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An F1 2012 Career – Hungary

  By Lukeh | January 20, 2013 - 4:58 pm | 2013, F1 2012 Career, Gaming
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How do you follow a result like that in Germany? The first points of the season and a ridiculously strong performance, I can’t see me beating that this season now but it was all kinds of awesome to get some points for Marussia. However, that was then and it was now time to focus on Hungary… until I noticed I had an email in the game which was as follows:

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A contract offer from Force India! From the wording, it seemed they wanted me to move mid-season… so an immediate change of location. I decided to think about it during the Hungary Grand Prix weekend and see if the offer still stands following the race; it seems they want an answer immediately so I’m not sure if it will, but it was certainly worth considering however happy I may currently be driving for Marussia. Right now, it was time to look forward to another race; the weekend’s forecast predicted a dry weekend.

Practice

Despite an overcast, cloudy start to practice it seemed like it was going to stay dry as predicted. The team had an R&D objective to go through in order to bring new parts to the car so that was the main goal for practice. To try to increase the brake efficiency, the team’s aim was for me to stay off the brakes for 78% of the lap over the course of three laps whilst still maintaining lap times of under 1:39.792. It was actually a fairly simply test for us – I’d hit the target within three laps at an average of 86% off-braking time per lap and my lap times were considerably quicker than the target. It was almost ruined on the third lap by Maldonado turning into me as I went around him… but luckily I avoided it before any major disaster, but that aspect of practice was a big success for us. We seemed to be a few seconds off the pace as usual but the car felt good. I made a mistake on the chicane at turn 6 which was my fault and hit the barrier to lose my front wing, which a momentary lapse of judgement with the kerbs but it wasn’t a problem really. Timo was a few seconds slower than me which was satisfying, but as the session went on I just threw out laps to get a feel for the fast flowing nature of the Hungaroring. I’d managed to climb my way up to 14th and that’s how it ended for practice which was a really satisfying time, especially being several seconds quicker than my team-mate and to be quicker than the Williams’ too. Promising!

Qualifying

The team’s goal for Qualifying was to try to get 12th or above, obviously because of the success of Germany. It was a very tough goal but one that I felt I could do with how well this car was doing at this point of the season. I immediately came out to try to make the most of a quiet track and threw in a 1:25 for good measure so that was a good starting point I felt. 5 minutes into Q1 it was looking pretty good too but it was still early days as I’d soon dropped down the pecking order. With 7 minutes left I put in a time to leave me 14th so it was all very close. It felt like I was making stupid little mistakes and honestly became a bit of a frustrating session. With a few minutes to go, I came back out admist traffic and again made mistakes to not put in any faster laps. However, I did manage to make Q2 which is brilliant news! Surprisingly Massa and Maldonado went out in Q1, and JB only just made it through himself…

Of course, 12th was still the goal for Q2 and I wasn’t sure at the start of Q2 whether it was possible but it was certainly worth a go. I also had to keep in mind my tyre consumption and make sure I didn’t go crazy on my use of tyres. Vergne and myself both spent our first lap or two battling each other as if it were a race which was kind of ridiculous but I was off the pace, or at least in comparison to the other teams. I came in and changed from the scrubbed options I was using to a set of fresh new options and it really made the difference – immediately I jumped from a 1:25.3 to a 1:24.9 onto a 1:24.2 for the next lap too putting me in a respectable 14th. Vergne made his return and almost caused issues by slowing down hugely on my final lap of Q2 but I had begun to run out of fuel in the middle of this lap and instead crawled my way back to the pits for a solid 14th place start. However, the team were disappointed because of the 12th target so that’s annoying. Still, I qualified ahead of Vettel amazingly!

Race – 18 laps

As the target for the team was a 13th place finish, I decided to take quite an aggressive approach to the fuel consumption which would require more fuel management through the race but obviously made the car lighter for our advantage. We were starting on primes so we could run a longer stint and be lighter on fuel for the option tyres with the goal to hopefully nab a few points.

The start was very clean really; immediately I lost places to the faster cars like Vettel behind me but a nicely slotted place in turn 1 let me slide through into 8th which was a fair old jump. However, Schumacher soon jumped me leaving me to fall into 9th. Behind me was Senna and Alonso fighting for position and, unsurprisingly, it was a matter of time before Alonso was right behind me looking at 9th. Schumacher already had a gap ahead so it was all about keeping those behind me at bay really. On Lap 3 Alonso really began to give it a go at getting past me – here I was in a Marussia fighting Fernando bloody Alonso! It was all too easy for him to overtake using DRS and KERS on the start of Lap 4 and the Spaniard soon raced away. Damn.

