F1 2016 F1 2016: Career Progress Thread

[Chris]

Use this thread to share all of your experiences, stories, reports and screenshots/videos of your F1 2016 career so far!

Whether you're a mobile chicane, battling hard in the mid-pack or chasing championships, we want to hear about it! It's a community after all

 

[Chris]

I elected to sign with Manor for my first season. I'm doing full weekends, 100% races, no assists and legend AI. All or nothin'

Australia was very tough. Still coming to grips with the game. Qualified dead last with a high 1:30.5. Pascal managed a 1:29.4! The AI were simply too quick on Legend, so I had to turn them down to Expert. Had a much more enjoyable race and finished 13th after several drivers had penalties and engine failures. I was running in 9th, but Perez saw fit to pit maneuver me on the entry to turn 6. Lost heaps of places and tried to gain a few through strategy.

Finished qualifying last night for R02 in Bahrain. Took 17th place for Manor with a 1:34.6. Managed to finally beat Pascal Wehrlein on Legend by two tenths. Felt so satisfied!

Going to do the race later today! Can't wait

 

[vee10]

Always the sign of a good game when people want to share their experiences, I think Cliffy B of Gears Of War fame called them water cooler moments. I am hopefully off to Monaco tonight which I am looking forward to but also with some trepidation as I am trying to resist and not even think about the fact you can use flashbacks, we shall see how that pans out!

 

[Giovaneveterano]

Hi everyone. I've spent 5 hours yesterday in the first weekend of my career, but today the career was deleted!
I have no idea why.
The game sometimes resets default settings, but I don't want to waste my time restarting my career over and over again.. I just wonder..

 

[Giovaneveterano]

Can I change the weekend lenght and difficulty during the career? I'd like to restart my career, re-done the first race with 5 laps and then go back to 50% races as I had before.

 

[kedy89]

Nice idea Chris

Started with Renault, ABS on (I'm already hard enough on the tyres, no need to add further ), legend AI, 50%.

Not gonna mention the first 2 rounds, as I was still meddling with the difficulty at that point. Rainy quali in Shanghai allowed me to sneak in Q3, 10th though as I realized too late that Inters were the better tyre at the end. Race was dry, and hard on the tyres. Got a puncture in my first stint, which dropped me to last. Thanks to SC I could close the gap, and a late stop for softs allowed me to climb back to 10th. Sochi I made it to Q2, Barcelona I dropped out in Q1 already. Still I managed to finish 5th in each, thanks to 1 stop less and somehow holding on to it until the end. Monaco, well, let's not talk about it

Came to Canada yesterday, meanwhile up to 5th in teamranking (others don't seem to improve a lot so far). Again a wet quali. Pulled out a stunner of a lap to secure pole! Dry race, managed to keep the lead. Verstappen close behind, Mercedes a bit further down as they were battling a lot. Rest with a bigger gap due to Ferrari, Raikkonen slowed them down with problems, Vettel crashed and blocked the track for a bit. Went for 1 stop, stayed out longest of the top 4. Wrong call though, came out behind VER and the Merc. VER pitted again for another set of Ultrasoft, and I got past ROS on the track. Had both of them right at my back, but better traction out of the hairpin allowed my to stay ahead for the remaining laps to take my first podium.

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

Legend, No assists, 100% w/flashbacks (BOOOOOOOO, but I use to learn nevertheless)

I'm on FP2 in OZ still, but my qualify pace is a 1.30.1 let's see, I'll do quali later tonight.

 

[Martin Larsen]

I started a career with Haas, and came to the china race when I got ''Steam - fatal error'' and had to reinstall steam and then all my saves was gones, steam cloud did not help... But anyway, started a new one with Toro Rosso, and like that car better anyway... So qualifyed 12th in Australia, teammate Sainz in 13th. And the race was great, both me and Sainz went for a 1 stop and followed eatch other with 1-2sec between us the entire race. And thanks to good strategy with the 1 stop and some people retired we got 5th and 6th, so good start to the season.

And will have 1 chassis upgrade for Bahrain, but not sure what I should go with in Toro Rosso as 1st priority. Chassis, Downforce or engine...

 

[Tim.E]

Career mode with Renault, 25% races and legend AI. First race started off perfectly with a P3 where I qualified 5th as half of the grid didn't set a lap in the wet quali. Bahrain I again qualified 5th but threw away a 2nd place after having to pit late on in the race as the tyres were done. China is probs my worst track, I was 7th with 5 laps to go when it started raining. Made the gamble for inters and got up to P5. Then Russia came, which is arguably my best track, I got the Grand Slam in that weekend. Next weekend was my worst one (Spain). Qualified 10th and finished 12th :/

Monaco qualifying 4th but made a superb start into 2nd and thus finished 2nd. Canada it was an entire wet race, a solid P6 in quali ended as P3 in the race. Now Baku is up, have done quali and that resulted in P8. Looking forward to the race!

 

[Paul Luck]

50%, expert AI, Mclaren Honda.
After exclusively racing in the Oculus Rift for the last 2 years or so coming back to a monitor is really tough, so much harder to hit marks not to mention lack of immersion.

Aus, struggled with pace, AI seem quick here, qualified 20th. Wet race and struggled with the wet handling, also made the wrong choice by staying on interns too long with 5 laps to go and had everyone pass me to finish 20th

Bahrain, on the pace here, qualified 7th, had a good race but got some wing damage towards the end which slowed me a bit but still finished 8th, 1 second in front of my team mate Alonso.

