520racer's Alternate F1 universe 1996 season Rounds 13-16 - 520racer's Blog

520racer's Blog

520racer's Alternate F1 universe 1996 season Rounds 13-16

Posted on January 16, 2019 at 10:17 PM.

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Now we are entering the final quarter of the 1996 season, who will the championship?

Round 13 Spa

A classic circuit on the calendar and a driver�s favorite, enough said.

PreQ Results: Morbidelli, Fisichella, Fontana, Salo, Lamy, Brundle

Pole Position: Michael Schumacher

Top 6 Race Results:

1 Schumacher
2 Rosset
3 Hakkinen
4 Barrichello
5 Irvine
6 Salo

With Schumacher winning this race and Villeneuve crashing out late, Schumacher reclaims the lead in the driver�s title by just one point.

Round 14 Monza

With just three rounds remaining. It�s shaping up to be a nail-biter next up will be Monza.

PreQ Results: Morbidelli, Brundle, Lamy, Katayama, Fontana, Magnussen

Pole Position: Jacques Villeneuve

Top 6 Race Results:

1 Villeneuve
2 Hill
3 Irvine
4 Frentzen
5 Alesi
6 Fontana

In a shocker, Villeneuve takes the lead of the driver�s title right back by 9 points after Schumacher was classified 9th and out of the points.

Round 15 N�rburgring

With two rounds left, it is shaping up to be a Ferrari duel!

Pre Q Results: Fisichella, Badoer, Lamy, Marques, Morbidelli, Magnussen

Pole Position: Jean Alesi

Top 6 Race Results:

1 Villeneuve
2 Schumacher
3 Coulthard
4 Frentzen
5 Berger
6 Boullion

Oddly enough, with a late pass for the lead by Jacques Villeneuve on his own teammate into turn 1 with 5 laps left to go, Villeneuve has officially made history! The first ever F1 driver in the modern era to win the world championship in his first ever season in the sport. After the race, rumor has it that Schumacher is officially leaving Ferrari for a different team after being on the wrong end of the inter-team fight all throughout the season.

Round 16 Suzuka

This is the final race of the season. With both championships officially clinched by Ferrari, there�s nothing that much that needs to be determined besides the rest of the team�s title standings.

Pre Q Results: Brundle, Lamy, Magnussen, Badoer, Fisichella, Morbidelli

Pole Position: Jacques Villeneuve

Top 6 Race Results:

1 Villeneuve
2 Hill
3 Herbert
4 Hakkinen
5 Lamy
6 Fisichella

Here�s the final driver�s and team standings for 1996

1996 Final Driver�s Standings

Villeneuve 90
Schumacher 67
Hill 62
Alesi 50
Frentzen 17
Hakkinen 17
Coulthard 16
Irvine 14
Barrichello 13
Herbert 13
Berger 11
Lavaggi 10
Boullion 9
Lamy 8
Rosset 7
Marques 6
Fisichella 3
Salo 2
Fontana 1

1996 Final Teams Standings

1 Ferrari 157
2 McLaren-Mercedes 75
3 Ligier-Peugeot 59
4 Williams-Mercedes 34
5 Piquet-BMW 23
6 TWR-BMW 23
7 Larrousse-Cosworth 14
8 Minardi-Honda 11
9 DAMS-Honda 8
10 Jordan-Peugeot 6
11 Benetton-Renault 3
12 Tyrrell-Yamaha 2
13 Sauber-Renault 1
14 Forti-Ferrari 0 best finish 8th
15 Lotus-Rolls Royce 0 best finish 10th
16 Durango-Hart 0 best finish 12th
17 Volvo 0 best finish 13th

Now time for some end-of-season awards!

Best race of the year: Nurburgring, without any doubt. Combine an epic fight to the finish line and the shocking announcement that Michael Schumacher will NOT be a Ferrari driver for 1997 during the post-race interviews and you have an instant classic in the books

Worst race of the year: Any of the runaway victories by Jacques Villeneuve

Infinitely Improbable thing of the year: Giovanni Lavaggi�s sudden upturn in performance especially in the second half of the season. However, he did ran out of sponsorship money after the Japanese GP so he will not return in 1997, which is a shame because he was really finding his rhythm out there.

Rookie of the Year Award: Jacques Villeneuve was without a doubt the best rookie in this class. He won the WDC and this award merely by default.

Reject of the year for drivers:

3rd Place Vincenzo Sospiri: For a F2 champion to finish his rookie season without a point is highly disappointing indeed. But he was a late bloomer to begin with, so not that much was to be expected out of a lame Benetton package.

2nd Place: Martin Brundle: I could have went for Marc Goosens here but I felt it�s more appropriate to give 2nd place to Martin Brundle, who retires from F1 on an all-time low note for Team Lotus

1st Place: Allan McNish: So much for making his debut season in F1, he didn�t really impress that many people once he got his chance.

Reject of the year for Teams:

3rd: Sauber-Renault � A bunch of teams were in contention for the third spot. I picked Sauber because they were probably the most confusing team on paper to begin with.

2nd: Volvo � Yes, for their first season of F1, they were not expecting to do much anyways. But when you only made it on a few race grids in your debut season, and your second driver didn�t get into any races at all, you have a major problem.

1st: Lotus-Rolls Royce � Rumor has it that Team Lotus will need to find a new engine supplier for 1997 and they are running on fumes at this point, will the pull the plug on F1 for good? It�s too early to tell for certain.

Drivers that got Un-rejectfied during this season

For a driver, you must score at least 4 or more points during your F1 career or finish on the podium at least once NOT to be on the reject list!

Giovanni Lavaggi
Tarso Marques
Pedro Lamy

Teams that got Un-rejectified during the season

For the teams, they must enter for at least two races AND score six points or more during their stay in F1 to avoid being on the reject list!

DAMS

TWR

As for the 1997 season, I am tempted to make several fundamental changes to this series, but I still haven�t finalized them yet. When I do so, you will see them in due course.