David O'Reilly
A bad quali means I can go forwards in the race.
RD Members
This is something I'm writing for fun and to put something back in. Feel free to have a read.
F1 2010 The Guide
Draft
Chapter 5 Managing in-Game
Part 1 Game Modes
Grand Prix:
In this mode you choose the track, weather, distance, car, and all other settings. Either one-off races on your favourite track or a custom designed season featuring your choice of tracks. Handy for practicing tracks and developing setups without the engine wear in career mode. Just grab any car, any track, choose your settings and you are away.
Career:
It takes the GP mode and the name implies adds the depth of embarking on a realistic career in F1. You can choose the length of career from 3 -7 years. You will be offered drives initially in tier 5 cars (Lotus, Virgin, HRT). They don’t have the same performance as the top teams and you will struggle at first. You need to set realistic goals eg: Beat your team mate, make qualifying 2, get in the points. This is what career is all about the realistic journey from bottom rung teams to the top of the sport. You get to decide if you want to progress quickly to the fastest teams or grow a team around you that will take you to the top.
Key factors in career mode:
-Car improvement: Your tier 5 car will improve in “base performance” year on year provided you get the team up in the constructors standings above their current position. This is achievable but not always easy as you can’t rely on your team mate scoring points. It will also improve during the season with R&D upgrades.
-R&D Upgrades: The team will upgrade the car during the season. To facilitate this, both you and your team mate will be required to test upgraded parts. When you arrive at certain Grand prix practice sessions the engineer will tell you that you have some “performance tests to perform”. This is the signal that R&D upgrades are available/achievable. You must enter the engineer menu and click on the upgrade to accept the challenge. NB ensure you have selected your setup first as this choice will take you straight to the track. Normally you will have seven laps within which to hit a target time which will show in the HUD. The top RHS of the HUD will show Upgrade lap ..../7. If you hit the target time (it will appear in green and the HUD will change to simply say lap # and you will get the upgrade. If you are running “long race weekend” format you will need to do this in all 3 practice sessions. NB you must not use the Event menu to skip forward, re start a session or end the session by an engine change or you will not earn the upgrade. Depending on the upgrade it may take a week or so to be implemented. With the upgrade the cars performance will improve. Typical upgrades are: New throttle map (Fast or cruise map), increased down-force, reduced drag, improved braking materials, reduced engine wear. The cumulative effect over the season/s is significant. For example, in season two of seven the lotus is a race winning car. This is of course dependent on the Key software component known as the driver-you.
-Reputation points: these grow with your achievements. As they grow you will become of interest to other teams. A guide as to required reputation points for the various teams is in the appendices.
-Team mate challenge: Everyone will compare you to your team mate. If you want to progress you need to prove your value by beating him consistently. He will appear as a red dot in your minI map.
-Becoming #1 Driver: If you get this status you will determine R&D focus. This choice is made once per season late in the season (at Abu Dhabi) and determines focus for next season. You will be offered the choices once per season (at Abu Dhabi) of Minor, Balanced or Aggressive paths. The more aggressive the path you choose the more upgrades car will receive but the teams expectations of you in Quali and race result will also be higher. One imagines that this replicates higher investment and higher level of expectation from sponsors etc. As #1 driver you will find that your team mate will do some of the Testing and earn R&D upgrades for the team.
-Championship Rival: Getting an offer from a top team can and probably should be a long haul in a “realistic career” and take some impressive performances. Not everyone has the patience. This feature was inserted to give the less patient player a fast track into the top teams. You will be asked in an interview around half way through the season to choose between three drivers. Be aware though you will not keep that seat for another season unless you have achieved the reputation points for that team and even then not always. Ferrari for example are very fickle. They may not keep you if they believe “Fernando is faster than you”. Once you have chosen a championship rival they will appear as a blue dot in your minimap to help you track and hopefully beat them!
-Interviews: Your answers will help partly to decide how happy the team is with you and is your method to signal to other teams your interest in getting an offer. If you say that you are delighted and everything is great other teams will lose interest.
Contract offers: In the career menu when in the team mobile home in the agents menu you can monitor what teams are interested. You will receive offers from time to time. It’s for you to decide what you want to do. The offers will last a few Grand Prix then be rescinded if not taken up. If you refuse the first offer they will sometimes make another. If you re-sign with your current team all other offers will disappear. In the case where you have ignored all offers and they disappear you will at the seasons end get an offer from someone.
