's (imo empty) threat to retire, Masi will probably be the sacrificial lamb. But will the problem go away with him? Or will the powers continue to pressure his replacement to nudge things towards a last race, last lap drama again?

I can only hope that no one spins late in the final race of 2022 to give them the chance.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by rachel1990 »

Just for the ease of counting
(Nice to see the thread I started continuing in this way)

3rd
Antonio Giovinazzi- .

2nd
Nikita Mazepin

1st.
FIA and Michael Masi.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by RAK »

In brief:

3) Alfa Romeo
2) Nikita Mazepin
1) Race Control, FIA & Michael Masi

In detail:

3) Alfa Romeo: A washed-up former champion fallen far from his peak and an underwhelming backmarker both failing to score points that the car probably could have achieved. And to make things harder for themselves, they've replaced Giovinazzi with an obvious pay driver who came third in what seemed like a two-horse race in Formula 2 while the champion at a canter has to settle for an Alpine reserve seat.

2) Nikita Mazepin: One of the most obviously out-of-his-depth drivers we've had for quite a while in Formula One, even considering he was driving the Haas which seemed like a handful to drive, he underwhelmed even by those standards. A race debut measured in corners rather than laps, a propensity to spin that earned him the dubious distinction of having a website set up about it and a sluggish pace when he did keep it on the tarmac combined with a rather unpleasant personality which illustrated a certain nouveau riche vulgarity.

1) Race Control, FIA & Michael Masi: Inconsistent. Farcical. Risible. Many words could be used to describe the conduct of the Three Stooges listed above, few of them complimentary. A Driver's Championship decision made under grounds that were so dubious that there were threats of legal action was bad enough, but questionable stewarding has been a consistent trend throughout the year. Michael Masi in particular looks out of his depth, a far cry from the respectable Charlie Whiting.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by IceG »

A little unfair to propose candidates who performed exactly as expected so Alfa Romeo and its drivers and Hass/Mazepin get a pass from me.

No 3. George Russell - the next big thing who will be challenging Hamilton in his first yeat at Mercedes - had three top ten finishes (an 8th, a 9th and a 10th) plus had 9 points which magically appeared as he crashed in the car-park at Belgium. Without Belgium he would have finished behind Raikkonen and have drawn with his under-rated team-mate. And that terrifying crash with Bottas at Imola was just poor judgement and unnecessary.

No 2. Danny Ricciardo - a proven and highly talented Formula 1 driver who should be at the top of every Team Princpal's list of "if and whens". Completely out-classed by Norris for the first two-thirds of the season followed by inconsistency during the last third. Seemed to just not understand the McLaren philosophy or how to get the best out of the car.

No 1. Masi/the FIA - Spa was a disaster, Abu Dhabi was just unacceptable. If the race director does not know and follow the rules or, worse, is influenced by Team Principals shouting down the phone and prima donna drivers sulking over the radio, then what is the point? F1 is meant to be a pinnicle of excellence, I have seen better Scalextric competitions at the local scout hut. Awful, awful, awful.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Klon »

3rd: Kimi Räikkönen
2nd: FIA/Liberty Media
1st: Yuki Tsunoda

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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Rob Dylan »

The nominations are open! I have listened to your fantastic suggestions and have honoured your votes to give you the most important poll of the year. Now, you must decide your Reject of the Year for 2021! The candidates are:

- Alfa Romeo: a team who floundered at every step, had arguably the worst driver lineup on the grid (both drivers had ROTY nominations), took no advantage of any situation presented to them, and finished only ahead of Haas.

- The FIA, Liberty Media, Michael Masi and Race Control: The first for their shameless response to the Belgian Grand Prix; the second for their insistence on messing with a good thing for the sake of The Show™; the third for being totally out of his depth and for being the main arbiter of almost every farcical occurrence mid-race all season; the fourth for inconsistent decision-making to spice up The Show™ and the constant placement of the drivers into dangerous situations.

- Haas: They finished the season last with no points. They had two underperforming rookies, at least one of which is a ROTY nominee. But more so than that, the intra-team politics seemed toxic and that nobody was getting on. A thoroughly unpleasant and rejectful state of affairs.

- Nikita Mazepin: His pre-season off-track behaviour made him unpopular from the get-go, and instead of subverting those opinions he cemented them. He was far behind his not-exactly-highly-rated teammate for the majority of the season, and could not have capitalised on any opportunities because he was never around to capitalise on them.

- The Show™: From the constant bitching between team bosses to the endless tinkering by officials to spice everything up, there was a general pervading feeling that the product F1 fans were being fed was totally fake. The sport already had a great product, but the Americanisation and Netflixisation of the storylines ruined what was a naturally great championship battle - the best in a decade.




You have 4 days from now until votes close. Vote now! :dance:
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Rob Dylan »

The votes have been counted, and you as a community have spoken. The Reject of the Year for 2021 is a big combination of various people. The organisation of F1 as a whole, spearheaded by the FIA, Michael Masi, Race Control and Liberty Media have deservedly won the award for all the reasons already listed.

We'll get up an official article about it soon :D

Thank you to everyone who voted, and thank you to everyone who participates in this fantastic community week in week out. :dance:

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Murray Walker at the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix wrote:The other [Stewart] driver, who nobody's been paying attention to, because he's disappointing, is Jan Magnussen.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Row Man Gross-Gene »

This result is probably the correct one, though I think earlier in the year they took a little more stick than they deserved, by the end, FIA and Race Control+Masi had racked up the plurality of the faux pas. Here's hoping there is some improvement in the right areas.
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Re: 2021 Reject of the Year thread

Post by Londoner »

Rejectfully late as always, the 2021 Season Review and ROTY article is up for your reading pleasure!
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