This is the racing version of the sports what if thread... attempt 2. I hope this one goes on longer than the F1 thread.
Motorsports What Ifs Thread
- Thread starter DoritosandmtnDew
- Start date
Here's my list:
- Bellof never dies at 1000 km of Spa 1985: he could well become a F1 champion.
- Group C 3.5l is never done, the class survives a bit more.
- Cart is never formed
- No Cart/Irl split
- Have Dtm, Supergt, Imsa and Wec fuse their top class (difficult I Know) and GT3 remaining the sole Gt class.
- HANS device is adopted some years earlier by drivers.
Riain
Banned
Have Ford engines win a few races and have crossover with Australian and Japanese racing series.
1) After the roaring success Ford has in international motorsport in the 1960s, General Motors decides to completely reverse it's earlier decisions to not be fully involved in racing, with Jim Hall, Roger Penske, Dick Guldstrand, Don Yenko and Carl Haas as it's point men, and the Chaparral team shows up at Le Mans in 1967 as a factory GM squad. Ford whups them that year and the rules changes to limit cars to 5000cc engines the following year force GM down again in 1968, but they for 1969 create a special Chevrolet V8 with DOHC four-valve aluminum heads, a much-lighter rotating assembly, flat-plane crankshaft and dry-sump oil system, an engine which proves both exceedingly reliable and very powerful. The newly-named Corvette Grand Sport Prototype wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1969 and battles the Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512 in the early 1970s, and one is famously driven by Paul Newman against Steve McQueen and his Porsche 917 in the 1971 blockbuster Le Mans.
Both GM and Ford learn rapidly as a result of this that there is vast attention to be gained in global motorsport, even for the North American market. While Ford focuses on F1, GM focuses on sports car racing, the Chaparral and Penske teams building ever-better racers in both GT and Prototype categories.
Both GM and Ford learn rapidly as a result of this that there is vast attention to be gained in global motorsport, even for the North American market. While Ford focuses on F1, GM focuses on sports car racing, the Chaparral and Penske teams building ever-better racers in both GT and Prototype categories.
Some Formula 1 ideas...
• Hamilton stays with Mclaren - Rosberg likely a 4 time champion, depending who was his team mate. Hamilton probably got fed up and left the sport after Mclaren’s decline really kicked in.
• Mclaren stays with Honda - rumouredly their choice was to stick with Honda or Alonso, so have Alonso go a year early and Mclaren retain world Honda power.
• Kubica doesn’t go rallying, his proposed Ferrari move to partner Alonso goes ahead.
• Williams retain Newey by making him a shareholder like he wanted.
• Mclaren sells a larger stake to / fully partners with Mercedes.
• Hamilton stays with Mclaren - Rosberg likely a 4 time champion, depending who was his team mate. Hamilton probably got fed up and left the sport after Mclaren’s decline really kicked in.
• Mclaren stays with Honda - rumouredly their choice was to stick with Honda or Alonso, so have Alonso go a year early and Mclaren retain world Honda power.
• Kubica doesn’t go rallying, his proposed Ferrari move to partner Alonso goes ahead.
• Williams retain Newey by making him a shareholder like he wanted.
• Mclaren sells a larger stake to / fully partners with Mercedes.
The SCCA realizing that the majority of Pony Cars sold had inline six engines creates a new series called T/A 75 featuring A Class sedans (compacts and pony cars, Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins, Darts, Chevy II, Americans etc) limited to 3.75 liters (227 cid) six cylinder engines. Engines may be bored but no changes to stroke are allowed. Rules regarding heads and carburation are fairly open but do not allow for things like 4 valve heads or OHC conversions. The basic competitive set up becomes three side draft Webers with a crossflow head. This bleeds over into production cars leading to generation of American I6 performance cars. Ultimately we see street cars such as the AMC Hornet TA75 featuring a factory installed twin cam hemi head with the cams in the head but mounted under the mating face still using very short pushrods, factory installed Weber DCOE carbs, 4 wheel disc brakes with factory IRS. GM would field a Nova with the headh based the Z-28 head, Corvette brakes and suspension in the rear.
Can Am was always going to be on a time clock simply because it's costs got absolutely insane and there was no real way of slowing that cost problem down. Short of rules rewrites or restrictions, Can Am was always going to implode at some point.
This +1000. Stefan Bellof was born for Formula One racing, I never understood why he wanted to race sports cars, even for the factory Porsche team.
