Grand Prix Rejects

Post your choices for ROTR!

The drain cover fiasco - What an absolute farce. Also bathplug over Sainz's race.

The Netflix Cup - Speaking of absolute farces.

Williams: what a waste of an excellent qualifying

America: Haas and Sergeant all failed to move. The only way is down.

Those mentioned already, plus Fernando spinning on his own.

HM to multiple limo rides for the drivers after the race.

Alpha Tauri, for being absolutely nowhere in pace all weekend.

Even though the race itself was surprisingly not rubbish, the FIA/organisers deserve one for the pure shambles before it.

The drain cover - that is all.

Day one of the event - the drain cover, and the spectators not being able to stay for FP2, having only seen 8 minutes of FP1. The spectators issue is resulting in a lawsuit: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/law-f ... /10548637/

Free Practice - considering how much people paid to watch this event, for them to be basically shafted due to the organisers not having tested the track properly, only getting to see 8 minutes of action while staying up the whole night (until 2.30am) before being told to get lost (something not told to the celebrities in the paddock, of course), is complete bollocks. All that combined with their public refusal to officially apologise as it might end up with them in court for actually admitting a fault. Legal action is coming their way anyway, so my support goes out to those fighting for their money back.

Commentators' Curse - Croft and Brundle spending five minutes talking up Perez as the favourite to win here, before he got immediately overtaken back again by Leclerc and then finished 3rd

Esteban Ocon's team spirit - in the end he managed to sail away from Gasly, but the blatant ignoring of a direct team order and to aggressively (it's always aggressively and on the edge with Ocon, isn't it?) push past his teammate is just a classic Ocon moment. Although "he got away" and it was good that he built up a gap, in hindsight it would have made no noticeable impact on his race unless somehow he would have got swamped by Lance Stroll. Russell still passed and still got the penalty.

Leclerc's luck - safety car truly knackered him. And even the one race when Red Bull were struggling, his teammate won! This video I thought was typical of the respective fortunes between him and Max.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuA_n2ddvmk

And also the drain cover which a lot of people have cited also contributed by not having Sainz in the fight to help him out either!

Draing Cover and vibes of the whole event - Simply off.

Alpha Tauri - From being ultra competitive to by far the slowest in two weeks

1) The drain cover and what it represented: It says a lot when the literal car park for Caesars Palace posed fewer safety problems than this track.

2) Lap 1 stewarding decision: I feel it really should have been a place exchange rather than a 5-second penalty; we've seen the latter being too heavily abused recently.

Rob Dylan wrote: ↑19 Nov 2023, 09:56 Free Practice - considering how much people paid to watch this event, for them to be basically shafted due to the organisers not having tested the track properly, only getting to see 8 minutes of action while staying up the whole night (until 2.30am) before being told to get lost (something not told to the celebrities in the paddock, of course), is complete bollocks. All that combined with their public refusal to officially apologise as it might end up with them in court for actually admitting a fault. Legal action is coming their way anyway, so my support goes out to those fighting for their money back.

That said, it could be pointed out that the FIA was also accused of having rushed through the circuit inspection process, which in turn seems to be a consequence of the limited working windows the circuit was given for closing the roads for maintenance operations.

My only Nomination

1- The drain cover of FP1 and the chaos it caused. Simply not good enough

The whole debacle with FP1 and FP2: Red flag after nine minutes, then the fans didn't get to see the eventual action on track (and typically, no refunds).

Dishonorable mention to the second safety car, it felt unnecessary and ensured another Verstappen win (might have happened anyway, but it cost Leclerc a lot in any case).

The $200 in store credit fans received as an apology. Buy a hat peasants!

Drain Cover - That ruined Thursday and affected Sainz's race but also the refund was a $200 store voucher when things cost like $210. Not ideal for fans at all. Hopefully next year no issues

Alonso - He spun and ruined Bottas' race

The Drain Cover debacle: Pretty much got the weekend off to the worst possible start and ruined Carlos Sainz’s hopes of at least a top 3 before they began. It left you questioning if those in charge had actually considered any substance at all let alone over style. I felt sorry for the fans who shelled out a king’s ransom for the Friday only to see 9 minutes of on track action and then be kicked out before the 2nd session started because it was too late. Throw in the fact that there was no refund or public apology and no wonder there’s lawsuits potentially happening

Las Vegas Spectacle: The event may be regarded as a success in the end but that was very much in spite of the spectacle not because of it. Do we really need things like a circus act as part of the pre-race show? Ultimately for all the hype and glamour on display it was the only thing that we actually care about that was the main star: The Racing

HM: Qualifying underdogs: We had Williams lock out the 3rd row of the grid and an Alfa Romeo and a Haas in the top 8 and yet those 4 grid slots combined to deliver a grand total of 0 points

HM: McLaren/AlphaTauri: For deciding to return to some of the poor form and pace that they displayed in the early part of the season

HM: Mercedes: Apparently they were the only team who (understandably) rejected Ferrari’s request not to be penalized for Sainz’s component changes which makes it pretty funny that both cars ended up behind him when all was said and done. Not helped of course by the fact that their driver line up has easily the worst spatial awareness on the whole grid. Toto Wolff being an absolute kiss-arse to the Vegas promoters after the Friday shambles didn’t paint him in a good light either.

Alextrax52 wrote: ↑20 Nov 2023, 05:25 HM: Mercedes: Apparently they were the only team who (understandably) rejected Ferrari’s request not to be penalized for Sainz’s component changes which makes it pretty funny that both cars ended up behind him when all was said and done. Not helped of course by the fact that their driver line up has easily the worst spatial awareness on the whole grid. Toto Wolff being an absolute kiss-arse to the Vegas promoters after the Friday shambles didn’t paint him in a good light either.

Not gonna lie, one of my favourite aspects of this forum over the last decade has been watching you search high and low and scrape the barrel on a racely basis for reasons to include Mercedes/Hamilton/Russell in your ROTR nominations hahaha.

Anyway, only one candidate here if we take the Jenoch approach, and that's the drain cover.

the entirity of Las Vegas race is ROTR