Grand Prix Rejects

Jonny83 wrote:

East Londoner wrote:What if Montoya had stuck around in F1 for the rest of the 2006 season? Would he have improved, considering how poor his season had been up to the point where he decimated the midfield at the first corner at Indianapolis?

I guess the only way would have been up, and it's not a complete stretch to imagine him winning the Hungarian race that de la Rosa came second in, but then equally he could have got into the same state that Damon Hill did in 1999, no longer motivated and figuratively counting down the days until he could get out of there. If things did pick up though, if he stayed with McLaren beyond '06 then that leaves Hamilton either starting in 2008 after a year as official tester/reserve, or being farmed out to a lesser team like Spyker, and perhaps losing career momentum as a result. Alonso maybe winning the '07 title and staying with McLaren beyond that.

Weren't Red Bull interested in signing Montoya for 2007 though?

Wizzie wrote:Weren't Red Bull interested in signing Montoya for 2007 though?

This seems to ring a bell. I don't think he was too interested in them as they were mired in the midfield at this time. It would have been fascinating to watch Montoya against Vettel, just to see how Monty would react in a cuddly and fluffy Vettel freindly enviroment....

What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

HonoraryNortherner wrote:

Wizzie wrote:Weren't Red Bull interested in signing Montoya for 2007 though?

This seems to ring a bell. I don't think he was too interested in them as they were mired in the midfield at this time. It would have been fascinating to watch Montoya against Vettel, just to see how Monty would react in a cuddly and fluffy Vettel freindly enviroment....

Looks towards Scott Speed as a reaction.

ibsey wrote:What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

Button-Schumacher line-up at Mercedes, or Button-Rosberg? If the former, Rosberg goes to McLaren; if the latter, Hamilton-Kubica at McLaren? I think Hamilton would handily win a fight against Rosberg (and we'll see whether I'm right this season!), but would have a more difficult time against Kubica. Kubica gets to add to his single race win. Would McLaren let Kubica go rallying?

Backmarker wrote:

ibsey wrote:What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

Button-Schumacher line-up at Mercedes, or Button-Rosberg? If the former, Rosberg goes to McLaren; if the latter, Hamilton-Kubica at McLaren? I think Hamilton would handily win a fight against Rosberg (and we'll see whether I'm right this season!), but would have a more difficult time against Kubica. Kubica gets to add to his single race win. Would McLaren let Kubica go rallying?

Kubica would've destroyed Hamilton and won the title in 2010. He also never would've gone rallying again.

ibsey wrote:What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

Based on the silly season talk before he moved - then Kimi back to McLaren, Schumacher stays retired. Think Rosberg to Merc and Kubica to Renault were already done deals at that point (may be wrong though!)

Kimi probably gets the hump still at some point and either goes rallying or perhaps ends up at "Lotus" for 2012 anyway, leaving Lewis remaining McLaren's golden boy, Kubica still has his accident unfortunately, Button and Hamilton in opposite cars this weekend. And we probably have a better idea of just how good Rosberg is by 2012, facing a competitive teammate at or near his peak for the first time since his 2006 rookie year.

Jonny83 wrote:

ibsey wrote:What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

Based on the silly season talk before he moved - then Kimi back to McLaren, Schumacher stays retired. Think Rosberg to Merc and Kubica to Renault were already done deals at that point (may be wrong though!)

Kimi couldn't go back to McLaren in 2010, Ferrari were paying him to not race in F1 that year. If I were McLaren in that situation, I'd try and buy Kubica out of his Renault contract for 2010.

Jonny83 wrote:

ibsey wrote:What if Jenson Button had stayed on with Brawn / Mercedes for 2010?

Based on the silly season talk before he moved - then Kimi back to McLaren, Schumacher stays retired. Think Rosberg to Merc and Kubica to Renault were already done deals at that point (may be wrong though!)

