Hi Alex
Welcome to UKGPL! I'm the moderator for the 1955 GP championship so it's my job to make sure the races run smoothly so that everyone enjoys the racing. You are very welcome to join us but I would like to clarify a few things first.
As a beginner, we need to be sure your driving standards are OK for racing on-line. Ideally we would invite you to race in a few test races but we don't run many beginner test races these days, all the UKGPL drivers are very experienced. So you'd have to join in the main races, but the problem here is that we are near the end of the season with the championship finely poised and it would be very unfortunate if the title was decided because of an incident with a back-marker rather than by exceptional driving.
However I'm happy for you to join in, all I would ask is that if you can't keep up a reasonably consistent and quick enough pace, please retire from the race rather than continue to circulate and risk getting in the way of the quicker drivers. I suggest we set you a maximum qualifying time for the race (this is consistent with real life anyway). I think the
107% rule currently used in F1 is too tough (a lot of the current UKGPL drivers would struggle to qualify with that restriction) but something a bit easier to meet would be appropriate. I'll have a think and set you a qualifying time for the race, if you don't meet it I would ask you to withdraw before the race starts.
All this may be irrelevant and you may be the new Charles Leclerc and blow us all away. I'll set my server up for practice sessions for the rest of the week and let's see how you get on.
Sorry for the long reply, I hope I haven't dented your enthusiasm. I'll try to get on the server a few times before Sunday, hopefully I'll meet you on there.