Re: F1 Rejects Microprose Grand Prix Series: the 2013 season
Posted: 16 Oct 2011, 15:49
The end-of-season presentation ceremony: the trophies are named
For the previous two years, it was the legendary HWNSNBM who held the Drivers' Championship trophy at the end of the season. This year, it was the man he had effectively hand-picked as his replacement, Chris Dagnall. But this year, there was an extra name on the trophy, after the Series Management's competition to suggest a suitable candidate to be honoured in its presentation; the trophy had just arrived from an Adelaide engraver's before the race. And so, Daggers was awarded the newly-named Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup. The Dutch nobleman competed in 31 F1 championship races, started 28 of them, usually in a bright orange Porsche, and scored four sixth places – a little bit more than enough to unrejectify himself. For extra rejectfulness, he competed in 22 non-championship races where he picked up his best results – two seconds and a third, along with one pole position. And then there's the added eccentricity that saw him drive in bare feet, or drive in practice wearing a Beatles wig instead of his helmet. Unfortunately, that same race where his wig entertained the crowd would be his last, as he suffered a fatal crash later in practice, his ancient car finally screaming that enough was enough and taking him to Motor Racing Valhalla with it. And though, as I say, he managed to escape rejectdom, with those results in the same two seasons that he scored his two DNQs:
"He properly embodied the true reject spirit: he did not have the talent or equipment necessary to become a great name of the sport, but competed anyway for the sheer love of it." – BlindCaveSalamander
Also highly commended for being in the running for the trophy name is Johnny Dumfries, also a nobleman who was quite fortunately landed with a competitive drive for the 1986 season – alongside Ayrton Senna. Johnny did just enough to unrejectify himself, and hence was one of the original "Lucky Bastards" on the F1 Rejects main site, and let's not forget he managed a DNQ at Monaco in the same car that Senna racked up eight pole positions and two wins with. But, in the end, Johnny did go on to win the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1988, and Carel Godin de Beaufort never had that chance.
With Jan Magnussen winning the race in Australia, Stefan Johansson was also on the podium to pick up the Constructors' Championship trophy for Viking Racing – retained from the previous season. This was named the Willi Kauhsen Cup, after the German constructor who tried to enter F1 in the 1970s by designing his own version of the all-conquering Lotus 79. Not only did this venture fail, but it failed so badly that the Kauhsen cars only entered two races, bombing spectacularly both times and ensuring prime reject status for Gianfranco Brancatelli in the process. Then, in what is quite possibly the most rejectful inter-team deal ever struck in the history of F1, Arturo Merzario decided that buying these awful cars to use for his own team would be the way forward... and to nobody's surprise, it wasn't. With the Lotus connection firmly established in the origins of the Kauhsen team, this is truly F1RMGP's answer to the original Colin Chapman Trophy for the normally-aspirated (and hence instant reject) F1 teams in the 1987 season.
A special commendation goes to Connaught Engineering who came within a whisker of being the name immortalised on the trophy. So their story goes, they could be said to have spanned everything from should-have-been-champions to hopeless rejects. At the top end, Stirling Moss drove a Connaught Type A at two races, and Stuart Lewis-Evans, who might have been champion one day had he not been killed in action, scored a fourth place and unrejectified himself at his first ever Grand Prix, driving a Type B. At the reject end, the Type A was driven by reject hero Johnny Claes in four races in 1953, and the Type B was used for a one-off by amusingly-named profiled reject, Desmond Titterington, in 1956. But perhaps the biggest reject statistic of all for Connaught was how their fortunes lurched violently up and down; the team unrejectified themselves in their first ever race with 4th and 5th at Silverstone in 1952, then failed to score another point for three years. Finaly scoring again in 1956 and 1957, when the Constructors' Championship was first started in 1958, the Type B was ageing rapidly and the team racked up their first ever DNQs – scoring no points in 1958 with three DNQs out of five entries, then when the Type C was only entered for one race in 1959, that race ended in retirement. The final piece of rejectdom came in 2004, with the foundation of the Connaught Motor Company, who made the bonkers Type D – a 2.0-litre V10 engine enclosed in a body with a grotesquely ugly face.
