1954 Season Rules

# **F1 Revisited – 1954**

Last season saw Ferrari dominate and Bob Gerard take the crown, but with new engine regulations in place for 1954 and several new manufacturers including Mercedes and Lancia now involved who will take the spoils this time? A smooth driving style, with timely gear changes, well-marked braking points, a feel for the changing track conditions and the best strategy should ultimately come out on top this time around…plus, manage your money well and spend it wisely to ensure you are in the best position for next season!

## Game Play

Each “race weekend” will consist of 2 qualifying sessions (with just the best lap time from either being counted) and the race. For each qualifying lap you will submit a set of instructions about how to take each corner (what gear, how late to brake), your fuel and risk level – HOWEVER in the biggest change yet these will now be submitted via Google Docs in a “buddy system,” meaning you can do your qualifying laps whenever you like!

The telemetry you receive back will be non-existent UNLESS your mechanic is watching on (meaning co-ordination with these people will be vital!) In order to assist you somewhat a baseline time will be given, which will be based on a car braking early and taking all corners in 1st gear (just for reference). You can of course change your approach lap by lap to improve your time, but you must run 1 lap at a time – meaning fuel consumption will be worked out by a report at the end of qualifying delivered by PM.

Once qualifying is wrapped up the grid will be determined and you can then submit your instructions for the race itself. Again, these will be in the form of braking distance, gear selection and risk levels. The choices for risks are as follows:

* On The Edge – MOST RISK
* Adventurous
* Some
* Conservative
* None – LEAST RISK

You will of course also pre-determine your pit strategy, but should your car become damaged during the race this may be fatal and lead to a retirement so it is good to push the limits of your setup, but not to exceed them. No car-sharing this season will be allowed, just FYI.

Each 1 hour long session will last for 2.5 days with a break on Saturday to send in race instructions and Sunday being the race day, meaning that a race weekend will take just 1 week.

## **The Instructions**

For each corner you need to submit a gear from the pre-allocated range your car has, and a braking point that should be from 0m up to around 250m or so. The more you push in a lap the better the chance of a good lap time, but equally the more chance of you making a mistake.

The way the driver is taking the circuit is to have a quite heavy braking 1st corner, a relatively high speed 2nd corner then a flat out turn 3 and a medium braking 4th corner. This would have produced a reasonable lap time for the driver in all likelihood depending on what speed it’s best to take the corners at. The driver has chosen Dry tyres, as opposed to Rain tyres as there is no rain now…make sure you are on the right tyres at all times possible! He has chosen to put 20 Litres of fuel in the car and use a medium level of risk, which either his mechanic or the post-session report will reveal how good a decision this is.

***Buddy System***

As you can see from the above example even though the 1 has been placed to submit the lap no lap-time is shown; this is because each Google Doc can only work with 2 separate people on it (one on the actual qualifying screen, the other in the viewing gallery). The instructions on each doc should make it clear enough as to what you both need to do in order for the laps to count.

You can buddy up with anyone who is NOT:

a) On your team

b) Your mechanic

I will always be an option for you to buddy up with, and it is possible to nominate more than 1 person to buddy up with too.

***Race***

Here is an example of a submitted form for a generic short track.

Dry Setup

* Corner 1 – 1st, 120m
* Corner 2 – 4th, 30m
* Corner 3 – 5th, Flat
* Corner 4 – 3rd, 80m

(Optional) Wet Setup

* Corner 1 – 1st, 200m
* Corner 2 – 3rd, 50m
* Corner 3 – 3rd, 20m
* Corner 4 – 2nd, 120m

* Start – On The Edge
* Pits – 1 stop (Lap 10/20)

* Risk Stint 1 – Some (Dry)
* Risk Stint 2 – Adventurous (Rain)
* Fuel Stint 1 – 50 Litres
* Fuel Stint 2 – 50 Litres

* Pit for car damage – Yes
* If Yes – Wait for 5 laps

In the race you can see the driver goes for a very risky start, then is more confident in turn 1 but more cautious in turn 2. Starting out with a lower level of risk for the race means the driver holds up some rivals, and with an adventurous level of risk thereafter (with Rain tyres on for the impending rain shower) he is endeavouring to improve upon what was likely to be a quite poor grid slot after being so conservative in qualifying and a 1 stop strategy halfway through the race should suffice to see this driver to a good result.

His fuel strategy is evenly weighted and if he has uncovered from qualifying the fuel consumption he should have a good idea if this will last or not. It’s also worth noting that if this driver’s car is damaged he will wait for 5 laps to pit, so if the car were to be damaged 3 laps before the end of the race he would stay out on track.

## **The Driver Allocation**

Drivers who competed last season will be allocated to the same people as before, as long as either a) the driver or b) the person did not retire before the ’54 season. These drivers are fixed and cannot be changed until the driver actually retires from Formula 1. The only exception is the winning driver from the previous season, who will always return to defend their title.

