2012 Donkey of the year

[dj_bytedisaster]

We have a donkey thread after every race, but so far hadn't one for the season. Here's my nominations:

Teams

1. Mercedes GP
How you go from winning a race to scrapping with the Torro Rosso's in one season will forever be a mystery. Not even Toyota managed such a display of ineptitude.

2. Caterham
Hyped themselves at the start of the season and babbled about scoring point only to need blind luck in a chaotic race to beat a KERS-less underpowered Marussia.

3. Torro Rosso
Ridiculously slow despite having enough expertise to draw from by being the sister team of Red Bull. No wonder they had to jump out of the way in the deciding races, they were too slow to be anything but a moving chicane anyway.

Drivers

1. Michael Schumacher
Despite glimpses of former glory (Valencia, Monaco, Brazil) just being "Bad Luck Brian" all year and the less said about the stupid shunts, the better.

2. Romain Grosjean
Blindingly quick, but also blind as a bat. Way too many shunts to justify his second chance in F1. It's been a while since someone drove so recklessly to get banned for a race.

3. Narain Karthikeyan
Did nothing to prove he earned a place in F1. Got in the way of people way too often and rarely was on par or even better than an aging de la Rosa.

Others

1. Twitter
The perfect place to make F1 drivers look silly.

2. Spanish Tabloids
Taking 'sore loser' to a whole new level.

3. Race Control
Ridiculous exploitable gearbox penalties and convoluted rules with Flags, trackside lights and cockpit indicators confusing the heck out of viewers. Someone bash some sense into these people

[rjbetty]

I guess this is the motorsportforums version of f1 rejects of the year.

Here goes:

Drivers:
3rd - Kamui Kobayashi - Got 1 podium in a car that was probably better than the Ferrari. Not really good enough.
2nd - Felipe Massa - Would totally have won the whole thing if it wasn't for a return to 2008ish form at the end of the season.
1st - Bruno Senna - Sad to say, while not being amazing was to be expected in the situation, it would have been nice to be some potential, one or two brilliant performances, not merely good ones. I'd say Bruno is currently on exactly the level of Vitantonio Liuzzi. He should get better if he joins Caterham.

Teams:
3.Caterham - Were not far enough ahead of Marussia despite better drivers, KERS, a Renault engine, and more resources. Stagnated. No points.
2.Ferrari - Clear winners (of this) early on, but at least they developed and improved things quite a bit.
1.Mercedes - Despite easily the best form of their 3 years in the first half of the season, including 2 poles, a race win and a fastest lap, fell away embarrassingly, and don't look like challenging for the title soon. They seem a bit hapless...

Other
3.Hermann Tilke: Well you did pretty well at Austin, but your tracks SUCK, they are boring, and they are ALL THE SAME!
2.Lack of Live races on BBC. BBC replacing James Allen with Jonathan Legard, who I don't mind, but I always smile when I hear that James is on. It's funny how times change, that now I find his voice somehow familiar and 'comforting' in a similar way that Murray's used to be. In retrospect, James didn't really deserve all the cr@p people gave him. I think he's come quite a long way.
1.Dr. Helmut Marko: Cos he just is. Come to think of it, the Red Bull top staff in general.

OVERALL MOST MASSIVE REJECT/DONKEY EVER:

The time is arriving, and is already here, that wet races are being stopped, for safety reasons... (in all seriousness, I suppose that is reasonable...)
In equal first place, all the tarmac run offs that drivers go off onto and then straight back onto the track - In the 90's and before, that would have been instant retirement. It's too easy and XBoxey now. It makes me sick to the core, and THIS is the main reason why Caterham etc haven't got the points people demand from them, because the ones in front get away with blue murder.

Super duper reliable cars, which are great for team bosses, but for us take away a large part of the drama and romanticism of racing, and give F1 a PS2 feel. Maybe it's just a sign of the times, and I gotta get with it. I DO think F1 is better now than it used to be. I was watching a 1996 race on youtube and though you had retirements then, it was actually to be fair, no more unpredictable; and actually, the time gaps were so big and boring! It's funny to think that Caterham this year were actually on about the same level as the Tyrrells were to their leaders (Adrian Newey Renault engined cars with a main sponsor who's product is known for their harmfulness to the human body!) in 1996, yet Tyrrell and their respected Finnish lead driver scored 5pts and 3 top 6 finishes.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I guess this is the motorsportforums version of f1 rejects of the year.

