Helli's F1 career

by **Hellisan** 5/25/2013, 11:36 pm

After impressing reasonably well in a young driver test, Bryan Clark aka "Gato" cat

has signed with Caterham Racing.

"There were other options, but Caterham has realistic expectations and also I know Del likes Caterham. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Another important factor if I'm being honest is i can see from the cockpit. those low mirrors are quite helpful when you compare to say the Ferrari I was testing where I literally couldn't see the upcoming apex.

I don't understand why i can't have a standard/official helmet with my USA flag on it. Why do I have to choose between stupid shit?

Sabine Walker, who showed excellent fellating skills during her interview, is on as agent, and I look forward to working with her.

As for why I'm doing this, it's primarily to keep track of lap times and also to make sure I don't restart races. I will post before I start and then update as soon as I'm done, no matter what the result.

Settings

Difficulty: intermediate. I expect that with this setting I'll qualify higher than I should however I expect most races to be a disaster. It has been noted that every step up is a 2-3 second difference in time which is a hell of a lot. Therefore it's pretty hard to find a setting that calibrates closely to one's skill level. Legend seems ridiculous, and Intermediate is probably a bit too easy as far as grid placement but with all the drive-throughs I'll be doing, this won't be easy. I'll let you guys tell me if it gets to be a need to move to pro.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 12:14 am

Melbourne, Austrailia - Albert Park

Practice and Qualifying summary

Working through this track has me realizing how much work I'll have to do to get up to speed on all these tracks. I knew them all at one point as of the first Codemasters F1 game from a couple of years ago but I'll be learning them all again. This is one of my favorite tracks because of the breakneck pace of it and how rhythmic it is.

Practice

Just driving around trying to get a feel for the track that I once knew so well and struggling to do it. Started to improve a little bit when I finally put into action the plan I learned in driving school of braking hard early, and then letting off quite a bit as I head into the corner. I was really locking up those front wheels a lot and it's hard to tell because there really aren't great sound cues that you're doing it.

Best Time: 1:34.634 - P11
Kovalainen Time: 1:37.956 - P20

-

Gato not a fan of KERS

After practice, Clark was asked how he feels about some of the things that have been implemented since his last stab at career mode in F1.

"I like DRS o.k., I hate KERS. KERS is communist, man. You take from one thing just to get something somewhere else, in the end I don't think it helps a lick with lap times other than adding a little 'strategy' - if you want to call it that."

"DRS is contrived passing, but it was needed so badly in the sport that I see it as a necessary evil. You notice the good drivers are still winning, and after they make a pass they put more than a second between them and the guy behind, so it hasn't been a total shit show. It basically simulates drafting in other forms of auto racing, which simply isn't that prevalent at this level."

Qualifying

Had a 1:34.256 in P1 which was good for P9. In Q2 the whole field stepped it up and a 1:32.980 was good for 17th, lower than what the team had hoped for (16th). Vettel got Pole with a 1:32.429 in Q3.

by Guest 5/26/2013, 12:32 am

Gato, as far as I can tell, your highest option in Career is the Williams. Besides, who wants to hang around that cesspool Maranello anyway. I too am in the Caterham and also "root" for them in the real series, as they are my favorite team, since 1/2 of Lotus is Romain Grosjean. But the Lotus/Caterham saga goes way back, and I predict that Giedo van der Garde (rhymes with "Gato") will have his spot in the sun.

Personally, I cheat like hell. Average about 325 restarts per race until I can muscle past the A.I. to mid pack, then block the crap out of them and hope I finish ahead of Heikki. I have no honor when it comes to the A.I. and I call it "career" but it's more like "race start and let's see what happens" practice for the real races here. I run with no assists from cockpit and set the A.I. to Difficult. I'd stand no chance against the Legend A.I., as anyone who runs in the series with me here could attest. Obviously, the Turn 10 A.I. never talk to or step over to the offices of Codemasters or vice versa.

However, with your dogged determination and innate driving ability, I'm sure you will progress up the ladder soon, outstrip the unwise but bribe-ready A.I. and be offered a seat at Sauber or Lotus or some mid-pack team near Hockenheim.

