Reject of the Race: United States, 2013

[go_Rubens]

The Tire Compounds: Holy crap that race was boring, and two of my favorite drivers went 1-2 in that race. I took a nap midway through the race, woke up, wasn't surprised by the results. PIRELLI! PLEASE! Bring back the Silverstone tire compounds!!!

Arguably,the tyres are why the races became dull over the last few races, and how it screwed Ferrari and Lotus's qualifying efforts when their cars can't heat up the tyres well enough. Red Bull is really the team who benefited from the tyre change, as they have won 8 of the 9 races with the 2012 spec tyres with Vettel. If the tyres were still the same, we would have no doubt seen Force India contending for podiums, and everyone where they should have been instead of the FIA making a scapegoat out of Pirelli. The second half of the season really knocked a dent in some team's plans, and I think that teams only wanted the tyres to be changed to benefit them. The tyre change can be a case of the teams trying to fix the results of the race. It's a different version of team orders, and they got their wish. Why didn't the tyre compounds stay, so teams had to work around their problems? It would have made the second half more interesting.

Or, more generally, give it to the deadbeat teammates: Rosberg, Button, Massa, Kovalainen, Gutierrez, Maldonado and Chilton.

Quite honestly, this is a reasonable nomination, as there were a lot of deadbeat teammates this weekend. I say it is a decent contender for ROTR.

[Barbazza]

Maldonado and Sutil - the former for being an idiot all weekend, and the latter for being stupid enough to get into a barging match with him. I hope both are out of F1 soon.

[watka]

Team principles would be a decent nomination in my opinion. Martin Whitmarsh sacking Perez and then Perez beating Button by 30 seconds in the race is egg on his face (as is the Mexican cannabis flag on the merchandising stand!). Likewise Eric Boullier has taken on Heikki Kovalainen who has brought neither points nor (seemingly) money.

Gutierrez displayed his usual lack of race-craft and Sutil crashed out, but I don't think they are anywhere near worthy of ROTR.

The stand out nominee must be Maldonado. Rubens has said everything I wanted to say on the matter.

1. By far, this has to be Pastor Maldonado. I mean, he shows horrid pace all weekend in retrospect to Bottas, he accuses the team of sabotaging his car, he gets caught up in many incidents, including one with Sutil, nearly takes his wing off, slow, and his attitude torwards the team and everything related to them are just plainly criminal, selfish acts to pitifully try to convince himself of his speed and talent. Bottas finished 8th, and now has 80% of William's scored points. If that doesn't get ROTR by default, I will be left thinking...

[HawkAussie]

Pastor Maldonado for the worst weekend of his F1 careers

Special Mention
FullMetalJack for over celebrating after Bottas scores four points

[DonTirri]

Anyone who whined about Pirelli tyres early in the season: You got what you wanted. Be happy now.

Also, Pastor

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Anyone who whined about Pirelli tyres early in the season: You got what you wanted. Be happy now.

This

[AxelP800]

Anyone who whined about Pirelli tyres early in the season: You got what you wanted. Be happy now.

inb4 everyone spins in the esses of the esses part.

Maldonado for......bad weekend

[dr-baker]

Pastor Maldonado for the worst weekend of his F1 careers

Special Mention
FullMetalJack for over celebrating after Bottas scores four points

Thank goodness I saved all my celebrating for offline then!

[eytl]

Time for the official decision ...

I must say, there were a couple of interesting alternatives this time around. I did like the suggestion of "team bosses with egg on faces" who must be wondering about their recent driver decisions given some of the performances at the COTA (eg Whitmarsh for keeping Button who has gone AWOL and dumping Perez who's performed well in recent times, Williams for picking Massa, Boullier for opting for Kovalainen ... surely Valsecchi or KOBAYASHI couldn't have done worse!).

I even contemplated another "the whole field except ..." award, with the likes of Vettel, Grosjean and Bottas being exonerated.

But in the end, standing head and shoulders above the rest, it just had to be Pastor Maldonado. Trounced by Bottas in practice and qualifying, then having the gumption to allege sabotage by his own team, getting caught up in that clash with Sutil on the first lap, and generally displaying so much attitude that even with the Venezuelan megabucks behind him, if I were Lotus I wouldn't want to touch him with a barge pole.

[FullMetalJack]

Special Mention
FullMetalJack for over celebrating after Bottas scores four points

I regret nothing!

[Onxy Wrecked]

Sutil and Pastor Maldolan for the collision. One is a DNF and Bottas had points while Pastor was alongside the backmarkers after that crash and never recovered.

[Alextrax52]

displaying so much attitude that even with the Venezuelan megabucks behind him, if I were Lotus I wouldn't want to touch him with a barge pole.

That one line sums it up for me

[Ferrim]

Anyone who whined about Pirelli tyres early in the season: You got what you wanted. Be happy now.

This was a reasonable nomination, indeed. Although I'm sure Vettel would have won it in the end (I can't understand how people forget that he has been leading the standings since Malaysia; well I do, because they don't want reality to destroy their idea that the 2013 season has been somehow "robbed", but still), he probably wouldn't have been winning the last eight races.