F1 2012 BBFred's Not-So-Expert F1 Career

[BBFred]

Hi guys,

So here comes (again ) my next instalment of the not-so-expert careers… Or should I say definitely-not-so-expert, as you know CM upped the ante quite a bit this year!
As usual, let's get the rules and specs down:

5-year career starting with Toro Rosso - Long weekends - 100% races (that's new)
No assists - Full sims - 0 Flashbacks - Pro AI

What I play with:
- Medion Akoya i7 2600 3.4 Ghz - 8 GB RAM DDR3 - GeForce GTX 560
- Thrustmaster RGT FFB Clutch edition
- TrackIR 5 w/ Trackclip pro
- DXtory for video capture

The mods I use:
- Competitive braking v.2.5 by Hill - new
- Mechanical effects & problems v.2.8 by Kartik Sri Hashra - new
- Revised performance v.1.1 by Johnny Dangerously - new
- Safety car fix RC1 by Roberto Costa, Remy de Leeuw, Driveroz247 & Wills - new
- Fusion Tyres HD by Zeno Dyk and Vlasovas - new
- Supla's Helmet pack 5 by Supla - new
- F1 2012 All tracks update HD by Dejanibanez - new
- HD Toro Rosso wheel by Kubi
- Toro Rosso helmet by Yoshikanji
- AI Realism mod v2.3 by Demy van Zoggel
- Stained and hard wear for tyres by Vlasovas
- Toro Rosso STR7 HD by Pebz
- Removed start lights by Filasbrezna
- Damage mod v2.0 by Cromiell (starting on S1-2)
- My own and humble cockpit and rear view mod
- Some personal changes to the database

Hope you’ll enjoy the series, and comments are always welcome in this thread!

 

[Deleted member 137812]

where can I download your camera mod?

 

[BBFred]

Hi Demy,
I've only done it for half the teams so far (Caterham, Lotus, McLaren, Mercedes,Red Bull, Williams and of course Toro Rosso), but I'll post them this weekend.

 

[BBFred]

Here's the link to my cockpit view mod, for those interested:
BBFred's cockpit views

​

 

[BBFred]

Let’s do a quick AAR of Monaco first: Even though I finished short of the podium, I’m quite elated that I did finish my 1st Monaco full race! And even more elated that it’s got me my best result on that circuit ever, since 2010!

That race has also bumped me up to 11th place in WDC, and the team to 7th in WCC, which is a great improvement. Even better, I’m now taking a definite lead over my teammate, which bodes well for driver status reassessment mid-season!

Enough self-congratulating though, and let’s carry on to Montréal!

On the modding front, this instalment sees the introduction of Kubi’s excellent HD Toro Rosso wheel. I also added Yoshikanji’s sweet Toro Rosso helmet, as I couldn’t stand the stock ones anymore!

Even though it’s not very technical, even though I don’t really consider it as a street circuit, it’s one of my favourite races. This year’s challenge to me was to get a better understanding of turn 7, where I’ve always lost a lot of time into. And again, this year’s game has allowed me to progress a lot there, to the point that I’m on par with the AI on all sectors.

I won’t tell you how good it went in Practice, as results don’t mean a thing there. I just want to emphasize I’ve had to work on the rear wheels wearing out much faster than the front ones. I’ve tried to counterbalance it with some setup adjustments, plus the realization that I’ll have to be very smooth on the throttle after exiting low speed corners, if I want to make the most of my tyres.

Speaking of which, my strat for this race will be to replicate what I did last year in F1 2011, i.e. skip a pit stop. From the feedback I got from Practice, I’m quite confident I can do it. To make it work though, I may have to go for a PPPO strat, which means I’ll be slow for most of the race, hoping that’ll be compensated by one less pit stop.

Going on to Quali, I made a reasonable 14th in Q1, with a 1:17.4 on Primes. Still, that result doesn’t leave me much hope to get into Q3 anyway…

 

[Sasha Jednak]

That was good race, congrats on podium! You were lucky not getting penalty in 1st lap, I usually get 2pen in 1 sec.

 

[BBFred]

That was good race, congrats on podium! You were lucky not getting penalty in 1st lap, I usually get 2pen in 1 sec.

Thanks, and yes, about the pen, I can't believe I didn't get it for the mess I made! Well, I'll take it as a revenge for all the ones I got before, and prolly will get soon!

BTW, I saw I'm not the only one to have hit the podium lately... Congrats!

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Hahahahaha!!! ROFL at the way you spun Grosjean!

And awesome. Definitely obvious improvement in your driving as well. It's not just that the AI is weaker on this track. You're definitely getting the grips of this game now.

I'd suggest you to.. Umm... Use all of the track. You kinda make for example the turn before the big straight. It's a let's say 170 degrees turn. If you use all the track, you can take it like a 155 degrees turn. But you kinda cut the track, lose speed, wear out your tyres more and as you lost too much speed you're being aggressive on the throttle as you feel you've lost speed and you wearout toyr rear tyres too. Just use the whole track. Barrier to barrier. From the leftest possible to the rightest possible point. This way you'll increase your throttle more gradually and better your laptimes significantly.

If you want, I can make a video to show you what I mean. Just remind me tomorrow.

