Grand Prix Rejects

1. Yuki Tsunoda. Boneheaded move which was never going to stick in a month of Sundays.

2. McLaren. A limp shrug of a race, 3rd in the constructors is all but gone.

"No investigation necessary"

Tsunoda! Not very good!

1- Yuki Tsunoda- Oh Yuki Yuki Yuki. Possibly gave Hammy the win thanks to the safety car that he caused by hitting lance stroll. Unemployment in 2023 looks more likely than a Red Bull seat.

2- Mclaren- Just give Ferrari 3rd in the constructors why don't you. Italy and Russia seem such a long time ago

HM- Red Bull- maybe not so much on the track- (though Max sometimes you just have to let it go) but off the track reminding everyone why they piss off some many people. Horner is the Karen of the F1 paddock

HM- Antonio Giovinazzi- Kimi started from the Pitlane and finihed 12th. Antonio started 13th and finished 14th - behind an off-the-pace Williams (and that's not taking into account the fact that stroll and Danny Ric retired). Surely he has been fired and you can see why.

1) Yuki Tsunoda: An outside bet for Reject of the Year, he just hasn't been doing anything that would justify the early season hype.

2) McLaren: A solitary point to show for the weekend and little time left to fight for third place.

Not quite a nomination, but I wasn't terribly impressed by Verstappen this weekend either.

(1) Mclaren - was not expecting that and they finished behind both Ferraris and both Alpines.

(2) Verstappen for allowing his inner spoilt brat to surface and not just the run-off with Hamilton but the weaving, the snide comments over the radio, and the jokes about his fine - Mazepin levels of stupid.

It makes for grim reading when even the decrier of "Bully Prix Rejects" Londoner is voting Yuki for ROTR. But I have to agree. Red Bull's early advantage with their 1-2 was completely eroded by the grand new rookie of their sister team making another silly mistake. All this talk of hope for Yuki building up or falling down is getting tiresome, and I'm tempted to put him as my Reject of the Second Half, honestly.

HM: Verstappen. While I want him to win this season, he lost a bit of goodwill with poor sporting standards at Interlagos. He's young and stupid and will win this at any cost, but this isn't the way to win a championship.

HM: The crowd booing Verstappen. Of all the things I don't miss about the dark, dark days of 2014-15, it's the booing every single race of drivers. I heard booing at one point earlier this season, and the Brazilian fans (who in an ironic twist of fate now really love Hamilton) should be ashamed of themselves for such debasement. Get over yourselves.


Nothing else immediate comes to mind, and that's probably because of the other candidate, the TV direction yet again. It was almost retro as they only showed Max and Lewis for the duration, if they weren't showing the start replay for 25 minutes as we missed every vital early overtake. I can't think of other good candidates because we weren't shown any other drivers.

McLaren for the sad turn their season has taken. A while ago, I would have said they were sure to take the third place, now it's starting to look like Ferrari's...

Tsunoda then Giovinazzi for me. It was a double whammy for Tsunoda as the SC he triggered harmed his parent team too!

McLaren stood out.
Second place will go to there being no static camera or steering telemetry for the stewards to look at.

Nothing really stands out as pure rejectfulness.

So I guess.

1. McLaren - 1 pt. That's it. Norris now has both Ferrari drivers chasing him for 5th.

2. Yuki - I mean look Mick made a stupider move but Yuki ruined two races (Stroll and himself)

Tsunoda looks like he's getting quite a few nominations here, and I'd have to say that it wasn't a great race from him - an early overambitious move, followed by an anonymous run at the back of the field.

Mind you, I have to say that Masi has not done himself a lot of good either with some rather contradictory comments during and after the race.

As noted by UncreativeUsername37, although Masi had claimed during the race that the stewards had been taking a thorough look at the footage, he's now admitted that the stewards didn't have any onboard footage from Verstappen's car - they relied on the external and overhead shots from the broadcast feed alone. Furthermore, as they only noted the event and chose not to investigate it, they also didn't consider any of Max's telemetry data.