Engine management: You have 8 engines to last the season. Worn engines take a power hit. Save them for critical horsepower races where you need an edge eg Monza. So it’s best to practice and do setups on worn engine units and qualify and race on fresher ones. To do this you need to select another engine unit in the pits setup menu. Be aware that this change will take the rest of the remaining practice session. If you want to actually then have a practice session best be in the long race weekend format. The technique is to enter P1, select the engine unit for practice. It will then use the remainder and take you to P2. Practice in P2 and P3. Remember to swap engines at the end of P3 to the race unit. Consider the impact on gearing if the race unit is much fresher .Also be aware that changing engines will lose any R&D upgrades you have earned for that weekend. Remember basic practice, track familiarisation and initial setups can also be done in Grand Prix mode.
-Certain Tracks: The AI coding is not perfect. On some tracks eg Canada, Valencia, Bahrain and on some corners eg turns 11-12 Albert Park, Turns 7-8 Malaysia the AI will make life a bit too easy. This is counterbalanced by some tracks that make winning very hard eg Monaco and nearly impossible: Catalunya and possibly Brazil. Sometimes it’s the AI quali times. They aren’t reflective of the speed of the AI which are driving around the track during quali, they are drawn from a database. Eg Sector 2 in Catalunya is impossibly fast. The authors’ advice is to just take the good with the bad and fair advantage wherever it’s available. I was tempted to slow the AI to “Professional ” at Catalunya but if I did then how can I mug them at their weaker tracks and call it a fair fight?
Multiplayer:
This is where you pit your skills against up to 11 other real flesh and blood racers and for many it is the most engaging and stimulating aspect of the game. Standards of course vary a lot but it can be great fun for anyone who can get around the track. At the highest standards on line play is very competitive. As a rough indication you can gauge your performance against the pole-sitter in GP mode with Legend AI. It will vary from track to track but the faster players are seldom more than 2 seconds faster than this.
On line racing is available in the form of a full 19 race championship season, custom seasons, individual events or regular club events.
Game settings can be varied as in the GP mode or career mode except of course the speed of your opponents. The multiplayer game can however be manipulated by for example asking the fastest drivers to use the slower cars (2010 performance) or using reverse grid (from qualifying). Again more assists means easier fast racing. Less assists will lead to more errors, more skill required and more overtaking opportunities. On line play against random people often results in biff and barge type racing. This is why it is far preferable to join and race in organised club racing with a licensing organisation such as Race Department. www.racedepartment.com this ensures you are racing with people who have read and agreed a basic set of rules that ensure clean racing. Race Department also offers a wealth of resources in terms of setups, discussion forums, league and club racing for the sim-racing gamer and has a strong F1 2010 community. It’s free and welcomes new members.
Time Trial
Is a place to compare times with all other players in the world across all gaming (PC, PS3, Xbox) platforms. In TT mode conditions are perfect. Grip levels are highest, fuel load is zero. It can feel unrealistic compared to GP or career but it’s the same for everyone. Setups aren’t the same as the high grip levels don’t require as much wing, don’t respond adversely to extreme camber, tyre wear is not a factor, and higher corner exit speeds mean higher top speeds. Your personal best ghost car will appear for you to compare your current lap. You can also choose a ghost lap from the global or friends leader boards to chase. Ensure you return to paddock from the engineers menu rather than the pause menu or progress will not be saved.
Some drivers like TT mode to initially simply learn the track in a format uncomplicated by damage, fuel flags etc.
Be aware some cheaters have posted silly times by modding grip levels in PC versions. You can usually tell due to a gap of a few seconds to the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] fastest time.
Part 2 Setting Game session and Diffficulty: Sims and Assists
Tuning the game to your needs.
Weather- The extra dimension. You can choose the weather or set it to dynamic. Dynamic weather adds a whole extra dimension to the game: Setups wet or dry, tyre strategy and timing of change wet-dry, dry to wet. Some rain can really throw a cat amongst the pigeons.
Race Length: Shorter or longer races change the dynamic of the racing. Longer races mean that you can possibly build a bigger gap before pitting, can afford to spend several laps chasing one or more drivers down and passing them. The selection of race length alone will alone have significant impact on the dynamic of tyre and pit stop strategy. Longer races will facilitate extra stops as the time to be gained on option tyres can be enjoyed for more laps making it feasible to make up for the time taken by the extra pit stop.
