Again, the assumption is that all the races will take place
on a Race Of Champions-style crossover circuit, although I decided to limit proceedings to just two drivers per country as opposed to the three I used
previously. In addition, I’ve spurned the rally drivers in favour of pairings
comprised solely of racing drivers from a variety of disciplines, including
Formula One, IndyCar, Touring Cars, Endurance Racing and the junior
single-seater formulae.
I used the Castrol Driver Rankings to determine the seeds and
thus the draw, and after working out the protracted result of the qualifying
bouts I set about determining who would advance from the group stages. Spookily
enough, as per reality England would be joined by France and Sweden in their
group, albeit with Austria standing in for Ukraine, the latter seemingly
lacking any suitable players for this tournament. I mean drivers.
First up would be England versus Sweden, with Lewis Hamilton
and DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom the first to take to the track. This would be
something of a grudge match after the Swede beat Hamilton during the 2010 World
Cup, but once again the silky-smooth driving style of the Swede would ensure it
would be he who would come out on top. Fortunately, Jenson Button would be able to
make short work of France’s Charles Pic, before doing likewise to former
Jaguar, Red Bull and HRT driver Christian Klien of Austria to book our place
in the quarter-finals.
There we would meet Finland, who boasted current Formula One
drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Raikkonen on their driving strength. The
Finns’ challenge was nonetheless lessened by the absence of their rally stars,
and Hamilton would be able to dispatch former McLaren teammate Kovalainen with relative
ease. Button however wouldn’t quite have the pace to topple Raikkonen, but
Hamilton would succeed in narrowly overcoming his predecessor as F1 champion in the
deciding heat to take us to the semis.
An interesting challenge would await us in the form of
Scotland, multiple IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti and rising F1 star Paul di
Resta having taken out Sweden in the quarter-finals 2-1. First up would be
Button against Franchitti, which would turn out to be a rather straightforward
victory for the former with Franchitti hardly in his element in the tight
confines of the stadium-based crossover track. Di Resta would do his utmost against
Hamilton to take it to a decider, but would just fall short of the former champion's scintillating pace.
That would mean England would indeed reach the final,
something English football fans have a habit of forgetting that we haven’t done
since our home victory the better part of fifty years ago. Standing between us and the trophy would be
none other than Germany, Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg having conquered
Italy (Trulli/Liuzzi) and Spain (Alonso/Alguersauri) en route. A tantalising,
titanic best-of-five tussle between four modern greats of the sport would thus await millions of nervous motor racing fans all over the continent.
First up would be Button and Rosberg, the Mercedes driver pipping
the McLaren man across the line to give Germany a crucial one-nil lead. Just
when all would seem lost, an extremely costly mistake from Vettel in his heat
against Hamilton would allow England to score the equaliser, if you will. It
would now be Rosberg’s turn to face Hamilton in the third race, but an
extremely close contest would just about go the way of the latter to place
England within touching distance of glory.
It would be down to Button to seal the deal, but he would
have to overcome Vettel in order to do so. Determined to atone for his earlier
error, the German would set a blistering pace that Button simply could not match,
taking this most epic of sporting rivalries down to a winner-takes-all deciding
race between Hamilton and Vettel, perhaps the two fastest men in F1 today. In
what would be virtually a photo finish in a battle in which both men gave their
absolute all, the winner, by a whisker, would be Hamilton. At last, England would have done
it.
Group Stages
Group A: Spain (Alonso/Alguersauri),
Italy (Trulli/Liuzzi), Russia
(Petrov/Aleshin), Portugal (Monteiro/Albuquerque)
Group B: Germany
(Vettel/Rosberg), Denmark
(Kristensen/Magnussen), Switzerland (Buemi/Grosjean*), Czech Republic
(Enge/Charouz)
Group C: Sweden
(Ekstrom/Rydell), England
(Hamilton/Button), France (Pic/Vergne), Austria (Klien/Wurz)
Group D: Finland
(Raikkonen/Kovalainen), Scotland
(Franchitti/Di Resta), Northern Ireland (Carroll/Turkington), Netherlands
(Coronel/van der Garde)
Quarter-Finals
Spain bt. Denmark
(2-0)
Germany bt. Italy
(2-0)
Scotland bt.
Sweden (2-1)
England bt.
Finland (2-1)
Semi-Finals
Germany bt. Spain
(2-1)
England bt.
Scotland (2-0)
Final
England bt.
Germany (3-2)
Failed to Qualify
Belgium, Estonia, Monaco, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Poland,
Republic of Ireland, Wales, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Turkey
* Romain Grosjean is in actual fact Swiss-born, despite competing in F1 under a French licence.
* Romain Grosjean is in actual fact Swiss-born, despite competing in F1 under a French licence.
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