P.S. - F1 does not allow anything associated with the USA into F1 besides money and test subjects, and I assume you like to be "tested."

by Guest 5/26/2013, 12:40 am

Hellisan wrote:Melbourne, Australia - Albert Park
This is one of my favorite tracks because of the breakneck pace of it and how rhythmic it is.

Well, Gato, so happy to hear you are excited about your new career. However, you had better get used to the "breakneck pace" as I have found it only gets worse at many other tracks. Also, I take it as a good sign that you feel Australia is "rhythmic" since most flesh and blood drivers say the opposite. In fact, Nico Rosberg described it as a "point and squirt" track. (I think Hungary or Brazil when I think of rhythmic). Then again, Nico may have also been mixing up Australia with your assistant Sabine Walker.

You also said "I finally put into action the plan I learned in driving school of braking hard early, and then letting off quite a bit as I head into the corner." I am soooooooooo glad you, a driver I so admire in Forza4, now can now sympathize with i) How F1 2012 demands that you "drive" more like you would on a real track; and ii) how getting good at one means you have to unlearn the other.

"I was really locking up those front wheels a lot and it's hard to tell because there really aren't great sound cues that you're doing it" was another quote. This is where a wheel with paddles get's fun (and almost mandatory) in a racing game. Imagine being able to feel the exact point when your car loses front or rear traction (before the lock up) and make your corners sharper, yet smoother. I love the Fanatec CSR. Harry will sell you his, I'm sure. lol.

You also said:
Best Time: 1:34.634 - P11
Kovalainen Time: 1:37.956 - P20

Oh, you will be at the "difficult" A.I. level by next race, if not already. You may want to start over just because you will improve so much. But you can always change the difficulty midstream too.

Also this:
"Gato not a fan of KERS"
After practice, Clark was asked how he feels about some of the things that have been implemented since his last stab at career mode in F1.
"I like DRS o.k., I hate KERS. KERS is communist, man. You take from one thing just to get something somewhere else, in the end I don't think it helps a lick with lap times other than adding a little 'strategy' - if you want to call it that."
"DRS is contrived passing, but it was needed so badly in the sport that I see it as a necessary evil. You notice the good drivers are still winning, and after they make a pass they put more than a second between them and the guy behind, so it hasn't been a total shit show. It basically simulates drafting in other forms of auto racing, which simply isn't that prevalent at this level."

Good to see you shake up things over there Gato. They need it. But you have to admit, when the technology and drivers are at such a high level, it's hard to pass anywhere at anytime, period. It isn't IndyCar, for sure.

Oh, and don't forget if you already don't know, you can use DRS in qualifying at any point on the track you want. Cockpit drivers have my respect in F1 especially, since you really have to concentrate on the wheel data (it's there, the flashing green light for DRS and the right side digital countdown for KERS, but hard to see) as you are racing.

by Guest 5/26/2013, 1:10 am

After reading about that cheap Walmart wheel - I just might do that! Haha.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 1:31 am

October, thanks for the replies.

Am I right in my perception that there is no longer any "tire management" per se in the game? I don't have a set number of tires for the weekend, etc? It just seems to assign me stuff and i'm running with it. This game seems dumbed down, compared to the one I remember.

Starting race now. wish me luck. 50%, 29 lapper.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 2:33 am

Australia Race Result: 17th

Considering the team wanted me to finish 16th we're a bit disappointed but it was still a lot of fun. Had a best lap of 1:35.998 which is pure crap. Just wasn't driving great. Half race distance seems to be enough, at one point it was just difficult to figure out where the hell I was, these cars just move too quick. Manged to finish ahead of that scrub Kovalainen, so that's good. He logged a 21st place finish.

McLaren logged an impressive 1/2 finish wtih Hamilton taking best lap honors with a 1:33.682 while taking first place, and Button finishing 19 seconds behind him.

In the early going the cars were doing their slow as molasses routine through the first lap when Kamui Kobayashi tried to drive through my car on the outside of wherever I was, resulting in a destroyed car for him and a drive-through penalty for me. Seems fair enough. Also had two spins, so with a drive through and a couple spin I lost several spots.

