The Women's European Cup kicks off, and the trophies are named...In a definite parallel (name-wise, at least) the drivers in this championship will be competing for the
Maria Teresa de Filippis Cup. Call her a pioneer if you like - admittedly there have only been five women to compete in F1, but she was the first, and - most importantly for this series - the first to be a reject! That said, four of the five races in her brief career were competed in the almost illegally gorgeous Maserati 250F, which Juan Manuel Fangio had won six races and the 1957 World Championship in, whereas Maria... didn't.
In a (fairly obvious if you've been reading before) change to the original plan, the
Bertha Benz Cup will be awarded to the winning team. A 121 mile drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back may not look much to us these days, but in 1888 it was revolutionary - even more so, given that Bertha Benz did it and in doing so became the first woman ever to drive a car, one of the first amateur mechanics - the techniques she used to keep Benz Patent Motorwagen #3 going would make Scrapheap Challenge contestants proud - and also, she was the first joyrider, given that the car was not hers to drive in the first place! And, in effect, this is what the Women's European Cup is all about - independent subsidiaries of the main series, and privateer teams, racing year-old F1RMGP cars that (technically) don't belong to them, and having to do the upgrades and servicing using hand-me-downs and ingenuity. The spirit of Bertha Benz certainly echoes down the ages into this series.
(By the way... some of the F1RMGP Silly Season News has to be revealed before racing can start here, but that will be in the very near future. The way this series works, there
absolutely must be feedback from those who have offered to be Team Managers as the series progresses.)