Kimi probably gets the hump still at some point and either goes rallying or perhaps ends up at "Lotus" for 2012 anyway, leaving Lewis remaining McLaren's golden boy, Kubica still has his accident unfortunately, Button and Hamilton in opposite cars this weekend. And we probably have a better idea of just how good Rosberg is by 2012, facing a competitive teammate at or near his peak for the first time since his 2006 rookie year.

I'm not sure that Kimi would have returned to McLaren - there were suggestions at the time that Kimi was asking for a larger salary than McLaren were willing to pay him (as BlindCaveSalamander points out, Kimi was still receiving compensation from Ferrari after his contract was bought out but would have forfeited those payments if he returned to F1 in 2010), plus it has to be said that he wasn't entirely keen on McLaren's corporate attitude and the commitments that would entail.
I believe that you're right that Rosberg and Kubica had already been signed by rival teams at that point, and from what I can recall of Renault's comments at the time they were determined to hold onto him, making it very difficult to buy him out of his contract. Added to that, in the longer term Kubica is probably more likely to have ended up at Ferrari given their long standing interest in him, so we could possibly rule those two drivers out of the equation.

One possible alternative might have been Glock - IIRC, he had been mentioned at the time as a possible candidate for McLaren on the back of some of his stronger races for Toyota, plus I believe that Mercedes might have preferred to have had a German driver in McLaren for publicity reasons.

I made a timeline on f1alternate: The Iceman Waiteth - What if Enrique Bernoldi had got the Sauber seat instead of Kimi Räikkönen in 2001. The 2001 season is complete, with some minor changes from our timeline - but I can assure you that the further into the future I write, the more different the timeline will become! All ideas are welcome.

Backmarker wrote:I made a timeline on f1alternate: The Iceman Waiteth - What if Enrique Bernoldi had got the Sauber seat instead of Kimi Räikkönen in 2001. The 2001 season is complete, with some minor changes from our timeline - but I can assure you that the further into the future I write, the more different the timeline will become! All ideas are welcome.

I'm following it on the Wiki since you started it. When will Räikkönen join F1? 2003 maybe?

pi314159 wrote:I'm following it on the Wiki since you started it. When will Räikkönen join F1? 2003 maybe?

Because I'm going to put it up soon, I can tell you that he'll get his chance in 2002. He's spent 2001 as test driver for Sauber, and with Heidfeld moving on, this means that a seat becomes available at Sauber, alongside Bernoldi. Now he's British F3 champion, so he's probably actually a better driver than he was in 2001 in our timeline, but Sauber aren't as good in 2002 as they were in 2001. Of course, this also means that Felipe Massa has to bide his time!

Backmarker wrote:I made a timeline on f1alternate: The Iceman Waiteth - What if Enrique Bernoldi had got the Sauber seat instead of Kimi Räikkönen in 2001. The 2001 season is complete, with some minor changes from our timeline - but I can assure you that the further into the future I write, the more different the timeline will become! All ideas are welcome.

Yeah, we need more F1 related alternate history scenarios. I'd do one on AH.com, but I'm banned there.

Ferrarist wrote:

Backmarker wrote:I made a timeline on f1alternate: The Iceman Waiteth - What if Enrique Bernoldi had got the Sauber seat instead of Kimi Räikkönen in 2001. The 2001 season is complete, with some minor changes from our timeline - but I can assure you that the further into the future I write, the more different the timeline will become! All ideas are welcome.

Yeah, we need more F1 related alternate history scenarios. I'd do one on AH.com, but I'm banned there.

I'm curious to know why...

Backmarker wrote:

pi314159 wrote:I'm following it on the Wiki since you started it. When will Räikkönen join F1? 2003 maybe?

Because I'm going to put it up soon, I can tell you that he'll get his chance in 2002. He's spent 2001 as test driver for Sauber, and with Heidfeld moving on, this means that a seat becomes available at Sauber, alongside Bernoldi. Now he's British F3 champion, so he's probably actually a better driver than he was in 2001 in our timeline, but Sauber aren't as good in 2002 as they were in 2001. Of course, this also means that Felipe Massa has to bide his time!

Will Phoenix Finance get in, the ones who bought Prost?

dr-baker wrote:I'm curious to know why...