The same problem that effected Can Am was always going to hit here too. Group C lasted as long as it did because it was (reasonably) cost effective and competitive, the latter in large part because of the best cars one could buy for the class - the Porsche 956 and its 962 derivative - were available to anyone willing to spend the money. Manufacturer rockets may wow the fans, but in the longer term they tend to become a problem for the series as they drive privateer entrants out of the sport rather quickly, as was the case with Group C. If you want Group C to last longer, have Porsche (or someone else) create a successor to the 956/962, a competitive machine that private entrants can afford to buy and race.
That would end up being a huge negative for the sport. USAC simply wasn't doing a good job promoting the sport, and CART's primary reason for its creation was to change that. They wanted to have USAC run the rules and technical aspects of the sport while CART ran the promotional side of the business, with both splitting the proceeds that resulted. The Hulman family's insistence on not sharing a nickel of the financial rewards of the sport (controlling the Indy 500 meant they got the lion's share of those proceeds) forced USAC to fight CART and forced CART to become a series sanctioning body and not just a promoter. If USAC had done a better job it might have had no reason for its existence, but they were too interested in pleasing Tony Hulman.
This is a big downer for me because, fundamentally, Tony George could have been one of the great beneficiaries of CART's high profile in the 1990s. If he had been the one that could have closed the gap between the Indy 500 and CART he could have been Indycar's Bernie Ecclestone, but instead he became one of its most damaging personalities.
For IMSA and Super GT, having multiple classes is enormously helpful in a lot of regards, most of all because it keeps technical and cost creep more under control, which has always been a problem for sports car racing. If you're going to align the rules of those series, you'll want to keep manufacturers from owning all the classes. Keeping GT3 as a privateer playground and allowing Class One (which I am assuming is your top class idea, as DTM and Super GT use it and IMSA talked a lot about it) as your top class is a good idea, but I'd also recommend keeping GTE as well because of the manufacture interest in it.
Why wouldn't Hamilton just go to another team?
Would this lead to Massa moving to Williams a few years early?
Hamilton could as well go to Ferrari later. But we know Hamilton was extremely impressed by what he saw at Mercedes, he really took the chance of his life.
Riain
Banned
Suggestions? Mine would be an engine size limit on turbo cars.
However I think the Mcalaren Chev dominance may have played a part in the implosion, Ford and others never really got any kudos that might have encouraged greater efforts. If Ford stock-block engines, perhaps a 351 with Gurney-Weslake heads like the Honker had, had a win in 1966-67 then perhaps Ford might throw a touch more effort into Can-Am and keep the series a bit more interesting for a bit longer.
Greg Moore breaks his wrist more seriously when he gets knocked off his scooter in the days before the CART Fontana 1999 race; Roberto Moreno subs for him and is killed when he spins on a yellow flag restart. Does Moore live up to his promise at Penske, and does he end up in Formula 1?
Greg Moore's replacement at Penske was one Helio Castroneves. Butterfly that tragic accident at Fontana and you have 4-time Indy winner Greg Moore and Helio who. No matter how crowd pleasing spiderman has been, much better for Indy car racing to have an anglo-canadian as the domination driver of the aughts than a Brazilian.
2012 Hamilton was pretty unhappy already, in inconsistent form and generally unsettled, remember him crashing into Massa and vaguely accusing the stewards of racism etc. Had he re-signed with Mclaren, then seen them go down the toilet, could definitely have seen him walk away from the sport, go do music etc.
The only front running seat open to him as an escape, if he hung on for it, would be Ferrari, but would his stock have been higher than Vettel’s at the time?
I'm not sure about that one, namely because while Greg Moore was a great man and a hell of a driver he never had Helio's charisma, and Helio only ended up at Team Penske as a result of Hogan throwing in the towel. Moore still alive could well mean Helio still being with Hogan, and when De Ferran retires in 2004ish Helio may well have be his replacement.
SwampTiger
Banned
Most American sixes of the time were bigger than 3.75 liter/227 cid. These ranged from 200 cid/3.3 liter Ford, 225 cid/3.7 liter Mopars, 230 cid/3.8 liter Chevy/Pontiac, 232 cid/3.8 AMC, Ford 240/4.0, Ford/Chevy/GM 250/4.2, to 258 cid/4.2 AMC. I don't see a place for multi-cams in US racing. Besides, you can get a ton of horsepower from most of these. Mexico VAM (AMC affiliate) built over-bored versions for their local market. Depending on when you start the series, Buick had their v6 198/3.3 and 225/3.7 from 1962 to 1966. Base the rules on the B Sedan rules with a 4.0 liter/245 cid limit. Go racing.
overninethousands
Banned
I have a Bellof TL in the making. He was to go to Ferrari in 1986, screwing Stefan Johansson probably (not Alboreto)
Anybody interested ?
Anybody interested ?
Some say he was another Senna, in 1986 Ferrari was restructuring with a project which lead to the 640/641, so he would have to wait a while.