January 09, 2012
Published on tags: General
The 2011 GPVWC season proved a great success with numbers increasing, exciting racing and a great atmosphere permeating the community. These factors enable the GPVWC Administration to build on the success of the past to bring our membership an unforgettable 2012 season.


At the recent GPVWC Day meeting, the new features for the forthcoming seasons were announced.


The GPVWC Superleague, fresh from its 2011 success, underwent some minor tweaks to make it even more appealing. The calendar will be reduced to 18 events in order to allow races to be spaced two weeks: this will guarantee enough time to devote an increased amount of coverage to the events, teams and drivers to step up the media offer of the GPVWC. In turn, this will increase the relevance and importance of each event in this championship.


A new area will be introduced in the R&D system - fuel efficiency. As different engines have far different fuel consumption rates, teams will be able to devote some RD energies to improving theirs in an attempt to give their drivers an extra advantage come race day. In addition, fuel efficiency values will be made known to managers when bidding for engines - one more factor to keep into account when making a balanced choice.


The biggest new feature of 2012, however, is going to be the GPVWC Team Personnel. In the GPVWC, No Team wins Alone. Teams will be able to hire key personnel members before the start of the season - namely the Chief Designer, the Commercial Manager and the Chief Mechanic. Each individual, for whom teams will need to outbid their rivals, possess hidden statistics relative to his quality - statistics that will be only partially disclosed to the teams. Each of their abilities will have a repercussion on the team's ability to improve certain areas.


The Chief Designer will improve R&D by decreasing (or increasing!) the number of RD points necessary for any given update, or the time needed to develop it. Each Designer will have some strong points and weak points in any of the areas, and will thus influence the way a car is developed. The Commercial Manager will be able to lower the marketing requirements needed when seeking sponsors and/or increase the amount of money the latter bring in. The Chief Mechanic, finally, will influence the speed of the team's pitstops and the likeliness of problems/random delays appearing.


The GPVWC Team Personnel will be a key to success in 2012 as teams will need to balance their budgets to hire the best and most affordable individuals in their bid for Championship glory: as in real life, having a solid team behind the driver can contribute to winning or losing a title! This is the first step towards a more detailed personnel system which will involve, in future seasons, the possibility to assign increasing numbers of staff (of different quality) to your department Chiefs and to develop structures to enable your team to produce better, faster R&D.


Finally, the 2012 season will see the introduction of a new in-season testing system - tests will be reduced in length to two hours, the maximum number of laps will be lowered to 40 and each lap will yield more RD points. Furthermore, the number of in-season tests will be reduced to two - one in the early stages of the season and one halfway through it - with more importance given to Free Practice.


The GPVWC Supercup will see some significant changes with a maximum number of teams being set to 14 to allow for the population of the Formula Challenge. A level of basic team management will be introduced to allow Supercup teams to get a taster of what life in the Superleague is and to work as a stepping stone for teams aiming to compete in the GPVWC's premium Championship.


The Formula Challenge is the GPVWC's new entry-level championship and runs on Wednesdays in the Superleague's off-weeks. It is a single-chassis, single-engine series and for 2012 features light and fun Formula BMW machines. The tracks selected for this series are different from the Superleague/Supercup calendar to guarantee locations that are better suited to these lesser-powered cars.


The GPVWC Endurance Series builds on the very successful Endurance events ran during 2011 by Ryan Walker; it will feature 5 events with the introduction of Series rankings to add an overall winner to the single-events drivers. The Endurance events will also work as a way to promote the GPVWC outside the borders of our community, as it will be held with a view to co-operate with other organisations, such as GPO or SimRace.TV in order to boost numbers and increase coverage and importance for these well-run events.