F1 2012 Car performance observations & family traits (also some surprises)

[Dmitry Zaharov]

I was a bit bored and decided to do some laps around Catalunya in Time Trial in different cars with default setup. Here are my thoughs about cars behavior. I don't really know why, but these traits are also quite visible in online "equal" mode. One can question how Codemasters make cars "equal" when they are clearly not.

1. McLaren. Fastest time 1.21.4. Got all grip in the world. Good feel for both frontend and rearend. Feedback is solid and constant, downforce is always there, balance is perfect. Only slight and easy controllable corner exit oversteer. Clearly fastest car in the game by some margin.

2-3. Ferrari. Fastest time 1.21.8. Very nice car in the first sector, even faster than McLaren thanks to better acceleration towards Turn 3. Loses time in Turn 9 because frontend tries to escape without warning. Lacks front downforce. Super grip in slow corners.
2-3. Sauber. Fastest time 1.21.8. First surprise! Clearly downfoce level is on par with McLaren, never misses apex of first corner (can brake very late), nice feeling in all fast corners, can push full throttle in turns 1-2-3, control the car only with the throttle through the complex. Loses all time in last sector, lacks rear end grip in slow corners, oversteering mid-corner (especially evident in Turn 5).

4-5. Red Bull. Fastest time 1.22.0. Somehow lacks downforce in first sector, understeers in mid-corner, loses speed then you try to force car to the apex. Otherwise pretty stable and predictable, but there is no feeling for "supergrip" as was in the McLaren case.
4-5. Williams. Fastest time 1.22.0. This car won the actual F1 race, so no surprise - it is fast around here. It is even faster than McLaren in first sector, front downforce is very good. Unstable in last sector, lacks rearend grip, clearly loses time there.

6-7. Mercedes. Fastest time 1.22.4. Seriously lacks front end both low-speed grip and downforce. Otherwise very agile, but acceleration is quite bad which kills good response and stability of this car.
6-7. Lotus. Fastest time 1.22.4. Just like in F1 2011 I hate this car. It is very unpredictable, lacks feedback from front wheels. You need to really focus to get something good out of this car. Downforce levels play wildly from corner to corner, you never know which end of the car tries to escape and when.

8. Force India. Fastest time 1.23.5. IMMA GOT NO DOWNFORCE AT ALL. Really funny car because it is absolutely nowhere in medium-speed and fast corners but obviously fastest car in the game in straight line. Not much to talk about anything else, a bit of oversteer in slow corners and thats all.

9. Toro Rosso. Fastest time 1.24.?. Lacks top speed and acceleration. Nice feel in fast corners, but Codemaster just made this car very slow. Understeer in slow corners, you need to really navigate through them.

10. Caterham. Fastest time 1.24.7. Surprisingly nice handling and response, can nail all of the apexes, no lack of feedback. Just lacks top speed and acceleration.

11. Marussia. Fastest time 1.25.0. Good responsible car, but lacks rearend grip, in slow corners tries to oversteer just like Sauber. No kers, but top speed is good and a bit better than Caterham.

12. HRT. Fastest time 1.26.0. Just slow. But stable. But really slow. It got same engine as Marussia, but acceleration is non-existent, you can throw car out of last corner, then go smoke some cigars, then return and it will be still nowhere near the first corner. Otherwise it stable (did I said that previously?) , handles nicely, they just made it lacking a bit of grip compared to Marussia.

 

[gui1415]

Very good topic man!

 

[Jamie Francklin]

Nicely done

 

[Zoltan Hadadi]

In TT all their cars use their unique characteristics from 2012 performance.

It's nice that you wrote down all your feeling from it but I think it's different from "online equal".
I'm not saying that equal cars are truly equal this year too but I think the differences aren't that big like in 2011. There was really fast and slow cars. Now they are more balanced.

 

[Roger Snead]

Really enjoyed. Great info. Thanks.

 

[gui1415]

Do any of you guys remember the chart from F1 2010 with all the team and their tiers and power they had? Do we have one this year?

 

[Ho3n3r]

Hahaha. Interesting. Good research!

