Grand Prix Rejects

The year is 1950...
The powers that be have agreed upon the idea of a new Championship for Grand Prix racing, but some of the details are a little hazy. It currently has no name, no calendar. That is because you are going to help me name it: the first step along the road to me creating an entirely separate lore for Formula One. You guys helped my to name the series and decide on the calendar using this survey. Thank you all!

How does this work?
So how exactly am I planning to do this? Well, you may be familiar with Klon's F1 QuickSim over in the ASMF. I admire this approach because it pays more attention to all the fun of the off-season and far less to the absolute grind that is the simulation and presentation of individual races. So how do I plan to make this work?

• Detailed pre-season process: by running the pre-season in a very hands-on way, I am hoping to be able to have people's driver plans laid out quite clearly before the season. This will be true of all teams great and small, and will allow me to blast through the races as quickly as possible.
• Freedom, but within parameters: There won't be quite the usual freedom that is associated with some of these virtual series. Teams will be presented with a series of options specific to them, and asked to choose between those options. In time, the divergence from real events will allow teams in this universe to create their own distinct identities.
• No-frills race coverage: Now, I'm quite able to write extensive prose, but that's not what I'm looking to do with this series. Or at least, not all the time. This is very much a data-driven venture for me, so the races might be a little bald. This is an experiment so we'll see how it goes.
• Spreadsheets: You might have been starting to guess at this point, but I have many many spreadsheets to put to use with this series. Hopefully this should help to create quite an immersive world.
• Nothing to do with the canon: There's no need to worry about anything that has occurred in the canon; this has nothing to do with it. This will allow you to manage your teams in the manner you want to.

What do I do?
Well, first of all you will need to pick a team. There are many options available, including manufacturer teams and privateers. Here they are labelled either "crucial", "significant" or "peripheral". To explain what this means: I will not start the series at least until every crucial team has been claimed. There aren't that many of them, so this may well not take very long; teams labelled (sigificant) can become a big player with some skilled management, but are not currently expected to go out and crush anyone; finally, teams labelled as peripheral are not all that likely to do anything important.

You can claim one team that is either crucial or significant, and one team that is peripheral. And there are no rules against a crucial manufacturer favouring a peripheral privateer, if you can find a way to do it. If you would prefer two peripheral teams, or only one team, that is also an option. This side of things starts becoming more complicated in 1952.

• Alfa Romeo SpA (crucial) (Reject_Dom)
• Alta Cars (peripheral) (This Could Be You)
• Automobiles Talbot-Darracq (sigificant) (Dexter249)
• British Racing Motors (sigificant) (WaffleCat)
• Compagnia Industriale Sportiva Italia (peripheral) (Simtek)
• Cooper Car Company (sigificant) (This Could Be You)
• Ecurie Belge (peripheral) (Tommykl)
• Ecurie Espadon (peripheral) (Dexter249)
• Ecurie Francorchamps (peripheral) (WaffleCat)
• English Racing Automobiles (peripheral) (Iso Masa)
• Equipe Gordini (sigificant) (pi314159)
• Ecurie Rosier (peripheral) (CarloSpace)
• Hersham and Walton Motors (sigificant) (Iso Masa)
• Officine Alfieri Maserati (crucial) (Tommykl)
• Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili (peripheral) (Gertrand Bachot)
• Scuderia Achille Varzi (peripheral) (AustralianStig)
• Scuderia Ambrosiana (peripheral) (Bandon23)
• Scuderia Enrico Platé (sigificant) (takagi_for_the_win)
• Scuderia Ferrari (crucial) (Gertrand Bachot)
• Scuderia Inter (peripheral) (Pilot)
• Scuderia Milano (peripheral) (CarloSpace)

I don't expect all of these teams to be taken up; equally, if there's a team that is not on here who you think I may be missing, then please let me know.

How will you be simulating it all?
The answer is always spreadsheets.

I'm a little overwhelmed. What do I do?
Please feel free to sign up for the team(s) you want. Remember, no more than two teams, and no more than one of those can be crucial or sigificant. And if you have any questions about this, then post them in the thread.

If it’s alright I’ll take Scuderia Ferrari and Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili please.

I'll dive in. I'll take B.R.M. before they were good and the long-forgotten Ecurie Francorchamps. Let's take Ken Richardson and Charles de Tornaco to glory!

I'd like to take Equipe Gordini. No second team for now, but I might take one if any remain after the initial signup period.

This sounds quite fun. I'll take Maserati and Ecurie Belge, if that's at all possible!

I'll take Cooper and Alta please

I guess I'll take Alfa Romeo.

