Reject of the Race - Abu Dhabi

[JJMonty]

Well what an interesting race!..... [I don't know if I was trying to be sarcastic or not ]

Williams re-deemed themselves in the race, Barrichello in particular, there was a spark I haven't seen since Melbourne! - So I don't think they deserve RotR

Nominees - Massa, my reasons said in the previous post regarding quali, just looked no where in the race either - had a chance to pass someone, then just cocked up and ended up letting Webber through, silly mistakes too... compare this to Alonso who was ragging the living floodlights out of his Ferrari and got a podium for his efforts.

Tempted to nominate Schuy for the same reason of pace difference to Rosberg but he had a quiet race without silly errors so no.

Pay drivers deserve a mention, Maldonado & Senna in particular - "VAT ARE ZEE BLU FLAGS YOU TALK ABOUT?"

Red Bull deserve an honourable mention too, the first time this year we have seen any mistakes from them, Vettel out in T2 (I agree with DC's theory of too low Tyre Pressure and the tyre just fell off the wheel through a slide as it has happened to me before... and that was in karting with much less G forces involved to warp the tyres around!), sloppy pit-stops and odd tyre gambles... the kind of actions that almost cost them the titles in 2010, but they haven't done it this year so I guess everyone is allowed an off weekend.

My reject of the race though has to go to the Circuit and DRS. Those chicanes are just crippling the racing action! Turn 5 & 6 should be removed and just let it be a straight run to the hairpin, it gives the drivers an opportunity to pass into the corner, then have a straight forward drafting battle along the long straight, instead we are left with these Mickey Mouse chicanes, but not ones you curb hop over with a quick flick of the steering wheel.... more of a clumsy left & right procession that just filters out the cars, then opens up the gap again! Same for the corners after the long straights, if they were proper chicanes, or just a single apex corner, then I'm sure overtaking would be much easier.... even the aid of DRS didn't help and we ended up with the same problem as Korea "I’ll pass you now!..... AHAHA!!! but I’ll just draft you on the straight after the corner as I'm now allowed to use my DRS!"

[Dan B]

- Toro Rosso: How did Alguersuari get so far as 18th at one point? Buemi's bad luck continues as well.

I think his first pit stop took 30+ seconds. It was not shown but his sector time at that point gave hint about that.

I see; and yep, Autosport picked up on that; said it was of tire degredation. I'm assuming that's 30 seconds total in the pit lane, because if it's 30 seconds in the pit box, what on earth were Toro Rosso doing? Reliving their glory days of Argentina 1998?

[TheBigJ]

Contenders :


Torro Rosso : After some positive showings, Buemi retires and Alguersuari doesn't turn up.
Pastor Maldonado : After a good start, he gets investigated twice for blue flag avoiding and ends up with a penalty that cost him a point (probably).
HRT : tried to gangbang the Saubers at the beginning. Ended up colliding with one another letting both Saubers through to score points. Humiliating technical failure for Riccardio, Liuzzi nowhere. General hindrance for other teams when lapping.
Red Bull or Mark Webber : So many mistakes and if what they did with Vettel is true they only have themselves to blame. Mark Webber was shocking considering Button had no Kers and Massa is Massa. Should have got a podium. But hindered by his team.
The first lap : for providing us with such a false hope for the rest of the race, which brings us to our winner :


The Circuit : I was expecting an exiting race with Vettel out of the picture. No such luck, ended up falling asleep in the middle again. DRS "worked", but the double DRS meant it was pointless and more artificial than usual. Alonso tried to spice things up, couldn't deliver with the 3rd fastest car. Sprinklers are a must for these gimmick races that Bernie has only signed up for because that's where the cash is. Adu Dhabi, Bahrein, Valencia, Korea, Singapo(o)r, Turkey --> All need sprinklers. I noticed there were "shortcuts" in the circuit. Why not use those (like a sort of one per race shortcut for example). Would spice things up nicely!

