Best Driver: Worst Driver: Best Rookie: Best Team: Worst Team: Best Overtake: Most Surprising Result: Least Surprising Result: Funniest moment: Excuse of the week: Special Mention: Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: ?/10
Best Driver: Not sure. Alonso had a good weekend but blotted it with his Q3 spin. Hamilton was very good, but had his FP2 moment. So not sure who was best over the weekend in general. Worst Driver: Ericcson. Best Rookie: Going to give it to Palmer as he had the legs of KMag all weekend, despite his race spin that possibly cost him a point. Best Team: Mercedes Worst Team: Sauber. Too far off the pace Best Overtake: Rosberg on Ricciardo. Most Surprising Result: Merc 1-2 Least Surprising Result: Button retirement Funniest moment: Marshals dancing at the end, Vettel thinking he owns the entire circuit and how dare anyone get in his way. Excuse of the week: Rosberg's 'lift' under double waved yellows. It worked though! Special Mention: Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 5/10 There were 3 battles in the top 6, shame no real overtaking aside from Kimi's attempts which Max swerved at.
Best Driver: Alonso? Worst Driver: Rosberg. He just isn't entertaining, or good enough. Best Rookie: Palmer? Nobody was great. Best Team: Mercedes Worst Team: Williams. Best Overtake: There was an overtake? Most Surprising Result: That there wasn't a surprising result. Least Surprising Result: McLaren breaks down. Funniest moment: The FIA are a joke. Not sure it's funny though. Excuse of the week: Rosberg keeping pole. Special Mention: Button for not just parking the car instead of taking a drive through. Best post from the race thread: Not a lot of room for discussion from that one sadly. Though this probably sums up the radio situation the most succinctly Race Rating: 0/10 - Honestly can not think of a positive. Can only speak for the first 40 laps as i turned it off after that.
Best Driver: would have been raikkonen til he messed up. Hamilton was flawless. Prob saved engine too. Worst Driver: peres for brainfade pitstop. Best Rookie: maybe palmer? Best Team: Mercedes Worst Team: dunno. Best Overtake: Rosberg at start. Boxed riccardo using hamilton. Great reaction to losing two spots Most Surprising Result: a car fixing its own hydraulics miraculously. Least Surprising Result: mercedes 1/2 Funniest moment: nothing funny about this borefest. Excuse of the week: sky trying to blame alonso for hamilton not being on pole. Special Mention: to anthony Davidson for being being only objective person on sky. Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 3/10. No passing. Processional. Tyre management racr.
Best Driver: Alonso, he seemed to be the only one not trundling round Worst Driver: I'm giving it to Rosberg, you are meant to be fighting for a championship man. Best Rookie: I gave it to Palmer once before in sympathy, I think he actually deserves it this time, shame about the spin. Best Team: Merc had a bigger margin than I expected. I can only hope that's because they are still developing and everyone else is focussed on '17 Worst Team: Force India, quite disappointing after a long decent run Best Overtake: N/A Most Surprising Result: Palmer decent Least Surprising Result: Rosberg wimps out Funniest moment: Button's race from hell comment Excuse of the week: Whatever Rosberg said to the stewards. Special Mention: Button for continuing & not swearing all down the pit lane. Raikkonen, for at least trying a move. Best post from the race thread: Race thread as poor as the race unfortunately Race Rating: ?/1. Can I give negative numbers?
Best Driver: Not an easy decision this time. Based on the race itself, it would be easy to say Hamilton because he controlled everyone else and perhaps even played with (or taunted) his greatest rivals with something rarely seen these days: 'strategic driving'. Actually, yes; I'm going to give it to Hamilton. Despite the crash, no one was superior to him this weekend. Worst Driver: Guttierez. Best Rookie: Palmer. Best Team: Mercedes. Worst Team: Relative to where they ought to be, Sauber. Best Overtake: Rosberg v Ricciardo (lap 1) was an audacious move. Nothing else was better in my opinion. Most Surprising Result: No penalties handed out for track limits. Then again, because a properly understood system was employed, everyone knew where they stood. Really, it should come as no surprise that when rules are clear and a radio warning system makes it even clearer, only the threat of penalty is required. Least Surprising Result: Very little competitive overtaking when it's dry at the Hungaroring. Reading and listening to public reaction to this race makes me feel expectation has become disproportionate to reality. Funniest moment: Vettel whinging whenever he smells the fumes of a back-marker. Having said that, I admire his sense of grace in mocking his own complaints when interviewed later. That last part is classy. Not the reason behind it! Excuse of the week: Has to be Rosberg for somehow saying all the right things to the stewards in lieu of 'being prepared to stop' under waved yellows… Special Mention: Button. Drove on valiantly. Pretty heroic in the circumstances. Best post from the race thread: Anything that didn't slag off the race out of hand. I completely disagree with any suggestion that this was a dire race. 0/10 was the right and proper score to award for a six car (ahem) 'race' at Indianapolis where two Ferraris were the class of the field and the other four were relative back-markers and even then they felt the need to try to contrive the result for Schumacher's statistics! Race Rating: 6/10. Don't care if everyone else wants to slag it off. I thought it was an intriguing race in several respects, not least that Red Bull and Ferrari were involved in a double battle at the upper end of the points…
may i ask.. what precise battles were ferrari in in particular. I don't seem to recall seeing then do much of anything. The sole interest from red bull was verstappen and rosberg which was largely a procession then we were robbed by the stewards or any spice in it at all. on a separate note i read with interest many saying passes on massa were good. there was one cheeky on on massa but the guys car was utterly floundering. most of the action seen was about 8-11th places and i barely saw hamilton or any of the top 6 outside of the pit stops. I am hoping for far more action at spa.
Tyres aren't on the category list but yes, obviously, as anyone who's watched since that era already knows, that was the underlying problem, and Ferrari exploited it – all but guaranteeing them a win – by vetoing the only alternative; that of creating a chicane (which would also have been an embarrassment to F1 but not half as much as what actually transpired!). Regardless of the reason however, it was a truly dire event (the only way it might have been called a race was for Ferrari to tell Schumacher that under the circumstances, his support driver would actually be allowed to compete); so much so that every single ticket holder was offered a refund (most of whom claimed it). This is why I've mentioned it as a genuine zero out of ten. The race was more of a foregone conclusion than any other I can remember, in any category of motorsport. As I'm sure you'll also remember, the other four cars were nowhere near being 'front runners' that season in any case, but the icing on the cake was Ferrari's inexcusable contrivance, Schumachering all onlookers again for good measure. The situation created enormous negative publicity for Formula One, especially in the United States, a market in which Formula One had struggled to establish itself over the preceding twenty years and as such, absolutely the worst competitive motor sport event I have ever witnessed. Ferrari personnel, amongst others, were lucky not to be lynched. That event truly was the big 0.
Ok get over it it was like 11 years ago now. Since 2014 most races have been crap bar about 5. 2017 hopefully someone can actually challenge the Mercs.
There have been few classic seasons for many many years. Sadly this isn't a new phenomena. 2010 was stand out. What was the last before that? I struggle to recall these days.
Personally, Giggsy, I'm over it. There are plenty of other things in life far more significant. The sad thing is that F1 is not. More than any other single event, Indianapolis 2005 marked the point at which people first began to switch off. Even the average, ignorant football supporter began to sense that all was not well when such contrivance was not only allowed to go ahead but also promoted and reinforced, distorting the concept of sport. That is another reason vindicating its lowest ever score of 0/10.
