"Grand Prix 2" Championship

[Salamander]

Keep pushing Jimmy. 5 seconds to Douglas in 4th and when we get ahead of him, we'll be in with a great shot for a podium.

10-4 boss, I can feel the race coming to me. Also, if Zimmer's talking shite again, I'm gonna deck him.

[Nessafox]

I can't help but noticing you people are arguing with each other when you're still racing your cars... Is this even allowed by the FIA?

[Aerospeed]

And given that evidence, I think everyone should be disqualified except Daniel Moreno.

[tristan1117]

Duel in the Desert

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(+16) 1. Tom Douglas - 2h 14:18.705
(+13) 2. Gio van Dycke - +38.990
(+3) 3. Martin van der Maeyede +40.656
(+12) 4. Masta Valsattis +45.276
(-1) 5. Prince Walik +48.584
(-5) 6. Barii Mori +1:00.328
(+19) 7. Pippa Mann +1:18.289
(+14) 8. Poppy Whitechapel +1:29.458
(-7) 9. Daniel Moreno +1:34.436
(0) 10. James Davies +1:34.830
(-6) 11. Stephano Baroncelli +1:35.396
(-5) 12. Siergiej Rozavadoskij +1:37.464
(+5) 13. Douglas Mann +1 lap

Code: Select all

(-6) 14. Chris Dagnall +1 lap
(-2) 15. Martin McFry +1 lap
(-5) 16. Reiko Megumi +1 lap
(-8) 17. Ben Fleet + 1lap
(-6) 18. Rory McAllister +1 lap
(+4) 19. Pieter Kickert +2 laps
(-1) 20. James Allen +2 laps
(+4) 21. Anton Kaliniczenko +2 laps
(+2) 22. Max von Hegel +2 laps
(-20) 23. Massimiliano Patrese +2 laps
(-4) 24. Pablo da Silva +2 laps
(-4) 25. Niko Nurminen +2 laps
(-12) 26. Kazuhiko Takagi +3 laps

Fastest Lap: James Davies- 1:32.499

What a wild, wild finish. Tom Douglas wins the Nabisco Trophy for 1996! A flurry of pit stops followed after the midrace report with Walik, van Dycke, van der Maeyede and Douglas holding the same gap. However, Moreno stayed out on his tyres for far too long and dropped behind Mori before colliding with an irate James Davies. Both drivers were forced to cut their way through traffic, essentially ending any hopes at a win. But by Lap 54, Walik was being reeled in by a determined van Dycke and the Minardi driver whistled by. Walik fought back and retook the lead one lap later before the first big wreck of the afternoon on Lap 57. Moreno tried an overambitious move on McFry and ran wide when McFry didn't give him room. Then he tried to correct his mistake and go back into the racing line but he drove straight into Poppy Whitechapel. The two locked wheels and Whitechapel was forced to brake, letting von Hegel through. da Silva (a lap down everyone) failed to react in time and came in like a wrecking ball, taking out Walik (two laps ahead) and Whitechapel (one lap ahead). Then van Dycke hit da Silva. Whitechapel spun and just missed Dagnall and Davies before rejoining. Walik and van Dycke both sustained heavy damage and were forced to pit, letting van der Maeyede into the lead.

But van der Maeyede was caught up in traffic that cost him almost seven seconds a lap. Just six laps later, van der Maeyede found himself under attack form both Walik and van Dycke. Walik retook the lead on Lap 65 and held it for another nine laps. Then, on Lap 74, Walik spun at Turn 1 while on his own. He tried to reenter the circuit but he blindly rammed straight into van Dycke, shattering van Dycke's front wing. To make matters worse, van der Maeyede slammed straight into van Dycke's stopped car, knocking his front wing off. All three were able to make it back to the pits (van Dycke actually led the lap with his damaged car) but Douglas swooped in to pick up the pieces. He won easily. van Dycke was forced to settle for second, van der Maeyede finished a very competent third. Valsattis was able to pip Walik for fourth while Mori silently continued to sixth. Pippa Mann made a brilliant recovery and finished seventh, ahead of her teammate! Whitechapel was eighth. Moreno finished in ninth after a stunning last-corner maneuver on James Davies. Davies could only manage tenth despite setting the fastest lap of the race by over five tenths of a second. Who knows what he could have done if Moreno didn't take him out. In fact, who knows what would have happened had Moreno not caused the first big wreck. For finishing behind his teammate and causing two stupid accidents, Daniel Moreno becomes the second reigning champion to take Reject of the Race at the Duel in the Desert. Honorable mentions to Prince Walik for throwing away a certain victory (he lost because losing 5 million isn't that much for him), Kazuhiko Takagi for taking out Pablo da Silva and finishing 3 laps down and Stephano Baroncelli who rammed both Patrese and Dagnall off the road at various points during the race, yet he still finished in 11th.