[IceG]

Re DRS, I was wandering which driver would be smart enough NOT to overtake in the first zone but just use it to get tight enough on the tail of the car in front to spook them into defensive driving into the chicane, then nail them in the second zone and thus make the pass stick. No-one seemed to.

[mario]

Well what an interesting race!..... [I don't know if I was trying to be sarcastic or not ]

Williams re-deemed themselves in the race, Barrichello in particular, there was a spark I haven't seen since Melbourne! - So I don't think they deserve RotR

Nominees - Massa, my reasons said in the previous post regarding quali, just looked no where in the race either - had a chance to pass someone, then just cocked up and ended up letting Webber through, silly mistakes too... compare this to Alonso who was ragging the living floodlights out of his Ferrari and got a podium for his efforts.

Rubens at the very least did a lot to make amends for the poor form that Williams showed in qualifying, even if he did get in Hamilton's way at one point when being lapped. Overall, that was a far better performance that you'd have expected, and though ultimately it didn't lead to points it was one of Rubens's finer drives this season.

Maldonado, on the other hand, less so; blocking the leading cars once is bad enough, but doing it twice after being penalised for it the first time (and by the looks of things deliberately blocking Webber, whom he seems to have mistaken for Alguersuari) was pretty stupid. For the second occasion, he has been given a 30 second post race time penalty (equivalent to a 10 second stop and go penalty), which is effectively a meaningless penalty (it changes nothing in the final classification because Alguersuari, his nearest competitor, was also penalised) http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96195

As for Webber, I can kind of see why Red Bull went for that odd strategy, and in a way it worked - with that botched stop and Massa's holding him up, they at least managed to salvage 4th place with that unusual strategy (though Massa's half spin sealed the deal fairly comfortably in the end). It makes you wonder, though, where Webber could have finished in the end had Red Bull not botched his first stop - he finished about 10 seconds behind Button, and given that Button was struggling for pace following his KERS failure I do think that Red Bull and Webber potentially threw away a podium finish.

And speaking of Massa, it must be said that his weekend was poor overall - he was ragged in qualifying and quite far off Alonso's pace, his race pace was poor - he finished over 40 seconds behind Alonso - and towards the end of the race he was beginning to come under pressure from Rosberg (Rosberg finished under 2 seconds behind Massa and very nearly fulfilled his target of beating Massa in the race).
Alonso was pushing his car extremely hard during the race - he said that he was virtually driving each lap like a qualifying lap - but he was able to keep things neat and tidy, and put Hamilton under more pressure than most would have expected. Massa's half spin, though, kind of summed up his race - it just looked as if he wasn't comfortable and his heart wasn't in it.

Overall, though, Maldonado takes this award for me fairly clearly.

[DOSBoot]

I'm going to say Maldanaldo. One of the worst drives that I have seen all year.

[AdrianSutil]

I've noticed a few people on here saying it's not Williams's fault for being on the back row, but erm... Yes it was. Failing to get a driver out in a practice session for a mechanical failure is all well and good, but failing to do more than a handful of laps and THEN miss qualifying with the same problem, whilst the other car continues to have engine related issues, meaning he gets a penalty, is downright awful. You'd expect the likes of Virgin/Marussia or HRT to have that, not an established team like Williams.

Sadly though, Williams are saved from the ROTR vote a little bit, as Maldonado's weekend went from terrible to embarassing. When was the last time someone got a drive-thru for ignoring blue flags, then gets a warning about the same infringment again? He may well have beaten Barrichello today was it not for his penalty, but the sheer amateurish driving takes it. And he was a driver who was steadily improving...

So for me, Maldonado takes the award, with the Williams team a very close second.