Worst moment of the race: When I started getting blue flagged which means no more fast laps and hence unlikely to catch anyone else. Best moment: I still caught Schumacher with two laps to go by pulling behind one of the faster cars, keeping up for a couple laps, and then driving right by Schumacher when he slowed for the blue flag.

P1 Hamilton - McLaren
P2 Button - McLaren
P3 Vettel - Red Bull
P4 Alonso - Ferrari
P5 webber - Red Bull
P6 Grosjean - Lotus
P7 Raikkonen - Lotus
P8 Rosberg - Mercedes
P9 Maldonado - Williams
P10 Massa - Ferrari
P11 Perez - Sauber
P12 Hulkenberg - Force India
P13 Senna - Williams
P14 Ricciardo - Toro Rosso
P15 Di Resta - Force India
P16 Vergne - Toro Rosso
P17 Clark - Caterham
P18 Schumacher - Mercedes
P19 Karthikeyan - HRT
P20 De La Rosa - HRT
P21 Kovalainen - Caterham
P22 Glock - Marussia
P23 Pic - Marussia
P24 Kobayashi - Sauber

by **Owen0501** 5/26/2013, 7:09 am

Nice write up, but I think you should definitely be driving on Pro difficulty with the times you're posting.

I find that Tyre wear / management comes more into play when racing online and 100%

You thinking about joining one (or both) of the RR series?

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 7:31 am

Owen0501 wrote:Nice write up, but I think you should definitely be driving on Pro difficulty with the times you're posting.

I find that Tyre wear / management comes more into play when racing online and 100%

You thinking about joining one (or both) of the RR series?

What does ' racing online and 100%' mean?

As for now, no. But in the future it would be cool! It would be after the endurance series that will finish up in a couple months, if F1 stuff is still running then.

by **Owen0501** 5/26/2013, 7:48 am

Sorry meant 100% race distance rather than 50% distance.

We're hoping that these series are the first of many mate.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 8:24 am

Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia

Practice and Qualifying summary

Oh, there will be a line this week. This track has so many odd angles where you can't see the next apex from the cockpit whatsoever that I simply couldn't do much at speed, I have no idea how you'd figure that out I guess look at walls beyond the track or something but AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FADAT!

Practice

So, with the aid of the line, things were pretty easy. Oh... Except for that one part where I wrecked someone and took a 10 place grid placement penalty. That'll not help.

Best Time: 1:43.394 - P1
Kovalainen Time: 1:48.00. - P20

-

This one not so hard to remember

For whatever reason, Sepang Int'l was a little bit easier to get used to and remember. I would have thought I'd struggle with that but not so. They do a good job replicating the rubber bullets all over the track that make the car judder the moment you step out of the racing line.

Qualifying

Got cocky and decided to wait ahwile in P1, mostly because I was writing some of this crap. went out and had a nice lap going until I lost it on the exit of the last corner, damaging the front wing enought that I had to head to the garage. had 5 minutes left upon that being fixed. Managed to get a good lap anyway, thanks to using the line which I typically don't (adds 3 seconds to my time) got P1 with 1:42.602. Nabbed P1 in Q2 as well with 1:41.785.

Q3 I struggled mightily, coudln't get clean track, cars double teaming me on every lap, etc. and finished 10th. With the grid penalty I'll start 20th.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 8:39 am

OctoberDusk06 wrote:Gato, as far as I can tell, your highest option in Career is the Williams.

True, I'm just saying that in driver's school I was using the Ferrari.

Besides, who wants to hang around that cesspool Maranello anyway. I too am in the Caterham and also "root" for them in the real series, as they are my favorite team, since 1/2 of Lotus is Romain Grosjean. But the Lotus/Caterham saga goes way back, and I predict that Giedo van der Garde (rhymes with "Gato") will have his spot in the sun.

Personally, I cheat like hell. Average about 325 restarts per race until I can muscle past the A.I. to mid pack, then block the crap out of them and hope I finish ahead of Heikki. I have no honor when it comes to the A.I. and I call it "career" but it's more like "race start and let's see what happens"

Hey has anyone seen my buddy Mr. October, King Realism? Pick and choose your spots I see!?