Those who competed in and finished last season will be contacted with a contract offer from whichever team(s) are interested in them; some teams will be focused on budget and the money you bring with you will be an incentive (explained later on), others may focus entirely on talent…if they expect any sort of contribution from you this will be included in their initial offer. These drivers are shown here:

If you are new to the game, or if you or your driver dropped out from last season then you will need to select a new driver from the list of available drivers below (note, the Indy 500 representatives are not permitted):

You will represent the same driver in the following years and cannot ditch him until he retires, so if you have your eye on someone who started racing in 1955 it is advisable to choose a driver who did not compete in that season – though winning the whole thing would of course prevent you from using said 1955 driver.

Drivers will be allocated on a 1st come 1st served basis and there is no competitive advantage to be gained between them.

## **The Teams**

As in real F1 the chassis you have under you is crucial and the actual performance of each will vary, though only in as much as the top speed and gears available (overall the field will be quite evenly matched). You cannot change teams during a season, though you are not tied in to the same team for future seasons…also a winning constructor will not be permitted to stay on if it did not compete in the next season until we reach the 1958 season. Like with drivers the teams are chosen on a 1st come 1st served basis.

The full list of competing cars is here, with the + amount of entries referring to the maximum possible for each team…bear in mind the team may decide not to fill all these spots initially.

**Entrant – Chassis (No. of driver spaces)**

* Connaught – ‘B’ Type (5 spaces)
* Cooper – T24 (3 spaces)
* Ferrari – 625 (5 spaces)
* Gordini – 16 (4 spaces)
* HWM – 53 (2 spaces)
* Klenk – Meteor (2 spaces)
* Lancia – D50 (3 spaces)
* Maserati – 250F (6 spaces)
* Mercedes-Benz – W196 (4 spaces)
* Vanwall – Special (2 spaces)

This means that a total of 54 drivers can compete in this 5th season, although initially only 36 will be offered contracts.

## **Money**

There are several things that money can be used to purchase, as follows:

**Mechanics**

These men-in-overalls will be what decide how quick your pit-times are, and as such they are a much valued commodity in F1 Revisited; there are 2 main options for you here:

1. Use the F1R supplied pit-crew team, who will perform quite well but give no additional insight into the conditions and neither will they ever be particularly quick. To be frank it’s more than their jobs worth, but they are at least quite cheap to hire at £30 per race.
2. Contract a trained mechanic as volunteered in the mechanics thread (this can be anyone on GPRO - link to the thread to come once it has been set up); these mechanics will usually be far quicker than the F1R pit crew and help you with weather warnings for qualifying and the race, but as they are more human who knows when they will have an off day as they are people just like you! Their contract terms are negotiable between you and them but with minimum wage and legislation in place the minimum they can cost is £50 per race.

**Homes**

You can live anywhere in the world that you want to …if you can afford it. To buy a house in a country other than that of your birth will cost a premium, but will allow you to test on that track between races so when the Grand Prix circus finally shows up to town you will be prepared enough to have a heads up on some of the braking points. Simply send a PM with the words “Quote on a house in COUNTRY NAME(S)” and I will respond with the relevant prices to do so.

**Citizenship**

A long and drawn out 5 year process, but you can change the country you represent by living there for 5 years in a row…this will allow drivers who may not have a home GP the chance to get the small speed boost that your favourite track affords you. Simply send a PM with the words “Apply for Citizenship” and your application will begin the long process of being put through.

To be clear then; racing at a track of your birth/that you are a citizen of will give you a small speed boost, whereas racing at a track you have a house near will give you an indication of the braking points.

**ALL DRIVERS should fill in the following simple form to join:**

* Driver Choice –
* Preferred Team –
* Mechanics – F1R Pit Crew / Own Pit Crew (Delete as Applicable)
* Preferred Buddy options –

(Team preference only taken into account where possible, though this will only have a minor influence on which teams offer which contracts)

PLEASE NOTE – Though all efforts have been made to make this historically accurate there is likely to be some departure, if I have made any errors regarding (for example) the gear a corner is to be taken at I can only apologise but let’s just say that your car handles differently to what you expect in situations like that!

## **New Season Changes**

Some things to look out for:

1. We’re working on Google Docs now!
2. The buddy system – you will be working as a pair with your mechanic to get the best time possible in qualification, whenever you want to do this!
3. No more car-sharing or multiple-lap runs in qualifying
4. Post-quali report gives you an idea of what to improve on in the next session, for those who don’t have mechanics giving them in-game commentary on this
5. Mechanics fuel-stops now done by a mini-game rather than mindless posting of TYRES and FUEL
6. Live updates on qualifying position – hopefully!
7. Races still the same for the moment…