National F1?

[TN23]

As some of you may know, there have been national F1 championships in the past- the South African championship, the Aurora series here in the UK- but what if drivers were to compete against their compatriots for pride and their own national F1 championship?

I say it should work as thus: The drivers complete a normal grand prix which counts towards the World Championship, but drivers pick up points against their fellow nationals within that race. For example:

2010 Monaco Grand Prix

1 Sebastian Vettel (1st in German F1)
2 Fernando Alonso (1st in Spanish F1)
3 Jenson Button (1st in British F1)
4 Mark Webber (Only runner in Australian F1)
5 Kamui Kobayashi (Only runner in Japanese F1)
6 Lewis Hamilton (2nd in British F1)

etc.

These points are simply added up, like the World Championship, to give the winner.

Now, it may well be correct in most cases to assume that the winner of each national championship is simply the driver that scores the most points in the World Championship, but, if one driver gets a high amount of points in a select few races, and another driver scores lower, but more consistently, he could take his country's crown.

In the example of the 1994 French F1 championship (If such a thing were to exist), Alesi scored more World Championship points than Panis- but Panis' consistent finishes whilst Alesi retired helped Panis to score more French F1 points.

A file has been attahed with a few preliminary runs of my experiment.

What are your thoughts? (I won't go into pole vaults, javelins or any other track and field events)

 

[gethinceri]

I'm impressed with this, you've put a lot of work in, but it's only relevant where there's more than one competitor for a nation. I'll think on.........................................................I'm sure there's more to it than that but I've had a few..........................................................................................................

 

[gethinceri]

I have reconsidered, ace idea.

 

[TN23]

I've only just started- I'll keep updating it as time goes by...

 

[cider_and_toast]

I'd go one further than this and say that a National chapmionship could be held using year old F1 cars much in the same way as the old Aurora series.

There are quite a few countries that could hold enough races to have a 5 round or even 10 round (with each track holding 2 events) series.

Failing that, you could have a North American series, A European series and an Ocieanic series with no trouble at all.

The big problem is that Bernie wouldn't stand for it because it would be seen as being in direct competition with the main series.

 

[Speshal]

Nice idea but *cough* A1GP *cough*

 

[TN23]

I'd go one further than this and say that a National chapmionship could be held using year old F1 cars much in the same way as the old Aurora series.

There are quite a few countries that could hold enough races to have a 5 round or even 10 round (with each track holding 2 events) series.

Failing that, you could have a North American series, A European series and an Ocieanic series with no trouble at all.

The big problem is that Bernie wouldn't stand for it because it would be seen as being in direct competition with the main series.

Maybe a good idea would be to use one-year or two-year old cars to bring through youngsters, and let them battle in those cars over a series. Also, it would be good to keep test drivers in shape- imagine how much better drivers like Badoer, Alguesuari and Grosjean could have been in 2009 if they were driving F1 cars (albeit old ones) competitively.

Speshal

My idea is slightly different to A1 GP because you've still got the normal WDC and WCC running concurrently and of ocurse being the championships which gain the most attention- but within that a national series could inspire drivers to try harder because there's much more to achieve than been stuck in the midfield. If you looked at the theoretical results of the 1994 Italian F1 championship- none of those drivers were ever going to win the World Championships- but they had a reason for being on the limit and providing more entertainment for us all. Basically it works in the same way that the old Jim Clark Trophy used to work- it was its own seperate championship within the bigger and mightier world championship.

Sorry for the long-winded answer!

 

[Galahad]

I don't have much to add, other than to say it's a fine idea and great work!