F1 Fanatic round-up: 17/3/2010
Today I’m going to an event run by Codemasters where I hope to find out more details about their “F1 2010″ game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. If there’s anything you’d particularly like to find out about it please let me know in the comments. Here’s the round-up for today:
Links
Schumacher return a big hit with German TV viewers (Reuters)
“The seven-times world champion’s comeback race was watched by an average audience of 10.5 million Germans on Sunday, compared to the 5.3 million viewers the season-opening event attracted last season.” I wonder how many of them took notice of the German driver who was leading the race?
Getting rid of aero in F1 – the counterargument (James Allen)
“Frank Dernie, one of the leading F1 aerodynamicists for the past 30 years, has sent me this note, arguing that the “overtaking problem in F1″ is not the aero, but the mechanical grip from the tyres and the lack of mistakes made by drivers on gearshifts due to semi automatic gearboxes. He advocates manual gearboxes and rock hard tyres.”
Comment of the day
Here’s a great bit of thinking from Jim N:
With people still going on about the poor performance of the new teams I thought I’d check on the first outings of the established teams.
Ferrari, Monaco 1950, 4 cars , +1 lap, +3 laps, DNF, DNF
McLaren, Monaco 1966, 1 car only, DNF
Red Bull (originally Stewart GP), Australia 1997, 2 cars, DNF, DNF
Mercedes (originally Tyrrell), Germany 1966, 2 cars, +1 lap, DNF
Force India (originally Jordan), USA 1991, 1 car only, +6 laps not running at finish
Williams, Spain 1977, 1 car only, +4 laps
Renault (originally Toleman), San Marino 1981, 2 cars, DNQ, DNQ
Toro Rosso (originally Minardi), Brazil 1985, 1 car only, DNFThe current crop of new teams seem to be in good company!
Happy birthday!
No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
The FIA issued a double whammy rules change on this day last year by announcing the budget cap proposal for 2010 and claiming the 2009 championship would be decided by whoever scored the most wins. In the end neither proposal came to pass.
Untitled258 said on 17th March 2010, 0:09
Theres only one thing i want to know about the F1 game, most stuff ive read about and it seems cool, but is there anything they are adding so we can customise helmets for our own driver in career mode? I was thinking like the Forza 2/3 car livery customisation, but for helmets.
(trivial i know)
Thats all. Thanks!
Zahir said on 17th March 2010, 0:37
That reminds me Keith, I remember reading somewhere that you are going to a codemasters event about the 2010 game and was wondering if you could ask them if in the new game you can feel the effects of turbulant air or not.
Zahir said on 17th March 2010, 0:39
Wow should have really read the first paragraph!
Sorry about that but theres my question.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 17th March 2010, 8:01
I was just about to post the same thing! :-)
Mike said on 17th March 2010, 10:40
Considering what we saw on sunday…..
mclaren1 said on 17th March 2010, 4:07
please, no, don’t ask that question. Honestly.. of all the things that could go wrong with this game you are worried about helmet customisation? Oy.
TommyC said on 17th March 2010, 7:36
will there be a safety car? as well as proper drive-through/stop-go penalties?
Red Andy said on 17th March 2010, 8:19
And post-race penalties. Really important that they include post-race penalties. :P
João Pedro CQ said on 17th March 2010, 8:58
Yes. There should be a Safety car. And the damage has to be improved a lot. The only thing i can brake in F12009 is a wheel, the front wing and put the rear wing shaking up.
Untitled258 said on 17th March 2010, 11:41
Its an amazing idea and you know it!!!
I’m sure Codies have everything else under control. I have faith, even if F109 was crap.
Hallard said on 17th March 2010, 14:09
My only question about the F1 video game is this:
As the single player campaign mode progresses, does Max Mosley begin to appear in the menu screens, threatening to turn your PS3 off if you play the game for more than 40 hours per month, at which point the player must respond by threatening (via a new political-posturing game mode) to purchase an alternative racing game?
Mike said on 18th March 2010, 5:12
If only he would force a budget cap on the games price eh?
Hallard you would be a funny guy.
newnhamlea1 said on 17th March 2010, 0:13
keith, any idea when the forum will be back up?, im dying to start a rant about aero again.
mike-e said on 17th March 2010, 3:39
This frank dernie is obviously overlooking other racing catogories, like gp2, soft tyres and restricted aero…. lots more passing than f1. Take this to the extreem and the theory carries through, motorcycle racing for example…. Barely any aero (because its not possible) and very soft grippy tyres = lots of passing. Its the obvious solution, but i know there are going to be others too.
BasCB said on 17th March 2010, 8:06
Actually Dernie is right, about the aerodynamic grip not being the problem as such.
Total grip (aero and mechanical) and lack of mistakes is a big part of the reason for not having much overtaking.