However, being in 10th still meant a points so I was happy to do what I could to maintain this position as the car was feeling very good and I had no major issues with the race this far. Behind me was still Senna and a few others like Raikkonen and Vergne but there wasn’t a huge challenge from them for my position at this point. It all stayed rather quiet for a few laps, but a mistake on Lap 5 from mistake leaving me to go wide allowed Senna through for an easy overtake and I came back on in 11th. It was just another lapse of judgement. Senna was right ahead of me though so I used the start of Lap 6′s DRS zone to get the position back at Turn 1 – yay!

The pit stop window began from lap 8 and it led me to move up to 6th as I was staying out a bit longer than the people ahead of me. Kobayashi got really rather close coming out of the pits too on this lap but it wasn’t an issue – it was just nice to be in 6th! In fact, on the start of Lap 10 I’d found myself in 3rd as more people pitted, jumping Lewis Hamilton as he left the pits and leaving him behind me. Surprisingly I managed to hold back Kobayashi and Hamilton behind me for the lap as this was the lap I had my scheduled stop on which went fine – jumped onto the options and came out in 10th so still in the points.

There was absolutely no-one around me when I came out which was nice so my goal was now to hold 10th and get a point for the final 7 laps of the race. I preferred the options so I was looking forward to the possibility of getting a point. Behind me several seconds away were Massa and a group of cars so I had to be aware of them. To add a little more spice, the in-game menu was showing my fuel consumption to the end of the race as optimal so I needed a bit of fuel management for a few laps to ensure I made it home. This meant up until lap 13 I put the engine fuel mix into lean causing a slower car but allowing fuel to be saved. This did mean that Massa’s gap had decreased from 7 seconds to 4 seconds…

Suddenly, on lap 14 I noticed a change in position behind me in 11th – it was now Vettel who was behind me. Vettel!! And he was catching fast, on average a second a lap. On lap 16 he was right behind me and pretty much in a position to gobble me up and get that last point finish I really wanted of which he took advantage of with KERS and DRS to get me on the start of Lap 17 but, in a bit of a brave moment, I took a go at getting up the inside of him at Turn 1 and it paid off! Very proud of how clean it was but very risky. I wanted that 10th though! It was the penultimate lap and I knew I could do this.

…Unfortunately the chicane at Turn 6 caught me out and I messed up, almost losing the back-end but holding onto the car to only lose 10th. I was still 11th, but now out of the points. Argh! Luckily Raikkonen didn’t manage to get past and I avoided him, but he later crashed into Rosberg who tried to overtake him and lost his front wing anyways. Alas, I settled for 11th which is a really good result but I’m still absolutely gutted I lost that point on the penultimate lap. A bit of a frustrating ending.

Championship Positions

A strange one to evaluate, that. 11th beat the target set by the team which is awesome, but I can’t help but be annoyed that I missed out on a point so close to the end after hard work getting that far. Still, another strong showing from the Marussia and the best race of the season was up next at Spa, can’t wait!

…oh, and that Force India contract offer still sits in the game’s inbox awaiting a decision. What do you reckon, guys? Is it worth packing my bags to go and move onto Force India already, or should I see things out with Marussia?

An F1 2012 Career – Germany

  By Lukeh | January 5, 2013 - 6:08 pm | 2013, F1 2012 Career, Formula 1, Gaming
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The Hockenheimring was our next destination for the 10th race of the season and the halfway mark to what has been a rollercoaster ride of results so far. The smaller version of this track is a bit dull in my honest opinion but it’s a fairly standard race so I was hoping for a good result with no real issues. The weather predicted rain for Practice but a dry weekend following that; here’s hoping it stays that way! Also, my weekend began in a very exciting way in the form of my results leading me to now being considered on equal status with Timo! Woohoo!