 

[Paul Van Mierlo]

Yeh good stuff and its true,i normally always drive with the Lotus,just because im a big fan too Kimi.i did quite alot of TT already and always used the Lotus also,but after i used the McLaren the difference is huge,the McLaren is like on rails,i dont know how it is in online racing because i normally only use the Lotus,wich in my opinion sometimes is hard too handle but that also can be due too setup.

 

[Gareth Jones]

This is a good read, useful for career to choose which car to go to next and for setups too.

 

[Roberto Costa]

I've also noticed some difference and went to RD just to see if i saw something like this.

Very nice topic!
I did some tests today with RBR, it doesn't feel thats the best handling car. Not sure if it was on F1 2010 or 11, RBR was the car in handling terms, McLaren was the strongest one and Ferrari was something in between.
Im testing now because i don't know if i stay on Ferrari or accept the RBR contract

 

[Victor Ivanov]

I'm pretty sure those findings work in MP too. I only drive McLaren and I have the feeling that Ferrari has better acceleration and freaking stable in slow corners.

 

[Paul Van Mierlo]

Yeh im gonna try some different cars in coming races

 

[Roberto Costa]

Just raced Force India today, not sure if it was just a first impression, but IMO, i agree with the lack of downforce, but straight line at least i believe its the fastest car speaking of top speed only, it really looks like its bad on acceleration. I'll try it some more but i really don't think its good in accel.

EDIT: Just to confim, indeed, FI acceleration is terrible. You can shorten the gear ratios a lot, and still you'll have a bad acceleration. Best way i found to get a better top speed (recheable) is to use a long gear 6 and shorter gear 7.

 

[Giancarlo Pigati]

We are starting a handicap league (yay, shameless plug!) where we use 2012 car performance to even out the field. We put the best driver in the worst car, and viceversa. I decided to take a note of your findings and compare them to my own.

I ran Time Trial on Australia (which is probably my more consistent track) and I only modified the setup via the quick setup menu (all the way to the right). I ran at least 5 laps on each car, or more, until I felt satisfied with the sample I got.

Here are my findings:
(Team: Best lap, all times compared to the McLaren, which was the best)

Tier 1:
- McLaren: 1.23.266
- Red Bull: 1.23.859 (+0.6)
- Ferrari: 1.24.005 (+0.8)

Tier 2:
- Lotus: 1.24.795 (+1.5)
- Williams: 1.24.807 (+1.6)
- Sauber: 1.24.984 (+1.7)
- Mercedes: 1.25.031 (+1.8)

Tier 3:
- Caterham: 1.26.152 (+2.9)
- Force India: 1.26.536 (+3.3) // I was consistently getting better times with the Force India over the Toro Rosso, even though my best lap was with the latter.
- Toro Rosso: 1.26.440 (+3.2)

Tier 4:
- Marussia: 1.27.290 (+4.0) // No kers

Tier 5:
- HRT: 1.28.460 (+5.2) //No kers

I feel like there's an error margin of about 0.3s per lap, but Australia is one of my more consistent tracks, so I feel it's a good sample. From the tier 2, you could bunch up the first three teams (Lotus, Williams and Sauber) together as they were all really good. I had more trouble with the Mercedes and I felt like there was a ~0.5s difference with those 3. Same goes with the Toro Rosso vs. Caterham and the Force India.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

So you say the Caterham is better than the Force India AND the Toro Rosso?!

 

[Deleted member 90535]

Well, I recently signed with FI during my carrier and I think that Caterham was better FI has a lot more of understeer in my opinion. Though I don't really now how it works in online mode.

 

[Miguel Gonzalez]

Great finds and thanks for sharing! I started my first career with Torro Rosso and that car is a dog. I'm not surprised to see it scratching above the KERS-less cars. And I'm pretty sure I got a penalty for not moving over for a Red Bull fast enough in career.... j/k surprised to see the Caterham above FI though, haven't driven that car in this game but again wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Karl Fuss]

I did a similar test around Montreal with most of the cars in QR mode.
10 laps with each car.
first 5 lasp no DRS used, KERS always used in the same place on the circuit for the same length of time. 25 laps of fuel, option tyres, Mix 2
second 5 laps fresh tyres 20 laps fuel, same conditions as above

I then took the fastest 3 laps from the 10 laps as a total time to compare pace.

