David O'Reilly
A bad quali means I can go forwards in the race.
F1 2011 Career # 2 the story so far.
(Expert Mode and 75% distance-Cockpit view)
So guys It's a while since I have posted much and I felt like sharing a bit of the fun of Season 3 career 2 in the game.
There's faster guys around than me but I can hold my own and boy I'm having some fun.
Following a 5 year career in 2011 our driver has started a second career and completed 2 seasons with HRT. The second season was a bit or a cheat as quite a few races were 3 lappers to simply get it over with and get a desirable team offer.
The HRT was an improved car in season 2 and while it was mostly battling out of the points we did manage to beat the lower ranked KERs equipped teams quite often. 15th to 17th was the typical result in a fair race of 75%. Early in the season it was a coup to beat one KERs car and usually it was due to an incident. If they weren't careful when trying to get back past me they often had 2!!
The 3 lap races are a bit of a hoax as its often possible to jump 10 places or more in the first sector of the opening lap then defend agressively with only one DRS lap its over. So many points finishes were achieved that in a longer race would not have happened.
In one 3 lap race at Catalunya the entire grid failed to leave the pits for qualifying leaving the HRT on pole!. In the manner above pole was successfully defended and so the HRT scored pole and the win!
All good fun but the two effects of this were:
1)The team forgot who they were and started asking for P6 in qualifying and podiums as the race target. This actually played havoc with reputation points and made it almost a necessity to complete the season as 3 lap races.
The new team.
After offers from all the non KERs teams plus Williams and Force India I held out for and got a Toro Rosso offer. They had been running at the back of the KERs equipped teams so I didn't do it for speed alone.
My reasons were that in career #1 I ran 4 seasons with Williams and in addition basically don't like the Force India Cockpit .
The other interesting thing is that in previous experiences with Toro Rosso in online play using 2011 performance I found the car did not suit me and in equal performance mode was slightly off the pace of the top cars (Williams, HRT). This made it a challenge to get on top of setup and driving style and try to get some performance out of the Toro Rosso.
I must also admit that I felt I could jump into Daniel Ricciardos career profile HRT-Toro Rosso.
Finally I am a Webber fan and not a Helmut Marko fan. So to take Jaime Alguisari's seat and defy Marko by aiding Webber and hurting Vettel at every opportunity will just feel great. So that is the plan.
Season 3.
Have just finished Turkey and it's been fantastic so far. I am running a no restarts rule so if stuff happens it happens and I race on. So far that's included a collision with Barrichello (drive through penalty )as I dived for the pits at China and he went round again and and a wheel disconnect in Turkey which sent me into the kitty litter. From both setbacks I raced on and had some of the most engaging and exciting racing yet as I fought back.
Team targets have been bang on the money; challenging but achievable. In Sepang and in China in wet qualifying I was off target and went out with 4 mins left to just scrape in.
My team mate Buemi however has been appallingly slow. Often dead last. In Sepang I nearly collided with him braking for turn 7 as he swerved wildly like a drunk while under brakes.
Setup wise the main change I have made so far is gearing. The car lacks top speed so 6th and 7th have to be shortened. I really need to work a bit on springs and ARBs to get better turn in. It tends to understeer. My experiments so far however have made it worse and my prior setups are faster save for gearing which can find about .7 sec. Not sure if its lack of power of inefficient aero but its slow at top end.
In qualifying we are between 1-2 sec of the pace.
A note on strategy: Testing on high and low fuel with options and primes and testing in race distance has helped to define the optimum tyre strategy.
Some tracks punish you for using primes early (Sepang, Turkey) some for using them late (China, Melbourne). In China for example I was able to chase down and pass Petrov (on primes) from a 12 sec advantage in my final options stint of about 13 laps. Very intense.
In Sepang I was able to go into fuel save mode in stint 1 and go like hell in stint 2 on options and exit ahead of the AI for stint 3 and defend on primes.
In Suzuka Primes are best on the opening stint. The options go off and pace drops and you are on them as they pit then to fight them with options vs their primes. There is a wrong strategy on most tracks!
