F1 2012 Your most thrilling F1 2012 race?

F1 2012 The Game (Codemasters)
Just when you thought you were getting bored with playing F12012 something like this happens, like it happened to me yesterday.

I start a quick race, race only no qualifying or practice, and a 50% race distance. I choose dynamic weather, cockpit cam view and safety car enabled. I choose full realistic penalties. I choose Charles Pic as my driver. I randomly choose a circuit which turns out to be Malaysia.

I load up the game screen. Tweak my saved car setup for a wet track at Malaysia, as the forecast is a 66% chance of rain. Choose my tyre stints and pit stops. I see that I am starting from 23rd on the grid.

I proceed to track.

At this point I will remind you about the mods I have installed. They are the following: safety car fix, F12012 realism mod, competitive breaking mod and realistic damage mod on level 5 damage settings.

I get an average start, not trying to be too aggressive to ensure you don't have an accident on lap 1 or get a penalty. A yellow flag waves, then a green flag. My race director shows me Kovalainen has retired.

Then the first 3 laps go past without incident. A few broken wings lying around the track here and there, and I make up a few spots after cars have pitted for repairs.

Then comes the start of lap 4, and as I am on the start/finish straight I pass two cars that have driven off the left side of the track. They are Senna and Massa. Suddenly I see that the race is down to 21 drivers.

Lap 5 begins and as I get around turn 1, in sight of the downhill twisty turn 2 I see a Sauber stranded in the middle of the track with a front wing and some wheels missing. It is on the race line. I see a yellow flag waved, then as I swerve around Perez's sauber the flag goes green again. A couple of turns later my race engineer advises me that the safety car has been deployed. I pit for new options on lap 6 whilst the safety car is still out. I re-join the race in 19th behind the trail of cars. My race engineer tells me that rain is expected in around 15 minutes.

The green flag to resume racing happens on lap 8. The restart is average without KERS. On lap 9 as I go through turn 1 I see a HRT parked on the left side of the track with just a little white smoke bellowing. Looks like Karthikeyan's engine has given up. The race is now down to 19 cars. But wait - the course marshals haven't removed a small piece of debris from Perez's car on turn 2. It's still lying in the middle of the track.

Lap 10 is when all mayhem breaks loose. As I round turn 1 I see yellow flags waving. Looks like Schumacher has t-boned Maldonado on turn 2 and both are smashed to pieces on the racing line. With Hamilton just in front of me and Kobayashi just behind me, and Kimi somewhere there as well, we are all heading straight for this pile up. Too late, I get a little nudge from Kamui Kobayashi and it bumps me into Hamilton, who goes screeching into Schumacher’s wreck. Kimi Raikkonen and I take evasive action, but unfortunately not Kobayashi, he ploughs into the back of Hamilton at tremendous speed Ouch! Carnage everywhere! 4 cars are out. Raikkonen and I get out of there unscathed. Kimi is just behind me. We get the green to resume racing. And I get an unfair drive through penalty for nudging Hamilton after Kobayashi nudged me into Hamilton. A few turns later my race engineer advises me that the safety car has once again been deployed for the second time this race. Not surprising! My engineer reminds me that I can't serve my drive through whist the safety car is out on track.

We are now down to 15 cars remaining in the GP, and we are not even at half race distance yet. It starts raining lightly on lap 12, one more lap of the safety car. Surprisingly, thanks to some clever strategy at the first safety car deployment, I am leading the race behind the safety car. And Timo Glock is 2nd. It's a Marussia 1-2 behind the safety car! Unbelievable! End of lap 13 the safety car goes in I lead the race from Glock for a lap. End of lap 14 I serve my drive through. By now the rain is really pouring down and I had wished I could have pitted for inters first and then served the drive through, but it wasn't to be in this game. I had no option to do so.

