IT'S HERE! 2016 F1 SEASON (played through Grand Prix 2)!

[rjbetty]

ROUND 15: UNITED STATES GP
Starting Grid
1.Rosberg
2.Vettel +0.038
3.Button +0.393
4.Hamilton +0.514
5.Raikkonen +0.680
6.Ricciardo +0.680
7.Sainz +0.760
8.Perez +0.833
9.Massa +1.066
10.Bottas +1.079
11.Verstappen +1.114
12.Kvyat +1.267
13.Alonso +1.349
14.Ericsson +1.390
15.Hulkenberg +1.513
16.Wehrlein +1.872
17.Grosjean +2.064
18.Palmer +2.147
19.Magnussen +2.228
20.Nasr +2.271
21.Gutierrez +2.903
22.Haryanto +4.022


Race Day
Hamilton bursts into the lead but Vettel eventually reels both Mercedes in and passes them into the lead.
He pits early but still comes out just behind Rosberg who has been really slow today and is only 6th!

And now Raikkonen is challenging Hamilton for 2nd, but on lap 22 as Vettel comes to race his team-mate, they collide and are both out! A catastrophe! This means Rosberg can win the title today by finishing 5th.

There are quite a lot of retirements again but Rosberg makes it home in 2nd - and is champion! Well I was hoping this could have gone to the last race but oh well, it's much better than Hamilton's whitewash last year. Manor score another point at last and Mercedes also take the constructors championship with a race to go!

Result
1.Hamilton
2.Rosberg +22.985
3.Ricciardo +40.053
4.Massa +50.632
5.Button +53.066
6.Kvyat +1:12.662
7.Verstappen -1 lap
8.Sainz -1 lap
9.Bottas -1 lap
10.Wehrlein -1 lap
11.Palmer -1 lap
12.Gutierrez -2 laps
R.Magnussen - DNF
R.Alonso - Engine
R.Hulkenberg - DNF
R.Vettel - DNF
R.Raikkonen - DNF
R.Ericsson - DNF
R.Perez - DF
R.Nasr - DNF
R.Haryanto - DNF

Fastest Lap Top 3: Vettel, Ricciardo, Hamilton


Championship Standings after Round 15
Drivers
1.Rosberg - 238pts
2.Vettel - 204pts
3.Hamilton - 186pts
4.Raikkonen - 140pts
5.Bottas - 112pts
6.Massa - 105pts
7.Ricciardo - 97pts
8.Kvyat - 84pts
9.Hulkenberg - 67pts
10.Button - 50pts
11.Verstappen - 50pts
12.Alonso - 48pts
13.Perez - 48pts
14.Sainz - 44pts
15.Nasr - 20pts
16.Gutierrez - 6pts
17.Ericsson - 6pts
18.Magnussen - 4pts
19.Wehrlein - 3pts
20.Palmer - 2pts
21.Grosjean - 1pt
22.Haryanto - best finish 12th

Constructors
1.Mercedes - Mercedes - 424pts
2.Ferrari - Ferrari - 344pts
3.Williams - Mercedes - 217pts
4.Red Bull - Tag Heuer - 181pts
5.Force India - Mercedes - 115pts
6.McLaren - Honda - 98pts
7.Toro Rosso - Ferrari - 94pts
8.Sauber - Ferrari - 26pts
9.Haas - Ferrari - 7pts
10.Renault - Renault - 6pts
11.Manor - Mercedes - 3pts

[Bezza]

RJBetty, loved reading all these. I hope the real season is as exciting!

Wanted to know though what you did to simulate the F1 season. I remember having Grand Prix 3 and downloading an editor which allowed you to alter team performances accordingly - you could set highs and lows and also how much the performance could fluctuate. GP3 was based on the 1998 season but I also had skins for 2001 season.

Does your game do all this - I would be interested if you could get 2015/2016 skins for these old classic games!

[rjbetty]

RJBetty, loved reading all these. I hope the real season is as exciting!

Wanted to know though what you did to simulate the F1 season. I remember having Grand Prix 3 and downloading an editor which allowed you to alter team performances accordingly - you could set highs and lows and also how much the performance could fluctuate. GP3 was based on the 1998 season but I also had skins for 2001 season.

Does your game do all this - I would be interested if you could get 2015/2016 skins for these old classic games!