What kills the drivers getting a go at overtaking is the cars now being very dependant on Aerodynamics for their speed, so if they lose this when following a car, they have no real chance to overtake.
Sure, giving less grip from tyres, making drivers do manual gearchanges with cluches, giving them less efficient brakes all help in forcing drivers to make mistakes.
As do spraying the track with water, having drivers change the wheels themselves etc.
But is that really what we want from F1?
To a degree it is good to limit some things to being relevant to road cars and aerospace(KERS, Hybrid, limited groud effect, small Turbo-engines like McLaren uses in their new supercar, some aerodynamics, miniturization), but electronical driver aids (ABS, ESP, traction control, active suspension, …) are part of that as well.
So we have to get a good balance of this being a sport where the best car combined with the best driver (best – quick, intelligent, taking risks but not overdoing it too much and being able to react to changes), while at the same time not losing too much into costly high-tech to get the 0.01 second improvement.
Compare with swimming, where the swimmers
are actually glad to get rid of the high-tech full body suits breaking all records, to get real swimming where the sporter and his training is central to succes.
Joey-Poey said on 17th March 2010, 16:07
Less efficient brakes, yes I agree we shouldn’t need to bring back. However, I would love to see them forced to use clutches again. That’s a huge part of driving and I think it’s only fair to include that element as a test of skill and consistency.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 17th March 2010, 8:01
Why not just join in the discussion with everyone else here:
Bringing back refuelling will not solve F1’s overtaking problem
BasCB said on 17th March 2010, 8:10
Good idea, can you move our comments over there?
rfs said on 17th March 2010, 0:22
Here’s the comment i wrote on James Allen’s blog about overtaking:
There are so many different theories as to how to make the racing better it can make your head spin. Change the tracks! Ban the wings! Make tyres softer.. NO make the tyres harder! Ban refueling… oh crap no we want it back! We need mandatory pitstops… no that’s BS let them choose whether to stop or not.
I don’t think anyone really knows exactly why things are so bad. But this is a huge problem and it needs to be improved. The powers-that-be (i.e. Jean Todt, Bernie, Hermann Tilke, all the team principals and lead designers, and the drivers) need to get together and find a solution. And if/when they do, they need to put the fans first and give the fans what they want.
anthony said on 17th March 2010, 1:10
you said it,fans first
dcowlives said on 17th March 2010, 0:30
I love JimNs comment, fabulous. Such q shame we can’t pass it on to the established teams, and one Mr Coulthard!
wasiF1 said on 17th March 2010, 1:45
Expect the groundstand seat to be full in the German GP
Michael Griffin said on 17th March 2010, 1:58
I’m popping along to the Codies event too, cannot wait to see the game in action!
See you there Keith.
GB2009 said on 17th March 2010, 2:10
Safety cars…do we finally have a game that has them?
PLEASE!
cyanide said on 17th March 2010, 5:30
Yeah, rFactor has had them for ages.
Calum said on 17th March 2010, 8:36
They had them on the #PSone games.
J.Danzig said on 17th March 2010, 3:10
Yeah it’d b great with kers boost as well,i dont reckon they’ll include it though.
Icthyes said on 17th March 2010, 3:15
Dernie makes a good point, but understates the problem of turbulence massively. Sure, cutting aero in 1983 didn’t produce more overtaking then, but they didn’t have semi-automatic gearboxes back then either. I do think we need to go back to manual gears, and do something with the tyres (either make them chunky and hard, or make the ones we have now softer), but the shift from dependence on aero to mechanical still needs to be made. It doesn’t matter how great braking distances are if cars can’t even get close to each other. And may someone remind Dernie of 1998, when grooved tyres were brought in to increase braking distances, and what happened then?
mike-e said on 17th March 2010, 3:41
Mr Dernie understates the problem cause it would put him out of a job in f1. Go make a spaceship or something.
Icthyes said on 17th March 2010, 18:12
Actually, thinking about it, we wouldn’t need to make the tyres harder if total aero was drastically reduced, because the things Dernie says would happen from having harder tyres would happen in that situation as well.
Of course, as the poster above me says, Dernie is hardly likely to ask for the removal of aero…
J.Danzig said on 17th March 2010, 3:57
To me the cars seem 2 well balanced ie v rear end needs 2 be a little looser. I had thought that v massive front wings and little rear wings would help this but then with reduction of front tyre width will even v balance out again.But then again Bernie likes things the way they are,so I don’t think things are going 2 change.Pesonally I dont ever remember since I ve been watching F1 a lot of exciting races.Of course u get v odd exciting race. Thats just the way it is.
458italia said on 17th March 2010, 4:15
How about some info on the Career mode. I’d love to be able to take a driver and race multiple seasons.
