News Folder

Normally, updates to the mod are not newsworthy, but we had to do something a little different for our latest update.

The increasing frequency with which people were having technical issues with our normal update process caused us to put a moratorium on updating for the beginning of the 2010A season.  And we intended to run the whole season with the frozen mod state that was consistent with our full r902 installer.  But recent discoveries about vehicle behavior on certain tracks forced our hand.

So we published an update for r910, which is available via the normal means (updating automatically via the GridMotorsports mod manager software).  But we also created a patch that will convert a clean r902 install to r910:

http://gridmotorsports.com/files/gridmotorsports/gridmotorsports-patch-r902-910.exe

This patch is only recommended for people who are unable to successfully update via the normal process.

Please see the corresponding forum thread for instructions and additional discussion of the r910 update.

We don't foresee any other updates in the immediate future, and intend to run the remainder of the season on r910.  We're busy investigating ideas and alternatives for our update technology that will allow us to eventually resume regular updates and continue to enjoy a dynamic and unique sim-racing environment.

Thanks for your patience.

These budgets are estimated by the GMWC accounting office and are expressed in the globally recognized currency of Griddies.

The estimation was done by calculating the salary based on DC points, RR, and if the driver has won a feature.  The car cost was based on active status and fault.

Breakdown per driver:

             salary   car    budget
RAC
Ian Cumming	29	13	41
Carl Dixon	15	18	33
B Longworth	-2	32	30
Chris Jones	14	14	28
Shaun Mclean	-5	22	17

SDL
Dennis Loyer	34	15	49
C Cahill	10	0	10

SUPEROO
Josh Gannon	17	21	38
Stephen Bish	0	0	0

Litchfield
Z Litchfield	-3	23	20
E  Baako	-7	13	6

M-Sport
Matt Lewis	54	14	68
A Cochrane	52	15	67
A d Plessis	24	16	40
Brian Gould	8	23	31
Michael Gore	11	17	28
A Dorsett	-9	25	17
D Robinson	-7	16	10
T Castellani	-3	12	9

MRDC
Andy Jones	21	18	39
Todd Thorne	15	15	30
Stuart Barge	0	0	0
Dave Pratt	0	0	0

Rusyn
AJ Weber	67	16	83
Scott Farm	29	15	44
Tom Giangreco	18	11	29
Moe Faster	10	15	25
Stephan Moons	10	0	10

Antares
Celso Jorge	66	13	78
Doug Baggett	25	18	43
Sammy Thiels	24	16	40
Mike Redman	20	17	37
Bill Blalock	17	12	29
Abe Duarte	-2	20	18

In a shocking turn of events, the most infamous team in F1 has run up the white flag.  Scuderia Ferrari has thrown in the towel and called it quits.

The announcement was made during the regularly scheduled Ferrari Press Breakfast at their headquarters in Maranello, Italy.  The event is a regular gathering of press personnel and Ferrari representatives, and traditionally serves as the forum in which Ferrari disseminates the propaganda that the press is to issue in coming weeks regarding Ferrari and its competitors.

It was clear that something was afoot, however, when none of the normal Ferrari faces were in attendance and instead Jean Todt entered the room.  The former Team Principal was rumored to have finally severed all ties with Ferrari in March, after having spent a brief tenure (2008) as Ferrari CEO.

Todt, barely visible above the lip of the podium, spent only a few brief minutes addressing those in attendance.  He cited the F1's reckless pursuit of fairness as the primary reason for Ferrari's withdrawal from the series, saying:

"Frankly, FIA is trying to make the series a sporting competition and that's just not what we're after.  It's not in the best interests of Ferrari.  It's not what the fans want.  Ferrari has a responsibility to its legion of international fans and they don't want a fair race.  They pay good money to see the prancing horse lead a two and a half hour parade, and they've not been getting that.  F1 has done nothing recently except obstruct and hinder us and we're left with no choice but to exit the series.  We spend too much money to waste our time competing fairly.  That makes no business sense.  We finally just said, 'What is the point?  Anyone can win a fair race.  What's in this for us?'"

Ferrari had a contract with F1 and FIA that guaranteed a certain percentage of poles, wins, and championships, but that contract expired several seasons ago, coinciding with the departure of Michael Schumacher as Ferrari's lead driver.  According to Todt, subsequent seasons were rife with difficult negotiations between Ferrari and F1, and only short term agreements were reached.  Todt indicated that Ferrari had lost patience with F1's unwillingness to re-enter a long term contract and that the recent formula rule changes were the tipping point, saying, "What - now they just want to leave all of this up to the drivers!  This is madness!"

Todt continued, "Actually, the end of last season set the stage for this.  We'd been given assurances that the driver's championship would be ours following the Brazilian GP.  We had voice confirmation with race officials that both Glock and Hamilton had received their orders regarding how to finish.  To this day we've still not received an adequate explanation for why those orders weren't followed.  In previous seasons they were contractually bound, and everything ran smoothly, but we had a gentlemen's agreement for 2008, and what happened just proves there was only one gentleman involved - us.  Our suspicions are that F1 had been negotiating in bad faith all year and that they'd been preparing for a future without Ferrari.  Well - that's what they'll get."