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Practice

Despite the weather warnings saying a 67% chance of rain, the session actually began in gorgeous blue skies and sunshine which was nice to see. I immediately headed out onto an empty track to get some laps in and I can’t say there were any major issues with the car, and the track itself felt pretty good. The car seemed to be handling wonderfully around some of the corners too so it was looking good. However, I really can’t explain this… but after a few laps I found myself leading the times. The track was still dry… and with all the front-runners putting in lap after lap, only Alonso went faster. I honestly have no idea how to explain why this was the case or why I was up in 2nd in dry conditions. It was completely bizarre! With about half the session left, I came back out to put in a few more laps but upon immediately leaving the pitlane I was greeted with an absolutely biblical downpour, the predicted rain finally arriving. Going around the track on dry tyres was fun! It must’ve been about a 4 minute lap amazingly. All the same, I came back in for inters before deciding wets was the best option following a slippery out lap with still no grip but wets did the job. My times were 9 seconds off my dry pace and there was obviously going to be no improvement in times so I came back in with 15 minutes left of the session to close shop. Again, this left me in 2nd… an incredible bizarre session with the pace of the car. Was it genuine pace? Surely it couldn’t be…?!

Qualifying

As predicted, qualifying started a dry affair which was a welcome relief. I had no pressure to replicate what had happened in practice but it just seemed so odd! Unfortunately it did seem to be a strange one off as normal service resumed with a struggle to get out of Q1. The car felt much less responsive than it did during the dry opening 20 minutes of practice which was pretty frustrating. A dry set up was put on the car rather than the wet setup done for the end of practice, but it made no difference. That said, I wasn’t as slow as I’d normally expect which was good, only falling just over a second off the leaders for most of the session. You’d have thought most of qualifying was a race there was just so much traffic and it was incredibly difficult for myself and others to find space. Hamilton spent most of the session in the drop zone for Q1 and I must’ve had two or three occasions where he was all over me trying to get past. The traffic was insane! All the same, I spent the final 10 minutes of Q1 trying my hardest to overcome Ricciardo’s time as he was in 18th and myself 19th but it was just a few tenths too much as I continually fell short in the final sector despite my Marussia being fairly pacey in the opening sector. You can see in the final Q1 results just how close it was between us. My result was a normal 19th place start and ahead of the rest of the backmarkers which was a plus at least.

Race – 17 laps

The race was set for a nice dry day and I know I needed a really good start if qualifying was anything to go by. The race began and turn one already brought controversy as I managed to get it all wrong and span just behind Perez in the Sauber leaving me down in last. Luckily it was only a 360 degree spin on the track so I soon got away but not the start I needed! Approaching turn 2 however brought much debris all over the track and a slow pack ahead of me – it seemed that Maldonado and Senna had collided somewhere as neither had their front wings. Oh dear.

However! all of this carnage meant my first corner spin was now null and void and I found myself up in 17th so a rise from my starting position already. The hairpin was full of cars at turn 6 and I took the opportunity to jump up the inside of both Ricciardo and Perez meaning a mighty tasty 15th was now on the cards. At this point I could feel the car was feeling great - it really felt fantastic to drive and had a huge amount of pace. And that was only lap 1!

Behind me was a nice gap growing and ahead of me I had a bunch of cars a few seconds away which, quite amazingly, I was closing on. I’m not sure where this Marussia pace was coming from but I was enjoying every second. Before I knew it I was right behind Hulkenberg in the Force India and a whole train of cars ahead of him. As we went onto the straight on Lap 3, I had DRS and was looking to use it at the hairpin if I could. It really was quite insane how many cars were just ahead of me so it was a great chance. Hulk was brushed aside as was Raikkonen, but something had happened with Webber’s Red Bull and other cars as there were a lot of slow cars coming out of the hairpin… of course, I’m ever the opportunist and took the chance to make the most of this, moving up to 12th past Kobayashi, past Schumacher at the start of Lap 4 and then past Vergne on the following corner to that move leaving me in a very lovely 10th! At the hairpin following this I had a bit of a brave move going up the inside of Grosjean, Massa, Di Resta and then sliding past Rosberg who has gone wide to, the next thing you know, me moving up to a ridiculous 5th place…!!! Massa came back at me to get a position back, but I kept my cool and waited for the right moment to strike.

On lap 5 I found myself right behind the Ferrari who hadn’t pulled away whatsoever. It was incredibly bizarre – the Marussia was genuinely keeping up with the front-runners. Ferrari’s favourite Brazilian and myself had a great little duel over a few laps as I looked for a way past, which looked to happen as Felipe made a mistake on Lap 6 at Turn 1 and I pounced immediately to get 5th back! Unfortunately a lap later, with KERS (the Marussia has no KERS remember) and DRS Felipe easily found a way past on the straight. That’s fine though, Lap 7 was my scheduled pit lap so I was happy to let him through whilst I look to jump him at the pits.

