How about this for an alternative to F1...

Ironlord

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Previously, my attempt to predict the future didn't quite work out as I had planned. Still, I have made a few tweaks to the interdimensional communicator and it is now genuinely capable of time travel. And a quick look into the future reveals something rather spectacular.


FORMULA ONE GETS ITS COMEUPPANCE!
By Murray Hunt and James Walker for POWER! magazine, 7 February 2009


The GP Masters series failed - miserably. Three races over two years and it was gone. Was it because the old giffers weren't up to it, or because half the drivers were those midfielders-to-backmarkers that nobody remembers? Was it because they decided to take the races to places like Qatar where there may be money but your average Sheikh'n'Vac had no idea of the former World Champions he'd be watching, nor did he have any interest in finding out?

In what is excellent news for long-time Formula 1 fans who have become jaded at its transformation into business first, racing second, with no room for people with personality, a new series has been proposed, with the explicit intention to recover the glory days when men were men, Buck Angel was a woman and Sebastian Vettel wasn't even born. The series is designed to compete head-to-head with F1, joining the F1 circus for a Saturday showdown at tracks that are still worthy of celebration, whereas F1 visits
those dull-as-ditchwater Tilke-dromes which inspire nothing and nobody except the corporate hospitality guests, the new series will race on the Sunday at a different track - one with history, spirit and a treacherously dangerous layout. All concerns from the Health & Safety wombles have been torn up, set on fire and the ashes ritually defecated on.

Furthermore, the cars are expected to be the spiritual successors of the fearsomely unrestricted 1986 turbo cars. No drivers have been announced yet, but they are expected to be those who combine the reactions of a fighter pilot with the fearlessness of a marine, and the will to win at all costs. In short, the present-day equivalent of Gilles Villeneuve. It is he that has given his name to the series.

The series is not due to start until 2011 at least - mainly to allow the necessary changes at the racetracks involved. However, a mock-up calendar has been drawn up for a potential 2009 season of...

THE GILLES VILLENEUVE WORLD MOTOR RACING CHAMPIONSHIP

Most of the time, the calendar involves competing events. Occasionally, though, GVWMRC events take place at current F1 circuits, and the race will take part as a dual-headline event on the Saturday.

The calendar:

Round 1: 28/29 March 2009
F1: AUSTRALIA: Albert Park, Melbourne
GV: AUSTRALIA: Bathurst

Round 2: 4/5 April 2009
F1: MALAYSIA: Sepang
GV: UNITED STATES I: Indianapolis (oval, and definitely anticlockwise)

Round 3: 18/19 April 2009
F1: CHINA: Shanghai
GV: UNITED STATES II: Laguna Seca

Round 4: 25/26 April 2009
F1: BAHRAIN: Sakhir
GV: CANADA: Montreal

Round 5: 9/10 May 2009
F1: SPAIN: Barcelona
GV: FRANCE I: Clermont-Ferrand

Round 6: 23/24 May 2009
F1: MONACO
GV: MONACO

Round 7: 6/7 June 2009
F1: TURKEY: Istanbul
GV: TURKEY: Istanbul

Round 8: 20/21 June 2009
F1: BRITAIN: Silverstone
GV: BRITAIN I: Silverstone (pre-1975 layout)

Round 9: 11/12 July 2009
F1: GERMANY: N?rburgring
GV: GERMANY I: N?rburgring (Nordschleife)

Round 10: 25/26 July 2009
F1: HUNGARY: Hungaroring
GV: GERMANY II: Hockenheim (1965 layout)

Round 11: 22/23 August 2009
F1: EUROPE: Valencia Street Cirzzzzzzzzzz...
GV: BRITAIN II: Brands Hatch

Round 12: 29/30 August 2009
F1: BELGIUM: Spa-Francorchamps
GV: BELGIUM: Spa-Francorchamps (1970 layout)

Round 13: 12/13 September 2009
F1: ITALY: Monza
GV: ITALY I: Monza (1933 layout - with the banked oval)

Round 14: 26/27 September 2009
F1: SINGAPORE: Marina Bay
GV: ITALY II: Imola (1993 layout)

Round 15: 3/4 October 2009
F1: JAPAN: Suzuka
GV: JAPAN: Suzuka

Round 16: 17/18 October 2009
F1: BRAZIL: Interlagos
GV: BRAZIL: Interlagos

Round 17: 17/18 October 2009
F1: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Abu Dhabi
GV: FRANCE II: Le Mans (1932 layout)


Balls of steel. That's what you'll need to win this series.

If anyone's wondering, when the Japanese Grand Prix is held at Fuji, the GV race will still be at Suzuka. And whichever circuit the German Grand Prix visits will also see the GV race, while the other circuit will compete with the Hungarian Grand Prix. And how do the tracks cope with two different layouts, I hear you ask? Two bits of tarmac can coexist alongside each other and be sectioned off with extra armco for each race. At circuits such as Hockenheim, this will involve rebuilding more than half the track.