[JJMonty]

Maldonado, on the other hand, less so; blocking the leading cars once is bad enough, but doing it twice after being penalised for it the first time (and by the looks of things deliberately blocking Webber, whom he seems to have mistaken for Alguersuari) was pretty stupid. For the second occasion, he has been given a 30 second post race time penalty (equivalent to a 10 second stop and go penalty), which is effectively a meaningless penalty (it changes nothing in the final classification because Alguersuari, his nearest competitor, was also penalised) http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96195

Saw that coming before the end of the race, justified penelty. For a GP2 champion, you'd expect better standards.... but this isn't the first time this year we have seen him do something stupid through rage/heat of the moment either...

[Barbazza]

Maldonado - Shame James Hunt isn't still around to call him a 'bloody idiot' (or worse!)

And that stupid double DRS zone - this isn't supposed to be Scalextric racing.

[fjackdaw]

I'm going to say Maldonado too.

[Ross Prawn]

I'm going for the McLaren qualifying suits, which made Lewis and Jenson look like they had been paintballed in the groin.

Everything else was too tedious to be worth discussing.

[stupot94]

I dont think I can blame Williams altogether.
But for my vote I give it to Maldonado. What a complete tool.
I dont get why people are voting for Vettel? It was something that was completely out of his power. If D'Ambrosios spin in the pitlane at Hungary was due to a rear suspension failure. We would have been giving the award to someone else.

[TheBigJ]

To be fair to Maldonado, he was going really well until his penalty (11th I think) and provided some exciting racing with Webber for a few corners. The Reverend is becoming that reject everybody loves to hate...

[Salamander]

To be fair to Maldonado, he was going really well until his penalty (11th I think) and provided some exciting racing with Webber for a few corners.

Yeah, it was fantastic racing for... not falling a lap down to someone who isn't even the leader. Why?

ROTR for me is The whole race. Any boring race (for the win, at least) where Vettel wins is a failure of the teams to come up with an answer to him. Any boring race where Vettel doesn't win is a failure of the track. I missed the first 11 laps due to not being able to drag myself out of bed until it was past 1pm, and I'm wondering now why I didn't just go all the way and miss the whole thing. I was more bored during this race than I was in Valencia. What a wasted opportunity.

[Aerospeed]

Wow, I thought people would blame Red Bull's obviously shoddy tyre telemetry. Call me picky...

1. Maldonado for being a clumsy fool.

2. Renault I barely even noticed them the entire race. Heck, HRT got more TV time than Renault!

3. The track itself - for being a nonsensical mish-mash collection of bad corners. A kindergarten student could design a better track than you, Hermann Tilke.

[FullMetalJack]

2. Renault I barely even noticed them the entire race. Heck, HRT got more TV time than Renault!

The only time I noticed them was when they were blocking the frontrunners.

[James1978]

I actually like the circuit. I just think they could improve it by short-cutting the chicane which Schumacher/Liuzzi crashed at last year, or going the other way round.

[FullMetalJack]

I actually like the circuit. I just think they could improve it by short-cutting the chicane which Schumacher/Liuzzi crashed at last year, or going the other way round.

I think you want this thread.

[golic_2004]

Senna and Maldonado for ignoring the blue flags. Maldonado twice!

[Cynon]

Maldonado & Senna - Please, can these two team up at Williams next year so they can continue to fail?

[JJMonty]

I actually like the circuit. I just think they could improve it by short-cutting the chicane which Schumacher/Liuzzi crashed at last year, or going the other way round.

I think you want this thread.

Hmmmm, I suggested in my rant to get rid of the chicane - don't think it would be an unpopular opinion though!

[DemocalypseNow]

This had to be done.

Tank you for completely ruining the point I was trying to make - that Abber Darby itself is so boring, it's not worth a Reject of the Race thread.

This is a community not a one-man show. Start acting like it.

Pastor Maldonado is an obvious pick for ROTR. His grid penalty may be the reason he started athte back but his driving in the race was bordering on stupid. Amlbing around the middle of the track like no-one else was there...at one point I actually thought he was going to merge into Button and cause a big accident.

Webber may also be a good choice - with the title winning car at his disposal and his team-mate out of the running, it took a spin from a rival to ensure he didn't finish bottom of the group of top team drivers (though it's possible he would have beaten Massa without it). You have to wonder if he's finally past it.