My stop led me out into 10th place, which was obviously still in the points and by now I was wondering whether this was actually possible. Could a points scoring finish actually happen?! To add a bit of drama, it was very very overcast now and dark clouds were evidently brewing. Rain would’ve been the worst thing now I’d stopped but I held my breath and hoped for the best. On Lap 8, with other stopping ahead of me, I jumped back from 10th to 5th and – more importantly – managed to easy be ahead of Massa following his stop. Remarkable stuff.

Hamilton was several seconds ahead of me at this point and I didn’t even contemplate the idea of catching him in the McLaren. In fact, he was pulling half a second out per lap on me so it was never going to happen. Massa was slowly starting to catching me too so I knew I had to be very careful and try to make the most of the pace. My Marussia was now on the harder prime tyres and the pace was a little less extragavant as the earlier part of the race despite falling fuel levels. Luckily though, by Lap 11 the sky was starting to clear up again and the clouds were beginning to drift away. Phew!

My main concern for the final 5 laps was a consistently falling gap between Massa and Grosjean, both below me in 6th and 7th, and myself in 5th. I’d be happy with any points but having made it this far 5th would’ve been utterly incredible. My laptimes weren’t as strong as theirs on these tyres – about 7 or 8 tenths slower to be precise. As of the pit stops, they came out 4 seconds behind me. 4 laps later on Lap 12, they were less than a second behind me. The tension was unbearable! Defensive driving was at the forefront of my mind when they found their way into my slipstream and it was lap 14 that I had to start being careful as the gap had now gone. They continued to follow, and it was Grosjean who was directly behind me now. As we went into lap 15 of 17, he gave it a go on the straight between turn 5 and 6 but completely cocked it up beyond belief, going straight into the back of me and losing his front wing. I wasn’t damaged, thank God, but it was a ridiculous moment and scared the absolutely monkeys out of me.

Also, the most amazing thing happened on Lap 16 – I overlapped Karthikeyan! A Marussia, very much a backmarker, was on the good side of blue flags. Incredible and it really tickled me overlapping him. Of course, I still had Massa to worry about… and he came very, very close from time to time… but he couldn’t find a way past. Which means… that’s right..

I FINISHED 5TH!!! WOOHOO!!!

Why the car was so fast, why I had so much pace, how I managed to finished so high and keep up with other cars, so many questions. But I didn’t care as it was easily the best result of the season and a brilliant, unexpected 10 points that I could never of imagined would ever come our way in this car.

Championship Positions

So there we have it my friends – my first points in my F1 2012 career. It still seems totally ridiculous to me that it’s happened at Marussia but I can’t explain enough how good that car felt to drive in that race. Up next was the Hungaroring, a track I’ve tended to be strong at in the past, so the hopes were high for another shock result. As for now, I’ll just sit back and be a little bit gobsmacked at what just happened. FIFTH!!!

An F1 2012 Career – Great Britain

  By Lukeh | December 17, 2012 - 6:32 pm | 2012, F1 2012 Career, Formula 1, Gaming
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Following the highs of Valencia it was time for one of the biggest races of the season at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. Always a fun circuit to drive, the new inner section adds something a bit different and whilst this has reduced the average speed around the track for a lap, it’s still a very fast circuit to race on. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this race with so much dependence on low downforce and the car’s lack of straight line speed but I’m sure it was going to be fun. The weather over the weekend was looking pretty sunny across the grand prix too.

Practice

We had no new parts to try out in testing for the British Grand Prix so my aim in practice was to go out and get as good as a feeling for the car as I could. On a very pleasing note, the car really felt quite stable and much more so than I was expecting. You could really throw it about through the esses of Maggotts and Becketts which was real good fun! It was a pretty overcast and cloudy session but as soon as the track began to rubber in times soon began falling and I found myself 2 seconds off the leading pace which was great and a second or so faster than my nearest rival below me. There was a pretty odd incident about 20 minutes into the session where Kovalainen closed the door on me on the final corner of the lap leading me to spin and slide sideways over the line to record what was, at the time, my fastest lap of the session. Luckily I didn’t collect anyone or hit the wall so no harm done. In fact, judging on the standings at the end of the session Heikki had been given a 10 place penalty for the race because of the incident! All in all it was a really good session and I felt like I got the most out of the car. Hopefully this’ll be backed up with a strong qualifying.