 

[BBFred]

Hi Kristian, thanks for the comments, and yes, definitely, I'd be very interested in a driving lesson!

 

[BBFred]

As usual, a quick AAR from Montréal: YES, I am jazzed to have been on my 1st podium this season! BUT… I know it’s mostly due to the fact I did 1 less pit stop than most of the rest of the field, if not all. And seeing how Vettel and Pérez flashed by me in the last laps, I could tell I wasn’t at the end of the road, and not by far…

As far as standings go, that race did of course a lot of good to me as I jumped up to 7th in WDC! Lack of a good result from my teammate means Toro Rosso still stands 7th in WCC. I’ve know quite distanced Ricciardo in teammate challenge and am looking forward to mid-season, see how it can impact my team standing.

But before getting on to the next race, for this instalment, there’s a lot to talk about on the modding front:

Concerning ‘cosmetic’ mods, I went to Vlasovas and Zeno Dyk’s fusion tyre mod. I was a bit afraid of the huge size of the pssg file at 1st, but it looks like my system handles it just fine, and I’m very happy with the results! Also, I fell in love with Supla’s latest helmet pack in general, and his TR helmet in particular, so that’s probably what will cover my virtual head for quite some races to come! Last but not least, I finally also tried out Dejanibanez's HD tracks update, and seeing no hit on my framerate, this one will definitely be a keeper for me!

About game physics mods, I added quite a few too! To start with, of course, the Safety car fix RC1. Then, the v.1.1 Revised performance mod by Johnny Dangerously, that I strongly recommend. It adjusts car track times to the actual 2012 season ones, if I got it right, but also makes for a more balanced car and shorter gears by default. That way, I can now take slower corners pretty much like in reality, instead of always going 1 gear lower. Also, I've added Hill's Competitive braking mod v.2.5, which really provides a lot more challenge from the AI in addition to the other mods I've installed so far. Finally, I added Kartik Sri Hashra’s Mechanical effects and problems mod, v.2.8, to see if I could live again the mech probs I experienced on my 1st season race on the vanilla version of F1 2012. You’ll see in this video that I wasn’t disappointed in that respect…

Anyway, bamos to Valencia!

Unlike many drivers around, I like this track. First, it’s a ‘false’ street circuit, as I call them, since it’s quite wide. Second, the 3rd sector has always been a fascinating driving challenge to me, and the 1st one somewhat interesting to negotiate. This year, I’ve been focusing on my trajectory between turn 18 & 19, that command the rest of the last sector. I think I’ve made progress. But past S1 I’ve also noticed I am very slow on exiting the bridge area, compared to the AI.

Strategy-wise, I’m not planning on anything exceptional, except trying to save my rear tyres, which seem to take quite a pounding on this track. My ideal target will be an OPOO strat.

Practice 3 bode well, as usual, and I cleared Quali 1 easily on Primes in 13th pos. I then put on Options for Quali 2 of course, and unexpectedly passed it, a mere 2 hundreds before Rosberg! At that point I was undecided: should I save my tyres for the race, or compromise another set of Options to gain a few places on the grid? The answer to that is right here…

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Race videos should be in full HD from now on! Sorry for the choppy minute around 0:26, I'm working on resolving this issue for next race.

 

[Sasha Jednak]

Congrats on quali, very good result! Race was good, fight with Massa was interesting. You pace at the end was it because of engine , tires or both? There were mods at their best!

 

[BBFred]

Hi,

I suspect it was due to Kartik's mod. Tyres were fine but soon as my engine started smoking, I couldn't iimprove my lap times anymore. Or maybe I unconsciously started holding back when I saw the smoke...

Anyway that was fun! I spent quite a lot of race time watching the damage HUD, wondering if my engine would make it to the end...

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Heeey, full HD now. o.O

 

[BBFred]

Heeey, full HD now. o.O

Oops yeah, forgot to mention that in my post! Well it's got its choppy moments, esp. at 0:26 to 0:27, but now that I have a 2nd HD I can record on, I'm hoping it'll solve the problem.

 

[driveroz247]

Like your videos BBFred. Keep them coming!

 

[Andrew Bortz]

Glad to see someone else using a Track ir

Surprised by the lack of subscribers but mine didn't pick up for the first 6 months although it never went this slowly. Coupled by it being a between season stage we have all seen a drop of activity surrounding F1 so give it a few more months and im sure it'll pick up some.

 

[BBFred]

Glad to see someone else using a Track ir

Surprised by the lack of subscribers but mine didn't pick up for the first 6 months although it never went this slowly. Coupled by it being a between season stage we have all seen a drop of activity surrounding F1 so give it a few more months and im sure it'll pick up some.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the comments!

I agree that the Track ir is a sweet piece of hardware. I come from the flight sim community where it has spread a lot... hopefully the racing sim community will see its advantages eventually. Doesn't come cheap though. But speaking for myself, if a sim is not Track ir-compatible, I'll think twice before buying it.

Concerning the subscribers on my channel... well I don't work on that much really, and I'm no 'Legend' material! Just happy I haven't got any dislikes yet and that some people keep following my races. Most of my subs are probably RD ones, anyway, and I reckon each of them is worth 10 passers-by!