Leaders:
Daniel Moreno: 1-11
Prince Walik: 12-53
Gio van Dycke: 54
Prince Walik: 55-56
Martin van der Maeyede: 57-64
Prince Walik: 65-74
Gio van Dycke: 75
Tom Douglas: 76-81

Expect a season review and end-of-year rankings over the weekend. Then, after I update the wiki, 1996 will finally be over.

[FMecha]

BATHPLUG!!!!!!

Douglas, you did very well today! Congratulations! And calm down Takagi, the Duel in the Desert is a very random race.

And eat that Walik, that's your punishment for being hypocritical to other teams.

The race have exaggerated attrition - so bad I can't focus properly. See you next year, everyone.

This shows why football and F1 does not mix. But nonetheless, Empoli will head to Serie B in 1997. Anyone who want to hire me (with the football money ), contact me.

[Nuppiz]

Well, I guess that's one way to end the season... With heavier fuel loads, the car had absolutely no balance at all, so all I could do was to let other cars get past.

And time to cap this off as well:

Nurminen acquitted of all charges

According to Australian sources, Finnish F1GP2RC driver Niko Nurminen has been acquitted of all charges concerning the assault case which took place after the Australian Grand Prix. This comes after a Finnish tourist, who had been watching the GP and was hugely disappointed with Nurminen's performance, admitted that the following night he had drank heavily and likely beaten a bypasser in his drunken rage. This removed Nurminen from the list of suspects, although he hasn't yet told anyone why and where he went missing that night.

[Salamander]

MOREEENNOOOOOOOOO!!! YOU BETTER START RUNNING!!

[AdrianSutil]

Masta Valsattis:
Good finish in the end. Difficult year though. Still, hopefully the new Ligier will be an improvement and I can move up the field. I'm off to Lanzarote for a few weeks! See ya next year!

[pasta_maldonado]

I'm ecstatic, literally, and simply shocked. To make the podium and to have been in contention for the win as well is amazing.Walik and van dycke collided and allowed me into the lead, but stupid traffic held me up, and I couldn't hold back Walik on my tires. I couldn't have avoided van dycke, I came round a 90 degree corner, in a coloud of smoke, and van Dycke's car was just there. The first I knew about it was when I hit it, and there was nothing I could have done. Still, I'm delighted to have made the podium, and I'm thankful to Sauber for giving me this chance to compete in the Duel in the Desert, it means a lot. I'm really looking forward to a competitive year with Stewart

[tristan1117]

1996 F1RGP2C Season Review

In a perfect world, everyone wants entertaining, dramatic and satisfying endings. That's why endings are so difficult. Most people loved the ending to Harry Potter because it encompassed all three aspects of a good ending. Contrarily, the ending of "Lost" brought a tepid response from its fanbase. Unfortunately, the F1RGP2C is notorious for poor endings to the main drivers' championship battle. In 1994, we were robbed of a final Christopherson/Zimmer showdown by two Benetton mechanical failures. 1995 was even more dissatisfying, thanks to Pablo da Silva's insane antics during the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix. This year's championship decider was no different. Despite the inevitable massive letdown, I would say that the season was the best season of the F1RGP2C so far.

When the season started, the smart money was on Daniel Moreno to win the championship. After nearly winning last year's championship in an inferior Williams, Moreno was already a big favorite to get his championship in 1996. Even more, Williams had drafted Pippa Mann (teams prior to Williams: Simtek and DAMS) to be his teammate. Although Pippa had shown great promise for Simtek in 1994, she had taken a major step back at DAMS causing many pundits to proclaim that she was "overmatched" at Williams. To further stack things in Moreno's favor, he had been at Williams for three years and was an integral part of the development team. Everything was set up for his triumphal march into glory. Then things went awry.

In hindsight, the first six rounds of the championship turned out to be absolutely key to the overall result. Pippa Mann's opening round retirement at Australia gave Moreno a six-point advantage that he would exploit in the last rounds of the year. However, Zimmer's win prevented Moreno from extending his lead to ten points which also proved key during the last three rounds. Tom Douglas may have been unstoppable in Brazil but Argentina was definitely up for grabs. Pippa Mann's failure to win the race from pole built up Moreno a solid early lead. On the other hand. Round 4 at the Nurburgring was a harbinger of things to come. Moreno's now legendary spin on the last lap gifted Pippa Mann a win. This would prove to be the most memorable trope of the season. Moreno came back strong in San Marino, but his disastrous race in Monaco opened the worst six-race stretch of his entire career. Crucially, Pippa Mann only managed a disappointing fifth; eventually, she would rue her failure to capitalize on the golden opportunity that had been delivered.