Qualifying

Qualifying began with my race engineer telling me I would get into Q2 quite easily. OK then… can’t say I agreed but it was an optimistic start! The target the team had set was 18th which meant not only beating the remainder of the ‘new teams’ but also one of the midfield drivers too which seemed a hell of a challenge. As for the weather, once again it was a rare blue day of beautiful sunshine at Silverstone! The prediction session best times were set at around a 1:34 so I was aiming for a 1:37 at best if I could to try my best to get 18th. Again the car felt as good as it did in practice but I needed to gain an extra second on my early session times which were coming in at around 1:38. My first sector was on the money but it was the long middle sector that was holding me back a bit. Annoyingly as I went onto my penultimate lap of the session Schumacher decided to play silly buggers with me for three or four corners… annoying much. Ultimately nothing improved as I stayed 2 seconds off Kimi in 18th still throwing out 1:38′s, my final lap time on the last lap of Q1 being a 1:38.1 so 19th it was. Timo qualified down in 24th so at least it was something for myself but it was a little disappointing not to hit the times I was expecting.  It’s no shock not to get 18th though. Interesting to see Kimi going out in Q1 though

Race (13 laps)

We were set for a dry race and the target was to finish in 18th which was a fairly achievable target I felt. The race began with no real shocks as I had a pretty poor getaway being flanked by the HRT’s, but a fairly slow group of cars in the few corners ahead such as the Saubers and Williams meant that a nice little gap led me to slot up the inside of a few cars for 11th. I was sitting behind Schumacher who, for some reason, decided to break right in front of me in a corner that you can keep your foot down for so that was annoying but no damage caused. Of course there was no fight with our speed delta and he soon sped away. Still, 11th through lap 1 with the Saubers behind me was a really good start.

They soon began to press me for the position and the beginning of lap 2 was a real fight between all three cars. It was great racing with no contact at all but Perez pulled back coming out of Brooklands for some reason meaning it was now just Kobayashi behind me and 11th was still in my grasp. Schumacher was already a good 7 or 8 seconds ahead so it was a little bit of hanging on to say the least.However, disaster struck on Lap 3 as I left a wheel on the grass coming out of Turn 1 and went off onto the grass and tarmac falling down to 14th, which wasn’t too bad but it was only made worse when, attempting to overtake Perez at turn , I jumped on the throttle far too quickly forgetting the dirt and grass on the tyres and span out at the Arena corners. This left me down in 22nd and a long way to come back! Ahead of me was Kovalainen and behind Petrov, but there was a group of cars starting from Heikki just a second ahead of me so it wasn’t the end of the world. Totally my fault for forgetting about the lack of grip.

My scheduled pit stop was lap 5 so I was aiming to get back into the rhythm of things by catching this group of cars consisting of Heikki, Glock, and the two HRT drivers. The second gap had reduced immensely by Lap 4 and I’d found myself right behind them. Being a bit brave in the arena corners, I went for a move around the outside of Heikki and managed to make it stick beautifully! Very proud of that one. I was now directly behind Timo and up in 21st place.With my looming stop approaching my goal wasn’t to do anything silly but maintain the gap and try and jump Timo at the pits.Of course, Silverstone has the longest pitlane ever made so it took a while. Honestly, pit stops take ages it’s such a long, slow pitlane.

Back out on Lap 6 in 23rd following my stop, I’d pulled away from Heikki and found myself right behind the HRT of De la Rosa at Brooklands. He put his car perfectly on the inside to defend 22nd but I put on my brave hat again and went for a move around the outside and made it stick, placing me perfectly for the immediate right hander of Luffield! Again, a very, very good feeling when you’re fighting cars that are the same level of performance at the back. 22nd was mine but with several cars still yet to pit ahead, I was hoping I would be fast enough to jump Glock at the stops. As lap 7 began, I watched the pit lane exit and found myself storming past Glock just making it out – and also found myself jumping Petrov in the Caterham too, leaving me in a very satisfying 19th place! Very cool to have jumped two cars and made a few positions from a few fast laps. Karthikeyan also came out of the pits but beat me to 18th – luckily I had him easily with the use of DRS out of the arena section. 18th it was, woo! By the end of the lap I was already two seconds ahead of him so I assume he was struggling on new tyres.