[Debaser]

Pastor Maldonado - I found it nice to see the spirit of De Cesaris back in F1. To get penalised for ignoring blue flags is both rare, incredibly stupid and quite amusing - added colour to a largely colourless race.

[Jack O Melley]

Marshalls' track disposition - Who did see them when Ricciardo's HRT stopped outside T20 on lap 50? They we're not, causing the show of yellow flags until the end of the race. Where were them when Massa - or someone else - went off with the road hump between T11-12-13 forcing a photographer to pick it up during the qualifying break yesterday? Perhaps the race was too boring for them too to bother them following it.

[Ed24]

Maldonado. His driving at least gave me a good laugh.

I actually like the circuit. I just think they could improve it by short-cutting the chicane which Schumacher/Liuzzi crashed at last year, or going the other way round.

They can't cut the chicane, as otherwise they would be going too fast into the next corner, and there is no run-off to protect cars flying into the grandstand.

[the Masked Lapwing]

Red Bull-backed drivers - Vettel, Buemi and Ricciardo retire, Webber was on a daft strategy and Alguersuari was anonymous again.
Double DRS - I reckon that if it had been like at Montreal or Valencia (i.e. 1 detection point), it might have been better. The straights were too close for two detections.

But the winner has to be the Reverend, because who gets done in for ingnoring blue flags TWICE!

[Jeroen Krautmeir]

1. Reverend Maldonado - Because if you didn't know, you couldn't tell that this fellow is supposed to be GP2 champion.
2. TV Directors - What's with showing Bruno Senna so much? First you see him passing an HRT. Then you see him pass a Virgin. Then you see him pass another Virgin. Is that supposed to be surprising? Then you show him take a pitstop when there were other perhaps more exciting things going on.

[jpm]

The stewards for not having disqualified Maldonado Kyle Busch style for his blatant disregard for leaders which was almost Olivier Grouillard-eque.
Red Bull strategists what were they thinking with Webber's strategy?
the track nuff said.
Martin Brundle for continually being annoying. Please BBC switch Charlie Cox from the bikes or David Croft! I hope Brundle does move to Sky next year, and good riddance!

[Jeroen Krautmeir]

Actually, I think I'll add on Red Bull Racing as a whole. Like someone said on the discussion thread, it's like they just gave up after the brat retired. First they screw up Mark's first pitstop, then that ridiculous strategy! I was hoping oh so badly that this would be like 1992, where the runaway champion (Mansell) retires, allowing his teammate (Patrese) to finally win. Mark doesn't seem to like harking back to the past too much...

[TomWazzleshaw]

My Nominations:

The entire Red Bull stable: Vettel out on lap 1, Webber inept as usual (Which wasn't helped by his team's odd strategy and the pit crew dropping the ball on the first stop), Buemi out, Alguersuari nowhere and Ricciardo out. Now that is what you call a REALLY bad day in the office
Bruno Senna: He finished miles behind a guy who got a total of 50 seconds worth of penalties. Oh dear.
DRS: Turned into the world's fastest game of leapfrog after about 4 laps.

But my ROTR is:

Everyone at Williams minus Barrichello: Ruby escaped a nomination with a solid drive. The Reverend on the other hand was frankly embarrassing. And the team must be doing something horribly wrong because neither Virgin or HRT have had anywhere near as many problems with Cosworth as the Grove squad have in recent weeks.

[RAK]

Maldonado and Senna: Particularly Maldonado, of course. Getting in the way, getting penalised, getting in the way again... Embarrassing behaviour. This might demonstrate the general vacuum of talent that GP2 seems to be demonstrating right now.

[DanielPT]

Maldonado and Senna: Particularly Maldonado, of course. Getting in the way, getting penalised, getting in the way again... Embarrassing behaviour. This might demonstrate the general vacuum of talent that GP2 seems to be demonstrating right now.