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 8:45 am

OctoberDusk06 wrote:
Hellisan wrote:Melbourne, Australia - Albert Park
This is one of my favorite tracks because of the breakneck pace of it and how rhythmic it is.

Well, Gato, so happy to hear you are excited about your new career. However, you had better get used to the "breakneck pace" as I have found it only gets worse at many other tracks.

I like the breakneck pace, c'mon man! read! No seriously, I've played all the tracks and Australia seems the most nonstop crazy high speed when you consider the narrow track etc. I've always liked it. Monaco is a lot tighter and has a much more hairy sequence in it but overall that's the one I think of as the most pell mell nonstop high speed track.

You also said "I finally put into action the plan I learned in driving school of braking hard early, and then letting off quite a bit as I head into the corner." I am soooooooooo glad you, a driver I so admire in Forza4, now can now sympathize with i) How F1 2012 demands that you "drive" more like you would on a real track; and ii) how getting good at one means you have to unlearn the other.

I think the biggest difference is F1 makes you drive the car like an F1 car, it's very different to anything else...

Oh, and don't forget if you already don't know, you can use DRS in qualifying at any point on the track you want. Cockpit drivers have my respect in F1 especially, since you really have to concentrate on the wheel data (it's there, the flashing green light for DRS and the right side digital countdown for KERS, but hard to see) as you are racing.

Thanks. I really haven't been able to see those even after you pointed them out. KERS doesn't seem to recharge like in real life, it recharges to full upon the changeover to the next lap (which I think isn't right... right?) This allows you to cheese the start of a Qually lap by emptying your entire KERS before the start/finish then after to get some cray cray speed.

by Guest 5/26/2013, 10:13 am

"Hey has anyone seen my buddy Mr. October, King Realism? Pick and choose your spots I see!?"

lol. (love your play by play) But hey, at least I'm honest. With the A.I., as you experienced, "realism" goes out the window. Rarely, if ever, do they get penalized for hitting you and, worse, they are unpredictable, except when on their normal rails. They don't spin or crash except at starts sometimes (were you see a carbon fiber tornado in front of you and are gleeful). I treat them like lobby races to get all the aggression out before the real online race. lol. But your respect for them will serve you quite well in league races.

__________

"I like the breakneck pace, c'mon man! read! No seriously, I've played all the tracks and Australia seems the most nonstop crazy high speed when you consider the narrow track etc. I've always liked it. Monaco is a lot tighter and has a much more hairy sequence in it but overall that's the one I think of as the most pell mell nonstop high speed track"

___________________

I hear ya, I like the speed too. Just hard to control and demands 100% concentration most of the time. Australia is certainly up there, as you describe, but there is no "flow" to it, like you will see in China. Not many igh speed turns that you CAN'T take flat out in Melbourne. The track that combines flow and speed, IMO, in Hungary, another narrow track, but many less chicanes. Monaco is anything but. Spa is my favorite. But these F1 tracks were designed either by experts or by history, and most are new comparatively. P.S. - The blind apex turn at Malaysia right before the final U-turn is one of the hardest in the game.

____________________

"I think the biggest difference is F1 makes you drive the car like an F1 car, it's very different to anything else..."

As driving schools point out, most road racing is driven this way, regardless of class. With assists off, you should be able to brake a car before the turn in (maybe trail brake a little) and then capture the speed coming out. Not seemingly applicable on Forza, and with some surns, of course, there are exceptions IRL.

_____________________

"Thanks. I really haven't been able to see those even after you pointed them out. KERS doesn't seem to recharge like in real life, it recharges to full upon the changeover to the next lap (which I think isn't right... right?) This allows you to cheese the start of a Qually lap by emptying your entire KERS before the start/finish then after to get some cray cray speed"

The DRS is a tiny red light on the left center of the wheel that flashes when activated. Automatically deactivated with braking and downshift, so crucial in qualy. I use it many 8-10 times per lap in qualy on average. The DRS in this game is a bit of an anomaly. It boosts you much more that real cars get, especially on certain tracks. have to be careful because, of course, it dramatically decreases the downforce on your rear. KERS recovers enery from braking during the whole of the lap, then resets it to full when you start a new lap. Yes, you could sore it up to set up a flying lap, by the real drivers do this all the time in qualifying.

