F1 investigating technical fault after Kubica is voted Driver of the Day

2019 Austrian Grand Prix

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Formula 1 Management is investigating a technical fault with its Driver of the Day poll for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The poll was topped by Robert Kubica, who finished last of the 20 drivers, three laps down.

A Formula 1 spokesperson confirmed to RaceFans they encountered “a technical problem which is currently under investigation”

Kubica is listed as the winner of the poll on the official Formula 1 website, but the breakdown of how many votes each driver received has not yet been published.

The previous winners of the Driver of the Day poll this year include Austrian Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen (twice), Charles Leclerc (twice), Valtteri Bottas, Alexander Albon, Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris.

Kubica said he had a “difficult race” at the Red Bull Ring. “The pace was not there,” said the Williams driver.

“I gained a few positions on the opening lap, but then the handling was very bad. I tried to defend but it was so difficult to keep the cars behind. I am lacking overall grip and in these conditions when it is hot, when there is a lot of overheating and the tyres are suffering a lot, I am just sliding even more.”

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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49 comments on “F1 investigating technical fault after Kubica is voted Driver of the Day”

  1. 5 second time penalty to technical fault- giving Driver of the day to the wrong driver

    1. Perhaps the fans were anticipating post race penalties excluding all other 19 drivers from points and thus Robert getting top spot on the podium?

      Its hilariously farcical.

  2. Well Done, F1!

  3. Didn’t know 4chan was interested in the sport

  4. They were using the reverse grid software.

  5. Bruno Verrari
    1st July 2019, 15:18

    Idiots. Leave the poor guy in piece – he’s a fighter but should be a sim/test driver instead!

  6. They still haven’t revised its voting algorithm that categorized Dutch IP Address as spam.

    1. VPN baby!

  7. haha @keithcollantine wasn’t this why you had to introduce registration for polling to F1 fanatic way back in the day?

    https://www.racefans.net/2008/07/14/which-f1-drivers-do-you-like-poll/

    1. good point there @graham228221!

  8. F1 and IT, embarrasing combo.

  9. Is that the same “technical fault” that caused Racefans’ 2010 Overtake of the Year to go to a run-of-the-mill Kubica overtake at Valencia?

  10. Antonio (@frosty-jacks-racing-team)
    1st July 2019, 16:06

    Surely, you can only give driver of the day to the guy who takes a day to finish xD

  11. Well, Obama got the Nobel Peace Price..

    1. And?

      Learn to spell.

      1. Congratulations on never producing a typo.

    2. Nathan Brown
      2nd July 2019, 14:39

      How much was it?

  12. What a joke

  13. RocketTankski
    1st July 2019, 16:17

    Its a sympathy vote. It acknowledges Robert’s commitment and bravery at stepping into that Williams every race week.

    1. Exactly my thought haha. Seriously, I mean it’s somewhat heroic what he’s been doing. I myself wouldn’t be able to stand the embarrasment, if I was once a race winner and potential champion. In other sports, he would be competing in the paraolympics/disabled comps, so he’s doing quite well in that perspective. Why not give he the driver of the day for a race! Verstappen surely doen’t need it nor care about it.

  14. After Albon’s “achievement” (and several other with crashed cars and written off weekends) I lost all respect to and interest in this pseudo-representative and pseudo-meaning “poll”.

    Will not be surprised, if all previous results are deemed invalid (as I don’t believe for a second, that the underlying system was different in any if previous polls).

    1. BTW, do they want to investigate another F1 TV Amateur (because it can’t be considered PRO) outages?
      Again… for like 3rd or 4th rave in a row.

      This is probably the last month for me, will switch to Sky or stick to free option (my Country shows most races live on public channel).

  15. Josh (@canadianjosh)
    1st July 2019, 17:11

    What a joke in this day and age. F1 has a permanent gun pointed at its foot these days.

  16. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t a glitch, Kubica is massively popular and is supported in an incredibly fanatical (read slightly crazy) way. I wouldn’t be surprised if F1 find out that his fans just decided to vote for him en masse.

