1951 Season Rules

# **F1 Revisited – 1951**

After a hard fought battle in 1950 (the inaugural F1R season) between Pietsch and de Graffenried the ’51 season promises further competition not only between these two, but also between the in-form man Gerrard and in all likelihood a few other drivers too. 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…

## 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), but you will not submit a risk level as it is assumed you will always push as hard as you can on these shorter stints with lower fuel levels.

The telemetry you receive back will be somewhat basic in that you will simply be given a lap time, information on your worst corner, best corner, weather outlook and a relevant comment from your crew chief too; you will then have to try and improve from there. 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 and even run more than one lap at a time if you wish.

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 and gear selection, but as in the race you may want to drive with a more steady rhythm you can determine how hard you want to push in each stint. You will of course also pre-determine your pit strategy, but should your car become damaged during the race you can make an emergency pit stop (decided by your pit crew in terms of what the best strategy for you at that point is) to fix the issue.

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 between 0m and 200m with Flat as an option if you do not want to brake. As for risks you have a choice of None, Conservative, Some, Adventurous and On The Edge. 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 a submitted form for a generic short track.

* Corner 1 – 2nd, 150m
* Corner 2 – 5th, 20m
* Corner 3 – 6th, Flat
* Corner 4 – 3rd, 80m

This circuit (presuming the driver is doing it correctly) has 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.

***Race***

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

* Corner 1 – 2nd, 120m
* Corner 2 – 5th, 30m
* Corner 3 – 6th, Flat
* Corner 4 – 3rd, 80m

Start – On The Edge

Pits – 1 stop (Lap 10/20)

* Risk Stint 1 – Some
* Risk Stint 2 – Adventurous

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 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.

## **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 ’51 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 1952 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 1952 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, braking distance 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 (differs slightly from history to allow for more players):

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

* Alfa Romeo - Alfa Romeo 159 (6 entries)
* Ferrari – Ferrari 375 (4 entries)
* Scuderia Ambrosiana – Maserati 4CLT-48 (3 entries)
* Enrico Platé - Maserati 4CLT-48 (3 entries)
* ERA - ERA B Type (2 entries)
* Talbot - Talbot-Lago T26C (4 entries)
* Alta - Alta GP (1 entry)
* HW Motors – HWM 51 (2 entries)
* Equipe Gordini – Simca-Gordini 15 (5 entries)
* BRM – BRM P15 (4 entries)
* O.S.C.A – OSCA 4500G (1 entry)

This means that a total of 35 drivers can compete in this 2nd season.

Cars with a lower top speed are comparable enough that you can still drive them to a victory easily.

## **Money**

After last season’s prize money was handed out some drivers will have some financial clout which would appeal to some of the teams, each team will have a budget (in preparation for an off-shoot of the game for 1958 onwards) and will use said budget to pay drivers if they are considered talented, though many teams may decide to look for pay-drivers instead.

The only thing money can be used for in this game is to negotiate with teams in the off-season.

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

* Driver Choice –
* Preferred Team –

(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. No risks to be used in qualifying any more
2. Track condition will play a role in your overall time; this will change as sessions goes on so a perfect lap will be unlikely
3. Weather conditions will have an effect on race pace depending upon the driver’s approach. You will be advised of the weather for each race beforehand though.
4. How you drive the previous corner will have an impact on how you take the next corner, this could be beneficial if you carry more speed (for example) but could also be detrimental if you carry too much through from failing to break beforehand.
5. In the races overtaking will now play a part, and will work in a more realistic way for each track…so even the best strategic choice could be blocked by a lack of track position.