............

You can also change your break bias during the lap, which some of the best drivers so for certain sections of certain tracks. Of course, you can also change the tire you want put on in the next pit stop, in car, but you have to run both at some point.

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 2:38 pm

Off we go in the Malaysia Grand Prix. back in an hour

by **Hellisan** 5/26/2013, 3:52 pm

Malaysia Race Result: 5th

Weather dictated a lot on this day and we were able to stay ahead of the curve. We were the first to go to Inters and the first to go to the full wets, and as a result picked up quite a few spots.

Have to say I'm disappointed that the team aren't better about telling you that it might be time to come in.... Even if they gave the occasional bad advice hey that's racing but to just sit there and let the driver decide its time to come in because he can't control the thing anymore - no bueno.

Had a small spin as the light rain turned to wet and that's when we went to the Intermediates. We went from around 9th to 15th at that time and then started passing lines of cars as the other teams were a bit late to make the change, and we were well within the top 10 by the time it was wet tire time, again as noted earlier we were the first to go to those and the weather remained poor. We managed to get an unexpectedly good result on our home circuit.

P1 Button - McLaren
P2 Webber - Red Bull
P3 Alonso - Ferrari
P4 Vettel - Red Bull
P5 Clark - Caterham
P6 Massa - Ferrari
P7 Hulkenberg - Force India
P8 Maldonado - Williams
P9 Grosjean - Lotus
P10 Ricciardo - Toro Rosso
P11 Kobayashi - Sauber
P12 Raikkonen - Lotus
P13 Di Resta - Force India
P14 Vergne - Toro Rosso
P15 Hamilton - McLaren
P16 Perez - Sauber
P17 Senna - Williams
P18 Schumacher - Mercedes
P19 Kovalainen - Caterham
P20 De La Rosa - HRT
P21 Glock - Marussia
P22 Pic - HRT
P23 Karthikeyan - Marussia
P24 Rosberg - Mercedes

Note: In F1 the AI has always been very inconsistent from track to track. IIRC, this is one of the ones they are well below par on, whereas other tracks they are almost impossible to beat... One weather driven good result isn't going to make me overreact and move up a level. One time in the previous iteration of this game I won a race because of wet weather, and finished well out of the top ten on the season.

Standings

We're 6th in points following the first two races, with 10. Button has a nice cushion with 43 points followed by Webber with 28.

by Guest 5/27/2013, 12:08 am

You have experienced, sounds like, the weather "bug" in the system. This is why most F1 leagues have changed their weather system. Eventually, you will have a start where you go by the whole field as if it's standing still. That's a stark example, but it's more fully explained in the F1 Pro forum.

Entirely agree A.I. is not only unfairly advantaged, but inconsistent. This goes further than specific tracks, as even the world's best F1 league drivers will tell you that, for instance, the A.I. in sector #3 in Australia are way faster than average elsewhere, even on that track. If your sector #3 times in Melbourne are even or better than the top A.I., it's definitely time to step up.

Nice race. Good luck from here.

by **Hellisan** 5/27/2013, 4:59 am

Shanghai, China

Practice and Qualifying summary

Excellent visibility from the cockpit in this one, so no line needed. Had a team research goal that was met at the beginning of practice and then started doing laps. Doing disturbingly well compared to the cpu drivers, this is another that they're just not very quick at. The weather calls for a 100% chance of rain during all three qualifying sessions, and a 66% chance on race day.

Practice

Ran the best time of the day and did it without feeling like it was all that great a lap.

Best Time: 1:43.617 - P1
Kovalainen Time: 1:50.109 - P20

-

This one not so hard to remember

Again - and very surprisingly, given a pretty poor memory, how well I'm remembering some of these tracks. I'm not a particularly knowledgeable F1 guy, the only reason I ever knew these tracks was the game, but somehow they are coming back to me.