Thank you very much, hopefully it's provided some fun in this quiet period while waiting for testing.

Yeah I get all my utilities from this place http://grandprix2.de/

I use Steven Young's GP2edit which is quite comprehensive; Driver performances and fluctuations, team reliability, how easily cars get damaged and have to retire, championship points and much more.

I also use GP2 Slot/Magic Data Editor which is also on the utilities page on that site. You can set for each track the likelihood of driver mistakes, fuel consumption, tire wear, AI performance for that track and more. They have a 2015 carset up, plus for every other year.


As for this season, I found the damage was slightly high, more like what you'd get 15 years ago. In real life these days, cars are so strong they can survive a pretty good clattering into each other and just continue whereas in the past it would be instant DNF for both drivers. Other than that, this crazy season has just gone this way by chance. It wasn't artificial. I had realistic settings as for the previous 2 years I did this but it's just turned out this way. There have been an unusually high occurrence of bugs, such as the one where cars following a backmarker start driving all over the place till they spin or go wide. It's quite rare and I consider it fair game when it does happen.

For example, Japan was fantastic and chaotic, yet only had an AI mistake rate of 50, which is light/moderate only, yet just by chance we got a crazy race. Overall it's just been a crazy season. The US race was too artificial though which is my mistake, but the rest of it hasn't been.


Final round in Brazil coming up...

[rjbetty]

ROUND 16 - SEASON FINALE: BRAZILIAN GP
So this is it, the final race. The title race may have sadly been decided already, but there is plenty that can still happen and the standings can be finalised for good.

Qualifying
The Williams are first to set a time, Bottas first. Then Massa goes just 0.075 quicker. Max Verstappen posts a time 0.065 quicker than Massa. Then Button sets an identical time to Bottas. The Saubers are also very competitive here. Rosberg, Kvyat, Sainz, Perez and Vettel don't get good times in but they will get another chance.

Perez improves to 9th, while Vettel goes 4th, but only 0.074 off provisional pole, in this very tight grid so far. Kvyat, Rosberg and Sainz hit more traffic and neither improve their laps, so they are stuck in only 11th, 9th and 12th out of 12 cars so far!

Of the second wave of cars, Gutierrez comes first, and after 2 sectors, he is raising eyebrows greatly by being only 0.3s off! He goes a stunning 7th! Hamilton is 3 tenths up on polesitter Verstappen in sector 1 alone, and an enormous 6 tenths up in sector 2, but he is about to catch Grosjean. He doesn't however and it's a clear run to provisional pole almost 1sec quicker! Surely no-one can beat that now...

Raikkonen has a shocking sector 1, ending up only 12th quickest but he will get another lap. Meanwhile Ricciardo is hugely quick, only 0.034 down on Hamilton after sector 2, but the final sector is for powerful engines only... Sure enough he's 2nd, but only slightly short. Grosjean goes 17th as Kvyat, having another go, improves from 16th to 3rd. Alonso looks very quick in sector 1 but is held up by Palmer (who himself sets a lap over 10sec off the pace!), Alonso goes 8th. Kimi's much awaited second lap is almost completed, and he shoots up to 3rd.

Max Verstappen is having another go, and improves his time, but is 0.001 down on Kvyat and only slightly further off Kimi. Wehrlein goes 10th and Alonso improves to 3rd.

Starting Grid
1.Hamilton
2.Ricciardo +0.142
3.Alonso +0.605
4.Raikkonen +0.794
5.Kvyat +0.872
6.Verstappen +0.873
7.Bottas +1.013
8.Button +1.013
9.Vettel +1.022
10.Massa +1.088
11.Ericsson +1.295
12.Wehrlein +1.396
13.Gutierrez +1.400
14.Nasr +1.401
15.Hulkenberg +1.439
16.Rosberg +1.634
17.Haryanto +1.786
18.Magnussen +2.085
19.Perez +2.469
20.Grosjean +2.545
21.Sainz +3.579
22.Palmer +9.748


Race Day
GO! Hamilton keeps the lead, but Wehrlein jumps way up into 7th! Vettel is only 13th and needs to get a move on if he's to hold on to 2nd in the championship ahead of Hamilton. What a shame Wehrlein (and his team-mate) is on what I can tell is the wrong strategy, as well as Gutierrez, both having qualified so well.