Lehonardeuler said on 17th March 2010, 4:18
About the manual gearboxes and harder tyres: Imagine F1 in 2011, in HD tv showing high-tech cars with manual gearboxes. Something’s wrong…
Right now we have:
Engine freeze. Wich basically places all engines on the same power figures, which also works agains overtaking. Also, a faulty engine keeps the same and cuts down it’s team chances.
Testing freeze. The team on fron in the test stays on front during most of the season.
Harder tyres? Harder than now? 11 sets for a whole weekend, under any circumstances… I mean, they could be even harder, but what for? Tyre endurance? Maybe then races should be made longer…
Aero rules: In my view, the new regulations just go the oppossite of what they pretend: Reducing rear wing width and moving the front wing outwards is just to ensure airflow on the front wing of the following car, but just if it stays right behind it. What about moving aside to overtake it? Downforce falls apart, as drivers say… and it’s even more difficult to overtake than before.
KERS: A very good and somewhat useful idea, that the fia got so wrong.
Just 6.6sec of KERS per lap, and 80HP? That’s so low! Bring it back for the whole race, but with a limited amount of energy, like KERS for 40% of the laps, so drivers can use it wherever they want and choose to push with it for many laps straight.
Refuelling: Maybe it’s a good idea to remove it to experience with weight balance and so on, but it should have a backup plan if it all gets predictable and dull.
Tyre rule for qualifing: Who on earth will ever qualify on the harder compound and start further on the back, and then be destined to overtake no-one in the whole race and ruin their strategy? We’ll see no-one in the front to go for it with the harder tyres this year.
I believe the more variants to the race we have, the more chances of not having a boring show.
Anyway, I doubt some good racing in some time… maybe if 1.8L turbo are brought in and not being limited, with more open aero regulations (and maybe a new kers, also), we could see some interesting stuff.
Lehonardeuler said on 17th March 2010, 4:23
I meant KERS energy for 40% of the whole race distance, or maybe 30min or so… Not restricted to a fixed amount of time/energy per lap, but for the whole race. So, a driver can choose to use it at the very first laps for a stint, or in the mid-race to overtake some rivals, or keep a position. But once you’ve used it all, hope the other car doesn’t have any left.
Guelph35 said on 17th March 2010, 4:51
I’d rather see KERS limited only by the amount of energy trapped. Let the teams decide how they want to run them.
Don’t cap the output power or duration artifically. Give the teams incentive to innovate.
HG said on 17th March 2010, 5:22
exactly, KERS was a chance for F1 to develop something relevant that could have significant commercial spin-offs such as williams. They should have allowed more freedom for the bigger teams, whilst the smaller teams had access to cutomer packages
Bien said on 17th March 2010, 5:16
Keith, can you find out this info for the game?:
- Do we start as a new team and build from there or pick an existing team?
- Are races going to be full race distances?
- Is there a buildup series system a la Forza 3 ranging from Class E to S and so on or is it straight up F1?
- What kind of customization is available for the cars performance? Is there development periods just like in real life or do you just buy them as upgrades?
Those are the ones I’ve thought up off the top of my head. Maybe if I come up with more, I will ask. Otherwise, I await your info! Thank you!
Z. said on 17th March 2010, 7:16
Hi Bien,
I can answer a couple of those for you.
- According to the developers there will be no feeder series as it is not part of the original deal and would take too much code to support. (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/f1-2010-game-1316/409479-10-03-developer-introduction-post-update.html)
- Concerning the customization, there will be car updates along the season, which will be developed by the teams the season progresses. If you outperform your teammate, you will achieve a kind of team leader status, which will allow you to have a say in development and have your car fitted first with new items. (Source: The Official Xbox Magazine). If you want I can mail you some scans of the article.
Mike said on 17th March 2010, 10:57
Seems like a good idea there…. at least they are trying to be innovative!
Bien said on 17th March 2010, 15:21
Thanks for the answers, Z!
slr said on 17th March 2010, 17:32
To answer you question on full race distances. It seems likely, as you could race full distance in Championship Edition.
James_mc said on 17th March 2010, 17:36
Not really the “Masters of Code” that they claim to be then! :P
gabal said on 17th March 2010, 7:17
Those numbers of German viewers are a bit fabricated – last year season opener was in Australia in early hours of morning so casual fans weren’t up to see it. If they want to compare it to last year they should have compared it to Bahrain race…
goofy said on 17th March 2010, 8:35
2009:
5,39m on RTL = 42,3% market share
2010:
11,62m on RTL
2006 (with MSC):
9,41m on RTL
http://www.quotenmeter.de/cms/?p1=c&plus=on&p2=1&qry=bahrain&x=0&y=0
João Pedro CQ said on 17th March 2010, 9:11
Will the pit-to-car radio be more interactive than in F12009? Because in F12009 the radio was saying always the same. And will pit walls be all equal like in F12009 or each team will have is own pit wall with its own painting?