Still concerned about the AI level/consistency in the game. Aus the AI were just too fast for me but in Bahrain they seemed a little too slow. Will see what China brings.

 

[Hatsu]

Can I change the weekend lenght and difficulty during the career? I'd like to restart my career, re-done the first race with 5 laps and then go back to 50% races as I had before.

You can, but only before a race weekend starts. So before Practice 1 if you do a full weekend.

 

[Melonade]

I'm driving a Renault, No assists, Legend AI and 25% races. In Russia I lost my front wing and had to pit onto the Medium tyre and go to the end as Russia is not a high tyre wear circuit for me. Then the safety car came out and the AI had not pitted and so I gain lots of positions.

 

[vee10]

You can, but only before a race weekend starts. So before Practice 1 if you do a full weekend.

I got all the way to the race itself then had go do something else. When I reloaded my career which is the race start point I was able to if I wished change A.I difficulty even thought the weekend had already started.

 

[vee10]

Decided to up the difficulty up to legend as I was starting to be in the top 5 in every race in the Renault on expert, so for Silverstone turned it up expecting to be at the back of the grid after my first practice and track acclimatisation session, but decided to stick with it and did a load of practice laps getting my setup right and before I knew it I was right were I should be in around the mid grid looking for a point or two. It's a lot more of a challenge but even more rewarding than before and I managed to do all my research.

I have a feeling this may be because of my familiarity with Silverstone rather than my talents, the next race Hungary will be the true test!

Got some contract offers from Mclaren, Sauber and Haas all as second driver but have stuck with Renault as I will be number one driver and I have been offered a contract with benefits . Not sure if that's from my manager or from Renault themselves in terms of extra resources or something but looking forward to finding out.

 

[Hatsu]

I got all the way to the race itself then had go do something else. When I reloaded my career which is the race start point I was able to if I wished change A.I difficulty even thought the weekend had already started.

Good to know that. Haven't known that.

 

[Chris]

Well, I finished my Bahrain race a few days ago. What a disaster.

I qualified 17th and was legitimately wrapped, but I was struck by the weird race bug where you get shunted down the grid when you load the race. So I started dead last. Off the line I got a brilliant start, and was back up to 17th by the time I'd reached turn 3.

Strategy-wise I went for an aggressive 3-stopper. Start of softs, and then stop 3 more times for the super softs.

After the first round of stops I was sitting comfortably in 18th place. The team wanted me to finish at least 19th, so all good on that front. They also wanted me to beat Wehrlein (my teammate), and I was delivering on that as well. For some reason the tyres lasted incredibly well and I was able to hold good race pace and make the tyres last. But I decided to stick to my predetermined strategy.

After the final round of stops, Pascal somehow turned his car up to '11' and caught me at like 3 seconds per lap. I let him through thinking he was on a different strategy, given his difference in pace, but as he took off into the distance, I quickly realised that he was not stopping again. Bugger.

In the closing laps I was reeling in Palmer at a second per lap, but blue flags put a wet blanket on that. In the end I finished 18th, but was just disappointed to have been thoroughly outclassed by Wehrlein given that I was comfortably ahead of him on strategy and on track until his AI behaviour suddenly changed and he instantly turned into a Mercedes. Lol


Speak to you from (virtual) China.

 

[Martin Larsen]

I still wonder how career will be after 2-4seasons time... Since when you have max upgraded your car, you are done you can't do more since R&D never reset/get new ones or anything. So let's say you start in McLaren Honda and after 2-3seasons your are in the top, but then all you can do is wait for other teams to catch you up and pass you... So after a few seasons I guess all cars are maxed out, and its just like 2016 again with the team order. You know, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull etc for the rest off the career


So its like ''Lets spend 2-3years to make McLaren good again, then wait for them to become **** again''...

 

[Crekkan]

Currently in Germany, doing 100% races with Ultimate AI in the Renault, decided to make this to keep track of things

Have to remember to screencap the race results since there's no way that I can find to access them after a race but hey, I've not forgotten so far X)

 

[Andy_J]

Really enjoying my first season at HAAS Racing. I'm currently holding 12th in the drivers championship. 1 DNF so far at Monaco. A supprise to me was Baku. It took the first practice session to get a hang of it but by god I love it. The sense of satisfaction stringing a good lap together is immense. And the sense of speed is fantastic too.

2nd practice session was cut short after a meeting with one of the barriers.

A few mishaps but manged to finish the race in 10th position literally drafting a Mclaren on the start/finish line to get that position. Thrilling stuff.
Running 25% races
Hard/Expert alternating
Cockpit only
TC medium
No ABS
No racing line
no flashbacks
no restarts
And loving every minute of it. Thank you Codemasters for making a really great F1 game.

 

[vee10]

My season so far racing for Renault. I am now signed up for a second season.

From the British GP I have been running the A.I on legend previously using expert A.I with no assists, no flashbacks 25% race, maybe moving up to 50% to introduce more tactics for the remaining races.

Hungary was a write off really, but came storming back at Hockenheim qualified 7th and finished 4th probably my best race of the season. My setup felt great throughout the life cycle of the two compounds I could pretty much hammer them every lap.