It think it's quite telling that a rookie, in his first race weekend, could come and win his only second race in GP2. It's true, the talent is not really high right now. Then there is the fact of Grrrrrjjjjjjnnnnnn domination this year, compounded by the guy who gave him some sort of a fight before going nowhere in the last 2 weekends, Giedo van der Garde. He makes Bruno Senna look fast. Finally we had, battling for the win in Abu Dhabi's first race, two almost anonymous midfielders of this years class, Luiz Razia and Fabio Leimer, who, between them, make the grand total of 3 wins in five years...

[IdeFan]

1 - Vettel, Red Bull's tire pressures, Pirelli or that turn 1 kerb. - I don't think McLaren had the pace to beat Vettel, so one of those (or possibly a combination) probably cost them victory, we will likely never know exactly which one(s).

2 - Williams - The reverend Maldonado deserves a special mention, but nothing was good about Williams this weekend. Williams may want Raikkonen, but why would anyone want Williams if they perform like that?

[jpm]

Maldonado and Senna: Particularly Maldonado, of course. Getting in the way, getting penalised, getting in the way again... Embarrassing behaviour. This might demonstrate the general vacuum of talent that GP2 seems to be demonstrating right now.

It think it's quite telling that a rookie, in his first race weekend, could come and win his only second race in GP2. It's true, the talent is not really high right now. Then there is the fact of Grrrrrjjjjjjnnnnnn domination this year, compounded by the guy who gave him some sort of a fight before going nowhere in the last 2 weekends, Giedo van der Garde. He makes Bruno Senna look fast. Finally we had, battling for the win in Abu Dhabi's first race, two almost anonymous midfielders of this years class, Luiz Razia and Fabio Leimer, who, between them, make the grand total of 3 wins in five years...

James Calado won the reverse grid race from pole, having finished 8th the previous race. That hardly suggests the field are rubbish, remember GP2 don't have DRS so they're basically like last years F1 cars. You all know how exciting the 2010 Abu Dhabi f1 race was... The GP2 last weekend was a non-championship event, so many of the best didn't bother. Sam Bird for example was on simulator duty for Mercedes GP, and many of the drivers were GP3 grads.

Calado was a close second behind Bottas in GP3 this year, while Marcus Ericsson,the fastest Swede in open wheel, has tested for Brawn and is a decent bet for F1. Fabio Leimer, who wo race 1 is actually a very good driver; he was fastest in testing 3 out of 4 days in Barcelona last month, and if he stays with Racing Engineering would be a decent title bet. he'll be testing for Sauber this week. Of the rest, Stefano Coletti is better than many have credited him for, Nigel Melker is one of the quickest drivcers around on a 1 lap, Alex Rossi is a senior member of the Air Asia driver roster, and is America's best F1 hope, Tom Dillman is another quick Frenchman (along like buses with Grosjean, Vergne and Bianchi), Josef Kral is the best Czech since Tomas Enge and everyone knows about Esteban Gutierrez, the Sauber tester and winner of the inaigural GP3 title (although he's not as good as Bottas.)

Next year it should be even better, with the likes of Kevin Korjus, Alexander Sims, Brendon Hartley and more stepping up. I would hardy say the field is short of talent. Just saying.





Maldonado however is a special case, an unworthy GP2 champion. That I fully accept

[James1978]

You know what? I actually enjoyed last year's race too - I know there was hardly any overtaking but it was always tense to see if Alonso could force Petrov into a mistake and what the championship implications of every move were, as it wasn;t obvious until the latter stages how everyone's respective strategies were going to play out.

[DanielPT]

Maldonado and Senna: Particularly Maldonado, of course. Getting in the way, getting penalised, getting in the way again... Embarrassing behaviour. This might demonstrate the general vacuum of talent that GP2 seems to be demonstrating right now.

