F1 2011 Andrew Bortz's Contract Decision?

[Andrew Bortz]

It's that time of the season I have just finished Korea and have multiple contract offers to choose from a couple of thigs you should know if you are not already familiar with my series is that I play on the hardest settings, no assists cockpit view 100% race distances with every session played (no acceleerated sessions or skipping).

So my contract offers listed in the poll above are what I will choose from, im going to half my career till the 11th May to get a decision I would like each and every one of you to give your thoughts on where you want me to go.

Currently im in the HRT at the start of the season I was struggling to match the midfield but now at Korea im battling for the lower end points (making some rookie mistakes along the way normally making me lose out)

Current Offers
Sauber
Williams
Lotus
HRT

Current standings
Red Bull 433
Ferrari 377
Mclaren 355
Mercedes 149
Renault 120
Sauber 72
Toro Rosso 51
Force India 22
Williams 20
HRT 17
Lotus 0
Virgin 0

I guess question is this. Would you prefer me to be battling hard for points and maybe an occasional podium or would you prefer me to be right up there with the front runners?

If you would like to follow my career then this is my channel on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/user/ELITERazarar

 

[ENDR]

as I quit my job on the 9th May

Please, tell me you're not doing it just to have more time for racing

 

[Zoltan Hadadi]

I'm pretty sure you won't get KERS with any of the 3 'new' teams

I'm pretty sure I've heard that from one of the developers. Basically we have 5 car tiers. 5th you have No KERS. The new teams are there but in carrier cars change tiers. If you finish high enough you advance to the next tier then you will have KERS.

 

[James Maskell]

I'm pretty sure I've heard that from one of the developers. Basically we have 5 car tiers. 5th you have No KERS. The new teams are there but in carrier cars change tiers. If you finish high enough you advance to the next tier then you will have KERS.

its been tested doesn't happen

 

[Zoltan Hadadi]

its been tested doesn't happen

Ah I didn't know that. Then I've said nothing.

Andrew knowing this my advice is to choose the slowest car with KERS which is the Williams.

 

[Markus Neumann]

The Williams/Sauber/FI are way too fast, you'll just be bored. I won both championships and over half the races in my first season in F1 2011 with the Williams and at the time I was much slower than I am now. Recently started a new career with Virgin. Qualified in P10 in Australia and was in podium contention until the end of the race... Zoltan, I bet you could even win races with an HRT/Virgin/Lotus

 

[Daniel Collier]

Will you be rolling over this career to F1 2012? Obviously you'll have to create a new driver and lose your stats etc (maybe make a career stats table in your career video forum?)...; but if so, I think Williams is the way to go. That way you can finish out F1 2011 in the points on a regular occasion, and then when F1 2012 drops you can possibly fight for a top 3 in the WDC. (Depending on 2012 car ratings and difficulty).

If you plan on getting in (2) more seasons before 2012 drops, then maybe just stick with HRT for (1) more season and then make a switch for season (3).

 

[Zoltan Hadadi]

Zoltan, I bet you could even win races with an HRT/Virgin/Lotus

Hehe It would be good. I only played carrier at the really begining of the game when we had the spring rules. I just don't liked the thing that you have to use 6/6 7/7 8/8 9/9. Different rules from race to race. That time it was pretty easy with the Williams. Won every race.
Just after the 1.2 patch came out we tired coop with Italian. I was on pole in australia but then knocked out by the ai during the race

 

[mynameissport]

I will give my 2 pence into the argument. The only issue you have not told us is when your contracts run out, obviously for the HRT renewal you have until the end of the season to sign up. It's maybe worth mentioning somewhere how you have got until the contracts run out.

Using some of my experience of running in Williams F1 in Season 2 just be aware that even if a team moves up or down a tier their performance is always not crystal clear. For example, Toro Rosso moved up into Tier 2 they are great in qualifying but struggle in race for consistent points. Despite Red Bull stayed in Tier 1, Ferrari have dropped into Tier 2 and Mercedes have dropped in Tier 3. These are teams that I fighting with as Williams for mid to mid end points in my season. Renault and McLaren are simply trading wins and podiums and too far ahead to challenge. The fact is simply do not underestimate a team's ability for going up a tier and assume it going to be plain sailing easy than it seems you might be surprised.

It also depends on how many seasons your career mode playthrough you are going to be aiming for. Are you going to buy F1 2012 when it gets released towards September?

I first say do not bother signing for Lotus, they are going to stay Tier 5 and will be low end of the grid. As a Tier 4 team in my career mode, they can get out of Q1 but struggle to get out of Q2. In race trim they were nowhere near the points and fall back to the mid teams.

For Williams it's a bit of 50/50. If they are going to go up Tier 3 you would be at least in my position be fighting for mid points. However if Williams go down to Tier 5 then you would struggle in qualifying and in race trim. That's what happened with Force India when they dropped into Tier 5 and are struggling especially in qualifying.

Then you got the issue with fighting against Buemi as your rival for Toro Rosso. Toro Rosso looks like they will fall down into Tier 4 team for next season and you might not get the drive probably because your reputation points is not strong enough.

So that's leaves with Sauber and HRT.

HRT you will move up into Tier 4 but remember no KERS. Basing upon my contacts who ran the same thing as you with HRT and Virgin and stayed on in Season 2, they get out qualified and sometimes get out raced by their team mate. They did struggle with the mid end teams at first but does get a bit better during the season once you get upgrades.

I voted for and go for Sauber for your next drive for Season 2. I think you could challenge for podiums and points especially with your driving style, I feel you are a good driver but stuck in a not so great car.