It has given many the impression that the stewards rushed to a decision without considering the information properly and on the basis of incomplete data, which is not a good impression. When combined with the fact that the driver steward on the panel this weekend was Liuzzi - a former Red Bull driver - it has led to a lot of questions over the decision to not investigate an incident that many believe any other driver on the grid would have been investigated and penalised for. The optics of the whole affair do not look at all good...

1. Stewards: to not even look at that incident was a bit suspect...the fact Red Bull were straight on the radio screams guilt
2. Sky Sports F1...their love in with Karen Horner got boring a long time ago, it's almost like there isn't 9 other team bosses they can talk to during the race. Crofty wishing him a happy birthday was the icing on the cake...talk about being so far up his bathplug.

DHM: McLaren...looks like they've let p3 slip
DHM: Yuki, ugh I want him to do well, but he keeps getting involved in stupid shenanigans

I think this ROTR is probably going to be a 2 way fight between Yuki Tsunoda and everything regarding Max forcing Hamilton off track (i.e. Max himself, Horner, Masi, the bad precedent it sets etc)

McLaren: 2 points to Ferrari’s 36 in the last two races and at least one car caught up in an accident. These are the antics we’ve laughed at when Ferrari have messed up going for titles.

Yuki Tsunoda: A brainless move which ruined Stroll’s race and the subsequent safety car hampered Red Bull’s strategy. Drove like a man who’s confidence has been shot by being Scapegoated for Mexico qualifying.

Alfa Romeo: Committed that most cardinal of sins in Sprint qualifying: Never hit your teammate.

Horner/Wolff: Not since Todt/Dennis have I loathed a pair of team principals so much.

Tsunoda

Giovinazzi

Rob Dylan wrote:It makes for grim reading when even the decrier of "Bully Prix Rejects" Londoner is voting Yuki for ROTR. But I have to agree. Red Bull's early advantage with their 1-2 was completely eroded by the grand new rookie of their sister team making another silly mistake. All this talk of hope for Yuki building up or falling down is getting tiresome, and I'm tempted to put him as my Reject of the Second Half, honestly.

HM: Verstappen. While I want him to win this season, he lost a bit of goodwill with poor sporting standards at Interlagos. He's young and stupid and will win this at any cost, but this isn't the way to win a championship.

HM: The crowd booing Verstappen. Of all the things I don't miss about the dark, dark days of 2014-15, it's the booing every single race of drivers. I heard booing at one point earlier this season, and the Brazilian fans (who in an ironic twist of fate now really love Hamilton) should be ashamed of themselves for such debasement. Get over yourselves.


Nothing else immediate comes to mind, and that's probably because of the other candidate, the TV direction yet again. It was almost retro as they only showed Max and Lewis for the duration, if they weren't showing the start replay for 25 minutes as we missed every vital early overtake. I can't think of other good candidates because we weren't shown any other drivers.

Completely agree on all these points.
Yuki was poor, Max was unsporting and possibly lucky to get away with that, TV direction missed a lot of midfield action. And booing is rude, unsportsmanlike and unnecessary. ( and so is moaning at the FIA in the race if you're a team member)

Francis23 wrote:1. Stewards: to not even look at that incident was a bit suspect...the fact Red Bull were straight on the radio screams guilt
2. Sky Sports F1...their love in with Karen Horner got boring a long time ago, it's almost like there isn't 9 other team bosses they can talk to during the race. Crofty wishing him a happy birthday was the icing on the cake...talk about being so far up his bathplug.

I 100% agree with both of these nominations!

1. McLaren. Norris puncture was his own doing IMO but Ricciardo DNF combined with good race by Ferrari was really bad for WCC.

2. Yuki Tsunoda. Ironically, the safety car caused by his clash with Stroll benefitted Hamilton in the battle against Red Bull.

McLaren's pace seems to be off lately and Norris just tried to take advantage of Sainz's poor getaway. First DNF for Ricciardo since the 2020 season opener so it's not that bad, actually this is their first mechanical DNF all season.

Anyway, the ROTR winner is Yuki Tsuonda. I'm sorry but he really needs to avoid such clumsy errors and he basically caused full SC and VSC since the latter was called due to Stroll losing bodywork. He's largely anonymous in most races and can't keep it clean either. Liam Lawson is waiting to get into that AlphaTauri in 2023 so Tsunoda is on the clock already IMO.