At this point, the momentum definitively shifted on Pippa's side. Moreno threw away a win in Spain, was outright beaten at his home race in Canada and spun out at Road America. Even when reliability problems struck Pippa in France and Great Britain, Moreno was completely unable to capitalize. To make matters worse, Williams' miscues let their arch-rivals at Benetton back into the championship picture. Moreno was able to pip Pippa in Germany but another late-race spin in Hungary gave Pippa all that she needed to win the championship. By now, the media scrutiny on Moreno had reached fever pitch (sort of like Hamilton in 2008, come to think of it). But then something extraordinary happened. Such reversals of fortune are not to be taken lightly; I'm pretty sure that Moreno had some sort of divine assistance in this matter.

Coming into Belgium, it seemed that fortune had utterly deserted Daniel Moreno. The media firestorm had brewed the situation at Williams to a state of tension. Then, on Lap 3, Pippa crashed while trying an ambitious move on Andrew Spokes at Pouhon. From that point on, almost everything went wrong. Spokes won the grand prix with Moreno in second, giving the lead driver a two point lead heading into the Italian Grand Prix. At Monza, Pippa's hopes were dashed to pieces after a remarkably unfortunate series of events. The championship ended, not with an epic, wheel-to-wheel duel between the two best competitors, but with an ill-timed electrical problem for John Zimmer on the last lap of the race. Moreno swept past to take a (in)famous victory and the 1996 Drivers' Championship. Pippa Mann announced her retirement from the series on the next day.

Of course, the season was not entirely about the Moreno/Mann battle. Williams' nemesis Benetton also staged a similar rivalry between an established driver and a driver from the back of the grid who was given the chance of a lifetime. John Zimmer, the 1995 champion, performed reasonably well but he was overshadowed by the brilliance of his teammate, Andrew Spokes. Many have already forgotten that it was really a Moreno/Mann/Spokes battle at the end of the season as Spokes was still mathematically alive heading into Monza. His four victories proved to be decisive factor as Zimmer could only manage two (although he was robbed of two wins due to late-race mechanical issues). Spokes finished a clear third in the standings and John Zimmer rewarded him with number-one status for 1997.

Another major plot point of 1996 was the issue of safety. Early on in the season, James Davies was nearly killed by a flying suspension piece after a horrendous accident at the Luxembourg Grand Prix (but I did enjoy his commentary). One race later, Masta Valsattis narrowly escaped serious injury after a collision with Pippa Mann. Later on in Belgium, Robert Anderson was left in critical condition after colliding with Eadbhard O'Caiohmin's Tyrrell at 180 mph. The president of the F1RGP2C, Tristan Jung reacted quickly to Davies' crash by imposing stronger wheel tethers and suspension parts onto the cars. Davies' accident did leave a silver lining for McLaren as 1994 champ Jack Christopherson stepped into the car. Christopherson collected three podiums and one pole position on his comeback tour which was enough for McLaren to barely beat Jordan in the Constructors' Championship on tiebreaker.

Jordan had another successful year while Ferrari continued to regress. For Leonhard von Gottorp and Damon Cannon, consistency was the name of the game. While everyone else lost their heads, the Jordan drivers were generally able to stay cool, especially during the rain-affected races. Ferrari's 1996 campaign was generally disappointing. Tom Douglas started the season off well with pole positions in the first two rounds and a dominant win in Brazil. Ferrari's pace never went away but their level of execution disintegrated as the year wore on. Constant mechanical issues, strategic gaffes and poor driving prevented them from challenging Benetton and Williams. Kazuhiko Takagi acquitted himself very well; his highlight was surely his six-race points scoring streak during the middle of the season. They will be looking forward to 1997. Sauber established themselves as the "best-of-the-rest" team thanks to two stellar results from Pieter Kickert. His second place in Japan was the most surprising result of the year and he gave Sauber eight of their eleven points. Kickert was instantly rewarded after the season when Hermann Mann offered him the second Williams seat for 1997. Pablo da Silva probably would have scored several times if his car had not failed him whenever he was in a good spot.

Ligier's season was one to forget. Douglas Mann was erratic at times but he dragged the Ligier to places that it did not deserve. Unfortunately, Mann's Mugen-Honda engine let him down at every possible moment which meant that he only picked up two points for the team despite competing on even terms with the Benettons, Jordans and Ferraris for much of the season! Mann was so disgusted that he left the sport entirely, joining his sister in enforced exile. Masta Valsattis and Reiko Megumi could hardly manage better but Valsattis did score a fourth place at the Brazilian Grand Prix…for Sauber. Tyrrell and Footwork also had forgettable years. Tyrrell managed to have a worse finishing record than the lowly Pacific team which caused seat holder and lead driver Poppy Whitechapel to leave midway through the season. Her replacement, Eadbhard O'Caiohmin, could not finish a single race for the team in ten attempts. Clivio Durand drove well on occasion but the promising French rookie marred his good performances with frequent spins and collisions. He was picked up by Williams as their test driver for 1997. Footwork seemed to drone on through the season as the team switched ownership and said goodbye to Kazuyoshi Hoshino at the end of the year. Jorg Scrattenheim did have some brilliant flash-in-the-pan performances, such as briefly running in fourth place at the British Grand Prix, but he failed to score a point.