For the same reason I don't want any political discussions on this forum. That is all I can say .

Ferrarist wrote:

dr-baker wrote:I'm curious to know why...

For the same reason I don't want any political discussions on this forum. That is all I can say .

Hmm, OK...

what if Marussia this year find 1.5 seconds between now and end of the season? but somehow have an awesome wet weather car>

pi314159 wrote:Will Phoenix Finance get in, the ones who bought Prost?

They definitely won't compete, and I'm not even sure if I'm going to have them try to turn up at Malaysia. In our timeline Phoenix were essentially an elaborate scam on the part of Tom Walkinshaw which I am unable to understand (I think an attempt to get his hands on Prost's prize money?), with his friend Charles Nickerson as figurehead. Without Bernoldi's money going to Arrows for 2001 and 2002, Arrows/TWR are in awful shape financially in my timeline, and so it was a struggle for them to even make the grid for 2002, so there isn't money available to bid for Prost. What this does mean is that Paul Stoddart has bought Prost's assets instead, including designs for the AP05.

What if one of the Michelin drivers at the USA 05 race had rebelled and attempted to take part in the race?

Shadaza wrote:What if one of the Michelin drivers at the USA 05 race had rebelled and attempted to take part in the race?

If one of them were to rebel, the most likely candidate would have been Coulthard, as from memory he said over the team radio that he wanted to give it a crack. Assuming that he stopped every 10 laps or so and backed off through turn 13 to help preserve the tyres, he probably would have just beaten the Minardis to 5th. Whether anyone else would have followed suit though is up for debate.

Wizzie wrote:

Shadaza wrote:What if one of the Michelin drivers at the USA 05 race had rebelled and attempted to take part in the race?

If one of them were to rebel, the most likely candidate would have been Coulthard, as from memory he said over the team radio that he wanted to give it a crack. Assuming that he stopped every 10 laps or so and backed off through turn 13 to help preserve the tyres, he probably would have just beaten the Minardis to 5th. Whether anyone else would have followed suit though is up for debate.

Wouldn't he have got penalties for changing tyres, as per the silly tyres rules that year?

East Londoner wrote:

Wizzie wrote:

Shadaza wrote:What if one of the Michelin drivers at the USA 05 race had rebelled and attempted to take part in the race?

If one of them were to rebel, the most likely candidate would have been Coulthard, as from memory he said over the team radio that he wanted to give it a crack. Assuming that he stopped every 10 laps or so and backed off through turn 13 to help preserve the tyres, he probably would have just beaten the Minardis to 5th. Whether anyone else would have followed suit though is up for debate.

Wouldn't he have got penalties for changing tyres, as per the silly tyres rules that year?

Interesting question, since the regulations did include a clause that said that the tyres could be changed on safety if they were damaged. That clause was mainly in case drivers picked up punctures, admittedly, but perhaps they could have invoked that clause if they did change tyres - though doing so would probably have seen the arguments over the tyres going into overdrive.

mario wrote:

East Londoner wrote:

Wizzie wrote:
If one of them were to rebel, the most likely candidate would have been Coulthard, as from memory he said over the team radio that he wanted to give it a crack. Assuming that he stopped every 10 laps or so and backed off through turn 13 to help preserve the tyres, he probably would have just beaten the Minardis to 5th. Whether anyone else would have followed suit though is up for debate.

Wouldn't he have got penalties for changing tyres, as per the silly tyres rules that year?

Interesting question, since the regulations did include a clause that said that the tyres could be changed on safety if they were damaged. That clause was mainly in case drivers picked up punctures, admittedly, but perhaps they could have invoked that clause if they did change tyres - though doing so would probably have seen the arguments over the tyres going into overdrive.

But would the team (Red Bull?) even refuel and change the tires of this rogue driver(Coulthard?)?

mario wrote:
Interesting question, since the regulations did include a clause that said that the tyres could be changed on safety if they were damaged. That clause was mainly in case drivers picked up punctures, admittedly, but perhaps they could have invoked that clause if they did change tyres - though doing so would probably have seen the arguments over the tyres going into overdrive.