Wehrlein moves up into 6th past Kvyat at turn 3(!) while Vettel is up to 11th. But Ricciardo has gotten through to take the lead! Coming into the second lap, now Alonso is challenging Hamilton and he too passes him into turn 1, as Massa comes from way back to fly back past Vettel in a great move. But Vettel retakes him into turn 3.

Into lap 3, and Wehrlein finally surrenders 6th to Bottas while Massa has got past Vettel again! Nasr grabs an impressive 8th from Kvyat, the Saubers running well today. A lap later and Nasr is past Wehrlein but Rosberg is only 17th and Vettel still yet to break into the top 10. Hamilton is now down to 4th, he too on the wrong strategy, behind Raikkonen. This could give Vettel a chance later on...

It takes till lap 8 for Wehrlein, on a too slow strategy, to finally fall out of the top 10. Rosberg is still only 15th despite a good trategy, but suddenly he puts a wheel wrong and has a spin! He drops to 20th as Bottas retires.

Lap 15 and Ricciardo is the first to pit, in from the lead. He drops to 7th as unfortunately Wehrlein has dropped well down the field with problems. He would have been back into the top 10 during the stops... Alonso is now leading for 7 laps until he and Raikkonen pit on lap 22, as does Nasr from 4th(!) Gutierrez is 10th now but is relieved of his position by Rosberg, who himself pits exiting only 19th and close to being lapped by Hamilton, now the leader. Gutierrez is back into 10th for a bit. Massa soon gets past but then Hulkenberg retires on the back straight from 9th, smoke pouring out from his engine, giving Gutierrez another chance in the top 10.

Hamilton makes his only stop on lap 35, dropping to 5th behind Ricciardo, who is now running pretty disappointingly and is passed by Vettel for 3rd. Gutuerrez gets another go in 10th for a few laps before his only stop. Rosberg is still only 13th at this halfway stage and has caught Ericsson.

On lap 38 Rosberg breaks into the top 10 but Button retires from the points elevating Rosberg another position. On lap 47 Raikkonen pits from 2nd while Hamilton takes Vettel for what will become 2nd. A lap later and Alonso is in from the lead, having led for 12 laps. Alonso comes out 2nd but is only 4.3sec behind Hamilton on fresh tyres - it could be a sensational win after all these frustrating times!!

With 20 laps to go, Alonso is right behind Hamilton, only +0.453 behind! And Raikkonen less than 4sec behind Alonso! Rosberg is now 8th just over a minute down, but is 6sec behind Verstappen. 5 laps later and the top 3 are 1.Alonso 2.Hamilton+2.4 3.Raikkonen+4.8 Rosberg is still 8th and now 4sec behind Verstappen.

Just 10 laps to go and Hamilton is now pegging the gap but Kimi is dropping back a little and may even be under threat from Vettel. Rosberg is up to 7th with Kvyat in his sights.

Now with just 2 laps left Hamilton is catching Alonso again but is almost 2sec behind. Rosberg is 6th. Into the final lap and Alonso still leads by 1.7sec, and coming round the final lap, he does it, and becomes the 7th different winner of this amazing season - what a turnaround for McLaren after all their hard times, and Alonso after so many missed results this season! Hamilton is just 1.4sec behind in the end. Kimi, then Vettel cross the line next, followed by Nasr and Ericsson in another double points finish for Sauber in a lapped 9th and 10th.

Gutierrez crosses the line 13th, just 16.9sec out of the points, and on a bad strategy to boot... Wehrlein comes 16th, +35.1sec out of the points, having lost at least that amount of time earlier on, and also on a bad strategy...

Race Result
1.Alonso
2.Hamilton +1.404
3.Raikkonen +7.046
4.Vettel +13.500
5.Ricciardo +30.327
6.Rosberg +1:02.364
7.Kvyat +1:09.273
8.Verstappen +1:15.720
9.Nasr -1 lap
10.Ericsson -1 lap
11.Massa -1 lap
12.Perez -1 lap
13.Gutierrez -1 lap
14.Magnussen -1 lap
15.Haryanto -1 lap
16.Wehrlein -1 lap
17.Grosjean -2 laps
18.Sainz -3 laps
19.Palmer -8 laps
R.Button - Suspension
R.Hulkenberg - Water Leak
R.Bottas - Transmission

Fastest Lap Top 3: Ricciardo, Vettel, Raikkonen