Here at POWER!, we believe that a driver with balls of pure steel will win the inaugural Gilles Villeneuve World Motor Racing Championship, and it will demolish Formula 1 in the TV ratings. Especially at the season when the spiritual successor to the dreadful Caesar's Palace circuit of the early 80s duels for supremacy, and loses, against the sound of turbo-charged cars belting down the Mulsanne Straight.
 
Haha love your ideas, GV would be proud.

Nice sig :)
 
What kind of car? What kind of laptimes? Money?
 
You sir are a genius. Can I write for your magazine please?!??!?! :p
 
What all F1 fans really want.

Of course, some of the drivers might be killed to death once in a while, but who cares? This is a racing league for the proper men.
 
Of course, some of the drivers might be killed to death once in a while, but who cares? This is a racing league for the proper men.
Proper men dying proper deaths doing what they love.




On TV!
 
Got some more ideas for venues:

We need a race in Spain, because Alonso might be convinced to move to this series. So I suggest reviving the old Montjuich Park circuit in downtown Barcelona.

Clermont-Ferrand/Charade might be a bit unusable today, so I suggest rebuilding Paul Ricard to 1982 "standards" of track and throwing the cars on the long uncut Mistral straight.

Bring back Adelaide as the season ending. (Make it a symmetry: Bathurst to start, Adelaide to end).

About the rest of the tracks, I have no objection. Just one thing: Istanbul is owned by Bernie, so before this goes there, Bernie must drop dead.



And as for the cars... DON'T use the turbo monsters, but do this: use their engines, tuned up as much as possible, and hack them into 1991 chassis.
 
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This is an ingenious idea, I'd do anything to see the GVWMRC come true!
 
One more thing: before any driver wants to join this series, they should first attend the Keke Rosberg School of Manly Driving & Facial Hair.


Keke's beard, Nigel's moustache and Prof. Prost's weird hair FTW.

And, if they elect to, they can shave half their head bald and mangle their ears in a Lauda-ish rite of initiation.
 
Got some more ideas for venues:
We need a race in Spain, because Alonso might be convinced to move to this series. So I suggest reviving the old Montjuich Park circuit in downtown Barcelona.
I considered the Spanish tracks I knew of (Barcelona, Jerez, Jarama, and the Valencia MotoGP circuit) and decided none of them measured up. I know the Great Encyclopedia says something about Montjuich Park, so I'll take a look there...

Clermont-Ferrand/Charade might be a bit unusable today, so I suggest rebuilding Paul Ricard to 1982 "standards" of track and throwing the cars on the long uncut Mistral straight.
Paul Ricard was on the cards - in the pre-Elio-death layout. It was then that I remembered the almost-N?rburgring-rivalling Clermont-Ferrand...

It's all idealistic, remember. So, maybe three rounds in France? That's where it all started, after all...

Bring back Adelaide as the season ending. (Make it a symmetry: Bathurst to start, Adelaide to end).
Again, I was trying to decide whether to go for Adelaide or Albert Park... then thought of Bathurst.

About the rest of the tracks, I have no objection. Just one thing: Istanbul is owned by Bernie, so before this goes there, Bernie must drop dead.
*cracks knuckles*

It can be arranged.

And as for the cars... DON'T use the turbo monsters, but do this: use their engines, tuned up as much as possible, and hack them into 1991 chassis.
Words such as "utterly terrifying" spring to mind...
 
One more thing: before any driver wants to join this series, they should first attend the Keke Rosberg School of Manly Driving & Facial Hair. Keke's beard, Nigel's moustache and Prof. Prost's weird hair FTW.
But not Prof Prost's wonky nose.

And, if they elect to, they can shave half their head bald and mangle their ears in a Lauda-ish rite of initiation.
I suspect that plenty of the drivers will be subjected to that anyway at the N?rburgring race...
 
Paul Ricard was on the cards - in the pre-Elio-death layout. It was then that I remembered the almost-N?rburgring-rivalling Clermont-Ferrand...

It's all idealistic, remember. So, maybe three rounds in France? That's where it all started, after all...

Three rounds in the home of the term "Grand Prix" and the home of Renault? I'm all for it! :D

Words such as "utterly terrifying" spring to mind...

It is, after all, a championship where only the bravest drivers can measure up... :wink: To make it even more terrifying, slap on active suspension on all the cars and slap on, more vigurously, SKIRTS and GROUND EFFECT TUNNELS.

Now that's what I would call "fearsome". Might get these cars to corner at 6 Gs. :lol: But use steel brakes to make it a competition of "last of the late-breakers".
 
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No Istanbul, idiots. It doesnt measure up to the old classic circuits. We think it's great but thats only because we have Bahrain and Magny Cours to compare it to. Get rid of it and hold the replacement race at Pescara. This was a circuit that was dropped after 1961 for being too dangerous, before they even started considering the 'Ring as being a bit of a risk...
 
Turbo motors with current technology would be fearsome indeed. No fuel restrictions of course!!!! Should keep the greenies happy!
 
I'd be more interested to see restrictions lifted on size, forced induction, everything. Sure the cars would all use the same fuel, but otherwise no reastrictions. Would be interesting to see what sizes and configurations manufacturerers come up with.
 
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