A History of Fictional Drivers

When FF1M was resurrected in preparation for the 2012 season, the AFIA introduced a new feeder series specifically for fictional drivers known as FF4M. In its first season, four different regional championship took place in Europe, North America, South America, and Southeast Asia, and the top five from each region would be promoted to the restructured 2013 FF3M championship where they would join Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon. The very first (canon) FF4M race was won by Itsuki Yoshida, who would eventually race for Shake ‘n’ Bake in 2015 and 2016, and will drive for Spaniel in the upcoming FF2M championship.

The road from FF4M to FF1M is generally considered to be meritocratic. Perform well, you’ll be promoted. Underperform, you’ll risk dropping off the roster, although this wasn’t the case for Ethan Kelly, who despite performing well in the 2013 FF3M championship, mysteriously vanished for the following season with some driver lower down in the standings receiving drives. He has since returned to Australia to become a gold prospector alongside his parents and will feature on a few episodes of Aussie Gold Hunters where his racing experience comes in handy in order to ward off poachers.

Some of the class of 2012 are still around in FF1M, most notably Tomas Gonzalez, who became the first fictional driver to race in FF1M and was widely touted to be a potential champion having won the 2014 FF2M championship. Despite being controversially dropped towards the end of the 2016, Gonzalez found a new home in CBA Racing. Another notable alumna from the first generation is James Clark, who is so far the only fictional driver to have won championships in FF4M, FF3M, and FF2M, but without doubt, the one who has made the greatest impact is Vaino Kimminen, whose remarkable pace and consistency rewarded him with a thoroughly deserved championship in 2017. Talking of 2017, the final race of the FF1M season saw half the grid consist of fictional drivers, so it seems as if they are here to stay, but how do they gain their own identity and personality?

Each FF4M driver gets created sometimes by randomly generated names from their native country, or sometimes they’re named after historic racing drivers, such as Tomas Gonzalez (Jose Froilan Gonzalez) and Catharina Caracciola (Rudolph Caracciola). Most of these are created by the AFIA, although there have been some recent contributions from myself which have been anagrams of FF1M team bosses, such as Jesse Lambrick (the American version of James Brickles).

When an FF4M driver’s is created on the FF1M wikia/fandom page, they receive a date of birth given via a random date generator. For the inaugural 2012 season, I used a range from the 1st of July 1994 to the 30th of June 1995, the following 2013 season used a range from the 1st of July 1995 to the 30th of June 1996, and so on.

If an FF4M driver is promoted to FF3M, they receive additional names (if applicable), a hometown/birthplace to go with their nationality (British FF4M drivers are assigned a hometown/birthplace), and an avatar. These avatars were created using a free avatar maker website, although ideas of AI-generated images have been rumoured and would certainly enhance future fictional drivers.

If an FF3M driver is promoted to FF2M, their backstories are uncovered, and this normally includes their early career of how they became a racing driver, and maybe some unearthed rivalries along the way. In some commentaries, I have alluded to a rivalry between Caracciola and Mattia Alfonsi and how they don’t like each other, and it has been written in that this stemmed from when Caracciola tested for a fictional go-karting team called Paolista Racing, run by Alfonsi’s parents, and irked Mattia with her speed. It has also been written that Paolista Racing are a key team for promoting future FF4M drivers like Alessandro Farina.

One of the more unusual backstories I created was that of current Shake ‘n’ Bake driver, Nolan Bryant, who the AFIA created as a nod to the late basketball legend, Kobe Bryant. Over the years, me and Shake ‘n’ Bake team boss Courtney Cass have played a lot of Virtua Fighter 5, a fighting game which includes siblings Jacky and Sarah Bryant. For whatever reason, I decided to integrate Virtua Fighter into Nolan’s backstory and label him as Jacky’s adoptive son. Since then, his adoptive cousin Marty Bryant (son of Sarah Bryant) has been introduced and will race in the 2018 FF3M championship after two good seasons in FF4M, raising the prospect of him Nolan becoming the first fictional relatives to race in FF1M.

These days, I haven’t gotten round to writing and updating more backstories due to work and fatherly duties. Of the more recent FF2M graduates, Daisuke Sekiya, Chuck Bucknum, Mario Da Silva, and Bram de Boer’s backstories are yet to be uncovered. Does Sekiya hone his skills through sim racing and other video games? Does Bucknum have a secondary career as a stunt performer? Is Da Silva an ambassador for children’s charities in his home city of Rio de Janeiro? Or is de Boer keen on environmental preservation? All will be revealed in time.