F1 Race Report Key

For each race of an F1 Season I report on the following topics:

Race Direction: Starting from the 2011 German Grand Prix, I will now on rate the Race Direction of the TV broadcast on a six level scale ranging in Awful – Piss Poor – Poor – Okay – Good – Excellent. Explanations below:

• Okay – The race director picks up all the yellow-flag and most of the pit-stops.
• Good – In addition to the Okay-qualifications, the race-director manages to focus on events of relevant interest most of the time, either on live footage or in replays
• Excellent – In addition to the Okay and Good-qualifications, the race director finds a balance between following drivers in the front group, the middle group and even the back of the lot. In other words, a balanced view of the entire race.
• Poor – The race director misses most of the pit-stops and multiple yellow-flags without using Replay.
• Piss Poor – In addition to the poor-qualifications, the race director misses other key events on track, including retirements and overtakes.
• Awful – Thankfully very rare, in addition to the Poor and Piss Poor-qualifications, the race director only stays focused on a small group of three to two cars for much of the race.

The Top 10 – Pretty self-explanatory. Here I essentially list the Top-10 ranked drivers and tell just how they performed over-all.

The Golden Pineapple Award - The Golden Pineapple, coined by Keke Rosberg, refers to the highest standing a driver can have without receiving any Championship Points. In the current scoring system this  means 11th place. The Golden Pineapple is a sort of “Too Bad & Better Luck Next Time” sort of deal. At the end of the season a Pineapple King will be crowned based who landed 11th in races the most.

Drop-out count – This is where I essentially add up all the retirements and explain what happened to each driver.

Back of the Lot news – Last season I used this section at the end of each race report to report on the progress of the new teams (Lotus, Virgin and HRT) . However from this season onward I’ll report on whichever drivers and teams started from the back of the lot and how their race performance improved or got worse as the race went on.

Just like last year, I’ll be making a ranking of all the races of the season based on how exciting I thought they were. See 2011′s ranking list here.