F1 Rejects
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Formula One Rejects (F1 Rejects) is a Formula One website dedicated to, statistically, the worst drivers and teams in Formula One history. It features over 100 driver profiles and over 15 teams who set standards for mediocrity in F1 with their results. All one has to do to escape eligibility from being a "F1 Reject" is to either:
- Score a 1st through 4th place finish, or
- One 5th and another top-6 result, or three or more 6th places.
Although there is an "un-written rule" in the criteria which was addressed during the "Off-season" podcast, January 21, 2007, where a listener of F1 Rejects asked why drivers who had lost their lives while driving a Formula One car and were eligible for Reject status, Roger Williamson and Tony Brise for example, were not listed on the "Rejects drivers" page. This would explain why an article on Roland Ratzenberger is in the "Reject Centrale" section instead.
The site was created in 1999 by Australians Jamie McGregor, the site's webmaster, and Enoch Law, the "Senior Grand Prix Analyst", who is the author of most of the material on the site.
Contents |
[edit] Focus on Current F1
The site features a page called Reject Centrale, which is home to the reviews of the last Grand Prix held and every Grand Prix held since the beginning of the 2000 season. There are also feature articles, which either the site author or webmaster has created. Later on the page there are submitted articles from readers of the website.
At the beginning and end of the year, F1 Rejects does both an F1 season preview and review. The season preview is a team-by-team synopsis of their predictions for the season, while the season review offers thoughts and driver-by-driver summaries, with the bottom three-ranked drivers completing that year's "Reject Podium" (see Reject of the Year).
[edit] Reject of the Race
This award was created after the 2000 French Grand Prix. On the last corner of the circuit, Benetton driver Alexander Wurz made a move on the inside of Jean Alesi's Prost, and ran out of track into the gravel trap. His maneuver led to the birth of "Reject of the Race". This "award" has been given out to many drivers, teams, tyres, even engines (2006 Japanese Grand Prix - Schumacher's engine) and inanimate objects, the latter happening at the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix.
[edit] Reject of the Year
In each year's season review, the three bottom-ranked drivers complete the Reject Podium. The driver who, by a combination of poor results, a lack of outright speed, and failure to meet expectations will likely be crowned that year's Reject of the Year.
[edit] F1 Rejects Podcasts
Since August 4, 2005, F1 Rejects have been broadcasting podcasts, where McGregor and Law sit down and had a chat about the latest Grand Prix. Topics of discussion have included the latest news in F1, "Great Moments in F1 Punditry", where a clip of some "reject-worthy" moment is played, the most popular being quotes from James Hunt, and a bit of history about the Grand Prix.
[edit] Praise and Criticisms
F1 Rejects is well known within the world of F1 fans on the internet. The site has been praised for its humorous and critical profiling of drivers. The site has been praised for looking at their drivers in a non malicious manner.
Many drivers and teams with short careers in the sport have lengthy profiles on the site. Profiles are very informative, and contain facts about the driver or teams career prior to F1, and after (if known). The site has been praised for its high level of knowledge and research used to find details on relatively obscure drivers.
At the A1 Grand Prix meeting at Eastern Creek, Australia in November 2005, the site managed to arrange an interview with "rejects" Andrea Montermini and Alex Yoong.
The site has been accused of Schadenfreude by some critics. However, supporters of the site dispute this, stating that F1 Rejects gives praise to drivers who large fanbases have viewed as poor. An example of this is Alex Yoong, who whilst being slower than teammates Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber and being in F1 purely down to wealthy backing, has been viewed with lots of sympathy from F1 Rejects due to his circumstances with Minardi during this period.
Similarly, F1 Rejects have been accused of several driver biases, notably against Juan Pablo Montoya, Giancarlo Fisichella, and Ralf Schumacher. However, supporters state that these so-called "biases" are merely reflecting their disappointment on the driver underperforming, rather than being outright critical of them. In their podcast for the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix, both Jamie and Enoch decided to respond to these criticisms by highlighting some of Ralf Schumacher's best races, such as the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix. Similarly, the site authors nominated themselves for their "Reject of the Race" award after Giancarlo Fisichella's impressive drive to third in the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix, reflecting the good natured humour of the website.[1]
[edit] Publicocrapometer
F1 Rejects have also produced the Publicocrapometer. It is an imaginary machine that alerts people to 'publicocrap', their term for media statements from drivers and teams which are overblown and publicity-seeking. However it completely failed when it highlighted Honda Racing F1 repeatedly in 2006 when they claimed they'd win a Grand Prix, only for Jenson Button to win the Hungarian Grand Prix.
[edit] Emails
The site relies on emails from listeners with Jamie saying where the Emailer is from, with Enoch saying G'Day whoever.
[edit] Campaigns
Another feature of F1 Rejects' podcasts are their 'campaigns' for lost causes. They have attempted to drum up support for the return of Hungarian driver Zsolt Baumgartner to F1, mentioning him as often as possible, to the point where they now refer to him only as 'HWNSNBM' ('He Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned').
Recently, they have also been extensively promoting for a Grand Prix to take place in Vanuatu. However, the chances of this taking place seem remote.
[edit] Related Links
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ F1 Rejects -> Review of 2001 Begian GP F1 Rejects.com. Retrieved 13 November 2006