I believe, The FIA came out afterwards and said that there would not have been penalities for changing tyres, as the tyres were damaged by their rules.However, even with penalties 6th-8th was up for grabs.

Coultard was fairly adamant about racing, but remember this really was when FOCA was born, and the teams had decided as early as Friday night/Saturday morning that they were going to "dig in" and not race (Trulli won pole with so little fuel that he would have had to pit by lap 4 or 5). However, if one team did indeed race, then others would have followed. Remember, Jordan and Minardi orginally agreed not to race, but when Ferrari went out, Jordan realized there were points to be had, and caved (admittedly with some pushing from Bridgestone), which forced Minardi to race to keep up in the WCC. Stoddart swore up and down that if the Jordan's retired, so would the Minardi's, and with Montero smoking on the grid, it looked possible.

There are so many what ifs about Indygate, that will never really know what could have been. But it did shape F1 as we know it today, as FOCA, Austin, and the one tyre supplier rule all came about because of it, and really it was the begining of the end of Max.

What if Minardi signed Max Wilson instead of Gaston Mazzacane for the 2000 season?

Wizzie wrote:What if Minardi signed Max Wilson instead of Gaston Mazzacane for the 2000 season?

Don’t know an awful lot about him, I must admit. But after glancing through his Wikipedia page, I’m not sure he would have done an awful lot better than Gene to be honest. Might have scrapped a point at somewhere like Austria if he was really, really lucky (I seem to recall Gene running well in that race). However I personally don’t think he would have done enough to have secured a race seat for 2001 or beyond, on merit alone. I say this because I believe Minardi were really struggling financially around this time. Which IIRC is how Paul Stoddart came into the frame. So Wilson’s lack of financial backing would, I believe, have really hurt his chances of retaining his Minardi seat for 2001. Alonso may not also have brought any funds with him to Minardi in 2001. But again going on purely their Wikipedia page, Fernardo seemed to be a much better prospect than Wilson at the start of 2001.

Furthermore, I can’t think where else he may have gone to? Possibly Sauber (although I can’t personally see that happening since I can think of others more suitable). Wilson may have gone onto an F1 test driver role which may have led to a drive there after. But, & I could be wrong on this, I can’t see him being a particularly big loss to F1 I’m afraid.

However in the case that Max Wilson did joining Minardi (with less financial backing than Mazzacane), it might have meant Minardi would have been in even more financial trouble. Possibly even collapsing before the end of the 2000 season. Unless Paul Stoddart was able to come to their rescue before 2001.

What if David Coulthard didn't throw his car into the wall at the 1999 Japanese Grand Prix? Could Schumacher have caught Hakkinen for the win without Coulthard's interference?

ibsey wrote:Alonso may not also have brought any funds with him to Minardi in 2001. But again going on purely their Wikipedia page, Fernardo seemed to be a much better prospect than Wilson at the start of 2001.

I'm reasonably sure that Flavio Briatore was shelling out to get Alonso the Minardi drive in 2001 (and subsequently did the same for Mark Webber in 2002). Also, I think both had a little personal sponsorship. But neither were charged as much as Mazzacane and Yoong were.

Wizzie wrote:What if David Coulthard didn't throw his car into the wall at the 1999 Japanese Grand Prix? Could Schumacher have caught Hakkinen for the win without Coulthard's interference?

Using Murray Walker's catchphrase: Catching is one thing, passing is another" So I don't think Schumacher would have passed him. The biggest effect with Coulthard's accident was that it effectively clinched WCC for Ferrari.

Bleu wrote:

Wizzie wrote:What if David Coulthard didn't throw his car into the wall at the 1999 Japanese Grand Prix? Could Schumacher have caught Hakkinen for the win without Coulthard's interference?

Using Murray Walker's catchphrase: Catching is one thing, passing is another" So I don't think Schumacher would have passed him. The biggest effect with Coulthard's accident was that it effectively clinched WCC for Ferrari.

