F1 Fanatic

Also, I considered a scenario whereby Massa won the race while Alonso retired in a messy incident with a Toro Rosso. Red Bull started celebrating Vettel’s title, only for Massa to take his helmet off and reveal himself to be Alonso driving Massa’s car and Massa’s helmet, thereby taking the title. It transpires that Red Bull were planning on selling Toro Rosso at the end of 2012, and so the team plotted to take Alonso out of the race in order to curry favour with Red Bull. Ferrari got wind of it, but, unable to prove it – and suspecting that Red Bull themselves had a hand in it – arranged with the FIA to swap Massa and Alonso around in such a way that no-one would notice so that if anything did happen to “Alonso”, his race would actually be protected.

… Who?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Vaillant

Your plot involving drivers secretly switching places reminded me of this comic series, but it seems it’s only well-known in my part of the world.

Here’s my version, also shorter.

Rain in Qualifying and Vettel can’t get a good lap in Q2, being eliminated ion 15th place. Alonso will start 3rd.

Light rain as the race starts, and pole sitter Massa (who always excels at home and seems to have found his mojo again) is lucky that his boss doesn’

@Kingshark
When Vettel returns to the pits, he finds out that it was actually a Ferrari mechanic who knocked out a Red Bull mechanic, attempting to mess up Vettel’s race. Furious, Vettel walks out to the pit wall, takes his helmet, and throws it at Alonso the next time he passes the line. Shocked, Alonso crashes into the pit wall, and even before the broken Ferrari has come to a halt, Fernando jumps out and charges towards Vettel like a Spanish bull. Remembering his ninja skills from the Chinese commercial spot earlier this year, an epic freefight ensues. Few notice that Michael Schumacher takes a historical last win, as a ring forms around the two would-be champions, no one wanting to break up the most epic battle of the season.

Later that evening, with the whole world desperately awaiting the outcome of the fight that continued off-camera in the press room, the FIA announce that aside from Michael Schumacher, there were no winners today, only losers. Ferrari is disqualified from the WCC for the mechanic-switch, and is handed a tax-deductable fine of $42 dollars (it’s still the FIA). Both Vettel and Alonso are disqualified from the championship and banned for life for their fight. Kimi Räikkönen, drunk of his ass now that the season has ended, receives a phone call that he has just won the championship. In a special press conference where the world press gathered in Monaco, Kimi announces that “it was nice to win”, before he leaves the stage after only 5 words.

2 years later, one week before the 2014 Chinese Grand Prix, the world press is gathered and gets in a bus with an unknown destination. A day’s drive later, they arrive in Thailand, where they enter what can best be described as an underground dungeon. They emerge in a muddy ring surrounded by seats. Everyone takes a seat, camera rolls, and the spotlights slowly light up the right corner. A shabby looking guy with a long beard cracks his knuckles. In the left corner, 5 foot long dirty blond locks cover the face of a guy in a martial arts outfit. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, for 2 years: the battle between Vettel and Alonso is finally going to be decided, live on pay-per-view!

My attempt:

Going into the weekend there is a lot of talk hyping up the championship battle and mention of the possibility of rain to spice things up further. Vettel sets the fastest time in all 3 practice sessions, but everybody insists that the title fight is not over yet.

In qualifying, Vettel appears to be a bit of an also-ran until the end of Q3 when he puts in a stunning lap to grab pole, but everybody insists that the title fight is not over yet.

At the start of the race, Vettel makes a good start, extending his lead to over 1 second before DRS is activated (preventing anybody from using it to pass him). He continues to extend his lead while everybody else is battling over the lower positions.

The forecast rain never materialises, so Vettel is able to continue extending his lead. Despite the commentators reminding us that the battle is not over until the end of the race (due to alternators etc), Vettel continues on his way, and wins the race and the championship. Everybody then moans at what an anticlimax the whole thing was.

Here’s an expanded version of something I wrote for a Dutch forum where some crazy Massa/Webber conspiracies were going on. Nothing too serious, but since this thread is a little cheeky anyways, I’ll have a go.

Practice:
Domination once more from Vettel. Hamilton looks close as in Austin, with Fernando closing in, but suffering a rare rear wing failure in FP2 means he misses out on the first wet running. Most teams express their concerns over the 2013 Pirelli tires and Paul Hembery is spotted crying in a FOM motorhome.