The remaining 5 laps were quite quiet but I did jump up to a fantastic 17th where Senna had come into the pits and fallen to the back somewhere. Not sure why but it was another position for myself, and the next car ahead was Massa who was gaining two seconds on me a lap so there was no chance in catching him. Petrov had overtaken Karthikeyan behind me but was falling back and I was soon 7 seconds ahead of him with no troubles. It was a quiet end but I was very happy to save fuel and just enjoy Silverstone in a car that felt really great to drive. My final position was 17th but despite being up a lot higher and fallen back on my own accord, I was really pleased with a fun, fun drive overtaking people and a strategy that worked beautifully as well as beating my team mate and my target for the race. A great, enjoyable Grand Prix that is perhaps a bit more normal for Marussia!

Championship Standings

So that was a seriously fun home grand prix. Sure, it wasn’t the highs of Valencia with the position but we beat our target and had a huge amount of fun overtaking a few guys at the back. Silverstone’s such a great circuit and I’m really pleased with how it went – a bit annoyed I made such a silly mistake – but the drive still made up for it. Up next – Germany!

Plus this made me smile:

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An F1 2012 Career – Europe

  By Lukeh | December 2, 2012 - 12:35 pm | 2012, F1 2012 Career, Formula 1, Gaming
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It was time to head into Spain and the docklands of Valencia for the European Grand Prix at a circuit that doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in the world for exciting. From a driving perspective, I’ve never been a huge fan and find it a real nuisance to have to drive around as it’s just 90 degree corners constantly much like Singapore, such is the nature of a street circuit. The weather prediction suggested rain for practice and qualifying but a dry race so let’s see how it went…

Practice

The first weather prediction was spot on as the heavens had opened for the first session of the weekend in Practice. It didn’t seem wet enough for wet tyres upon the start of the session so the team had opted for intermediates. On another note, we had a Research and Development task regarding the cooling system on the brakes. This meant trying to maintain being off the brakes for at least 81% of the lap for three laps whilst still hitting a target time as set by the team. Immediately I went out as, with a possible wet qualifying too, it seemed very important to get to grips with the feel of the car in the wet on this track. Luckily within three laps on the inters I’d hit the target goal which brought an update to the car that was working. Times soon improved and with half the hour left I went back out still on inters but despite others on them, it just seemed too wet. I even got an obligatory spin in there for good measure but going onto wets just made the issues even worse. The back-end of the car was just so loose and as the session went on, the car felt more of a struggle to drive. I was picking up no pace compared to others back on inters and struggled a fair bit during the remainder of the session to end up an embarrassing 24th and several seconds even off HRT and 5 seconds off Glock who came an amazing 17th. Awful stuff.

Qualifying

Despite the furore of a wet qualifying, it was in fact blue skies and sunshine for the start of Q1 which was a welcome surprise. Of course I had no idea how a dry set up would work but all the same, anything is welcome after practice. Of course, it didn’t last long as just as I was about to being my flying lap, it began raining. It was clouding over very quickly so I aimed to try to get a reasonable dry lap in before the track got wet. I managed to get two pretty OK dry laps before the car just began to become completely undrivable on the dry tyres; spins were beginning to occur embarrassingly often. However the important thing was I’d managed to get a dry lap in and this could be huge! Coming back into the pits, I watched the live timing to see I was in 4th but the rest of the field were still out on options or primes so it was a little confusing. Towards the end of the session though, again very strangely, times began tumbling by several seconds so I headed back out still on options. It just wasn’t happening though; the grip wasn’t there but the track was a lot drier than when I was out earlier on without a doubt. Q1 ended with me finishing 22nd which was the team’s target so there’s something, but it’s a bit soul-destroying when Petrov, Glock, de la Rosa and others make it into Q2 somehow and you’re stuck in 22nd. Even more bizarrely, I had Alonso, Schumacher, Rosberg and other big names around me in the Q1 knockout… very, very odd session. Not sure what happened at all.