I REALLY couldn't imagine Schumi risking life and limb only for his designated back-up man to become Ferrari's first WDC in 20 years. If it had been HIS championship on the other hand, yes I reckon he'd have had a good shot at it like what happened the following year!

Backmarker wrote:

ibsey wrote:Alonso may not also have brought any funds with him to Minardi in 2001. But again going on purely their Wikipedia page, Fernardo seemed to be a much better prospect than Wilson at the start of 2001.

I'm reasonably sure that Flavio Briatore was shelling out to get Alonso the Minardi drive in 2001 (and subsequently did the same for Mark Webber in 2002). Also, I think both had a little personal sponsorship. But neither were charged as much as Mazzacane and Yoong were.

I might be mistaken, but I think that Alonso did have a small amount of personal sponsorship from Telefonica in the early part of his career that might have helped him into the Minardi team (he was listed as Minardi's test driver in 2000, which was the last year of Telefonica's sponsorship of Minardi).

mario wrote:

Backmarker wrote:

ibsey wrote:Alonso may not also have brought any funds with him to Minardi in 2001. But again going on purely their Wikipedia page, Fernardo seemed to be a much better prospect than Wilson at the start of 2001.

I'm reasonably sure that Flavio Briatore was shelling out to get Alonso the Minardi drive in 2001 (and subsequently did the same for Mark Webber in 2002). Also, I think both had a little personal sponsorship. But neither were charged as much as Mazzacane and Yoong were.

I might be mistaken, but I think that Alonso did have a small amount of personal sponsorship from Telefonica in the early part of his career that might have helped him into the Minardi team (he was listed as Minardi's test driver in 2000, which was the last year of Telefonica's sponsorship of Minardi).

Telefonica helped him into F3000 in the Astromega team (as his teammates cars were nearly sponsorless), and at first, Telefonica made a deal for Alonso. Then Telefonica withdrew, and Minardi decided to keep Alonso anyway, because he was quite talented. Also the Lease Plan logo was on the Astromega F3000 car, and then back on the 2001 Minardi, so they might be involved too.

Lease Plan was Alonso's cap sponsor while driving for Minardi, and they sponsored him until the end of his first Renault stint.

Heres a big one- What if that bloke who owns the copy shop in Woking hadn't rung up the number on the back of the secret Ferrari dossier?

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Heres a big one- What if that bloke who owns the copy shop in Woking hadn't rung up the number on the back of the secret Ferrari dossier?

I suspect that, in the end, that news would have become public - asides from the fact that, if Coughlan made a mistake like that and therefore might have ended up making some other mistake that publicised the affair, Ferrari already suspected that somebody within McLaren had access to some of their internal documents from the technical questions that McLaren had been asking the FIA. In particular, it seems that Coughlan had asked a few detailed questions about the floor of the F2007 - the exact nature of what he asked is a little unclear, but it appears that the floor was flexing at high speed to allow the car to sit closer to the track than would otherwise be permitted by the FIA's regulations.
The nature of Coughlan's questions might not in themselves have given away what he knew, but it is possible that he was asking enough awkward questions for Ferrari to have started an internal investigation and eventually deduced what Coughlan was up to through Stepney. I doubt that either man would have been able to cover their tracks for good in the longer term - something of that sort of magnitude would eventually come back to bite them, and it would just be a question of when.

What if, during the season, the reigning world champion can't race at one of the events? What happens to the car numbers?

andrew2209 wrote:What if, during the season, the reigning world champion can't race at one of the events? What happens to the car numbers?

They'd use 0 for the guy that replaces him. That's what happens if the champion can't race at the start of a season, and I don't see why a mid-season change would be different.

John Watson replaced Niki Lauda in 1985 European Grand Prix.

Also Ronnie Peterson had #1 all through 1974, the first year of the system, as Jackie Stewart had retired but Lotus won the 1973 Constructors' Championship.
Would have been interesting to see what car number Badoer and Fisichella had got at Ferrari in 2009 had Timo Glock gone faster at the end of Brazil the previous year.