Difficulty: Getting the right balance and progression. Setting difficulty and assist level is where you find the right balance for your current skill, your progression and is decided by what you want to get from the game. You can make it very easy or very hard. You balance the speed and difficulty of a)the event with Difficulty settings and b) your speed with Assists.
There are essentially two schools of thought. You can a) develop as a driver with realistic car behaviour and start to win as you get faster or b) start winning and gradually reduce assists as you get better. The first method is the driving realism approach is where you set all at the most realistic and improve your driving while possibly lowering the AI level rather than enhancing your level with assists. These drivers feel they have developed good skills quite quickly without the numbing effect of assists. The second school is the “want to be competitive” school who prefer to use assists to allow achievement of a given standard eg: say a Top 10 position or a podium. In essence speed yourself up with assists (the “trainer wheels”) or slow the AI down. More assists and less realistic settings will allow you to compete against faster AI but then are you really?
One racer suggests that to gauge your correct level of assists one should set them so you have to work to beat your team mate in career mode. If you are thrashing him and have any assists still on then it’s time to reduce them!
The game is definitely more immersive and more rewarding for the serious driver with less or no assists. It is rewarding and instructive to see gamers who are very quick with all assists on, hit a steep learning curve when they are switched off. From the Authors experience to get the best from the game one should move as quickly as possible to minimal/no assists.
It’s harder to pass with full rules and damage on and therefore the race is harder to win. You simply have to get faster and better at racing to win and that’s the beauty of the depth of the game.
If the challenge is not enough with everything maxed you can still make some small increases in difficulty such as cockpit view only, no race restarts rule or drive for a slower team! If you are unbeatable with everything at its hardest and you in the slowest car, then congratulations you are quick!
Bottom line is that no one has any bragging rights outside their own home for results that occur with assists or against any other than Legend AI. It’s your method of getting to that point that you choose.
Career difficulty and assists menus are accessible in the garage when selecting career. Assists can be accessed in the pause mode in car.
Game Difficulty settings summary table:
Assists Summary Table
Some notes on the transition to manual box.
Why
The auto transmission makes it a bit easier at first as you don’t have to worry about gear changes so it’s one less job to do. This allows you to concentrate on learning the track just braking, steering and accelerating. In fact you can race quite well in auto mode. You are free to adjust wing and throttle map any time without interfering with a gear change. The gearbox will change down through the braking zone and provided that you brake and lift off at exactly the right moment it will select the gear you want for corner entry. This part is however the biggest advantage to manual gearbox.
Benefit 1, Later braking. In the braking zone you can firstly brake later as the progressive downshift precedes and leads/assists the braking whereas the auto downshift follows the deceleration.
Benefit 2, Positive gear selection; You decide which gear you want for the corner and get it every time assisting turn-in. Rather than waiting, staying on the brakes and hoping or tapping the brakes again to get the downshift you actually want-such a messier process.
Both the above points lead to more consistency.
Benefit 3, Short shifting. You may need to manage low traction or low fuel. In either case it’s possible to shift up earlier or on lower throttle to get less revs / more traction whereas the auto box will only upshift when you hit the rev limit. This reduces your available responses to less throttle.
In essence the manual box will allow you to more precisely use the engine through the gear ratios to do what you want.
Example: Spa corner 10-11 “Pouhon”. Under full fuel approaching in 6[SUP]th[/SUP] gear I will brake at about 75 metres and downshift to 4[SUP]th[/SUP]. Once getting good turn in, feed in more throttle and as corner opens 5[SUP]th[/SUP] then 6[SUP]th[/SUP] at corner exit. Under low fuel and options I will brake at about 60 metres and select 5[SUP]th[/SUP] gear. As car turns in I will add more throttle and be on the limiter and select 6[SUP]th[/SUP] well before the exit. The car is managed more precisely and consequently you can corner faster with less mistakes.
How
You need to learn the track and know what gear you need/want for each corner. Once you have done that it’s a case of getting to that gear in the braking zone and making any adjustments for conditions as described in the above example.
Using Spa as the example: Conditions, dry-med fuel, primes.
Turn 1 “La Source” 1[SUP]st[/SUP] gear.
Turn 2-3-4 “Eau Rouge-Raidillon”, Flat out in 7[SUP]th[/SUP]
Turn 5 “Les Combes” 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] gear (5 downshifts from 7[SUP]th[/SUP])
Turn 6 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] gear, feathered at throttle, late apex lining up...