Talbot for me

World Championship of Drivers confirms seven-race calendar

Ahead of the 1950 season, the organisers of what will henceforth be known as the World Championship of Drivers have unveiled the season calendar for its inaugural season. Despite the best efforts of their organisers, no races outside of Europe have been credited with Championship status for this year. The calendar is thus:

1. British Grand Prix (Silverstone)
2. Monaco Grand Prix (Monaco)
3. Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps)
4. French Grand Prix (Reims-Gueux)
5. Dutch Grand Prix (Zandvoort)
6. German Grand Prix (Nurburgring)
7. Italian Grand Prix (Monza)

Additionally, the season's points system has been unveiled: with points being distributed from first to sixth position accordingly: 8-6-4-3-2-1, with drivers' best four results counting towards their Championship tally.

Let's try with HWM and English Racing Automobiiles please.

I'll take Scuderia Milano and try to do something significant with them.

I'll take a second team later if it looks like some will be left without management

Aislabie wrote:World Championship of Drivers confirms seven-race calendar

Ahead of the 1950 season, the organisers of what will henceforth be known as the World Championship of Drivers have unveiled the season calendar for its inaugural season. Despite the best efforts of their organisers, no races outside of Europe have been credited with Championship status for this year. The calendar is thus:

1. British Grand Prix (Silverstone)
2. Monaco Grand Prix (Monaco)
3. Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps)
4. French Grand Prix (Reims-Gueux)
5. Dutch Grand Prix (Zandvoort)
6. German Grand Prix (Nurburgring)
7. Italian Grand Prix (Monza)

Additionally, the season's points system has been unveiled: with points being distributed from first to sixth position accordingly: 8-6-4-3-2-1, with drivers' best four results counting towards their Championship tally.

Oh. But I have just filled in your questionnaire asking my opinion on this very important subject!

I would still like to take on Hersham and Walton Motors however.

dr-baker wrote:Oh. But I have just filled in your questionnaire asking my opinion on this very important subject!

I would still like to take on Hersham and Walton Motors however.

Sorry about that - I needed the results pretty quickly so that I could get started on the pre-season stuff. It's a pretty large amount of work that has to be done (as you'll see when I get to yours) which is why I decided to press on. I should have removed the link off the main post though - that's my bad.

Also, I'm sorry to say that HWM were taken a couple of posts above yours.

Depending on what you want to achieve, Cisitalia, Espadon and Platé would probably be the most fun of the teams that are left

Not surprisingly, I like the sound both of this series as a whole and its more laid-back approach to things. And, as it potentially involves one of my favourite "what if" racing car designs, I would like to take on Cisitalia and hope the money can be raised to put the 360 into action.

By the way, has my "multi-formula" proposal been taken into consideration, or would that cause too many headaches from the "gamemaster" end?

Simtek wrote:By the way, has my "multi-formula" proposal been taken into consideration, or would that cause too many headaches from the "gamemaster" end?

I'm definitely considering it - a lot will depend upon how well my financial model works. If the scaling is about right then I will probably stick with a single formula. If there is either too much money to go around or not enough (and I feel like it might be the latter) then I might exploit your multi-formula suggestion to redress the balance a bit!

The other thing to note is that this is actually a little bit complex from the player's point of view (you're really going to see what I mean when you get your PM for this in a day or two) so I'm unsure if multiple formulae would make it unwieldy to be part of.

You know what? I’m gonna nab Scuderia Enrico Platé here; I like the look of this series.

I'll take Scuderia Ambrosiana

Scuderia Inter for me please!

My apologies about the delay; once I hear back from Tommy about his Maserati plans I should be able to branch out and start seeing what everyone else plans to do.

I'll take Ecurie Rosier too if possible

I'll take the racing giant that is Scuderia Achille Varzi.

I guess I'll take Ecurie Rosier

An update to let you all know what's going on: I've sorted out the plans of five manufacturer teams ahead of the season. Alfa Romeo, Cisitalia, Ferrari, Maserati and Talbot-Lago are sorted.

I sent a message to Gordini also, but it appears to have been lost in the aether. Anyhow, I'll sort the rest of the manufacturers then it's onto the privateers.

Aislabie wrote:An update to let you all know what's going on: I've sorted out the plans of five manufacturer teams ahead of the season. Alfa Romeo, Cisitalia, Ferrari, Maserati and Talbot-Lago are sorted.

I sent a message to Gordini also, but it appears to have been lost in the aether. Anyhow, I'll sort the rest of the manufacturers then it's onto the privateers.

I checked both e-mail and private messages and I never received anything regarding Gordini.

pi314159 wrote:

Aislabie wrote:An update to let you all know what's going on: I've sorted out the plans of five manufacturer teams ahead of the season. Alfa Romeo, Cisitalia, Ferrari, Maserati and Talbot-Lago are sorted.

I sent a message to Gordini also, but it appears to have been lost in the aether. Anyhow, I'll sort the rest of the manufacturers then it's onto the privateers.

I checked both e-mail and private messages and I never received anything regarding Gordini.

Thank you! I will redraft it and then send it out with the next batch. There's currently a bit of an interlude going on because I'm in America visiting people