    Remember Rio Haryanto winning the first publicly voted driver of the day back in 2016? https://wtf1.com/post/rio-haryanto-driver-of-the-day/

  17. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t a glitch, Kubica is massively popular and his fans back him in a very “unique” way. I wouldn’t be surprised if F1 find out that his fans just decided to vote for him en masse. Remember Rio Haryanto “winning” the first publicly voted driver of the day back in 2016 despite retiring 17 laps into the race?

    1. Did that really happen? That’s great!

      1. It did indeed.

        He got a significantly higher number of votes than eventual winner Romain Grosjean (who scored points for Haas on their debut) but F1 decided to give it to Grosjean because F1 decided that “in the interest of fairness, multiple votes identified as originating from the same source were not counted”.

    2. I’m reminded of how Josh Wise was voted into the Nascar Cup All-Star race because the entire Dogecoin community got behind him, enraging every corporate Danica Patrick interest. It was glorious.

    3. Exactly lol @geemac
      I would call it banter

  18. Let him keep it. He might have had the drive of his life for all we know, we hardly see him on screen and when we do he’s just pulling over to the side

    1. Agreed. let him end his career now on a high and give the car to a younger man. Its was a nice try and very brave. But he is totally burned by George Russell.

  19. Stephen Higgins
    1st July 2019, 17:27

    At least there isn’t a World Championship point up for grabs.

    1. Don’t you ever tell that to Liberty

  20. Some people on Reddit had the idea of getting loads of people to vote Kubica for driver of the day for a laugh and once again its worked! they did it with Sirotkin at one stage too lol! so there isn’t anything ‘broken’ its just lots of users from another site voting. I find it funny in all honesty :D I bet those who came up with the idea are having a good laugh.

  21. There was definately something funny going on with the F1 /vote site. It didn’t load at first and when it did en I voted (for Sainz btw) it said I had voted for Kubica!
    Some jolers messed with it.

  22. Malcolm Smethurst
    1st July 2019, 19:24

    Perhaps they could have a look at our Leicester by-election result while they’re at it.

  23. They should keep it. We deserve some humor! Those votes are meaningless anyway, what’s wrong in making them something to laugh about?

  24. Isn’t somebody here still voting Max Chilton for DOTW?

  25. The organizer of polls like this don’t care if their survey is messed with by duplicate entries… some even mention that you can vote up to X times per day per person, so frankly it’s annoying to hear them basically
    Claiming they got hacked. NO, you left the voting open to encourage enthusiastic orange votes. It’s only a problem now because it’s poor Kubica, and obvious.

    It was a popularity contest since it began, and Kubica won, so kiss off that with “fixing it” now that they have pie on their face. Don’t change anything.

  26. I’m ok with Kubica getting Driver of the Day, if, and only if, he will take the award and RETIRE!

  27. The poll was topped by a Pole. So Robert cannot become Driver of the day 😂😂

  28. Hello, IT…did you try turning off and on?

  29. He deserves it, even if its a fluke.

    The guy is one of the greatest sporting legends for clawing his way back to F1, lapping close to the current F2 champion and one of its best rookies.

    And I don’t believe for a second he’s that much slower than Russell – couple of tenths on a bad day but 0.7-1 second? No way. I think the pathetic state of those cars is leading to his inconsistent times. Rumour has it Russell is getting priority with all updates…

  30. He has the best pit crew so he deserves it for the team.
    Can’t give it to VER as he choked the start. LEC doesn’t deserve it. Team Merc doesn’t. VET, no. Gasley absolutely not. Maybe the young Italian for finishing in the points.

  31. They should give a ” 5 Seconds Penalty” to the Poll System! Just like they are doing with the drivers!
    They are killing the sport!

  32. :D F1 got hacked… or rather bot spammed. Ha. Ha.

  33. What are they investigating – Russian interference? Seriously, as long as a poll is democratic, there’ll always be things like these where loonies take the day. See America right now.

Comments are closed.