In a world dominated by social media all human stories begin somewhere… on social media. Hence, my alternative F1 history commenced via my own little innocent tweet.
Check it out.
What if starting from 2014, the teams were given a conscious choice: go with power-units or stick to one of the following options: V12, V10 or V8, no rev limits, free design, no restrictions on fuel flow/consumption – to compensate for not adhering to very expensive, ill-conceived and overly complicated hybrid systems.
Ferrari would (al)most certainly resurrect their 1995 design, power is cheap, a clear no-brainer.
V10 sound was back in 2014?
Williams, IMHO, would’ve gone back to using that mighty 2006 Cosworth V8 revving at well over 20K RPM. #Aargh #RupturedEarDrums
Red Bull and Toro Rosso – and this is a pretty wild fantasy so please bear with me – the apfelstrudels might’ve bought rights from Paul Stoddart to run the European V10 engine, I’m positive about that.
Et cetera et cetera… I can’t figure out yet whether the Renault name had disappeared from the sport completely at the end of 2013 or not, it’s bloody hard putting together alternative realities (alright, I’ve settled on keeping Renault engines in F1 upon reflection with my inner self, phew).
My unorthodox 2014 grid / team list will shock you.
- MERCEDES – V6 PU TH*
- RED BULL RACING – EUROPEAN AVIATION V10**
- WILLIAMS – Cosworth V8 CA2006**
- FERRARI – Ferrari Tipo 044 3.0 litre 75-degree V12 (thnaks, Wikipedia!)**
- MCLAREN – Chevrolet 7 l (430 cu in) V8 Can-Am**
- FORCE INDIA – V6 PU TH* MERCEDES
- STR – EUROPEAN AVIATION V10**
- LOTUS – Renault RS24, 3.0 litre V10 (I awarded Toleman-Benetton-Renault-Lotus-Renault with its 2004 engine, which they say was based on Renault’s own old and exceptionally loud 1990s motor, wow!)**
- MARUSSIA – Two 1.5L (1452 cc) Lada VAZ-2103 engines joined together, supercharged**
- SAUBER – Ferrari E4A-94 (Tipo 041), 3.5 litre 65-degree V12 (because Sauber always gets older Ferrari engines)**
- CATERHAM – Coventry Climax FWMV, 1496cc, 90° V8 (Tony Fernandes would totally do that, for sure)**
* V6 Power-unit, turbo-hybrid. Class A regs, Al Gore trophy for drivers and Elon Musk trophy for constructors.
** V12 / V10 / V8 Class B regs, Denny Hulme trophy for drivers and Harvey Postlethwaite trophy for constructors.
The end result?
V6 power-units in Mercedes and Force India simply could not withstand catastrophic bad vibrations provoked by the Class B cars passing by and would often explode mid-race, thus not featuring at all in the 2014 title hunt.
Red Bull won the 2014 drivers’ championship with Vettel, while Lotus took P1 in the constructors’ standings. Nico Rosberg retired from F1 after the summer break due to Mercedes’ lack of results. Hülkenberg replaces Rosberg but suffers a string of exotic problems, such as steering wheel falling off in his hands just one lap from his elusive first ever podium finish in F1 and being DSQ in the wake of Mercedes mechanics fitting his car with experimental square tyres meant for a post-season test by mistake in Abu Dhabi. Hülkenberg’s seat at Force India is taken by a 16-year old Jehan Daruvala who comes from nowhere and powers to P2 at his debut race with the team in Belgium.
Afterwards Greta Thunberg openly condemned Formula 1 for allowing such mayhem in the first place in her famous 2019 UN speech.
Amen.
PS I have evidently reimagined https://www.bossgp.com/
iberianmph.com 