Creating the dream F1 season | GRR

Australian Grand Prix

Let’s not mess with a successful beginning. The F1 circus has been travelling to the other side of the world to start the season for over 20 years now, and that’s because it just works. We’d move it a bit later in April, but the autumn sun of Melbourne and a difficult circuit set on park roads is a great way to kick things off. Plus, you get to see some V8 Supercars in support.

Monaco Grand Prix

Tradition saw Monaco kick off the calendar for many decades, and while we don’t want to mess with the Australian kick-off, we would like to bring Monaco a bit more to the fore. We love Monaco, if you’ve ever seen race cars there in person you’ll understand how bonkers it is. Even if the races are ‘boring’ to some, nothing will ever make the spectacle of F1 cars flying round basically a posh living room look boring to us.

Indy 500 and Indy Grand Prix

Oval racing? NEVER. Is basically the reaction of many of you, I guarantee it. But, to put it simply, you’re wrong. The Indy 500 is an historic part of the World Championship and oval racing is very much a legitimate and widespread discipline of motorsport. If F1 wants to truly be the pinnacle of motorsport and the greatest challenge around it needs to take in an oval, and it should be the biggest oval race of them all. Imagine mixing in the IndyCar oval experts with the drivers who like to think of themselves as the best in the world, it could really show how difficult oval racing actually is, and you would finally get a chance to see how the likes of Scott Dixon, Will Power and co. do in F1 cars. Plus, the theatre of the 500 and the Month of May would be a breath of fresh air to the F1 show. Oh, and we’d get the F1 drivers to join in with the Indy GP race on the re-jigged version of the road course too.

Le Mans Four Hours

I’ve created a new race here. Because I think if the F1 champion can truly be called the World Drivers’ Champion they should complete every discipline on track (I’d include a rally here, but we want all of this to be in F1 cars). So here is the Le Mans Four Hours, an event run as part of the build-up to the famous race, possibly on the Saturday, and it’s a two driver race. But, you say, F1 is all about single drivers, you’d ruin the sport if you changed that? Well, nonsense I say. F1 has a long history of multiple drivers. Ask anyone who it was won the 1957 British Grand Prix. Yes, a legendary triumph, first British driver in a British car to win the British Grand Prix. Well, it was drivers actually, as Tony Brooks surrendered his car mid-race to Stirling Moss, who had retired his own car. There’s many more examples of more than one driver winning a Formula 1 race, so it’s nothing new. For this we’re thinking it’s another opportunity to get people like Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Sébastien Ogier and others who we spend ages debating ‘whether they are good enough for F1’ into F1 cars. And just imagine the image. A field of F1 cars, probably in special liveries, completely aero trimmed-out, slipstreaming down the Mulsanne, attacking the Porsche Curves, or trying to get the power down out of Arnage. Also, there’s no way all 20 drivers would be able to resist trying to do the big race as well, and that’s the kind of ironman feat we all love.

Austrian Grand Prix and Styrian Grand Prix – 2x sprint races

The first two races of the 2020 F1 season have told us that we need this here. The Austrian and Styrian Grands Prix were both great in their own way, and so we’re putting on two races in the height of summer again at the Red Bull Ring. But, we have a twist. We’re going to go through with F1’s idea of shorter sprint races and reversed-grids. Race one will be a 20 lap sprint on Saturday, with the grid set by qualifying, while race two will see the top 15 finishers from race one start in reverse order for a 40-lapper. That should guarantee both that no one deliberately retires from race one to start in a better position for race two and that if anyone runs away with race one, they have a challenge for race two. Let’s be honest, the start and finish of the two races at the Red Bull Ring were amazing, but the middle bit was very much Mercedes off in to the distance. If we cut that middle bit out and made the Mercs fight, it might be even more fun.

British Grand Prix

We can’t mess with the British Grand Prix can we? So we won’t. The only difference we’ll make is to add more grandstands to sell more tickets and to use the old version of Silverstone. No, not the one with Bridge, the one before that, the one that was the fastest track on the calendar. With modern run off and safety in the cars you could make this another classic slipstreamer and bring back the magic of that great Mansell overtake.

Belgian Grand Prix

So what’s the trick here? Are we using the old circuit, the 14km one? Or are you going to make it run backwards? Or in a reversed grid? Nope, none of the above. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps is perfect as far as I’m concerned and I will change nothing.

Italian Grand Prix – 100 lap race

Another classic that can never leave the F1 calendar. The only problem is that, with F1’s 200-mile distance limit, and Monza’s super-high-speed lap, it’s done in about an hour and 15 minutes – in fact Charles Leclerc won last year’s race in exactly 1:15:26. So we’re going to make it longer. The race in 2019 was 53 laps, so we’re going for a full 100. It’ll probably mean bringing back refuelling, but hey, it’s all good strategy, and if basically every other format of motorsport can do it safely, so can F1. We reckon that if you add another 47 laps, plus extra stops and refueling in, you’ll hit about the 2.5 hour mark, which seems like a great amount of time to watch the world’s fastest drivers race around one of the truly legendary tracks.

Long Beach Grand Prix & Grand Prix of California

Ah, Long Beach. An awesome circuit. Racing round a city in California, decked out with spectators, flowers and fountains, what could be better? Well, rather than trying to do it in the roasting summer sun, we’ve moved it to Autumn. And we’re making it a series of sprint races again, because while we like racing on street courses, they can be a bit processional, so we figure if you add a bit more pressure to the situation it gets more fun. So we’ll have two races, and no qualifying sessions. We’re going to go World Rally Championship-style here, reversed championship order. It’s probably a sub-minute lap in an F1 car, so we’re going for two 50-lap sprints, which should give enough time not only for an exciting race, but for those at the back to have had enough goes at getting to the front.

Argentinian Grand prix

Where? What? Why? Well, F1 has a massive impact in South America and the continent has produced some incredible drivers over the years, so we need more races there. We want to go to Argentina, but the track and Buenos Aires is boring as all hell. Fortunately there is an excellent race track in the country of Pampas and Steak, so we’ll go there. The Potrero de los Funes circuit was built for the GT1 championship and local TC2000 racing back in 2008. It is an awesome 6.2km circuit that winds its way around a reservoir in the San Luis district of Argentina. Not only is it as picturesque a circuit as you fill find, but it is also a great track in its own right, with gradient changes, tight switchbacks after long straight for overtaking, fast flowing corners and is built to top FIA standards. Like many brilliant tracks it evolved from some local roads, but it hasn’t hosted an international race since 2011, so it is more than time to bring it back. We think a standard Grand Prix would do just fine here.

Brazilian Grand Prix

Where else to finish the season than Interlagos? We wanted to go to Bathurst, but that just seemed like taking it too far, and the Nordschleife is too much of a cliché. But the Brazillian Grand Prix always throws up something of interest, from one of the craziest races of all time in 2003, to the most dramatic season finale of all in 2008. It’s a mixture of the weather in that part of Brazil in Southern Hemisphere Spring, the old-fashioned hilly layout of the track and the local crowd that make it so good. So rather than going to Abu Dhabi to a state-of-the art but quite dull and barely quarter-filled track, let’s go to the rickety Interlagos and have a proper send off to the perfect season.

But we can’t hog all the ideas, what do you think of our season? Exactly how wrong have we got it? And where would you race?