Qualifying

Kind of getting sick of this storyline. We dominate P1 and P2 and then in P3 nothing goes right. The track is still "wet" and we're on wet tires except you seriously cannot turn. Even though the sun is out and the sky is blue, the car still handles considerably worse than it did in the other rainy sessions. What are you going to do.. I had at least one half spin in each of the 2 laps I completed and two full spins in the laps I didn't put up a time. Lewis Hamilton qualifies first on the grid, we're P10 again.

by **Hellisan** 5/27/2013, 5:00 am

Race time....

by **Hellisan** 5/27/2013, 6:23 am

China Race Result: 17th

What a fucking disappointment. What bullshit. And yet I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. When you go from a potential podium, to just happy that you passed your teammate with 3 laps to go, there's nothing that could be more disappointing. In constantly changing weather conditions that led to three pit stops, we had stayed ahead of the curve and made well-timed tire changes and were 2nd behind Button - with Hamilton closing in - when the pit crew suggested that I go to Option tires. Taking the final corner onto the main straight behind ailing backmarker Pastor Maldonado, he lost control several times as I was attempting to gingerly pass him, and finally hit me, resulting in (you guessed it) a drive-through penalty. Then the pit stop shot me out way too fast on my cold options in some seriously wet conditions and I went out the other side into the gravel. I spent like 40 seconds in the gravel on the next lap in two different spots just trying to get the car to move - to do anything.... and still had a drive-through to honor. Learned a valuable lesson about just how strict that dry line is when you go onto good tires.

All I know is Pastor Maldonado can go right to hell!

It was not much consolation that when conditions became suitably dry for the first time in the race,we posted the best lap time by 1.5 seconds over the next best.

P1 Button - McLaren
P2 Alonso - Ferrari
P3 Hamilton - McLaren
P4 Raikkonen - Lotus
P5 Kobayashi - Sauber
P6 Vettel - Red Bull
P7 Schumacher - Mercedes
P8 Hulkenberg - Mercedes
P9 Ricciardo - Sauber
P10 Perez - Sauber
P11 Grosjean - Lotus
P12 Senna - Williams
P13 Vergne - Toro Rosso
P14 Webber - Red Bull
P15 Massa - Ferrari
P16 Di Resta - Force India
P17 Clark - Caterham
P18 Rosberg - Mercedes
P19 Pic - Marussia
P20 Kovalainen - Caterham
P21 Karthikeyan - HRT
P22 De La Rosa - HRT
P23 Glock - Marussia
P24 Maldonado - Williams

Standings

Button is off to a start that one could only dream of, a 2nd place in the first race and a pair of chequered flags thereafter. His 68 points on the season are 23 points ahead of Alonso, with 45, followed by Hamilton (40), Vettel (35), and Webber (28).

by Guest 5/28/2013, 2:08 am

The dynamic weather system is broken. It's not "dynamic" it's just random and does not apply all of the same input variables to all of the cars at the same time. Therefore, races like these will be haphazard and unrealistic, at best. (on my start in China, for example, I passed 12 cars before the first turn in "damp" conditions, that would eventually require a change to wets). In a league, it's simply unacceptable. We were lucky in Australia and Malaysia, but changed to a more sensible approach after then.

After you get through Montreal, please consider running with us Tuesday, F1 Sundays, or both.

Congratulations on your besting Kovalainen and good luck from here out Mr Clark!

by **Hellisan** 5/29/2013, 1:01 am

OctoberDusk06 wrote:

After you get through Montreal, please consider running with us Tuesday, F1 Sundays, or both.

Congratulations on your besting Kovalainen and good luck from here out Mr Clark!

I thought that I had responded to this already. thanks for the response and info. I don't know when / if I'll be joining F1 series. It seems like it would be fun, but Forza will always be my first love. Here is the issue in more detail.

I used to be the commissioner of an NCAA Football league. It wasn't all that much more time consuming than the gaming I do now (although it was always there) but it was say 4 to 5 one hour games per week. The sticky part was user games... Blocks of an hour and a half where I had to reserve that and tell my wife I was unavailable. There were 5 per season but that turned into 7 if I got to the SEC championship (always against another user) and faced a user in a bowl game. 5-6 user games every 3 weeks doesn't sound like much but they had a way of piling together and with that and running the league I found myself rushing home and immediately locking myself in my office a lot.