Turn 7 “Malmedy” hold 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] building throttle on exit. Up-shift to 4[SUP]th[/SUP] or 5[SUP]th[/SUP] accelerating to
Turn 8 “Rivage” 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] gear (2-3 downshifts). 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 9 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] ever so briefly, to aid turn in and then 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]-to 6[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 10-11 “Pouhon” 4[SUP]th,[/SUP] 5[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit. (See above).
Turn 12 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] (3 downshifts)
Turn 13 “Fagnes” hold 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] then 4[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 14 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] (2 downshifts)
Turn 15 4[SUP]th[/SUP] – 5[SUP]th[/SUP] fast as possible.
16-17 7[SUP]th[/SUP] flat.
18-19 (Final Chicane) 1[SUP]st[/SUP] (6 downshifts)*
*In auto transmission the author would mess up the last chicane 50% of the time but in manual mode did a 33 lap race (75%) without 1 error there! The author finds it helpful to mentally count the gears, only occasionally looking at the gear indicator. You really want to be watching the road!
Part 3 Car Characteristics and Performance.
Cars have varied power and handling characteristics and are placed in performance tiers from 1-5.
A full table with all the data appears in the appendices
This is something I'm writing for fun and to put something back in. Feel free to have a read.
F1 2010 The Guide
Draft
Chapter 5 Managing in-Game
Part 1 Game Modes
Grand Prix:
In this mode you choose the track, weather, distance, car, and all other settings. Either one-off races on your favourite track or a custom designed season featuring your choice of tracks. Handy for practicing tracks and developing setups without the engine wear in career mode. Just grab any car, any track, choose your settings and you are away.
Career:
It takes the GP mode and the name implies adds the depth of embarking on a realistic career in F1. You can choose the length of career from 3 -7 years. You will be offered drives initially in tier 5 cars (Lotus, Virgin, HRT). They don’t have the same performance as the top teams and you will struggle at first. You need to set realistic goals eg: Beat your team mate, make qualifying 2, get in the points. This is what career is all about the realistic journey from bottom rung teams to the top of the sport. You get to decide if you want to progress quickly to the fastest teams or grow a team around you that will take you to the top.
Key factors in career mode:
-Car improvement: Your tier 5 car will improve in “base performance” year on year provided you get the team up in the constructors standings above their current position. This is achievable but not always easy as you can’t rely on your team mate scoring points. It will also improve during the season with R&D upgrades.
-R&D Upgrades: The team will upgrade the car during the season. To facilitate this, both you and your team mate will be required to test upgraded parts. When you arrive at certain Grand prix practice sessions the engineer will tell you that you have some “performance tests to perform”. This is the signal that R&D upgrades are available/achievable. You must enter the engineer menu and click on the upgrade to accept the challenge. NB ensure you have selected your setup first as this choice will take you straight to the track. Normally you will have seven laps within which to hit a target time which will show in the HUD. The top RHS of the HUD will show Upgrade lap ..../7. If you hit the target time (it will appear in green and the HUD will change to simply say lap # and you will get the upgrade. If you are running “long race weekend” format you will need to do this in all 3 practice sessions. NB you must not use the Event menu to skip forward, re start a session or end the session by an engine change or you will not earn the upgrade. Depending on the upgrade it may take a week or so to be implemented. With the upgrade the cars performance will improve. Typical upgrades are: New throttle map (Fast or cruise map), increased down-force, reduced drag, improved braking materials, reduced engine wear. The cumulative effect over the season/s is significant. For example, in season two of seven the lotus is a race winning car. This is of course dependent on the Key software component known as the driver-you.
-Reputation points: these grow with your achievements. As they grow you will become of interest to other teams. A guide as to required reputation points for the various teams is in the appendices.
-Team mate challenge: Everyone will compare you to your team mate. If you want to progress you need to prove your value by beating him consistently. He will appear as a red dot in your minI map.
-Becoming #1 Driver: If you get this status you will determine R&D focus. This choice is made once per season late in the season (at Abu Dhabi) and determines focus for next season. You will be offered the choices once per season (at Abu Dhabi) of Minor, Balanced or Aggressive paths. The more aggressive the path you choose the more upgrades car will receive but the teams expectations of you in Quali and race result will also be higher. One imagines that this replicates higher investment and higher level of expectation from sponsors etc. As #1 driver you will find that your team mate will do some of the Testing and earn R&D upgrades for the team.
