1957 Season Rules

# **F1 Revisited – 1957**

For the 1st time in several seasons the title was decided before the final round, as Gerard capped his return to the F1R series with a dominant 3rd title to his name. With the Teams Championship coming in next season, mechanics are now replaced by team principals who will be responsible for making your car as powerful and fast as possible! Nevertheless, 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!

Massive thanks to Jon MacLean for all his continued support with this game; it is he who is the mastermind behind most of the Google Doc scripts etc that the game uses!

## Game Play

Each “race weekend” will consist of a single qualifying session and the race. For each qualifying lap you will input a set of instructions about how to take each corner (what gear, how late to brake, what risk to use), on your own personal Google Doc spreadsheet, meaning you can do your qualifying laps whenever you like!

With no mechanics, you will now get feedback on your own spreadsheet for each lap. You can of course change your approach lap by lap to improve your time, but you must run 1 lap at a time. Qualifying is run as one continuous session, so you will simply have a car with enough fuel to do the entire session – as a result you wont ever alter your fuel amount in qualifying, though you may pit to repair damage to the car.

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, risk levels etc done using a Google Form you will have the link to.

You will 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 will be allowed, just FYI (one of the few differences between F1R and F1!).

## **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.

***Qualifying***

Here is an example of how your spreadsheet will look:

Please note that instructions are included there, plus of course your team-mates and I will be able to help you with anything that isn’t immediately apparent.

***Race***

Please see the link to a generic race form you would submit – these instructions are then inputted to a spreadsheet and from there I generate the race. The form to submit looks something like this:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Dnu3BVk9F-5qmTpckmEC6BxqFhBb5MUTpzPpO0mOKuk/viewform

## **Team Principals**

This season sees the introduction of the Team Principal role – these people are responsible for the running of the 7 F1R teams. Those at the top of the all-time Drivers’ points table were given 1st choice of which team they want to manage (if indeed they do want to manage a team), and are as follows:

* Ferrari – Tim-Oliver Wagner
* Maserati – John Ibbotson
* Vanwall – Mike Baston
* BRM – Janne Väänänen
* Cooper – Finn Shaw-McIver
* Connaught – Mark Witney
* Porsche – Noel McAvena

More information on the ins and outs of their roles/responsibilities can be found in their own separate thread here:

Team Principals

## **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 ’57 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.

Initial driver confirmations have already been completed by PM. Now [u]ALL DRIVERS[/u] in the game will agree their salaries with the Team Principal (these are real GPRO players as per the above list), and both should send me a copy of the contract filled in identically:

* Driver Name –
* Team Name –
* Contract Length – X years
* Signing Bonus – £X
* Salary – £X
* Contribution (the amount the driver is going to give towards the team’s development) – £X

Previous drivers still in use 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 1958 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 1958 driver.

Drivers have been allocated in order of championship position last season, and now on a 1st come 1st served basis to new players once joining starts. There is no competitive advantage to be gained between drivers, aside from the driver multiplier.

## 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 initially (overall the field will be quite evenly matched). That said manufacturer upgrades will become available based on how accurate your car is setup, so even the worst car on the grid can achieve performance upgrades if the players do well.

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 be permitted to stay on if it did not compete in the next season. Team choices will be down to the team principals to agree with the drivers; each team has the same multiplier limit so some of the top teams may take a punt on a brand new driver (this is to try and ensure even competition).

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)**

* BRM – BRM – P25 (4)
* Connaught – Alta – B Type (4)
* Cooper – Climax – T43 (4)
* Ferrari – Ferrari – 801 (4)
* Maserati – Maserati – 250F (4)
* Porsche – Porsche – RS550 (4)
* Vanwall – Vanwall – VW5 (4)

This means that a total of 43 drivers can compete in this 6th season, although initially only 28 will be offered contracts.

## **Money**

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

**Contribution**

At any point you can give some of your money (if you have a positive financial balance) to your team to support the development of the car. For every £1,000 you give you will get a 0.01 bonus to your multiplier.

**Multiplier Boosts**

Every driver has a multiplier figure, which is based on their experience in F1R. However you can boost this figure in the short-term by purchasing some of the following improvements:

**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 quicker at that track. 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. You may have more than 1 house, but this will dilute your multiplier by the amount of houses you own.

**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. Dual citizenship is a possibility too.

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

* Driver –
* Any other information you want to give to appeal to the Team Principals –

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. I do welcome feedback to improve the game moving forwards.

## **New Season Changes**

Some things to look out for:

1. Driver multiplier effect muted slightly again – They will still have an impact, but not such a big one
2. Team Principals are now part of the game – see their dedicated thread for more details
3. No more mechanics, as this will now be a game function for the team principal to control, meaning you’ll have feedback on your own Google Docs
4. The “performance upgrades” you get for having an accurate setup, will be converted into money rather than direct upgrades – so it’ll be down to your Team Principal to spend that money effectively