The great thing about this season is the racing / pace is close in the mid field and finding these little advantages to defeat your competitors is a great feeling.
Race results so far: (* denotes race incident occurred)
Melb
Strategy P/O/O
Qualifying 17
Race 14*
Sepang
Strategy O/O/P
Qualifying 14
Race 5
China
Strategy O/P/O
Qualifying 19
Race 9*
Turkey
Strategy O/O/P
Qualifying 12
Race 5* (note about 5 top cars puncture in Turkey as they don't pit for tyres)
Standings
WDC
1 Rosberg 66
2 Webber 49
3 Button 46
4 Schumacher 39
5 Massa 36
6 Vettel 27 (what's that I held you up? yeah Seb talk to the hand mate!)
7 Hamilton 22
8 David O'Reillly (the writer) 22
9 Perez 20
10 Maldonardo 18
11 Alonso 15
12 Barrichello
13 Tmo Glock 12 (figure that one out!)
14 Heidfeld 6
15 Liuzzi 5
16 Ambrosio 4
17 Kobayashi 4
18 Petrov 1
19 Karthikeyan 0
20 Di Resta 0
21 Trulli 0
22 Sutil 0
23 Buemi 0
24 Kovalainen 0
After Catalunya we move to my heartland-Monaco. The scene of my first career win in the Williams. Expectations are high that I will be attending the ball as the race winner. Looking at the above I think that with some upgrades that we can target P5 in the constructors. Shame about Buemis pace.
For the statistically minded a selection of personal game stats.
Races 520 (most 75%)
Online Rank 47
Distance Travelled 91,306 km
Pit Stops 680
Punctures 85
Laps 15,629 (that must mean 600,000 gear changes!!!)
Time spent 461hrs:35 mins
Most Successful track Monaco
see you next time
(Expert Mode and 75% distance-Cockpit view)
So guys It's a while since I have posted much and I felt like sharing a bit of the fun of Season 3 career 2 in the game.
There's faster guys around than me but I can hold my own and boy I'm having some fun.
Following a 5 year career in 2011 our driver has started a second career and completed 2 seasons with HRT. The second season was a bit or a cheat as quite a few races were 3 lappers to simply get it over with and get a desirable team offer.
The HRT was an improved car in season 2 and while it was mostly battling out of the points we did manage to beat the lower ranked KERs equipped teams quite often. 15th to 17th was the typical result in a fair race of 75%. Early in the season it was a coup to beat one KERs car and usually it was due to an incident. If they weren't careful when trying to get back past me they often had 2!!
The 3 lap races are a bit of a hoax as its often possible to jump 10 places or more in the first sector of the opening lap then defend agressively with only one DRS lap its over. So many points finishes were achieved that in a longer race would not have happened.
In one 3 lap race at Catalunya the entire grid failed to leave the pits for qualifying leaving the HRT on pole!. In the manner above pole was successfully defended and so the HRT scored pole and the win!
All good fun but the two effects of this were:
1)The team forgot who they were and started asking for P6 in qualifying and podiums as the race target. This actually played havoc with reputation points and made it almost a necessity to complete the season as 3 lap races.
- HRT ended up about 5th in the constructors. A bizarre enough result but as car performance in the following season seems to be closely correlated with where you got them in the previous seasons WCC we now face having left HRT for a KERs team being regularly outqualified by both Liuzzi and Karthakayan in the HRTs. Despite their lack of KERs they also have more straight line speed then my new team. After my last race for HRT the team thanked me and said that I had left them in a much stronger position. They weren't kidding.
The new team.
After offers from all the non KERs teams plus Williams and Force India I held out for and got a Toro Rosso offer. They had been running at the back of the KERs equipped teams so I didn't do it for speed alone.
My reasons were that in career #1 I ran 4 seasons with Williams and in addition basically don't like the Force India Cockpit .
The other interesting thing is that in previous experiences with Toro Rosso in online play using 2011 performance I found the car did not suit me and in equal performance mode was slightly off the pace of the top cars (Williams, HRT). This made it a challenge to get on top of setup and driving style and try to get some performance out of the Toro Rosso.
I must also admit that I felt I could jump into Daniel Ricciardos career profile HRT-Toro Rosso.