-Championship Rival: Getting an offer from a top team can and probably should be a long haul in a “realistic career” and take some impressive performances. Not everyone has the patience. This feature was inserted to give the less patient player a fast track into the top teams. You will be asked in an interview around half way through the season to choose between three drivers. Be aware though you will not keep that seat for another season unless you have achieved the reputation points for that team and even then not always. Ferrari for example are very fickle. They may not keep you if they believe “Fernando is faster than you”. Once you have chosen a championship rival they will appear as a blue dot in your minimap to help you track and hopefully beat them!
-Interviews: Your answers will help partly to decide how happy the team is with you and is your method to signal to other teams your interest in getting an offer. If you say that you are delighted and everything is great other teams will lose interest.
Contract offers: In the career menu when in the team mobile home in the agents menu you can monitor what teams are interested. You will receive offers from time to time. It’s for you to decide what you want to do. The offers will last a few Grand Prix then be rescinded if not taken up. If you refuse the first offer they will sometimes make another. If you re-sign with your current team all other offers will disappear. In the case where you have ignored all offers and they disappear you will at the seasons end get an offer from someone.
Engine management: You have 8 engines to last the season. Worn engines take a power hit. Save them for critical horsepower races where you need an edge eg Monza. So it’s best to practice and do setups on worn engine units and qualify and race on fresher ones. To do this you need to select another engine unit in the pits setup menu. Be aware that this change will take the rest of the remaining practice session. If you want to actually then have a practice session best be in the long race weekend format. The technique is to enter P1, select the engine unit for practice. It will then use the remainder and take you to P2. Practice in P2 and P3. Remember to swap engines at the end of P3 to the race unit. Consider the impact on gearing if the race unit is much fresher .Also be aware that changing engines will lose any R&D upgrades you have earned for that weekend. Remember basic practice, track familiarisation and initial setups can also be done in Grand Prix mode.
-Certain Tracks: The AI coding is not perfect. On some tracks eg Canada, Valencia, Bahrain and on some corners eg turns 11-12 Albert Park, Turns 7-8 Malaysia the AI will make life a bit too easy. This is counterbalanced by some tracks that make winning very hard eg Monaco and nearly impossible: Catalunya and possibly Brazil. Sometimes it’s the AI quali times. They aren’t reflective of the speed of the AI which are driving around the track during quali, they are drawn from a database. Eg Sector 2 in Catalunya is impossibly fast. The authors’ advice is to just take the good with the bad and fair advantage wherever it’s available. I was tempted to slow the AI to “Professional ” at Catalunya but if I did then how can I mug them at their weaker tracks and call it a fair fight?
Multiplayer:
This is where you pit your skills against up to 11 other real flesh and blood racers and for many it is the most engaging and stimulating aspect of the game. Standards of course vary a lot but it can be great fun for anyone who can get around the track. At the highest standards on line play is very competitive. As a rough indication you can gauge your performance against the pole-sitter in GP mode with Legend AI. It will vary from track to track but the faster players are seldom more than 2 seconds faster than this.
On line racing is available in the form of a full 19 race championship season, custom seasons, individual events or regular club events.
Game settings can be varied as in the GP mode or career mode except of course the speed of your opponents. The multiplayer game can however be manipulated by for example asking the fastest drivers to use the slower cars (2010 performance) or using reverse grid (from qualifying). Again more assists means easier fast racing. Less assists will lead to more errors, more skill required and more overtaking opportunities. On line play against random people often results in biff and barge type racing. This is why it is far preferable to join and race in organised club racing with a licensing organisation such as Race Department. www.racedepartment.com this ensures you are racing with people who have read and agreed a basic set of rules that ensure clean racing. Race Department also offers a wealth of resources in terms of setups, discussion forums, league and club racing for the sim-racing gamer and has a strong F1 2010 community. It’s free and welcomes new members.
Time Trial
Is a place to compare times with all other players in the world across all gaming (PC, PS3, Xbox) platforms. In TT mode conditions are perfect. Grip levels are highest, fuel load is zero. It can feel unrealistic compared to GP or career but it’s the same for everyone. Setups aren’t the same as the high grip levels don’t require as much wing, don’t respond adversely to extreme camber, tyre wear is not a factor, and higher corner exit speeds mean higher top speeds. Your personal best ghost car will appear for you to compare your current lap. You can also choose a ghost lap from the global or friends leader boards to chase. Ensure you return to paddock from the engineers menu rather than the pause menu or progress will not be saved.