Race – 14 laps

After all the wet sessions and confusing moments, we seemed to have a completely dry race ahead which was a welcome relief. I started on primes to try to get as much time as possible out to see what I can do before pitting, and the start seemed to be a considerable success. Whilst Alonso and Rosberg soon zoomed off, a pack of cars at the tight turn 2 lead to a nice gap to fit into before Schumi utilised his authentic chop to take a chunk out of my front wing, Luckily it was only the end plates and not the entire wing itself. By the time we’d got ourselves to the bridge, I was up to a fantastic 12th place, woohoo! The car was already feeling fantastic and a relatively quiet first lap was going well, until a smash behind me at the bridge between Vergne and Senna led to Vergne’s wheels being hit off and the first retirement from the race. Ricciardo was ahead me of me but I was very happy with 12th; he was pulling away as you would expect but it was all going very well.

A few laps in and I was still holding my own in 12th with no one really around me. As mentioned above, the car was feeling really so, so much better than any sessions so far in Valencia and had a huge amount of grip. The straight line speed still sucked but with no KERS or DRS it was a given. Behind me I had Petrov and Schumacher closing the gap lap by lap, and it was a matter of time before Schumi was right behind me following overtaking the Caterham. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Turn 8 and 9, the turns before the bridge, were obviously catching a lap of people out because Lap 4 saw Hulkenburg also struggling his way back onto the track which allowed me to steal 11th. However, this did mean I now had Hulk and Schumacher to deal with in much faster, KERS and DRS powered cars. Raikkonen had now joined the fray for the hell of it too!

However, in a bizarre turn of events on Lap 5, a very slow Vettel (who had been winning the race) was found struggling about on the bridge and I went up the inside of him to claim 10th!! Woo, in the points!! No idea what was wrong with him but he had the fastest lap the lap before so who knows. He also slowed the cars down behind me slightly in the following DRS zone which was nice of him. On the following lap, Hulk had a go in the DRS zone and got it wrong as he lost a bit of his front wing going into my rear right tyre; lucky I didn’t get a puncture. This allowed Schumacher past and into 11th behind me. On Lap 7, Grosjean joined the ‘going off at turn 7 and 8′ club too so I was up to 9th!! It was all going far too well really. The car was still a pleasure to drive too, yet only a few corners later Schumacher and Hulkenburg did the classic Mika-Schumi move at Spa on me down the straight! Luckily it was so late into the DRS zone I outbraked both and retained my position but it was really rather exciting stuff. Again, on the following lap Schumacher gave it a go but got it horrifically wrong and lost his front wing. Well done, Michael! Following this I came into the pits and changed for options and a new front wing.

Impressively, upon coming out after my stop I came out in 11th which was a nice surprise to say the least. This was now my aim for the rest of the race, to try to maintain this position even if I don’t get in the points now. The options worked perfectly as I could immediately push the car and went a second faster than my previous personal best so far for the race on the following lap. It was such a difference from earlier sessions and really felt like a dream going into and out of corners. Lap 10 saw Hulkenburg catch back up to me and he’d soon found himself within a second of me. All I wanted to do for the last 4 laps was just hold onto 11th for dear life as Rosberg ahead of me in 10th was gaining a second per lap really so that was out of the question. I was just taking it super careful for the remainder of the race and holding my line going into corners to be as defensive as possible. After a few heart stopping moments, I managed to finish the race in a brilliant 11th and a fantastic result for the team as Glock finished up in 14th too! A properly exciting race and possibly the most fun I’ve ever had around Valencia without a doubt. Perez winning the race was a nice surprise too!

Championship Standings

That was a hugely fun race to have and a pleasant welcome to Valencia being enjoyable for once but it’s off to Silverstone next for one of the biggest races of the season. As we know, Silverstone’s a very fast track so I’m not expecting a huge amount from the race but Valencia went miles better than expected so who knows! Still, 11th is a super satisfying way to finish that strange weekend of racing.

An F1 2012 Career – Canada

  By Lukeh | November 18, 2012 - 3:07 pm | 2012, F1 2012 Career, Formula 1, Gaming
2 Comments

It was off to North America for the next race and to the brilliant Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal, a track I’ve always enjoyed watching and racing on previous games so I was looking forward to this. I can’t say I was expecting much of the weekend here however; as such a fast circuit full of straights, the Marussia wasn’t exactly blowing anyone away with its straight line speed and this is what this track is all about. So I was prepared for a tough few sessions ahead. The graphics predicted dry sessions all weekend with the only chance of rain appearing in Practice.