It think it's quite telling that a rookie, in his first race weekend, could come and win his only second race in GP2. It's true, the talent is not really high right now. Then there is the fact of Grrrrrjjjjjjnnnnnn domination this year, compounded by the guy who gave him some sort of a fight before going nowhere in the last 2 weekends, Giedo van der Garde. He makes Bruno Senna look fast. Finally we had, battling for the win in Abu Dhabi's first race, two almost anonymous midfielders of this years class, Luiz Razia and Fabio Leimer, who, between them, make the grand total of 3 wins in five years...

James Calado won the reverse grid race from pole, having finished 8th the previous race. That hardly suggests the field are rubbish, remember GP2 don't have DRS so they're basically like last years F1 cars. You all know how exciting the 2010 Abu Dhabi f1 race was... The GP2 last weekend was a non-championship event, so many of the best didn't bother. Sam Bird for example was on simulator duty for Mercedes GP, and many of the drivers were GP3 grads.

Calado was a close second behind Bottas in GP3 this year, while Marcus Ericsson,the fastest Swede in open wheel, has tested for Brawn and is a decent bet for F1. Fabio Leimer, who wo race 1 is actually a very good driver; he was fastest in testing 3 out of 4 days in Barcelona last month, and if he stays with Racing Engineering would be a decent title bet. he'll be testing for Sauber this week. Of the rest, Stefano Coletti is better than many have credited him for, Nigel Melker is one of the quickest drivcers around on a 1 lap, Alex Rossi is a senior member of the Air Asia driver roster, and is America's best F1 hope, Tom Dillman is another quick Frenchman (along like buses with Grosjean, Vergne and Bianchi), Josef Kral is the best Czech since Tomas Enge and everyone knows about Esteban Gutierrez, the Sauber tester and winner of the inaigural GP3 title (although he's not as good as Bottas.)

Next year it should be even better, with the likes of Kevin Korjus, Alexander Sims, Brendon Hartley and more stepping up. I would hardy say the field is short of talent. Just saying.

Fabio Leimer drove for Rapax this year and that was the championship winning team. He was anonymous. I am saying that a field where van der Garde is the second best for most of the season is a field devoid of talent in the larger part. Calado won from pole but Felix da Costa started 2nd and cracked under pressure. The GP2 car was made by Dallara and the only recent F1 connection, car chassis related, was to build 2010 HRT and fail. The races are closer and more often than not they offer more entertainment than F1. Granted, Abu Dhabi is so bad that not even GP2 can escape, but nevertheless I saw the GP2 Asia race there and overtaking was indeed possible. Without KERS or DRS! . Now, I am not speaking of who will come into GP2 next season, but from those who drove there that you mentioned, Ericsson disappointed this year, Kral was nowhere to be found for the second year in a row. Gutierrez didn't do much this year, but it was only his first year, so I will wait for the next one before passing judgement and Coletti did good despite having never won an open-wheel championship. And not for the lack of trying. Bianchi was and is very promising, but he was expected to win GP2 either in his first (emulating Rosberg, Hamilton and Hulkenberg) or in his second year and neither happened. I expect him to step up and win next season. Bianchi was probably the most talented driver on the 2011 GP2 grid. Fillipi, for instance, is driving in GP2 since 2006, being this his best year. Now, I am not saying that GP2 will be forever devoid of talent, but it seems lately not much has been happening there. It could change next year since both Korjus and Bottas are very promising young drivers. And when we look the rival series, FR3.5, which I think it's a highly competitive series, they have in their top 6 drivers you could consider worthy of an F1 chance (one is already there and another did FP duty). Just saying.

[razta]

I Still maintain that my EX-wife gets ROTR

[Klon]

I Still maintain that my EX-wife gets ROTR

I propose you for the award, nobody forced you to get married. If you run head-first into a wall, noone's going to blame the wall.

[Dj_bereta]

Maldonado.

[DanielPT]

I Still maintain that my EX-wife gets ROTR

I propose you for the award, nobody forced you to get married. If you run head-first into a wall, noone's going to blame the wall.

Inspired by you Klon: