Messages

It begins with a 'G' and ends 'round effects'....  That and a much, much, much smaller & simpler front wing.

I'm sorry, it seems like you almost spelled out "ground effects". Could that really be?

But I could edit the timezones. It'd appear as though I created this yesterday.

I admittedly don't mind DRS existing, but I want to aid overtaking rather than create it. If DRS has a reduced effect this year, I'm ok with keeping it as such. At least until the Brawn of Ross manages to think of a way cars can drive very close together and still be mad fast.

[44. Lewis Hamilton]

Could I create this topic any sooner? I'll get back to you.

Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport:
44. Lewis Hamilton (link)
77. Valtteri Bottas (link)

Scuderia Ferrari:
5. Sebastian Vettel (link)
7. Kimi Raikkonen (link)

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing: (link)
3. Daniel Ricciardo (link)
33. Max Verstappen (link)

Sahara Force India F1 Team:
11. Sergio Perez (link)
31. Esteban Ocon (link)

Williams Martini Racing:
18. Lance Stroll (link)
35. Sergey Sirotkin (link)

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda: (Honda)
10. Pierre Gasly (link)
28. Brendon Hartley (link)

Renault Sport Formula One Team:
27. Nico Hulkenberg (link)
55. Carlos Sainz Jr. (link)

Haas F1 Team:
8. Romain Grosjean (link)
20. Kevin Magnussen (link)

McLaren F1 Team: (Renault)
2. Stoffel Vandoorne (link)
14. Fernando Alonso (link)

Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team: (link)
9. Marcus Ericsson (link)
16. Charles Leclerc (link)

First Driver: Lewis Hamilton
Second Driver: Nico H?lkenberg



Third Drivers:
AUS - Marcus Ericsson
CHN - Felipe Massa
BHR - Sergio Perez
RUS - Stoffel Vandoorne - Missed
ESP - Nico H?lkenberg
MCO - Jenson Button
CAN - Esteban Ocon
AZE - Lance Stroll
AUT - Kevin Magnussen
GBR - Lewis Hamilton
HUN - Fernando Alonso
BEL - Kimi Raikkonen
ITA - Romain Grosjean
SGP - Max Verstappen
MYS - Jolyon Palmer
JPN - Carlos Sainz
USA - Valtteri Bottas
MEX - Sebastian Vettel
BRA - Daniel Ricciardo
ARE - Pierre Gasly

I like the pink Force India. It definitely stands out. God knows it's an improvement to their old paint.

More power for Merc teams as company commits to running latest spec of engine in Melbourne: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128549/mercedes-commits-to-latestspec-engine

That must mean they are confident about reliability. They ran long and hard in Spain with their Mercedes engine, and now they still force an update for round 1. Watch out, Ferrari, for here the German Silver arrows are.

I'm on Xbox too, ChristopherRe91. Mostly been playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It's a decent game, but the main story (as always) was too short.

Cheers for taking the time to review, sounds like a well worked game.

I assume Kitano Sport is blessed with an under-powered & unreliable engine....

I would guess as much, yes.

Every start of the season, you pick your various suppliers such as Engine, Fuel, Brakes, etc.

Steinmann (Mercedes) will supply engines to Windsor (Williams) at a cheaper rate. Ferrari cannot pick Steinmann engines at all, they are not on offer. Other teams not specifically tied to a manufacturer will get to pick an engine every year. In the lower series, I do not have the same suppliers to choose from.

As you can see here, my car has a decent gearbox (Acceleration) and decent brakes (Decelation). The engine (Top speed) is neutral because there is a spec engine. Me choosing an expensive engine for this year was stupid since I cannot develop it anyway.



For the rest, I am lagging behind thanks in part to being new in the series. Despite having a car far below the average performance, Rehn GP is actually second in the manufacturer standings mid-season thanks to some cunning strategy (having spent a lot of money on my Forecasting Center so that I can see when the rain is coming before the others).

After winning season 3 of European Racing Series, for my 4th season I have indeed graduated to the Asia-Pacific Super Cup. I can only expect to score points occasionally since I should be behind the other teams in terms of development. Here's our car for the season though:



Notice among other things that there are different tyres. In the European Racing Series, we had wide tyres from Brutus (high grip, low durability). For the Asia-Pacific, we are using the more refined Cortés tyres which are narrower and offer less grip, but in turn last longer.

Definitely.

The manager aspect of the game (the main mode) lets you take control of a team from any of these 3 categories:

World Motorsport Championship
Asia-Pacific Super Cup
European Racing Series

In the WMC, you can find teams like Scuderia Rossini (with the German Dieter Wexler and the flying Finn Nilo Saarinen), Steinmann Motorsport (with the fantastic British driver Harry Chapman and his German team mate Wolfgang Schmidt). I haven't fully figured out the teams but I THINK these are the ones:

Steinmann Motorsport - Mercedes
Scuderia Rossini - Ferrari
Panther Race Team - Red Bull
Windsor Racing - Williams
Kitano Sport - McLaren
Vélan Racing - Sauber
Rezzato Corsa - Toro Rosso
Chariot Motor Group - Manor
MacNeil Racing Team - Haas
Thornton Motorsport - Renault

There's no Indian team in the World Motorsport Championship. Hmpf.

The Asia-Pacific and European Series are more fictional, with perhaps a few nods to some teams but nothing more than that. The series have different rules (The European racing series won't allow the development of front and rear wings and instead use spec wings. There's a reverse grid based on championship position so whoever leads the series starts last, etc.) and you can vote on a few changes every year.

In my first playthrough, I lead the fantastic Garuda Racing to victory in the European Racing Series and was offered promotion to the Acia-Pacific Super Cup which I accepted. Mid-season in the Acia-Pacific, I applied for the job of team principal at Scuderia Rossini. I was accepted and helped guide Rossini from 3rd to 1st in the championship. Mid-season, I replaced my two aging drivers for younglings, Charles LeCoq (yes. LeCoq) and Carol Olson. Great pairing.

I am now playing as Rehn Grand Prix (YES YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN TEAMS!). For the first season, we started off with an absolute shite car and I was 1 second behind the second slowest team on the grid. By season 2, I fought for wins. By season 3, I almost exclusively finish first and second.

Look at the lovely Swedish-inspired colour scheme of my car. Every year, you get to edit the livery.

I wish Sauber could revert to the 2017 Ferrari engine mid-season. The chassis looks fairly OK through corners, so they can surely do well in Monaco and Hungary. They are seriously lacking power though, and Sauber will definitely struggle to score points.

No restriction on development, true. But bear in mind that they can only use 4 power units over a season. The engine they use in Australia will have to do some 3-4 races at the very very least.

[Ferrari]

I read from Sky Sports (I believe) that the Honda engine is shaking and vibrating so badly that it literally shakes itself apart. That's what causing their reliability woes. I heard from my former boss (he knows McLaren people, the nerd) that they are in talks with Ferrari for a 2018 engine. How about that huh.

[IS]

I'll just dump this collection of the fastest times per car over these two weeks:

1. Ferrari, 1:18.364
2. Mercedes, 1:19.310
3. Williams, 1:19.420
4. Red Bull, 1:19.438
5. Toro Rosso, 1:19.837
6. Renault, 1:19.885
7. Force India, 1:20.116
8. Haas, 1:20.504
9. McLaren, 1:21.348
10. Sauber, 1:21.670

Of course this doesn't tell you the full picture, but something like this is how I currently see the field. Mercedes is clearly sandbagging, they are not a full second slower than Ferrari. The question is, just how much do the Mercs have in store and just how close to their limit was that Ferrari lap? Compare it to 2016, where Ferrari also set the fastest lap in pre-season. They were .2 seconds faster than Mercedes and .3 seconds faster than third placed Force India. Red Bull's best laptime was .75 seconds slower, but remember Red Bull did enter the 2016 season slower than Ferrari.

We're now seeing a 1 second gap to Mercedes, 1.1 seconds to Red Bull. Clearly the Ferrari IS more competitive. The question is simply how competitive the Mercedes is. Long runs they look about the same, perhaps with a slight tyre usage disadvantage for Mercedes. The Ferrari appears to post fairly competitive lap times deeper into stints.