1950 Season Rules

# **F1 Revisited – 1950**

A blast from the past! Re-live the days of yore with intense racing action as you perfect your driving style to rewrite history and take your favourite drivers/teams to championship glory! We begin with the first ever F1 World Championship Season, and 1950 should prove a good testing ground for all new players and indeed the game itself…

## **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) as well as how much you want to push.

The telemetry you receive back will be somewhat basic, in that you will simply be given a lap time and 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).

Once qualifying is wrapped up (you can of course change your approach lap by lap to improve your time) 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 drive with a more steady rhythm you will only be able to alter this approach at your pit stops. You will of course pre-determine your pit strategy, but should your car become damaged you can make an emergency pit stop.

Each 1 hour long session will last for 3 days with 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 PUSH! 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. Your crew chief may even help out with observations from time to time if you are really struggling.

***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

Risk - Conservative

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. Using the conservative level of risk would have produced a reasonable lap time for the driver.

***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 – PUSH!

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 Drivers**

At the start of the season you will have a choice of any of the drivers who competed in the actual 1950 F1 season, though from 1951 onwards the winning driver from the previous season will be allowed to compete again regardless of whether they were actually involved or not. The list of eligible drivers is here (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 1951 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 the new 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 158 (3 entries)
* Scuderia Ambrosiana – Maserati 4CLT-48 (3 entries)
* Enrico Plate - Maserati 4CLT-50 (2 entries)
* ERA - ERA E Type (5 entries)
* Talbot - Talbot-Lago T26C (3 entries)
* Alta - Alta GP (2 entries)
* Ferrari – Ferrari 375 (4 entries)

This means that a total of 22 drivers can compete in this 1st season.

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

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!