Donkey of the Race- Australia

[steveaki13]

Here we go again.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Macca - bog last. That's atrocious

[Robinho]

Nah, Button driver of the race for getting a car that's never done more than 20 consecutive laps, to the finish.

[Tazio]

Kimi ;)

[longisland]

Ferrari pit crew on Kimi's left rear tire

[Tazio]

Excuses, excuses ;)

[steveaki13]

Donkeys:

F1 - For getting itself in the situation where even getting 18 cars onto the grid is hard and starting with 15.

Kimi's rear wheel man
Mclaren & Honda for a poor car thus far

Perez - Spent most of the race not able to pass above mentioned dog of a car.

[rjbetty]

Macca - bog last. That's atrocious

Thought you said Massa. Don't judge me - I've been working all night!

Renault. I can't decide who's worse between them and Honda. At least Honda is somewhat understandable, but Renault have apparently not added ANY power while having worse driveability! They also ruined Max's race. So wanted him to score points and I expected he would have today (before the weekend).

[Hawkmoon]

In the race, the Ferrari left rear guy.

Over the weekend it's a toss-up between the Sauber lawyers and McLaren.

[jens]

McLaren-Honda. Okay, they finished, but they are a long-long way behind cash-strapped teams like Sauber and Force India. There is really nothing to say.:)

[Tazio]

I'm changing my vote to..... Arnold:monkeedan

[steveaki13]

I'm changing my vote to..... Arnold:monkeedan

I'll be back......




in a while to see if you change your vote again. :D

[journeyman racer]

I was never really sure about the idea for this thread, and didn't even read it previously. But it hurts no one I guess.

Sergio Perez - In the absence of remembering blatant driving mistakes or any adversity suffered, was the last placed finisher in a MB powered car. Button was last, but had the adversity of a Honda engine.

[Rollo]

Ron Dennis.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117544
"We have had the same [discussions about livery] inside the team: all of these people were saying, why don't we make it orange - because that was the old colour of McLaren?
Well, I say, 'you just said it - it was the old colour of McLaren. Why the hell do we want to go backwards?"
- Ron Dennis, as quoted in Autosport, 1st Feb 2015.

Dear Ron...
You can't go any further backwards than stone motherless last. Having one car poop itself before the race even began and the other car which produced bad lap times in comparison to even 20 years ago and in the rain, ought to say something.

Mercedes and Force India which both look like derivatives of McLaren liveries in the past, both went faster. Your one car looked anonymous.

Love,
Rollo

PS: Even a retro Marlboro style livery would have brought some attention to the team.

[A FONDO]

Ferrari for everything happened to Kimi.

Perez and Erikson were very poor.

[ShiftingGears]

No drivers were really that bad. So I choose Renault, for producing another clunker of a power unit.

[TheFamousEccles]

Other than Rollo's little rant, it was a reasonably predictable outcome :D (I agree, BTW).

The Boss looks fast, no doubt at all! Between Niko and He was the difference between swatting and missing a mosquito...

Of all the Gin joints, in all the city's...

[Doc Austin]

Normally I would go with Pastor, but this time it wasn't his fault!

Formula One was the donkey of this race for reasons ranging from the Sauber court case to Botas getting injured when he didn't even hit anything, Mags blowing up on an installation lap, Manor ever even leaving the garages, and losing both Lotus before a single lap was over. We only had 13 cars on lap 2.

This is the pinnacle of motorsports?

[The Black Knight]

I'm going to go with my usual - Pastor Maldonado. Didn't do anything wrong today but he's still the biggest donkey on the grid.

Kimi for his altercations at first corner.

Sauber & Monisha Kaltenborn for being an embarrassment to themselves and F1.

[Doc Austin]

I'm going to go with my usual - Pastor Maldonado. Didn't do anything wrong today but he's still the biggest donkey on the grid.

Is it too early to give Pastor the donkey of the year award?


Kimi for his altercations at first corner.

Kimmi got bogged down when Vettel didn't leave him any room, after that everyone just sort of ran him over.


Sauber & Monisha Kaltenborn for being an embarrassment to themselves and F1.

I agree that Formula One should be above this kind of thing, though I am not sure who to blame. I am not sure Sauber had a choice considering their dire financial circumstances, and it's hard to blame VDG for wanting what he paid for. The courts are siding against Sauber, so in the end they look a bit silly for selling two cars to three drivers.

[keysersoze]

Button is the my donkey for his punk karting move on Sergio. Can't believe anyone could suggest he get a driver of the race vote for finishing (if anything, that goes to his team).

[truefan72]

Ferrari pit crew on Kimi's left rear tire

exactly!

[mr_swiss]

The courts are siding against Sauber, so in the end they look a bit silly for selling two cars to three drivers.

If they only had a 2 seater

[A FONDO]

Button is the my donkey for his punk karting move on Sergio. Can't believe anyone could suggest he get a driver of the race vote for finishing (if anything, that goes to his team).

The only one who didn't get any points today :D :D

[Doc Austin]

When you are happy with 11th place you are donkey of the race.

But wait........ there's more.

Maybe it's still Renault after all ...... Newey sees "no light at the end of the tunnel" with Renault (http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/newey-sees-no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-with-renault/?v=11&s=1)

If Renault won't even listen to Adrian Newey, they are going to be lost all year. This is worth watching because Red Bull was already making noise last year about building their own engines. I don't think that will quite happen because they don't have the resources or Mercedes and Honda, but I do think Red Bull could change engine suppliers. I think next year Honda would probably be more than willing to supply a quality team like Red Bull.

[Doc Austin]

"The engine is just quite undriveable." Christian Horner

That just burns.

