I must say, as one of the researchers and mod test driver, thanks to everyone for the reviews, it is very much appreciated.
As for
@TheRealJuralumin's review, indeed, we really tried to make the cars as unique as possible to their own...
For example, the swing rear axle cars like the 159/50 and 159/51 Alfettas and the Ferrari 125GP, they really thrive on fast, flowing tracks. Modern tracks which were slow and with twisty, technical corners weren't their strong suit, though one can still use the vast power of the Alfas to get a small advantage. Historic racer Willie Green raced an Alfetta at the Monaco GP Historique in 1997, and said that the swing axle car is "unsuited" to the 1997 layout of Monaco, and yet, he still managed to use some of the power advantage to fight for the lead until the end. Early braking is the name of the game for these cars, as they weren't designed to fight in the corners anyway...
The Ferrari 375s were fast, but ultimately won't be able to match the Alfettas in terms of sheer grunt. Instead they were banking on being able to at least stay close enough, and stay out for much longer while the Alfettas would have to pull over for fuel, inevitably...
The BRM, it is quick in a straight line, easily almost as fast as the Alfettas, but were absolutely terrible elsewhere, as it was in real life. At the 1950 Penya Rhin GP at Pedralbes, for example, the BRMs were timed down the main straight at speeds way faster than the works 375, but were still lapping 7 seconds slower than the Ferraris, such was the time lost on the corners. We tried to model that accordingly, still, there were some characteristics we can't do. For example, if you were to look very closely at the footage of the BRMs in the opening movie, you'll see that the front wheels were wobbling about as the car negotiates a corner!
The Talbot-Lagos and the Maseratis have absolutely no hope of catching the Alfas and the Ferrari 375s, but they could produce great racing amongst themselves. The Talbot is also very fuel-efficient. On some occasions, they are known to be able to finish whole race distances without stopping for fuel!
And, the Addendum; the Grand Prix Cisistalia. We had to do some workarounds for that one...
Thing is, the Cisitalia was designed to have a selectable 4-wheel drive system. When the driver is about to launch the car from a standstill, or accelerating out of slow corners, the driver could engage the front drive by means of a lever near the steering column, and then disengage it afterwards to reduce drivetrain power losses. Sadly, in rFactor, it's just a choice of rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, or 4-wheel drive, you can't have a 4 wheel drive system that you can just switch off while driving, like what was intended on the Cisitalia in real life... which gave us a bit of a dilemma...
We felt that we can't just model the car as a rear-wheel drive, as that would deprive it of one of its key design features. But it's not right to just model the car as a full four-wheel drive as well, as the four-wheel drive system is not supposed to be in use all the time in the car...
So, in the end, we decided to model it as a four-wheel drive, but with more power going to the rear wheels. That way, we felt that while the front wheels provide drive, it won't give as much help as it should be, as, the system is not supposed to be in use all the time anyway...
![Formula One 1951 [RF1] by O.R.M](/data/resource_icons/60/60888.jpg?1685026963){kind=icon}