Qualifying:
All goes according to plan. The 3 bottom teams and Vernge drop out in Q1 and we’re left with both Red Bulls, both Ferraris, both McLarens, both Mercedes, Hulkenberg and Maldonado in the top 10. Order:
1. VET
2. HAM
3. WEB
4. MAS
5. ALO
6. BUT
7. MAL
8. HUL
9. MSC
10. ROS

Race:
Weather: rain. Twittersphere: still trying to comprehend Alonso’s pre-race tweet. As the first corner approaches it becomes clear Webber simply can’t start properly once more, with him and Massa losing out to Alonso immediately. Hamilton, knowing this is his last GP for McLaren and about the new tarmac runoff in T1, decides to go all in and eliminates Vettel’s rear wing, but is able to continue. Due to Vettel’s stranded car, Hamilton manages to make a nice gap to Alonso, but the rest of the field is dropped even further behind as they avoid a furious Vettel on his way to the pit.

Chaos ensues, with Button dropping out of P3 with an ironic alternator failure, and much more in 40 laps of pure madness. Even though Vettel’s stop took an eternity, due to the failings of others, many crashes and obvious moves by both Torro Rosso driver and an inane pitstop for Mark Webber (‘Mark, we have reasons to believe your left mirror is unsafe. Box this lap.’) Sebastian is now in p8.

Suddenly, 3rd placed Massa is taken out by Karthikeyan in the same manner Rosberg collided with him just 2 races ago. Debris is everywhere, safety car is out. With no signs of improving weather, everyone stops and leaves the top 10 unchanged. Hamilton is still leading Alonso, Schumacher is in p7, in front of Vettel.

We spend an astonishing 12 laps behind the safety car, leaving us with only 18 laps left, for either Alonso to overtake Hamilton and make Vettel’s life miserable, or for Vettel to overtake Schumacher and make Alonso’s life miserable. As the fiels is released, everyone is in awe as Schumacher waves Vettel past, proclaiming on the televised radio message: “I don’t mind letting him past.” leaving him the technical world Champion.

However, it is unlikely for him to improve any further. The rain has turned quite heavy and in front of him are a few determined drivers.

With 11 laps to go:
1. HAM
2. ALO
3. PER
4. RAI
5. GRO
6. KOB
7. VET (WDC)
8. MSC
9. MAL
10. RIC

Hamilton is flying today, but so is Alonso. Within a few laps of leaving the safety car behind, they’ve ran an impressive 20 seconds from Perez. In the closing laps, all appears lost of Fernando. Suddenly, Hamilton slows down on the final lap. Could it be? Alonso doesn’t think twice and passes him. Hamilton had a minor loss of traction in T1 and lost 3 seconds in the first sector, enough for Alonso to grab victory and the championship! Hamilton then, sarcastically, says: “Well, bugger. I like Fernando better than Seb anyway.”

Christian Horner is furious! Within seconds he blazes over to the McLaren pitwall, demanding an explanation. Whitmarsh does not know what to say and Horner strikes him, leaving poor Martin with a black eye. Horner grabs a SKY camera and shouts: ‘THIS IS ALL MAGNETI MARELLI’S FAULT!’, before he goes on and smashes a Red Bull pitwall monitor.

The ghost of Ayrton Senna appears to proclaim the right one has one, since Alonso is the chosen one. Ayrton, recognizing his nephew as having finished 11th, proceeds to beam him 10% of Ayrton’s talent. That’ll do the trick for 2013.

Mark Webber, absolutely shattered by the inane team order, flies home and checks into a mental facility. He vacates his seat for 2013 and is oft heard saying ‘the mirror is a lie, the mirror is a lie!’.

Thus the 2012 season draws to a close. Fernando grows a massive beard and states 2016 will be his final season, since he will become a novelist as of 2017.

(Mind you, this was a parody reply to a conspiracy post. I do not with ill upon Webber, nor do I think the last race will be any percentage of ‘rigged’ as the race described in my posts is.)

IMO this finale would only have justice done to it if we had it mano a mano on track. I can just imagine it on the cover of this week’s Autosport – “Showdown in Sao Paulo”

Personally I’d like a race where reliability and stewards keep their nose out of proceedings.

I’d like a wet qualifying, and a wet race. None of that changing weather/damp stuff. Just wet.

While people are imagining that the title contenders would be slightly conservative in the weather, in fact they lay it on the line – and the two have an epic duel in qualifying (to then be decided by less than half a tenth). Seb takes wet pole, 0.049 quicker than Alonso who takes up P2. The McLarens on row 2 are 1.2s off Alonso’s time – leading to a duo of flabbergasted world champions who are out of breath.

In the race it continues as the two stream away at 1s/lap from the rest of the field to have their own little fight. We see an awesome battle for the lead as the two of them show the rest why they’re the only 2 contenders left. With no pitstop position changes, the two duke it out lap after lap, with Vettel an eventual winner of the race.

Alonso fought to the last lap, but with the 71 lap titanic tussle between the two – is satisfied that it has at least allowed him to bow out of the 2012 title hunt with dignity.