Welcome to the Series 1 Urth Championship in 2020! This first post is an information bank for how the Series 1 Championship will function, how results are worked out, and how the roleplay will work. If you have any questions at all, feel free to inbox me here, or on Discord (Will_#0001). Everything in this thread, beyond this post, should be strictly in-character. Any OOC notes can be included, but I ask to keep this thread on track!
What is Series 1?
Series 1 (S1) is the Urthian equivalent of the https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-championship/season-2020/2020-fia-formula-one-world-championship. While F1 is overseen by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), S1 will be overseen by the Federazione Urthiale del Motorsport (FuM), meaning Urth Motorsport Federation, based in https://tep.wiki/wiki/Petra_Cauda. Teams will have two drivers each, racing their own cars. Throughout the season, teams are competing for two championships, the Constructors (awarded to teams, based on their performance) and the Drivers (awarded to a single driver, based on their performance). The scoring system in Formula 1 can become quite complicated, so I have developed a more simplistic system for Series 1, which I will go onto explain further on.
Series 1 will feature regular weekend events, not visiting the same nation twice during the span of a championship. Each weekend will consist of three stages. Practice, designed to allow drivers to get a feel for the layout of a track on Friday, Qualifying, determines the starting grid for the race based on the fastest lap on Saturday, and the Race, on Sunday. This differs slightly to Formula 1, but is designed to keep things a little more manageable.
Do I need to know anything about Formula 1 or motorsport to take part?
So long as you know what a car is and why it needs fuel, you’re good to go! The idea behind this roleplay is to ensure that it is accessible for all knowledge/skill levels, whilst still giving opportunity for those a little more into the sport to go a bit further. To take part, all you need to do is come up with a team and two drivers. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kTt5f5gl3mnChAr8NgbXLcRhfdd_dUsiOImnSXygop8/edit?usp=sharing
How is each event scored?
Fantastic question! Upon registering a team, you’re asked for a handful of extra information, such as the driving style of each driver, and what the team is best at. This information, combined with information about each circuit (number of corners, DRS zones, straights, weather, etc), along with a handful of percentage modifiers and a small random value to encourage chance, produces a coefficient value. These values are put into an order whereby the highest value wins.
There are three total coefficients produced per weekend, one for practice, one for qualifying, and one for the race. Each stage’s result feeds into the next. For example, a good lead in practice, gives a slight edge when qualifying, and a good qualifying pace results in better chances on race day.
In addition to these determined factors, participants will be asked before each weekend what their balance between practice and qualifying is. For example, a driver may opt for 70% of the combined practice-qualifying time to be put to practice, and 30% on qualifying. This percentage can change and offers different balances of results. More practice time results in a better practice result, which contributes to the qualifying bonus. Whereas more time spent in qualifying may offer a better result overall. A minimum of 20% must be completed in either session. Teams do not have to use the full 100%, but this will likely diminish points. This could be used to roleplay technical issues in the run-up to the race.
Points, which are gained exclusively from the race day (unlike Formula 1), are based on the final result. With 22 cars on the grid, a 1st place finish will gain a driver 22 points. A 2nd place finish will give 21 points, and so on. With the person crossing the line last gaining just 1 point. Team points are calculated simply by combining the results of both drivers.
Now, the result of each stage is not all that is calculated. Throughout the weekend, there is also a calculation to determine whether a driver will DNF (Did Not Finish, usually due to technical issues to do with the car, but could be down to other reasons), or crash. A DNF or a crash will result in no points.
These calculations are all done through a Google Sheets spreadsheet, and so technically I could work out who the winner of the championship is going to be by filling out all of the event pages. But I won’t do that.
This seems a little dumbed down?
I appreciate that this system is a lot more simplistic than Formula 1 and other motorsport leagues. This is mainly to encourage people who are less knowledgeable on the topic into the roleplay. For next season, I will consider changing things up slightly, adding more factors (such as engine choice, privateer/manufacturer bias, etc). But all in good time! Lets get the basics of how this will work before we jump right into it.
What happens at the end of the season?
So, based on the current layout of the calendar, the season finale is expected to be on the 27th September. When the season ends, I am considering creating a secondary league, such as Series 2, or exploring other real-life inspiration (24hrs Le Mans, BTCC, Carrera Cup, etc). But I’ll likely field a poll to all those interested at the time. Who knows, we could have a winter season for S1, anything is on the table.
How does the roleplay work?
Now we get onto the most important part! Now, the driving element of the championship won’t be roleplayed directly. This would result in hundreds of sentence-long replies, so we want to avoid that where possible. However, during the events, participants are more than welcome to post information about how well each driver performs, any crowd interactions, mishaps, character development, etc. That’s what we’re looking for!
In the run up to each driving session, I will be posting a TV-show style interview post. In which I will go over some information about the circuit, what’s been happening behind the scenes during the week, and then I will field some questions to drivers/team leads/etc. At which point, participants are welcome to respond to the questions as though they are on the programme. After each stage, I will post a run down of the results in a similar fashion. The presenters may pass comment, and further field a handful of questions about the result of the event.
Then, after the race has been completed, I will post the results, and include some highlights of the session. This may include some impressive racing (such as difficult overtakes, or out maneuvering another driver), as well as any incidents, or DNFs, etc. Following which, some slightly longer interviews may be fielded (as there will be longer to reply). Interspersed between these posts, I fully endorse any participants contributions. This might be a conversation between the two drivers, or between engineers in the pit lane. Reactions to events happening during the race (like crashes), or even just taste-of-life type roleplay designed to give us a bit of insight into your characters.
During the week, when there is no racing event, please feel free to have your drivers attend invitational events (where drivers are invited to race at other tracks, mostly for fun/reputation - could be classic cars, karting, anything!), or anything you like!
Ultimately, my role is to progress the championship and share results and stimulate questions. Participants roles are more focused on the lives of the drivers and the team members. Although, anyone who isn’t participating, but wants in mid-season, feel free to ask questions as a news outlet, or a fan group!
If you have any questions, please just let me know via Discord <3
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