I’ve just uploaded part II-a of The Encounter Down Under, containing 2 of the 4 chapters intended for part II. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them. And comments are more than welcome.
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Senna versus Schumacher 
The link doesn’t work for me… 😦
Fixed it. Sorry about that!
Great work! I notice two errors though, on page 18 Senna states that it his first Monaco pole “since ’92”, which should read ’91(Mansell was on pole in 1992), and on page 36, it lists Coulthard as retiring from the Spanish GP rather than Hill. Other than that great job!
OK, thanks. I’ll look into that.
As with part I, list of corrections:
-On page 11 it says the FIA left the first spot on the grid empty. IRL they were the two front spots, or the front row, of course, but I think in this timeline they would have also left the front row empty, because if not, they would be forcing the poleman to start the race from the dirty side, isn’t it? BTW, Senna wouldn’t have liked it (see Japan 1990), haha.
-On page 18: “Barrichello and Lehto lapped only fifteenth and seventeenth”. They did IRL, here they should be sixteenth and eighteenth 🙂
-On page 29: “Grand Prix racing was absent from the Iberian Peninsula for ten years, during the Spanish civil war”. It implies (or it’s just me?) that our war lasted for ten years… It was ’36-’39 and then if there weren’t races until ’46 I guess it was because of WWII, even if we didn’t take part on it.
-Still on page 29: “another new circuit, in Jerez de la Frontera, on the Costa del Sol”. No, it isn’t there; Costa del Sol is from Gibraltar to the East (it’s actually from Tarifa, another town, but for a non-spanish person it’s probably easier to locate Gibraltar, and they are fairly close). Actually Jerez is a few kilometers away from the sea, it doesn’t have a beach of his own (unlike Valencia), but if we were to locate it in a coast, it should be the Costa de la Luz, which goes from Gibraltar to the West, until the Portuguese border.
And a comment: as much as I like Senna winning the Monaco GP for the seventh time, I think it was just impossible that he could open a 28 seconds gap over Schumacher in just 23 laps, with both cars in the same strategy, at that point in the season and at Monaco of all places. But that’s just my opinion 🙂
Thank you for all of your work on this.
Hi Ferrim, thanks for your elaborate reply. I’ll look in to your and Mr X’s comments later this week.
Hi, we should keep in mind that in Imola, Senna started the race with 86 liters, which means, he would stop only twice. Schumacher and Hill were much lighter than Ayrton and pitted three times. Moreover, Schumacher had illegal aids, such as traction control, launch control and the illegal advantage in the pits.
“FIA said that “the [fuel] valve was slow to close because of the presence of a foreign body” and that a filter designed to eliminate any possible risk of fire had been removed. An estimate by an outside party stated that the without the filter, fuel flowed into the car at 12.5% faster than usual, saving one second per pit stop”
It enabled Schumacher to overtake Ayrton in Brazil; the TC also helped Michael to be faster than he would arguably be without; the LC helped him in Aida.
Well, we should remember these statements. Anyway, I mentioned Imola because Senna had only one racing lap. Although much more heavier than Schumacher, and without illegal driver aids that the German had, Ayrton established the third fastest lap of the race 1m24s887. He established in a single lap an advantage of 0.677 over Schumacher. Hill and Schuey bettered this Ayrton’s lap much later, but they pitted 3 times, so they were much lighter.
I want to say is, Ayrton with a heavier and nervous car, without illegal driver aids such as TC, stretched 0.677s over Schumacher (or Cheat?) which had TC, a good car and much lighter than Ayrton’s…it means…there was an enormous difference of driver abilities in my humble opinion.
I have read the Monaco chapter, and I think your hypothesis is quite plausible. Regarding Spain, I guess Ayrton would have developed and improved his car, and would not depend on Schumacher’s problem to win…that is my opinion, and would bring Hill in second to cut down even more Michael’s advantage.
I am awaiting for Canada. I think there would be a hot battle, because this track demands features that TC can afford.
Thanks for your elaborate reply, Mauro. I’m glad you like my Monaco hypothesis. As for Canada and the following chapters: I hope to get to that next fall, since I have hardly had any time, lately, to work on the story.
Christiaan, I have a quite plain and simple question, while I am anxiously waiting for the rest of your story: what do you think would have happened if Michael Schumacher had not used the illegal driver aids such as traction control and launch control, and Benetton had not removed the filter?
I suspect that Gerhard Berger’s impression of a monotone era of one single driver (Senna) winning the majority of races would have already started in 94.
Well, Mauro, if that’s a plain and simple question, I surely hope you won’t be asking me difficult ones any time soon. 😉
On the then-illegal driver aids: although surrounded with suspission, and ‘start sequence’ software having been found on the car, Benetton were never actually found guilty of using the aids.
On the fuel filter: “… following the Verstappen pit-fire at Hockenheim [Benetton] was summoned to appear before the World Motorsport council […] but they were acquitted” (from Wikipedia).
I have to admit that I haven’t looked into both issues any further. For my story, I decided it would be more fun, more recognisable for readers (and easier for me, too) to keep the alternate history rather close to factual history.