Your reject of the race - Hungary

[TheBigJ]

If I remember well, the last time that someone crashed during Safety car was Vettel in Japanese Grand Prix of 2007 season.

Yeah, bumped into Webber, although I also recall Liuzzi i think in 2010 crashing under SC conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDoKiRigaj4

[Yannick]

This was such a great race. It wouldn't have had such a great finish had Hamilton given in to the team orders, which he of course didn't. So team orders might be a nominee but since they didn't come to pass, and the good finish happened instead, they won't get the award.

The Man Without Vowels' crash behind the safety car surely spiced up the racing later on, as did all the other reasons for all the other safety car periods. So there is no need to hand out an award in those directions.

Who was anonymous during this exciting race? There surely must have been someone ... Who is it?

[CoopsII]

I don't blame Hamilton for not letting Rosberg through in those final laps, when it was for position, but when Rosberg asked to be let through, I don't think anyone could foresee him being able to make up the 21 second deficit in ten laps. At the time, it seemed like a sensible decision to let him through.

Aw c'mon. There's letting your team-mate past when he's up your gearbox and clearly faster than you and then there's yesterdays scenario where Rosberg appeared to be, at least to me, about half a second behind. Lauda has backed up Hamilton and gone on further to suggest the Merc pitwall were panicking when they made the call and if Lauda says its a certain way then thats good enough for me.

[DanielPT]

The Man Without Vowels' crash behind the safety car surely spiced up the racing later on, as did all the other reasons for all the other safety car periods. So there is no need to hand out an award in those directions.

It is still rejectful though, right? I mean, regardless of having spiced up the race. For losing under the safety car for no apparent reason, Grosjean is my pick for reject of the race. I will also nominate the Force India drivers for obvious reasons.

Who was anonymous during this exciting race? There surely must have been someone ... Who is it?

Why should be someone anonymous? I mean, that is not a rejectful thing by definition. Besides, traditionally the ROTR award is not awarded to anonymous folks.

[DOSBoot]

Lot of candidates here, but.

1. Force India Drivers: Both threw away a potentially good result for the team.

2. Grojean: Made Ericsson's incident look forgivable.

Dishonorable Mentions:

TV Director

Ericsson

McLaren

[WeirdKerr]

IM going for Grrrrrrjjjjjjnnnnnnn having that spin under the safety car Facepalm!!!!

[mario]

Lot of candidates here, but.

1. Force India Drivers: Both threw away a potentially good result for the team.

2. Grojean: Made Ericsson's incident look forgivable.

Dishonorable Mentions:

TV Director

Ericsson

McLaren

I would agree that the two Force India drivers ultimately did throw away a chance of points, a mistake that could prove expensive given that McLaren also botched their strategy and were ripe for the taking. Hulkenberg made an unusual mistake given he is normally fairly good in mixed conditions, but he did overcook it badly when he went into that corner, whilst Perez's mistake came about at a time when he wasn't under pressure for position (at least when Vettel lost control in that corner, it was in a situation where he was under very heavy pressure from Hamilton, making it more understandable).

As for Ericsson, to a certain extent it did look as if he was a little caught out by how slow the Lotus was off the previous corner and was trying to avoid running into the back of him when he ran wide - Caterham as a whole are perhaps eligible given that reliability cost them badly with Kobayashi breaking down.

McLaren, though, are pretty strong candidates too. Now, I can understand why they might opt to gamble with Magnussen in the circumstances, since he was already a long way down the field thanks to his pit lane start and had less to lose.
However, with Button the situation was perhaps less clear cut - he was in 5th place on merit, and that did seem like one situation where perhaps you'd have been better off hedging your bets with the lead driver by opting to cover the rest of the field and going to the slick tyres, particularly since Button's radio transmission to the pits suggests that he wasn't hugely convinced by McLaren's strategy. Button's comment about the strategy is perhaps more subtly barbed than might first appear when he says "We obviously use different radar to everyone else because on the radar the team thought it was going to rain" - it's worth noting that all of the teams are given the same weather forecast feed (which is also fed to race control)...

[Alextrax52]

3 Mclaren Strategists: I know Rachel said they have been bad before but that strategy call was shocking even for those standards.

2 Force India: What happens to this team when we hit Hungary? Made a great case for back to back ROTR's at this track with the drivers tangling and Perez losing it on his own accord. Di Resta's 7th in 2011 is their only score around here

1 Romain Grosjean: Dropping it under the safety car with no one around you? What on earth were you thinking Romain?

[golic_2004]

Gutierrez's car for failing on him while Esteban was in the points.

[go_Rubens]

There's no need for me to post 3 nominations, because for me there's one clear winner.

Step forward Romain Grosjean.