So lap 15 was the most treacherous lap I have ever driven on this game with options on. Race director showing most other cars had already got inters on as I was serving my drive through. I came out of the drive through in 4th place, and driving my car around a wet track on options like a slow tractor wasn't fun, I was just trying to make sure that my race did not end there. Fortunately I was able to nurse it around the one of the slowest laps at Sepang that I will ever do. I pit for full wets, and realise that most other drivers are still on inters as the conditions get a lot worse. I come out of the pit in 10th place, then overtake a couple of drivers who are struggling on their inters. When I cross the start finish straight I see that I'm back into fourth place most of the other drivers were pitting for wets. I jumped them by going straight from options to wets and skipping the inters. There were only 3 other drivers ahead of me. On that very lap I pass the remaining 3 drivers ahead of me all struggling as they are still on inters - Webber, Grosjean and Alonso. I'm back into first place and we are on lap 17. I have a lead over Alonso now by just over 30 seconds.

With all drivers on wets now, I notice the faster cars with KERS are catching me. The gap closes a lot with each lap. Then on lap 20 my race engineer tells me that Timo has stopped the car and is out of the running. Race is now down to 14 cars, with 10 retirements. On lap 21 I can hold out the faster cars on KERS behind me no longer, and I'm having to start saving fuel. Grosjean, Alonso and Webber all overtake me, but it seems a much further distance back to all the other cars. 4th was looking good, if I could make the wet tyres last another 7 laps and hold off the remainder of the field.

Unfortunately by lap 25, the wets gave way, and I pitted for a new set of wets, despite my race engineer telling me that conditions were improving. All other drivers were also still on wets. I came out in 9th place just ahead of Di Resta and Button with just over 1 second to Di Resta, and just over 2 seconds to Button. With a little fuel saved, I did well to hold them off for 2 more laps, pushing the Marussia to the absolute limit around the wet Sepang track.

Final lap begins and I still have a slight lead of less than a second over Button, who had overtaken Di Resta into 10th. Then my race engineer tells me to dial down the fuel mix as we are fast running out of fuel. So I have to try to hold off 2 cars which are both less than a second behind me, both have KERS and both are faster cars than mine. I do a valiant defensive job. I round the final hairpin and button is right on my tail. I exit a little wide - too much pressure and I made that little error. I swerve back across the track to take the inside line. Button comes up on my right to be side by side with me. He gets on the KERS. Di Resta is sandwiched between both Button and me just a nose cone back with nowhere to get through. Di Resta gives up the fight. Button and I hit the line together. I look up to see I finished in P10. Charles Pic is seen pumping his fists in the air in his cockpit as he crossed the line. I get the 1 point for Marussia. Button just pipped me on the line. The official timing screen shows I had lost to Button by 0.020 of a second. Yes, it was that close!

1 point for Pic in a Marussia in a race that had absolutely just about everything except for a red flag and a DSQ! It could've been so much more, but I'm glad I was able to race in such as thrilling and exciting race as that one!

It's hard to explain this unless I had a video made of it. I recorded part of the replay, and if anyone is interested in seeing the replay, I can upload it.

Its races like these that keep making me click on the F12012 icon on my laptop nearly every day now. I hope you guys have had some races just like these in your games. I will say it helps tremendously to have the game on PC and modded.

What was your most thrilling and exciting F12012 race?
 
Certainly you need to upload the video.

My most interesting race was the Brasilian GP in my career Season 2, driving a Lotus in Legend. I was ahead of Hamilton by 1 point coming into this race. I was leading easily from pole but I spun on lap 12. The next 6 laps were thrilling. I passed Hamilton with the help of the DRS at T4 on the final lap. I nearly made a costly mistake in the final braking zone, but saved it at the last moment. What a relief!
 
I really don't know. Many seasons ago I had a nice two lap battle at the end of the race with Schumacher, where I went in to deep and had to do the work again, and then passed him on the last straight. Then, two seasons ago with Sauber, I was leading Webber by two points in Brazil. He qualified second, I was sixth. Got a blinding start, got up to third, and got Webber in turn 2 and then Button at turn 4. Won the race and the title.
 
I was just starting my career, and was in Bahrain with Marussia. Ricciardo was in front of me, then his engine randomly blew, and he went off the track. This was on the straight before the last turn. But then when he rejoined the track, he just went backwards and four people just rammed into him and retired. Finally, because of all the retirements, I finished in 13th.

That was pretty fun.
 

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