For the previous two years, it was the legendary HWNSNBM who held the Drivers' Championship trophy at the end of the season. This year, it was the man he had effectively hand-picked as his replacement, Chris Dagnall. But this year, there was an extra name on the trophy, after the Series Management's competition to suggest a suitable candidate to be honoured in its presentation; the trophy had just arrived from an Adelaide engraver's before the race. And so, Daggers was awarded the newly-named Carel Godin de Beaufort Cup. The Dutch nobleman competed in 31 F1 championship races, started 28 of them, usually in a bright orange Porsche, and scored four sixth places – a little bit more than enough to unrejectify himself. For extra rejectfulness, he competed in 22 non-championship races where he picked up his best results – two seconds and a third, along with one pole position. And then there's the added eccentricity that saw him drive in bare feet, or drive in practice wearing a Beatles wig instead of his helmet. Unfortunately, that same race where his wig entertained the crowd would be his last, as he suffered a fatal crash later in practice, his ancient car finally screaming that enough was enough and taking him to Motor Racing Valhalla with it. And though, as I say, he managed to escape rejectdom, with those results in the same two seasons that he scored his two DNQs:
"He properly embodied the true reject spirit: he did not have the talent or equipment necessary to become a great name of the sport, but competed anyway for the sheer love of it." – BlindCaveSalamander
Also highly commended for being in the running for the trophy name is Johnny Dumfries, also a nobleman who was quite fortunately landed with a competitive drive for the 1986 season – alongside Ayrton Senna. Johnny did just enough to unrejectify himself, and hence was one of the original "Lucky Bastards" on the F1 Rejects main site, and let's not forget he managed a DNQ at Monaco in the same car that Senna racked up eight pole positions and two wins with. But, in the end, Johnny did go on to win the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hour race in 1988, and Carel Godin de Beaufort never had that chance.
With Jan Magnussen winning the race in Australia, Stefan Johansson was also on the podium to pick up the Constructors' Championship trophy for Viking Racing – retained from the previous season. This was named the Willi Kauhsen Cup, after the German constructor who tried to enter F1 in the 1970s by designing his own version of the all-conquering Lotus 79. Not only did this venture fail, but it failed so badly that the Kauhsen cars only entered two races, bombing spectacularly both times and ensuring prime reject status for Gianfranco Brancatelli in the process. Then, in what is quite possibly the most rejectful inter-team deal ever struck in the history of F1, Arturo Merzario decided that buying these awful cars to use for his own team would be the way forward... and to nobody's surprise, it wasn't. With the Lotus connection firmly established in the origins of the Kauhsen team, this is truly F1RMGP's answer to the original Colin Chapman Trophy for the normally-aspirated (and hence instant reject) F1 teams in the 1987 season.
A special commendation goes to Connaught Engineering who came within a whisker of being the name immortalised on the trophy. So their story goes, they could be said to have spanned everything from should-have-been-champions to hopeless rejects. At the top end, Stirling Moss drove a Connaught Type A at two races, and Stuart Lewis-Evans, who might have been champion one day had he not been killed in action, scored a fourth place and unrejectified himself at his first ever Grand Prix, driving a Type B. At the reject end, the Type A was driven by reject hero Johnny Claes in four races in 1953, and the Type B was used for a one-off by amusingly-named profiled reject, Desmond Titterington, in 1956. But perhaps the biggest reject statistic of all for Connaught was how their fortunes lurched violently up and down; the team unrejectified themselves in their first ever race with 4th and 5th at Silverstone in 1952, then failed to score another point for three years. Finaly scoring again in 1956 and 1957, when the Constructors' Championship was first started in 1958, the Type B was ageing rapidly and the team racked up their first ever DNQs – scoring no points in 1958 with three DNQs out of five entries, then when the Type C was only entered for one race in 1959, that race ended in retirement. The final piece of rejectdom came in 2004, with the foundation of the Connaught Motor Company, who made the bonkers Type D – a 2.0-litre V10 engine enclosed in a body with a grotesquely ugly face.
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