Alternative: USF1's new approach to F1

According to the plan, devised by team officials Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor, the team will not participate in the actual races in Bahrain, Australia and Malaysia. Instead, these three races will be simulated on the Nintendo Wii game F1 2009, and the results submitted to the FIA, where they will be integrated into the classification of the races.

“Plenty of things are done electronically these days,” Windsor reasoned as he made the announcement to a room of incredulous journalists. “Video conferencing, online instant messaging; you can even buy insurance on the Internet these days. So why not F1 races? It’s a logical step in the evolution of the sport, and USF1 is proud to announce itself as the first-ever entirely virtual F1 team.”

Racing only on computer games is expected to be a huge cost-saver for the American team, and could catch on with other teams, such as Campos. However, enquiries at the Spanish squad revealed that though they were in principle interested in such an approach, putting together the required funds to purchase a Nintendo Wii console could pose a problem.

Some objections have already been raised against USF1’s intentions, including the point that the layout of Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit has changed relative to its 2009 iteration. Windsor, however, believes that this will not be a problem: “It will simply level the playing field. With any luck it will give us some hope of some points – or at least stop us from being lapped quite as many times.”

Established F1 teams, however, were quick to rule out the “electronic” approach for their operations. Ferrari said that it was not an option for them as they no longer had any working television sets at Maranello.

This piece was inspired by a submission by Griz Dzlnski. Contact The Runoff Area if you have your own ideas for articles to appear on the site!

Games: F1 boss Ecclestone

Often the driver merry-go-round during the close season is figuratively referred to as “musical chairs” because there are inevitably more drivers than remaining F1 seats, but Ecclestone’s idea is to take that suggestion literally, settling who will drive where in 2010 through a version of the popular children’s party game.

With this morning’s announcement that Pedro de la Rosa will drive for Sauber, now just five race seats remain – one each at Renault, Toro Rosso and Campos, and both at USF1. “Now everyone’s pretty bored of waiting for the teams to confirm their drivers,” Ecclestone reasoned, “so it makes sense to just get the whole thing out of the way in one go.”

Drivers such as Kazuki Nakajima, Jaime Alguersuari, Giancarlo Fisichella and Nick Heidfeld are all currently without 2010 seats; they will be joined by potential newcomers like F2 champion Andy Soucek and former GP2 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Jose Maria Lopez to be in with a chance of winning the drives.

“What will happen is that we’ll put all of them in a room, turn on the music and get them to walk around the five chairs in the centre of the floor,” Ecclestone revealed. “When the music stops, they all sit down and the five seated drivers get the race seats. Simple, really. I might even put in on TV. And charge for it.”

It is believed that a similar scheme was tried at Mercedes earlier this year, but it failed when Michael Schumacher deliberately pushed Heidfeld over and stole his chair.

When asked what song would be used for the game, Ecclestone replied: “The Chain. Obviously.”

Gone: USF1's disappeared factory

In the location where the team’s headquarters had previously been located, there was simply a notice reading, “These premises have been removed following a copyright claim by Formula One Management.”

Rumours have been abundant in recent weeks that USF1 will not make it to the grid in time for this year’s opening Grand Prix in Bahrain; the removal of the team is expected to be a further setback for an outfit that has already been reportedly struggling.

“To be honest we’re quite surprised at this development,” the team’s PR boss Peter Windsor told (other) journalists. “As far as we’re aware FOM have no right to order the removal of any Formula One team. We are looking into the issue but so far we can’t find anyone at FOM to contact.”

FOM, the commercial arm of the Formula One group, has been implicated in the removal of other F1 teams in the past, although no one has ever been quite certain how they achieve it. On occasion they have been known to order the removal of certain components of an F1 team – such as the car, in the case of Prodrive, or the team principal in the case of Renault – but leave the rest, providing a frustrating experience for fans wishing to see an entire team in operation.

“This action is quite unprecedented,” team investor Chad Hurley said. “I can’t think of anyone else who would possibly do anything like this.”

Unconventional: F1 hopefuls USF1

Virgin Racing, formerly known as Manor Motorsport, raised eyebrows in F1 when they declared that they were not going to use a wind tunnel to develop their car, instead doing all of the development work with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulator. Other teams use a combination of wind tunnels and CFD to complete their designs.

USF1, however, has gone one step further by declaring it will use neither wind tunnels nor CFD, instead relying on “magic” to get their team in order before the opening round of the season next year.

“We have considered our options and believe that this is the best solution available to us,” team principal Ken Anderson told the press. “Magic is a promising and under-used development tool in Formula One, and we plan to use it to its fullest extent.”

The last person to attempt to use magic in a Formula One effort was Dave Richards, who attempted to get Prodrive into F1 in 2008 by shunning traditional methods of car construction. Instead, he sat in his office and concentrated very hard on wishing for a car to spontaneously appear in his factory. The attempt failed.

Anderson, however, is optimistic that his team’s approach will be a success: “We have already contacted some of the best stage magicians and shifty-looking mystics in both of the Carolinas,” he revealed. “So far we’ve succeeded in hypnotising Nick Craw and making millions of dollars disappear. The next step is to start producing bits of the car.”

Early reports had suggested that USF1 magicians had succeeded in turning the FIA president into a toad, but this was dismissed on account of there being no recognisable difference.

Searching: USF1's driver hunt continues

The U-turn, team principal Ken Anderson insists, comes with great regret at the culmination of a search for suitable drivers. “We have been forced to widen our horizons a little bit,” Anderson stated in a press conference today. “It appears that, at this late stage, we may not be able to find any drivers for our team who are strictly from Earth. Therefore we must consider the possibility of recruiting an alien for the job, providing, of course, that he can bring to the team the necessary qualities of experience and skill.”

While no alien has ever officially participated in the Formula One world championship, there were some suspicious looks exchanged when David Coulthard first arrived on the F1 scene.

Anderson explained that USF1 had teamed up with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to scan the skies for potential future world champions. SETI picked up an interesting signal earlier in the year from the furthest reaches of space, which on closer examination appeared to be a radio conversation between two individuals, one of whom was known, bizarrely, as “Felipebaby.”

“We’re confident that widening our search for drivers will be a positive move for USF1,” Anderson continued. “As far as I know no other team has tried to sign an alien, so we have a potentially untapped market just waiting to be exploited. In the future, we may look with hindsight on the general unavailability of Earth-based F1 drivers as a good thing.”

As The Runoff Area went to press, reports had surfaced that former GP2 champion Giorgio Pantano had been spotted purchasing a Little Green Man costume from a local fancy dress shop, but USF1 have already stated that they “won’t be falling for that.”