It is unclear at this point if the team is being disbanded or will just be on sabbatical indefinitely.  Todt was mostly mum on questions regarding the future of the team.

The news comes on the heals of one of the team's worst performances in an opening round of an F1 season, seeing both Ferrari drivers DNF in Australia due to mechanical problems, and obviously scoring 0 points.  Todt explained that the decision to quit probably should have been made prior to the start of the season, saving them the public embarassment in Melbourne.  Apparently there was still some hope of securing a mutually agreeable contract, even as the start of the season approached, and they were hesitant to quit prematurely when only a pen stroke at the 11th hour was needed to secure them an opening round win.

Todt was asked about the status of the team's drivers, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, and whether their contracts allowed them to pursue other seats in the immediate future.  He responded, "How could they?  They have absolutely no appeal as personalities.  Without Ferrari they're about as marketable as a quadriplegic street mime.  And without the usual guarantees from F1, there's no point embarassing themselves every week.  Look at what happened to Ralf in 2007 after he lost his guarantees.  I hear he's driving a taxi in Düsseldorf now."

This marks the end of a long and storied chapter in not just motorsports history, but faux sports in general.  Scuderia Ferrari is matched perhaps only by the Harlem Globetrotters as the most successful exhibition franchise ever.

As news spread across Ferrari nation, the reaction among the red-clad 'tifosi' was a mixture of sorrow, denial, and zealotry-laden irrationality.

"This is great!  Now we don't have to travel anymore, we can just live in a shanty town right next to Fiorano," said one fan.  He explained that he had to pimp himself, sexually, to be able to afford to follow Ferrari around the world during the season, and even then had spent the vast majority of his adult life sleeping in dumpsters and train stations.

Another declared this the "best thing to happen since lung cancer", referring to Ferrari's exclusive $1 billion sponsorship by Marlboro/Philip Morris.

One woman seemed distraught, by contrast, responding "What am I supposed to do with my life now?  All I know is waving the flag and screaming incoherently.  Why should I even yell racial epithets at Lewis Hamilton anymore - what's the point?"

Many were pinning the blame for this squarely at the feet of Bernie Ecclestone, with the consensus opinion being that he was a 'traitor' who had lost sight of the fact that Formula One existed solely to provide a venue in which to celebrate Ferrari's racing monarchy.  Sure, they argued, the new medal system for awarding the driver's championship was supposed to make up for some of the series' recent transgressions against Ferrari, but, they argued, it was too little too late.

And indeed it does seem too late.  Though a small glimmer of hope did exist.  Kimi Raikonnen was spotted exiting the facility and a reporter shouted the following question at him, "Kimi -- what do you think of the team's resignation from F1 and what's the future look like for Scuderia Ferrari?"  He responded, "I don't know."

We're proud to announce the release of the first publicly available version of the Grid Motorsports software.  To coincide with that, we're officially unveiling our new website and would like to cordially invite all of our drivers to come over and check out the new digs.  Register a login for yourself, you'll soon be putting it to good use, and make yourself at home.  Once you've registered, check out the survey that we've prepared, for the express purpose of soliciting your opinion on nearly everything regarding the league and its operations.  Take your time, though, you don't have to fill it out all at once -- we're more interested in quality feedback than quick feedback (the survey will save your progress and you can submit it whenever you're done).

Perhaps the most utilitarian part of the website right now is the forum, so be sure to visit that and get comfortable with it.  Due to the increased feature set available with a forum, we'd like to have the majority of league discussions occur inside the forum.  That's not to say we're discouraging use of our reliable google list, just that we think everyone will appreciate the effect that the forums will have on our ability to collaborate and have fun.  In particular, it makes a perfect host for team-based discussions that have had the tendency to fall off the google list because of the recognition that not everybody cares to hear the day-to-day chatting of the various team members amongst themselves.  To facilitate this, we've already established dedicated forum sections for each team.  The forum fully supports attachments, so it's the perfect place to stash setups and motec files, etc..  A really neat feature of the forum is that it will notify anyone who's already participated in a thread whenever a new reply is posted to the thread.  Also, new threads will trigger an email notification to the google list, so we'll all easily get exposure to thread activity without having to manually babysit it on a regular basis.  The notification system that we have available is very powerful, and we'll continue to tweak our usage of it over time, based on feedback and as we discover how we all tend to use the website.

Having said this, however, please recognize that there is a tremendous amount of new systems and configuration involved in the website and we're bound to have gotten any number of things setup incorrectly or inadequately.  Please notify us immediately if something doesn't work for you, either at all or in the manner that you expect.  In all likelihood we'll be able to remedy it quickly.

We sincerely hope that this is the beginning of a very enjoyable and productive internet presence for our league, and we look forward to providing more and better services for our members and in establishing a premiere destination for friendly sim-racing enthusiasts like those that are already part of the Grid Motorsports family.

- The GM Admin Team