Some drivers like TT mode to initially simply learn the track in a format uncomplicated by damage, fuel flags etc.
Be aware some cheaters have posted silly times by modding grip levels in PC versions. You can usually tell due to a gap of a few seconds to the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] fastest time.
Part 2 Setting Game session and Diffficulty: Sims and Assists
Tuning the game to your needs.
Weather- The extra dimension. You can choose the weather or set it to dynamic. Dynamic weather adds a whole extra dimension to the game: Setups wet or dry, tyre strategy and timing of change wet-dry, dry to wet. Some rain can really throw a cat amongst the pigeons.
Race Length: Shorter or longer races change the dynamic of the racing. Longer races mean that you can possibly build a bigger gap before pitting, can afford to spend several laps chasing one or more drivers down and passing them. The selection of race length alone will alone have significant impact on the dynamic of tyre and pit stop strategy. Longer races will facilitate extra stops as the time to be gained on option tyres can be enjoyed for more laps making it feasible to make up for the time taken by the extra pit stop.
Difficulty: Getting the right balance and progression. Setting difficulty and assist level is where you find the right balance for your current skill, your progression and is decided by what you want to get from the game. You can make it very easy or very hard. You balance the speed and difficulty of a)the event with Difficulty settings and b) your speed with Assists.
There are essentially two schools of thought. You can a) develop as a driver with realistic car behaviour and start to win as you get faster or b) start winning and gradually reduce assists as you get better. The first method is the driving realism approach is where you set all at the most realistic and improve your driving while possibly lowering the AI level rather than enhancing your level with assists. These drivers feel they have developed good skills quite quickly without the numbing effect of assists. The second school is the “want to be competitive” school who prefer to use assists to allow achievement of a given standard eg: say a Top 10 position or a podium. In essence speed yourself up with assists (the “trainer wheels”) or slow the AI down. More assists and less realistic settings will allow you to compete against faster AI but then are you really?
One racer suggests that to gauge your correct level of assists one should set them so you have to work to beat your team mate in career mode. If you are thrashing him and have any assists still on then it’s time to reduce them!
The game is definitely more immersive and more rewarding for the serious driver with less or no assists. It is rewarding and instructive to see gamers who are very quick with all assists on, hit a steep learning curve when they are switched off. From the Authors experience to get the best from the game one should move as quickly as possible to minimal/no assists.
It’s harder to pass with full rules and damage on and therefore the race is harder to win. You simply have to get faster and better at racing to win and that’s the beauty of the depth of the game.
If the challenge is not enough with everything maxed you can still make some small increases in difficulty such as cockpit view only, no race restarts rule or drive for a slower team! If you are unbeatable with everything at its hardest and you in the slowest car, then congratulations you are quick!
Bottom line is that no one has any bragging rights outside their own home for results that occur with assists or against any other than Legend AI. It’s your method of getting to that point that you choose.
Career difficulty and assists menus are accessible in the garage when selecting career. Assists can be accessed in the pause mode in car.
Game Difficulty settings summary table:
| Item | Setting | Comments |
| Rules and Flags | Off, Reduced, Realistic. | Biff, barge and corner cut or Realism. Harder to win clean. |
| Damage | Off, Cosmetic, Realistic. | As above. Car will break if you are careless/aggressive/unlucky. Lost time in pits more care/precision required in overtakes. |
| Fuel Sim | On-Off | Car is heavy with fuel at start, impacts acceleration, braking and cornering. Lightens as used up. Significant impact on you versus the AI drivers. |
| Tyres Sim | On- Off | Tyres wear out, losing grip as they do. Must be warmed for optimum performance. Pace, qualifying and strategic implications. |
| AI Level | Amatuer, Intermediate, Professional, Legend. | Slow to fast. |
| Flashbacks | 1-4 | Extra lives to cover your costliest mistakes. |
Assists Summary Table
| Brake assist. | On- Off | Very basic aid for those who need it. Slower in lap times than average drivers braking. Essentially brakes when AI does. |
| Dynamic Racing Line | Full-Corner only-Off. | Shows optimum racing line and also guides whether to accelerate of brake. Use for first sighting of track. Turn off a.s.a.p. it will numb your sighting of real brake markers. |
| ABS | On-Off | Slight help only, mostly at end of braking zone. Will allow more turn in on trailing brake. More help in wet. |
| TCS (Traction Control) | Off-Medium-Full. | Big assist, allows you to stomp on throttle where you would normally have to feed it in gradually as radius increases or risk spinning. Extra helpful in the wet. Big loss of feel. |
| Auto gearbox* see notes below | On-Off | Automates gear change (really!). Manual is of course harder but you can brake later in manual through engine braking. |
| Pit lane speed limiter | On-Off | Simples. One less thing to remember. |
| Pit Box Control | On-Off | Simples. Don’t hit the lollypop man. |
Some notes on the transition to manual box.