If you feel it is going to be easy with Sauber then give yourself some challenges to make it even more of a challenge. Say in Q1 only use one set of Primes to go through just like the front runners no using Options. In Q2 feel free to do whatever into Q3. For Q3 this is important do not qualify at all and start the race in 10th place aka skip the session or just leave it for 10 minutes until it ends. Also for the race I notice you do a lot of Option, Option, Prime for two stopping. How about starting the race on Primes and going on Prime, Prime, Option that way you force yourself to try and beat the other drivers using pace and pit stops. How about that!

That's it for now but whatever your decision will be good luck with it.

 

[Andrew Bortz]

I will give my 2 pence into the argument. The only issue you have not told us is when your contracts run out, obviously for the HRT renewal you have until the end of the season to sign up. It's maybe worth mentioning somewhere how you have got until the contracts run out.

Using some of my experience of running in Williams F1 in Season 2 just be aware that even if a team moves up or down a tier their performance is always not crystal clear. For example, Toro Rosso moved up into Tier 2 they are great in qualifying but struggle in race for consistent points. Despite Red Bull stayed in Tier 1, Ferrari have dropped into Tier 2 and Mercedes have dropped in Tier 3. These are teams that I fighting with as Williams for mid to mid end points in my season. Renault and McLaren are simply trading wins and podiums and too far ahead to challenge. The fact is simply do not underestimate a team's ability for going up a tier and assume it going to be plain sailing easy than it seems you might be surprised.

It also depends on how many seasons your career mode playthrough you are going to be aiming for. Are you going to buy F1 2012 when it gets released towards September?

I first say do not bother signing for Lotus, they are going to stay Tier 5 and will be low end of the grid. As a Tier 4 team in my career mode, they can get out of Q1 but struggle to get out of Q2. In race trim they were nowhere near the points and fall back to the mid teams.

For Williams it's a bit of 50/50. If they are going to go up Tier 3 you would be at least in my position be fighting for mid points. However if Williams go down to Tier 5 then you would struggle in qualifying and in race trim. That's what happened with Force India when they dropped into Tier 5 and are struggling especially in qualifying.

Then you got the issue with fighting against Buemi as your rival for Toro Rosso. Toro Rosso looks like they will fall down into Tier 4 team for next season and you might not get the drive probably because your reputation points is not strong enough.

So that's leaves with Sauber and HRT.

HRT you will move up into Tier 4 but remember no KERS. Basing upon my contacts who ran the same thing as you with HRT and Virgin and stayed on in Season 2, they get out qualified and sometimes get out raced by their team mate. They did struggle with the mid end teams at first but does get a bit better during the season once you get upgrades.

I voted for and go for Sauber for your next drive for Season 2. I think you could challenge for podiums and points especially with your driving style, I feel you are a good driver but stuck in a not so great car.

If you feel it is going to be easy with Sauber then give yourself some challenges to make it even more of a challenge. Say in Q1 only use one set of Primes to go through just like the front runners no using Options. In Q2 feel free to do whatever into Q3. For Q3 this is important do not qualify at all and start the race in 10th place aka skip the session or just leave it for 10 minutes until it ends. Also for the race I notice you do a lot of Option, Option, Prime for two stopping. How about starting the race on Primes and going on Prime, Prime, Option that way you force yourself to try and beat the other drivers using pace and pit stops. How about that!

That's it for now but whatever your decision will be good luck with it.

Thx for the input, I would like to add that I usually start on primes and end on options and normally get out of Q1 with Primes also.

Contracts started to dissapear when I moved to India thats why the poll went up as I didn't want to lose anymore, im going to attempt to get to the end of season 3 before 2012 comes out as I quit my job on the 9th May and move house on the 20th so that gives me a good platform for doing 1-2 races per day, I think I may have added already that I have ordered new harddrives just to store the raw footage.

Season 2 will almost certainly be HRT, I also hear alot about teamamates suddenly outperforming where they used to be walkovers so I would be glad of this especially as im fighting for points for half of the races, that combined with an upgrade of Tier might just give me points at most if not all races I hope.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Thx for the input, I would like to add that I usually start on primes and end on options and normally get out of Q1 with Primes also.

Contracts started to dissapear when I moved to India thats why the poll went up as I didn't want to lose anymore, im going to attempt to get to the end of season 3 before 2012 comes out as I quit my job on the 9th May and move house on the 20th so that gives me a good platform for doing 1-2 races per day, I think I may have added already that I have ordered new harddrives just to store the raw footage.

Season 2 will almost certainly be HRT, I also hear alot about teamamates suddenly outperforming where they used to be walkovers so I would be glad of this especially as im fighting for points for half of the races, that combined with an upgrade of Tier might just give me points at most if not all races I hope.

Your car will be the same in the next season. The only difference may be more upgrades on the car through the season.

Your team mate may be outperforming you just because the team's become tier 4. The values for cornering speed and etc will be like the Tier 4 teams (FI and Williams) so look how many points have the force india and williams pilots and you'll see around how much your team mate will have.

 

[Andrew Bortz]

Your car will be the same in the next season. The only difference may be more upgrades on the car through the season.

Your team mate may be outperforming you just because the team's become tier 4. The values for cornering speed and etc will be like the Tier 4 teams (FI and Williams) so look how many points have the force india and williams pilots and you'll see around how much your team mate will have.

Ive had alot of upgrades this season myself, are you sure my car won't improve to a tier 4 car?

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Ive had alot of upgrades this season myself, are you sure my car won't improve to a tier 4 car?

I'm not 100% sure, but this is the way I think it is. It's only an opinion. Altho with the original AI you can even win races in HRT. At least I did one GP of Canada with HRT and I was fighting for 2nd with Hamilton. You're better than me, so you should be able to win with HRT.

 

[Andrew Bortz]

Thank you everyone who took the time out to vote on my contract choice.

The most votes went to Sauber by a long long way so that is where I am destined to go.