Today was the kind of day where if you drove very well Romain, you had an okay chance to score. What do you do? You manage to spin into a wall on a straight in the middle of a safety car period. Who the hell manages to do that?! I don't remember a "Safety car in this lap" message being replaced by "Safety car will stay out" before. You managed to make Gutiérrez look like a world champion.

[watka]

Oh dear, plenty of candidates to nominate for this race methinks.

Bronze medal candidates include Williams whose strategy meant they were outdone by Red Bull & Ferrari (the latter leapfrogging them in the WCC), Sauber for not taking the opportunity to score points at a track where they weren't so far behind other cars, and Ferrari for making Raikkonen look like a plum in qualifying, losing out to Bianchi no less.

Slightly worse were Maldonado who still have fun clattering into the side of cars as they turn into a corner (lucky not to have another Gutierrez moment) and McLaren for playing the worst strategy I've seen this year (bringing in Button for new inters when everyone else staying out on inters with a decent amount of life left or came in for slicks - what?).

Force India almost deserve it, especially Hulkenberg. Perez had a massive smash but Hulkenberg committed the cardinal sin of hitting his teammate (did that contribute to Perez's accident?) and is also yet again not standing out from the crowd at contract negotiation time. I don't see him making a step up in 2015, especially as Force India seems to be a fairly stable place to be anyway. He could be turning into Nico Heidfeldberg....

But Grosjean really has to take the award for me. Crashing under the safety car is pretty much unforgiveable, unless its mansoon conditions. So clumsy, and part of me can't help but he dropped it as a result of getting frustrated with the car. Didn't someone here say that he was furious over the team radio after qualifying because he was behind the Saubers?

[sw3ishida]

But Grosjean really has to take the award for me. Crashing under the safety car is pretty much unforgiveable, unless its mansoon conditions. So clumsy, and part of me can't help but he dropped it as a result of getting frustrated with the car. Didn't someone here say that he was furious over the team radio after qualifying because he was behind the Saubers?

That's correct. After being eliminated in Q2, Grosjean was broadcasted as saying over the radio something to the effect of "We couldn't even beat Sutil?"

[Ed24]

After being eliminated in Q2, Grosjean was broadcasted as saying over the radio something to the effect of "We couldn't even beat Sutil?"

Haha missed that at the time, that's hilarious.

[CoopsII]

After being eliminated in Q2, Grosjean was broadcasted as saying over the radio something to the effect of "We couldn't even beat Sutil?"

Haha missed that at the time, that's hilarious.

I caught that and it did make me smile for no other than it was Romain Grosjean saying it.

[pher38]

I have got to agree with the nominations for Williams strategists, although Force India drivers are a good shout as well.

As some what of a Williams fan, it has been painful to watch this year how they are throwing away good results with strategy blunders and overly conservative tactics, with a good car!

Ii don't claim to be an F1 strategist, but even to me it was obvious that at the mid point of the race when Perez had his accident that track position was all important because staying out would have avoided getting 'stuck' in the midfield battles, causing huge amounts of time to be lost. Even with newer tyres it would have been difficult to overtake because this is the Hungaroring we are talking about! Massa was up to second at one point and he could have stayed ahead of Alonso and raced ahead with him in clean air, he had the pace to do so as the Williams was just as good a car as the Ferrari, but instead they pitted under the safety car, put on the slower medium tyres and relegated themselves to being stuck in the midfield squabble, which they did not have the speed to get out of.

It was also obvious that the yellow softer tyre was not only much faster than the medium, but the medium would not even last that much longer than the soft. I do not say this with hindsight because at the time I could not believe Williams had put on the medium tyres! Friday practice showed that the medium tyre was around 1.5 seconds slower.

Alonso must wonder sometimes whether he really is a strategy genius, or if his rivals are just making him look good. He kept staying out under the safety car because it was obvious he could gain track position at the front and some clear space to avoid getting stuck in the midfield. Thus, he ended up pulling out faster lap times even on much older softer tyres and was even able to make his second set of softs last 32 laps!

And then to top it off, Williams then start coming out with excuses that they put on the mediums because the softs would not have lasted! If Alonso and others could do it, why could they not? It's just like in Austria, when Williams claimed they could not have made the softs last the for 30+ laps so they stayed out two laps longer on the super softs at the start of the race, allowing Mercedes to leapfrog them! If Mercedes could make the tyres last, why could they not? Excuses...

[eytl]

Well, if you've already listened to the latest podcast, you will have heard the official decision for Hungary ROTR. It was a no-contest.

Romain Grosjean lost control and crashed behind the safety car!

Romain Grosjean crashed behind the safety car!!!

Romain Grosjean crashed behind the safety car!!!!!

Enough said.