A Work of Fiction - One Spin in Barcelona

This is a work of fiction. The purpose of this article is to add to the lore and story of an offline racing league that I am a participant of, without having to struggle with formatting a forum post. Offline series are leagues where you manage the team, sign drivers, build a car, etc and then the host runs AI-only races and a championship with a set of rules and regulations using the information the users have submitted. An implicit purpose of these leagues is to allow people to explore what could be possible in the racing space without having to be tied to the hip of what's actually happening in reality. And much like Dungeons and Dragons, world building and stories matter and make the racing truly worth partaking in.

This is for the AutoReject World Series that is hosted on the GP Rejects forum with races run using Grand Prix 2. In this reality, there was a breakaway series that managed to split away from Formula 1 in the late 2000s and is meant to be a foil to modern Formula 1 pivoting to being hyper-bourgeois in it's conveyance and is a callback to the more raw, analogue and character driven experience that Formula 1 was through the late 1980s, and early 1990s where plenty of F1 Rejects were created.

This is story is about the struggle of the Yangwang Racing Team in their maiden campaign in the series, and the hot water their star driver put them in trying to take them to the front. The screenshots from Gran Turismo 7 are meant as a visual aid. Yes, Alberto Cara is from the nation of Tropico. Long story.

Published in Racing Journal - P. Position. November 12, 2024.

For any team to be fourth in the constructors championship with one race to go in their maiden campaign should be seen as a major accomplishment, and a signal to the rest of the paddock of their intention. But it's been hard to fully see and understand where the newest, and highest profile team in ARWS is going to be going as focus starts to turn to next season and how they got to this point. They have the most one-sided teammate battle in the sport through there isn't much surprise to that on the face of it. But below the surface there is more to that battle going on, and it's been a conflict that has been brewing ever since one day in Barcelona. A seemingly innocent spin would set the course for Alberto Cara, rookie teammate Fu Wen and how Yangwang has operated the entire season.

The Tropican superstar has the dubious title of having driven cars for two different teams within the span of a month, having signed for both Team Cascadia and Yangwang because of a lack of communication between his two management teams. Team Cascadia, even though they didn't have a entry at the time, immediately put him and teammate Gary Pacer to work; with the team launching their car well ahead of the schedule of the rest of the field and had a shakedown at Willow Springs Raceway predicating a full private testing program. By all accounts, it was a positive test and trackside estimates had the Multimatic-built, Ford-powered car performing at a similar level to other Ford and Koenigsegg-powered entries from last year. It was seen as a overall neat and tidy package for the team from Everett hoping to make the grid. Except they never did, their entry into the series was never accepted which forced the contract between Cara and Team Cascadia to be mutually terminated; not before the team would sue Cara for breach of contract.

When it started to become clear that Cascadia wasn't going to be on the grid, the Cara camp very quickly abandoned ship and went all in on the Chinese program even as, at this point, he was still legally driving for two teams. Additional charges were added to the lawsuit after Cara was spotted at the temporary Yangwang factory in Banbury on the same day as a test for Team Cascadia, with the team insisting portions of the intellectual property of their car was now potentially in the hands of a rival team directly because of Cara. Initially, this didn't appear to be the case with Yangwang showing off their SY-U1 for the first time before the first pre-season test at Jerez, with the car visually much different to the car Cara had driven in California a month prior.

The big difference between the two cars was easily apparent by onlookers when the SY-U1 was finally driven in anger by Cara and rookie teammate Fu Wen. The Charles Hope-designed car was lacking top-end performance, and particularly struggled with sudden changes of direction. The former Eric Vincent Racing designer penned a safe car, but not one that inspired confidence. The team did however complete the second most mileage out of everyone during the official ARWS pre-season testing, and would have had the most mileage if not for a spin at Turn 9 at Barcelona from Cara. The rear end of the Yangwang let go from underneath the Tropican driver, careening him into the sandtrap and causing the only stoppage of the morning session on the second day. Though no damage was done to the car beyond a ruined set of Goodyear Eagles, that was the last running in that test for Cara.

After the final entry list for the 2024 ARWS season was published with Team Cascadia absent, their contract with Alberto Cara would be terminated though the expanded lawsuit that included Yangwang did remain. The Monaco Grand Prix and Mediterranean Grand Prix would come and go with little developments in the matter, but things would change as the series went to the Nürburgring. After the Holiday Racing Team were the first to bring updates, which was seen as a major factor in their 1-3 result at Jarama, it was Yangwang that were the next to bring updates for the Luxembourg Grand Prix. It was the focus of the paddock as soon as the cars were assembled: a completely new front and rear wing package, but one people had seen before at a test in California. They were very similar to the front and rear wings that had been seen on the Cascadia RM1 that Alberto Cara had driven. The slimmer nose cone increased air flow to the sidepods, though decreased air flow to the tea-tray with the nose cone being integrated into the front wing. It was a fundamental aero balance change that was combined with the slimmer, but more articulated rear wing.