At the back, Minardi and DAMS made huge strides in 1996 while Forti and Pacific went nowhere. Gio van Dycke and Miko Fakkinen were mostly superb (Fakkinen less so) throughout the season and van Dycke's timely points in Brazil gave Minardi eighth place in the Constructors' Championship! DAMS made huge gains on the reliability front as the team completed the season with the fourth best finishing record on the entire grid! Yes, the plucky DAMS team finished more races than Ferrari and McLaren! Niko Nurminen and Ben Fleet had difficultly keeping the car on the road but both drivers were able to complete races. From the other end of the spectrum came the Pacific and Forti-Corse teams. Pacific's third year in the sport went much like the second. Neither Kaliniczenko nor his various partners in crime could do anything but act as mobile chicanes during the races. Kaliniczenko was average but the Zielenkovski/Anderson/Rozvadoskij combo amounted to 2.5 Reject of the Race awards throughout the season. Zielenkovski was a buffoon at the wheel but at least he was a nice enough guy. Anderson was dead slow and arrogant to boot and his childlike rants directed towards his superiors at Ligier, his fellow drivers and his team were a complete distraction. Siergiej Rozvadoskij managed to spin five times on his debut, breaking two front wings in the process. He did manage to pass an unsuspecting Daniel Moreno during the race despite being a full five laps down on the Williams driver. The incident cost Moreno almost four seconds and earned Rozvadoskij Reject of the Race.

And lastly we come to Forti. To be frank, Forti was the most incompetent team in the entire series. The team's seatholder mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the season. Then they ran out of money and were forced to call in an extremely irate Tristan Jung to help. Martin McFry transformed into Dennis the Menace with a racecar on several occasions, blocking, spinning and unsafely reentering his way to nine penalty points. Giovanni Roda was not much better pace-wise but he was much better at getting out of the way of others though he still ended up with two penalty points. For all this, Forti earns the coveted REJECT OF THE YEAR award for their complete and utter failure (although I note that they still finished above DAMS on tiebreaker in the Constructors').

So was this really the best season of the F1RGP2C so far? I think so. Although the randomness of the series went way down, I believe that the tense championship battle and the brilliance of Spokes, Kickert, Christopherson, von Gottorp, Cannon etc. balanced well with the more "rejectful" elements of the se I also came to enjoy watching the series, rather than just recording it, and I found myself shouting at the screen when Mann crashed in Belgium and when Zimmer's pulled into the pits in Monza. I hoped you were entertained as well, because in the end, that's really what this is all for. Thanks for reading.

(And yes, I will be making a new thread for the 1997 season. 44 pages is long enough.)

[tristan1117]

tristan1117's End-of-Season Rankings

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Drivers:         Teams:
1. Pippa Mann         1. Williams
2. Andrew Spokes         2. Benetton
3. Leonhard von Gottorp         3. Jordan
4. Damon Cannon         4. McLaren
5. Jack Christopherson         5. Minardi
6. Pieter Kickert         6. Sauber
7. Gio van Dycke         7. Ferrari
8. John Zimmer         8. DAMS
9. Kazuhiko Takagi         9. Footwork
10. Rory McAllister         10. Ligier
11. Douglas Mann         11. Pacific
12. Jorg Scrattenheim         12. Tyrrell
13. Tom Douglas         13. Forti
14. Masta Valsattis
15. Pablo da Silva 
16. Eadbhard O'Caiohmin
17. Daniel Moreno
18. Niko Nurminen
19. Miko Fakkinen
20. Clivio Durand
21. Anton Kaliniczenko
22. Ben Fleet
23. Kazuyoshi Hoshino
24. Giovanni Roda
25. Artiom Zielenkovski
26. Robert Anderson
27. Martin McFry
NR Poppy Whitechapel
NR Siergiej Rozvadoskij
NR Reiko Megumi
NR Stephano Baroncelli
NR James Davies

DBTMOTY: Robert Anderson
Drive of the Year: Pieter Kickert at Japan
Final Reject Podium:
3rd: Tyrrell
2nd: Whomever was in the second Pacific seat
1st: Forti-Corse

Some explanation here. I put Spokes second because his threw away a few good finishes while Mann was more consistent. von Gottorp gets the edge on Cannon because he scored more points. Gio van Dycke was solid this year. I'm being really generous with Douglas Mann and factoring in his two or three possible podium finishes. Daniel Moreno 17th . Clivio Durand was fairly terrible, now that I remember.

[Aerospeed]

Moreno 17th? Clearly something is wrong there