[Duncan]

1. Bernie Ecclestone for getting us into a situation where only 15 cars start
2. Ron Dennis for switching from Mercedes to Honda
3. Fernando Alonso for switching from Ferrari to McLaren

[Doc Austin]

1. Bernie Ecclestone for getting us into a situation where only 15 cars start

Worse, it could have been 13 if VDG had shut sauber down, and maybe even 11 cars if the king of good times had to actually pay his bills before he could go racing.

That, and the other McLaren or Red Bull could have blown up on the formation lap too.


2. Ron Dennis for switching from Mercedes to Honda

Ron will be ok. I don't think Honda will suck for long. Over the course of two days they went from running 12 laps at time to completing an entire race. They will figure out what went right and make it happen again.


3. Fernando Alonso for switching from Ferrari to McLaren

This guy can't get a break.

[dj_bytedisaster]

This guy can't get a break.

I think Fernando has nobody else to blame but himself. It's not like he went to McLaren because he wanted to be there. The fallout with Ferrari was entirely his own doing and thus he manoeuvred himself into a position where he was left wit sabbatical vs McLaren as the only choice.

[dj_bytedisaster]

Before I forget. An honourary donkey should go to Sky UK, who incessantly blathered on about Kimi being bumped by Seb, when the Finn himself had already said he didn't touch with Seb, but was hit from behind. (Sainz) That post-race interview by whoever that chick is, just smacked of desperation to incite a RAI/VET spat. Obviously in their world the idea that two people can race each other hard and still get along doesn't compute in their world.

[anfield5]

McLaren and Red Bull for failing to get 1/2 of their drivers around the parade lap. Ferrari wheel man (poor guy will be at the dole office this morning - hope he can swim, because it is a long long way home). Chris Horner for whinging and whining simply because it is not RBR that are the dominant force. Maldonado (yeah I know it wasn't his fault) for not getting past turn 2 before he made friends with the wall

[airshifter]

Before I forget. An honourary donkey should go to Sky UK, who incessantly blathered on about Kimi being bumped by Seb, when the Finn himself had already said he didn't touch with Seb, but was hit from behind. (Sainz) That post-race interview by whoever that chick is, just smacked of desperation to incite a RAI/VET spat. Obviously in their world the idea that two people can race each other hard and still get along doesn't compute in their world.

You must have a really short memory. She's not the only one that said it was Kimi's fault. Bravo!


Wrong. It was Kimi


He had to slow down into corner 1 and then touched Nasr's Sauber which then cluttered into Maldonado's back


Yes Kimi touched Sainz, when Sainz hit him in the back end. And Kimi was at the track edge he and Nasr steered into each other, because Pastor was steering into Nasr. You were pretty quick to pass judgement when you thought Seb was being brought into question, when in reality at best it was the "fault" of 3 or 4 drivers.

Having watched it from several angles in slow motion now, it really all started when Massa checked up for no apparent reason. That made Kimi check up and run side by side with Seb, Sainz didn't check up and almost pushed Kimi off track. Sainz escaped with Nasr ended up a sandwich, as much Pastors fault as his own. Short of going off track, Kimi had no where else to go, and people aren't required to go off track to allow a pass.

[rjbetty]

I think Fernando has nobody else to blame but himself. It's not like he went to McLaren because he wanted to be there. The fallout with Ferrari was entirely his own doing and thus he manoeuvred himself into a position where he was left wit sabbatical vs McLaren as the only choice.

Well I think the fallout was Ferrari's doing. They let him down rather than the other way around. I don't like hearing that Fernando threw titles away as though he had an equal car with the best. The way I see it, he was actually very patient but their incompetence, and going from bad to worse, in the end, even wore him down a bit. It's not like he screamed and shouted to anyone who would listen: More that on a few occasions a little bit of understandable frustration leaked over the edge.

It was amazing he was in a position to take the title in the first place, as without him, 5th in the WDC would have been the best they ever got in those years.

I think your view is kinda harsh imo.

[Doc Austin]

I think Ferrari fired all of those people because they could not give Fernando a good enough car to keep him. One can hardly blame Fernando for wanting to drive something competitive.

Having said that, if McLaren can't turn it around soon I expect another falling out between him and Dennis. I can't see Alonso putting up with the kind of weekend Button just had.

[N. Jones]

The former Ferrari front jack man/pit lane red light/green light operator. Somebody is out of a job!

[jens]

Sergio Perez - In the absence of remembering blatant driving mistakes or any adversity suffered, was the last placed finisher in a MB powered car. Button was last, but had the adversity of a Honda engine.

Pérez yeah. For half a race he was wandering behind McLaren. Couldn't understand, what he was doing there. Though I didn't recognize, why didn't he have straightline speed to just breeze past Honda with his Mercedes power unit.

Talking about longer implications, Pérez' career could be under threat this year. Every year there are drivers, who come and go. Both Hulk and Pérez have been around for a few years and especially if car performance (FI) is not that great either, they fall a bit under the radar. And for a driver, who happens to lose the team-mate battle, it will be really hard to keep himself on the grid. So unfortunately that's the situation for Sergio now.

[jens]

2. Ron Dennis for switching from Mercedes to Honda
3. Fernando Alonso for switching from Ferrari to McLaren

Ron Dennis may not have had much of a chance as McLaren didn't have title sponsorship and as a customer team of Mercedes was in danger of becoming another struggling midfield team with lack of funds.

At least Honda gives them lots of money, even if not outright performance... Though who knows, what is better long-term. Because if you are nowhere, it further damages your image even if you currently do not have financial problems...

[Doc Austin]

The way Magnussen's car lurched when it spit chunks of motor out the back suggests the problem is not entirely with McLaren!

[kfzmeister]

Perez