Finally I am a Webber fan and not a Helmut Marko fan. So to take Jaime Alguisari's seat and defy Marko by aiding Webber and hurting Vettel at every opportunity will just feel great. So that is the plan.
Season 3.
Have just finished Turkey and it's been fantastic so far. I am running a no restarts rule so if stuff happens it happens and I race on. So far that's included a collision with Barrichello (drive through penalty )as I dived for the pits at China and he went round again and and a wheel disconnect in Turkey which sent me into the kitty litter. From both setbacks I raced on and had some of the most engaging and exciting racing yet as I fought back.
Team targets have been bang on the money; challenging but achievable. In Sepang and in China in wet qualifying I was off target and went out with 4 mins left to just scrape in.
My team mate Buemi however has been appallingly slow. Often dead last. In Sepang I nearly collided with him braking for turn 7 as he swerved wildly like a drunk while under brakes.
Setup wise the main change I have made so far is gearing. The car lacks top speed so 6th and 7th have to be shortened. I really need to work a bit on springs and ARBs to get better turn in. It tends to understeer. My experiments so far however have made it worse and my prior setups are faster save for gearing which can find about .7 sec. Not sure if its lack of power of inefficient aero but its slow at top end.
In qualifying we are between 1-2 sec of the pace.
A note on strategy: Testing on high and low fuel with options and primes and testing in race distance has helped to define the optimum tyre strategy.
Some tracks punish you for using primes early (Sepang, Turkey) some for using them late (China, Melbourne). In China for example I was able to chase down and pass Petrov (on primes) from a 12 sec advantage in my final options stint of about 13 laps. Very intense.
In Sepang I was able to go into fuel save mode in stint 1 and go like hell in stint 2 on options and exit ahead of the AI for stint 3 and defend on primes.
In Suzuka Primes are best on the opening stint. The options go off and pace drops and you are on them as they pit then to fight them with options vs their primes. There is a wrong strategy on most tracks!
The great thing about this season is the racing / pace is close in the mid field and finding these little advantages to defeat your competitors is a great feeling.
Race results so far: (* denotes race incident occurred)
Melb
Strategy P/O/O
Qualifying 17
Race 14*
Sepang
Strategy O/O/P
Qualifying 14
Race 5
China
Strategy O/P/O
Qualifying 19
Race 9*
Turkey
Strategy O/O/P
Qualifying 12
Race 5* (note about 5 top cars puncture in Turkey as they don't pit for tyres)
Standings
WDC
- Mercedes 105
- Redbull 76
- McLaren 68
- Ferrari 51
- Williams 30
- Sauber 24
- Toro Rosso 22
- Virgin 16
- Lotus Renault 7
- HRT 5
- Force India 0
- Lotus (Caterham) 0
1 Rosberg 66
2 Webber 49
3 Button 46
4 Schumacher 39
5 Massa 36
6 Vettel 27 (what's that I held you up? yeah Seb talk to the hand mate!)
7 Hamilton 22
8 David O'Reillly (the writer) 22
9 Perez 20
10 Maldonardo 18
11 Alonso 15
12 Barrichello
13 Tmo Glock 12 (figure that one out!)
14 Heidfeld 6
15 Liuzzi 5
16 Ambrosio 4
17 Kobayashi 4
18 Petrov 1
19 Karthikeyan 0
20 Di Resta 0
21 Trulli 0
22 Sutil 0
23 Buemi 0
24 Kovalainen 0
After Catalunya we move to my heartland-Monaco. The scene of my first career win in the Williams. Expectations are high that I will be attending the ball as the race winner. Looking at the above I think that with some upgrades that we can target P5 in the constructors. Shame about Buemis pace.
For the statistically minded a selection of personal game stats.
Races 520 (most 75%)
Online Rank 47
Distance Travelled 91,306 km
Pit Stops 680
Punctures 85
Laps 15,629 (that must mean 600,000 gear changes!!!)
Time spent 461hrs:35 mins
Most Successful track Monaco
see you next time
. 2 clicks off frontARB and one more click of front camber and shes turning in like a RedBull.