Why
The auto transmission makes it a bit easier at first as you don’t have to worry about gear changes so it’s one less job to do. This allows you to concentrate on learning the track just braking, steering and accelerating. In fact you can race quite well in auto mode. You are free to adjust wing and throttle map any time without interfering with a gear change. The gearbox will change down through the braking zone and provided that you brake and lift off at exactly the right moment it will select the gear you want for corner entry. This part is however the biggest advantage to manual gearbox.
Benefit 1, Later braking. In the braking zone you can firstly brake later as the progressive downshift precedes and leads/assists the braking whereas the auto downshift follows the deceleration.
Benefit 2, Positive gear selection; You decide which gear you want for the corner and get it every time assisting turn-in. Rather than waiting, staying on the brakes and hoping or tapping the brakes again to get the downshift you actually want-such a messier process.
Both the above points lead to more consistency.
Benefit 3, Short shifting. You may need to manage low traction or low fuel. In either case it’s possible to shift up earlier or on lower throttle to get less revs / more traction whereas the auto box will only upshift when you hit the rev limit. This reduces your available responses to less throttle.
In essence the manual box will allow you to more precisely use the engine through the gear ratios to do what you want.
Example: Spa corner 10-11 “Pouhon”. Under full fuel approaching in 6[SUP]th[/SUP] gear I will brake at about 75 metres and downshift to 4[SUP]th[/SUP]. Once getting good turn in, feed in more throttle and as corner opens 5[SUP]th[/SUP] then 6[SUP]th[/SUP] at corner exit. Under low fuel and options I will brake at about 60 metres and select 5[SUP]th[/SUP] gear. As car turns in I will add more throttle and be on the limiter and select 6[SUP]th[/SUP] well before the exit. The car is managed more precisely and consequently you can corner faster with less mistakes.
How
You need to learn the track and know what gear you need/want for each corner. Once you have done that it’s a case of getting to that gear in the braking zone and making any adjustments for conditions as described in the above example.
Using Spa as the example: Conditions, dry-med fuel, primes.
Turn 1 “La Source” 1[SUP]st[/SUP] gear.
Turn 2-3-4 “Eau Rouge-Raidillon”, Flat out in 7[SUP]th[/SUP]
Turn 5 “Les Combes” 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] gear (5 downshifts from 7[SUP]th[/SUP])
Turn 6 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] gear, feathered at throttle, late apex lining up...
Turn 7 “Malmedy” hold 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] building throttle on exit. Up-shift to 4[SUP]th[/SUP] or 5[SUP]th[/SUP] accelerating to
Turn 8 “Rivage” 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] gear (2-3 downshifts). 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 9 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] ever so briefly, to aid turn in and then 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]-to 6[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 10-11 “Pouhon” 4[SUP]th,[/SUP] 5[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit. (See above).
Turn 12 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] (3 downshifts)
Turn 13 “Fagnes” hold 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] then 4[SUP]th[/SUP] on exit.
Turn 14 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] (2 downshifts)
Turn 15 4[SUP]th[/SUP] – 5[SUP]th[/SUP] fast as possible.
16-17 7[SUP]th[/SUP] flat.
18-19 (Final Chicane) 1[SUP]st[/SUP] (6 downshifts)*
*In auto transmission the author would mess up the last chicane 50% of the time but in manual mode did a 33 lap race (75%) without 1 error there! The author finds it helpful to mentally count the gears, only occasionally looking at the gear indicator. You really want to be watching the road!
Part 3 Car Characteristics and Performance.
Cars have varied power and handling characteristics and are placed in performance tiers from 1-5.
| Tier | Cars |
| 1 | Red Bull, Maclaren |
| 2 | Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault |
| 3 | Force India, Williams |
| 4 | Toro Rosso, Sauber |
| 5 | Lotus, Virgin, HRT |
Definitely agreee on the gear counting... it's the only way to go. 