I used to frequent that site quite often, but they stopped the brilliant race reviews Too bad, they were my favourite F1 site for many years

[rjbetty]

I used to frequent that site quite often, but they stopped the brilliant race reviews Too bad, they were my favourite F1 site for many years

Yeah they must be busy these days... Yeah they are really good, and it's always very interesting to read what they have to say. Surely they will still do the season rundown of drivers and teams (though they didn't for 2008!)

[zako85]

2. Caterham
Hyped themselves at the start of the season and babbled about scoring point only to need blind luck in a chaotic race to beat a KERS-less underpowered Marussia.

You forget that if Button didn't ram Kovalalien in Monaco, like a donkey of donkeys, Kovalalien could have finished 11ths or 10th in that race (I don't remember his exact position at the incident). If this incident didn't happen, Glock's 12th place finish in Singapore wouldn't have put Marussia in 10th WCC position to being with. My point is that Caterham is not in 10th place just by luck. They were faster through most of season. However, you can still argue that they are a donkey. Indeed, with a Renaut engine and KERS, ex-ante I thought that competition with Marussia will not be so tight as it was.

3. Torro Rosso
Ridiculously slow despite having enough expertise to draw from by being the sister team of Red Bull. No wonder they had to jump out of the way in the deciding races, they were too slow to be anything but a moving chicane anyway.

STR was slow, but I wouldn't be harsh on them because of this. STR's primary aspiration is to be a driver farm on a low budget. Beating other cars is probably a secondary objective. Their drivers, staff, and budget can't competitive with most teams by design IMHO. Sharing drivetrain with other teams is not very important. Chassis and its aero kit is the real key to being fast.

[zako85]

Here is my list of donkey teams:

1. Williams showed everyone how to have a fast car but finish only 8th in WCC, ahead of just one solid midfield team, the Scuderia Toro Rosso (itself an honorable mention donkey). It's scandalous that a team of Williams's caliber went with two relatively fresh pay drivers. They reaped what they sowed.

2. Mercedes. I hope that the only explanation for lack of speed in the second half of season is that the team completely stopped developing its 2012 car. Still, writing off a season seems unsporting and disappointing to the fans of Schumacher and Rosberg.

3. HRT. The team's primary purpose was to create obstacles for other cars to go around. Even their livery was hideous.

Drivers:

1. Grosjean

2. Senna and Maldonado

[Knock-on]

Driver - Grosjean wins overall with his spatial awareness. He must have been a woman in a former life.

Massa sved himself when threatened with the sack by some solid races and The Pastor was a little better later in the season but I can forgive him lots with his balls out style of driving.

Schumy had some good drives but was too slow and kept falling asleep and crashing in too many others

Car - McLaren Mercedes take the biscuit. 2 Chamionships(Kimi and Lewis) have been thrown away in the last decade with with poor reliability. OK, a few mistakes in pits didn't help and it can be argued poor strategy decisions but you can't keep throwing away clear wins like they did.

Overall Package - STR. They have been MIA all year. Good car, reasonable engine, supposedly good drivers but have been frankly woefull. I need to give a mention to Mercedes who ran them close but I think the drivers haven't shown how good that car was this year. Next year will prove me right or wrong with the respective positions of Lewis and Nico.

Special mention to the FIA. Please just enforce the effing rules. Don't just let a favoured team get away with it until it's proved they're cheating and then politely ask them to stop being cheeky. I know this is business and not sport but come on, it's getting silly now.

[F1boat]

Drivers - Grosjean, Karthikeyan, Maldonado
Teams - HRT, Mercedes

[yodasarmpit]

Massa - Only performed when it looked like Di Resta was getting his seat.
&
Di Resta - Stopped performing once he thought he had Massa's seat.

[IceWizard]

Drivers

3) Di Resta - Pace seemed to drop off towards end of season and sometimes outclassed by Hulkenberg
2) Massa - the opposite to Di Resta and only saved from being my number one by pace in last few races
1) Grosjean - the crashes speak for themselves

Teams
3) Caterham - Failure to get out of bottom three or score a point despite decent drivers and a Renault engine
2) Mercedes - from hero to zero and such a shame they couldn't give Shuey a car to win some races in his final season
1) Torro Rosso - Another season of anonymity for the Torro Rosso driver merry go round