This is why I quit that whole scene and came back here, was to be involved in one race series at a time, and keep to one day per week that I was pulling these maneuvers on my family. Then I got involved in the endurance series which is once per month but it turns out I've done all our quallies. now it's conceivable I'll add an F1 event but where will I stop? I'd like to NOT make it a situation where I am pulling this just as much on my wife as I was before.

The good thing about my life now is when work gets busy I can work real late and not be rushing to do some video game related thing... or spend entire nights not on video games, and instead with my family. I don't want to get away from these positive changes I've made. And now it's 10 a.m., the wife and baby went to sleep, and I've got 2 hours to mess around still. But we don't run series at 1 PM EST......

by **Hellisan** 5/29/2013, 1:19 am

Sakhir, Bahrain - Bahrain International Circuit

Helli's F1 career 001zab

Practice and Qualifying summary

One of my favorite tracks, the brute acceleration coming out of the first turn and into the next minor turns over the kerbs seems like it would be one of the seminal moments in an F1 season. The infield section is brutal if you're not prepared for it but can make your race if you are. I'm not in fighting shape for it but should be able to do well here on the easy Intermediate difficulty.

Practice

Just driving around trying to get a feel for the track that I once knew so well and struggling to do it. Started to improve a little bit when I finally put into action the plan I learned in driving school of braking hard early, and then letting off quite a bit as I head into the corner. I was really locking up those front wheels a lot and it's hard to tell because there really aren't great sound cues that you're doing it.

It was noted that Michael Schumacher ran a 1:30.139 here in 2004. WOW.

Qualifying

Q1 - 1:39.6xx - P1
Q2 - 1:39.367 - P12

Once again the field really stepped it up in P2 and blew me away. I could have had a better lap time but kept screwing up small things. Not using the line I definitely struggle to hit all my marks.

RACE DAY - Early luck turns sour at the end - 9th Place

Will sum this up nicely... We were the fastest car on the track, but starting in 12th place we had a lot of making up to do. It helped that we were in 8th after one lap and kept pulling in cars, one by one.

The jokers in my garage told me that the DRS was broken on a KEY lap when I could have passed two cars if I'd had it, and it went downhill as I made a small error then ran out of gas and had to struggle back to the finish line as I lost about 4 spots on the final lap with the issue. Lesson learned about leaving it on high fuel consumption for too long!

by **Hellisan** 5/29/2013, 2:35 am

Barcelona, Spain - Catalunya Circuit

Practice and Qualifying summary

I hear the A.I. is hard here. Early on that was very apparent in practice as I was running near the top however with lines. I knew that would take a HUGE bunch of additional time off when I turned that off before qualifying. One thing that's weird about me is I gain a lot of time when I'm not playing. During the day and the drive to/from work I was thinking about a couple of the turns and how maybe I was braking too late and downshifting one too many and came back running low 1:27's to low 1:28 range on primes, about 2-3 seconds faster than my first go-round and a good deal faster than the AI in practice. But there's the specter of turning off those lines. The lack of distance boards on certain corners and that blind corner mid-track are going to be tough. Ended up with a mid 1:28 without the line, which surprised me. still ahead of the A.I.

Qualifying

Q1 - 1:27.197 on Options - Good for a pretty safe P1 ahead of Maldonado, 1:28.243. No major issues, although traffic was a big problem on lap 2 when I was looking to see if i could do better. Just ended up packing it in.

Q2 - 1:27.062 - A less convincing P1, with the field getting closer.

Q3 - 1:26.896 - Fastest lap, with a few little mistakes. hey the rich fuel mix does help doesn't it. Had a better time lined up but hit some traffic.

My first Pole. Will be moving up a difficulty level after this race. Alongside me on the first row will be Alonso.

Doing the race right freaking now, whilst I'm still warm.

by **Owen0501** 5/29/2013, 5:54 am

Bahrain:I think there must be a glitch - my KERS broke for 10 laps in our Pro series race.

But running out of gas - LOL - we've seen that a few times in qualifying, but not in the race yet.

You definitely need to change AI difficulty unless you're achievement hunting (which I don't believe you are) LOL.

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