McLaren - 230.669, avg 76.890
Red Bull - (i refuse to drive it )

Ferrari - 232.730, avg 77.577
Sauber - 232.993, avg 77.664

Mercedes - 234.160, avg 78.053
Lotus - 234.317, avg 78.106

Williams - 235.924, avg 78.641
Force India - 235.961, avg 78.654
Toro Rosso - 236.513, avg 78.838 (i found this the most uncomfortable to drive)

Caterham - 237-769, avg 79.256

HRT - 240.788, avg 80.263
Marussia - (couldn`t be botherd to test it after doing the HRT)

 

[Johnny Russian]

nice one Dmitry, i also feel the McLaren is by far the best car in the game. Just started my 1st season with them in career mode and i've gotten pole in all of the first 5 races (Legend difficulty).

The Red Bull is seriously quick but i also find it can get quite a bit of understeer sometimes.

Spent half a season with Lotus and i actually hated that car, it seems to have no rear traction at all! back end is very unpredictable. but i still managed to get a few good results with it. Also spent half a season with Mercedes and i definitely prefer that over the Lotus. managed to get 5 wins out of 10 races in the Merc, compared to 0 wins out of 10 races in the Lotus (both Legend difficulty). I drove the Lotus very early on after picking up the game though, so i have a lot more experience with it now which might explain the discrepancy in the win rate. might give the Lotus another go in a season or two and see how things turn out.

I also spent half a season with Force India and was surprised at how much better it is to drive in F1 2012 compared to F1 2011. In F1 2011 it felt like a tank, i could hardly get it around a corner! i agree it has very poor acceleration, but i was still able to pick up quite a few podiums. always had to spend ages tweaking the gear ratios though. all my setups had been done for Red Bull previously and i had to drop all the gears down around 4-5 clicks to the left.

The Williams is fairly decent but it seems to be prone to quite a bit of understeer too. although i've only driven it right at the start of the game before the patch to reduce the level of understeer.

spent an entire season with Marussia and the handling is absolutely terrible. it's got such a bad turn-in it's unbelievable, just like it doesn't want to turn at all.

can't say anything about the other cars as i haven't driven them in career.

all of the above is of course also just my own personal opinion of how the cars handle, others will probably disagree

 

[Kristian Nenov]

I just did a test. I was testing Q laps on Germany. Started from the (what I thought) worst car. Was trying to go from worst to best car. They are indeed messed up. Each car had it's own feel and it was big fun trying 'em all. I did 2 or 4 laps. Which means 1 or 2 tries with each car depending on how good the lap felt. The slower cars can get times improved because I was still getting to know the track. Anyways.

I did this test on Quick Race mode.

McLaren-1.13.868
RedBull-1.14.340
Ferrari-1.14.429
Lotus-1.15.654
Mercedes-1.15.230
Sauber-1.14.882
Force india-1.15.741
Williams-1.15.103
Toro Rosso-1.16.440
Caterham-1.16.867
Marussia-1.17.814
HRT-1.18.680

These are the laptimes. The biggest surprise for me was how close the Caterham was to the Toro Rosso. And to be honest, I did the Caterham lap a lot easier. Firstly I was doing Caterham's times in a Toro Rosso altho I felt there was more potential in the car.

Another big surprise for me was how slow the Lotus was. The Lotus felt exactly like the McLaren, but was just generally slower.

Another thing I noticed was that the different engines have really different power now. It's not like last year. Renault engines were slow. Mercedes were always the top. Just like in real life.

I haven't really bothered testing how they handle with fuel, but you can clearly see which car is going to be the best.

I want to say that the Sauber was surprisingly fast but to be honest it wasn't really feeling that good. And I had to actually stop a little bit sooner (like 5-10m) than with other cars.

The Force India was feeling really strange too. It seems it has downforce problems, but it's really good in low speed corners, but lacks traction too. Which is a really strange combination.

I don't think there were major surprises in the other cars. Hope I've helped.