Practice

It didn’t take long to have my first major moment in practice and where better than in the Wall of Champions? However, it was merely a little kiss against the wall; I sustained minor damage but nothing to write home about. A little hint of what was to come, I hoped not at least. The session started dry and it remained dry for about 25 minutes until the expected rain came in. The first half of the session was a learning experience; to tell the truth I was really struggling. The car was understandable slow on the straights but I was having real issues with the grip levels coming out of corners – the oversteer was quite incredible. At one point Heikki Kovalainen found it disturbingly easy to catch up from me and pull away from me when I was putting in serious times. In the dry I was so far off the pace it was quite shocking, and still unable to cope with the oversteer of the car. By the time the rain had kicked in I was 23rd so I knew I wasn’t going to better that in the conditions. The rain had really come down and it was now very wet. I still went out for the second half of the session just in case to get some wet weather experience but it didn’t provide much apart from a few spins and decided to return to the garage. A poor start to the weekend.

 

Qualifying

Luckily it was a dry affair for qualifying and the target from the team was 20th or above. I felt this was going to be a struggle based on the pace we had in practice. Immediately the car felt better; the only changes that had been made were an obvious move onto the options but I tried to put as little fuel in the car as possible to get as much as I could out of the car. This meant, when moving onto the higher fuel mix, it provided more speed on a car with such low downforce. It seemed to do the job; my initial times were almost 2 seconds faster than my best in practice. The times were still near the bottom but 20th seemed achievable. I sat back for a while to watch the live timing and came out with 5 minutes to go to get a few laps in. The sectors were ridiculous; my first sector was actually often several tenths faster than whoever was in 17th, yet my 2nd sector always lost almost a second on what I’d gained in the first sector. Of course, a fast last sector got rid of any advantage anyways so it was a really difficult balance. Unfortunately I’d slipped down to 21st and with 2 minutes to go, Maldonado’s pretty ridiculous attempt to get past me using his DRS and KERS following the final chicane saw him hit the back of me leading me to spin and lose my front wing. No penalty given! Unbelievable. It was too late in the session to do anything, so I settled for a mildly disappointing but expected 21st. I did beat Timo however so I was still doing the job in the team.

 Race – 18 laps

The forecast suggested a nice dry race and that was indeed the case – the start was fairly clean and I managed to find a gap down the middle behind a fairly slow Rosberg in the Mercedes moving me up to 18th so a few positions were immediately made up. Going into the chicane at turns 4 and 5, the Toro Rosso’s were fighting going into the corner leading to a nice gap for me to dive into and grab two places before Massa ahead had gone off, slowing others down. Avoiding the traffic I moved up into a very reassuring 13th place so a cracking start to say the least!

However, it wasn’t to last as a few corners later I’d got it all wrong and spun the car into the wall and lost my front wing. Hurrah! All that effort was immediately diminished. Obviously this meant crawling back to the pits and falling down to last place. Upon returning from my stop, still on options as I decided it made more sense to have a faster set of tyres on to recover the gap, I found myself 15 seconds behind Glock in 23rd. Not a great day for Marussia so far. However, a lap or two later the HUD showed Massa as 23rd with a gap of 6 seconds and quickly falling. On the long straight before the chicane I soon found a slow Massa without a front wing making his way around so not sure what happened there, so 23rd was recovered and a 20 second gap with Massa now there. It was something at least! This just meant a few quiet laps in my own world but I was having a huge amount of issue with the grip. There was absolutely no grip whatsoever and coming out of corners was a real struggle as the back-end of the car was so determined to step out every time. This meant I was way off the pace and not catching Glock at all. I felt that the options just weren’t working and I still needed to change for the prime tyres so I made the stop on lap 8 to do so, falling back down to last obviously but it was a necessary change.

Again, I start a paragraph with another ‘however’, as this only made things worse as the green tyres really didn’t feel good. I’ve got no idea why, but it was just a proper struggle to get around corners, and it ultimately cost me my place in the race as I lost the car under breaking for turn 7 and went into the wall, losing both wheels. It was not a good race at all, and a real mind-bender as to why the car felt so awful to drive and with such little grip.

Championship Standings

So, we’re off to Valencia for our next race of the season and the 8th Grand Prix so far. It’s been a fair old season with ups and downs but I fear Valencia will be another down as it’s such a fast circuit with so many straights. Still, here’s hoping!