The results weren't as dramatic as the changes at Holiday, but the team did get their best combined result of the season so far with Cara finishing eighth and Fu Wen finishing eleventh. Immediately after the race, Team Cascadia team principal Chuck Sebille commented that, "The work done by our aerodynamicists has proven itself, but imagine what a car built around that package would do," proving the paddock's hunch correct: Yangwang's update wasn't of their own design.

The paddock was abuzz with speculation about where the origins of the upgrade plans came from with the scene moving to the Norisring, but there was only one connection between Team Cascadia and Yangwang: being the driver that had driven for both teams. After his spin at Barcelona, Alberto Cara insisted on changes to be made to the SY-U1, ones that would undo a lot of the work done by Charles Hope and would cement Yangwang being his team. Though Charles was already working on the early upgrades, the team folded in the favor of their Tropican superstar and forced him to change course. What data Cara had acquired from the one shakedown he did with Team Cascadia changed hands, and work began on the revised upgrades on the understanding with Cascadia not on the grid that these parts existed in a grey-area in terms of ownership and IP rights.

Heading to Team Cascadia's home race in Portland, Oregon the good fortune would run out with both cars finishing outside the top fifteen for the first time this season, before Fu Wen retired from both races at the New Hampshire Motorspeedway. The Chinese rookie started to struggle with the new parts, forcing Yangwang Team Manager Nils Lenngren to call up their reserve driver for a one-off in the series's return to Europe. Nothing would change, Tony Wai-leuk would struggle similarly while Cara failed to make the finish in Imola before he would bounce back with a fourth in the UK. But come the series's trip to Canada, the team's original front and wing package made a reappearance. A driver change didn't do the trick, but perhaps a car working the way it was meant to would break the slump?

At two very different tracks, Sanair and Grand Prix de Trois-Reiveres, Alberto Cara would score Yangwang's only podiums in their maiden campaign. Fu Wen also matched their best result of the season thus far with another eleventh at GP3R. Cara had punched well above his weight again, if unconvinced at the car working like he wanted it to. The livelier nature of the Cascadia package suited him more and matched his experience in Formula 1, where Fu Wen needed the more stable package to try and develop confidence having made a massive jump to the ARWS. But Cara insisted the upgrade was the better way to go, to the chagrin of Charles Hope. Morale in the team slumped, and the team suffered their worst performances of the season at Circuit of The Americas and at Sepang. Before the double header in Japan, Cara insisted that that package was still the way to go. So much of the team's efforts were put into making him happy, and it had started to cost them.

For the second time in the season, he was overruled. Through all this, Yangwang still had a chance at the Constructors Championship title just by being there at the end in races before that title push came to a grinding halt in Sepang. A comprise was made after Cara threatened to quit the team and either go back to Team Cascadia or return to Formula 1. The team would run both packages in Japan, the original package in Suzuka and the Cascadia package in Fuji.

The results were mixed, Fu Wen had their best result of the season in torrential conditions in Suzuka scoring an inspired eighth place result, while Cara finished outside the top ten for the third race in a row. At Fuji, Fu Wen would spin out of the race after struggling with the Cascadia package while Cara would get a top ten but still lost ground to Foxdale for third in the Constructors Championship. Yangwang are now in the fight for their life for fourth in the Constructors Championship with one race to go. And as it turned out, neither aero package the team used this year was truly up to task beyond getting to the finish and Alberto Cara could only do so much as one of the series's top talents.

With one race to go in the championship, it's up in the air which of the two areo packages the Yangwang Racing Team will use. Will they focus on getting a top result with a driver who let tasting the forbidden fruit get the best of him, or will they ensure their burgeoning rookie gets a chance to shine? After Adelaide, the lawsuit comes back into the picture too. Which direction will Yangwang go knowing their future in the sport might lay in the balance, or will they wipe clean of what brought them into this mess and simply start fresh when their Shenzen factory comes online?

It's been a tumultuous first year for a team that's performed well above their weight, but maybe it would have been much easier if the all-electric auto brand had their factory outfit raced in the series where their all-electric power units could shine. Rumors have it that BMW wants out of Formula 1 after trust in their partnership with Melrose Racing Team has completely fallen apart, perhaps a change of environment would better suit one of China's top manufactures and Alberto Cara would make the impact he always believed he can.

Otherwise, the boys in blue and green from the pacific north-west might come knocking.