F1 Fanatic

Just out of interest, does anyone even read the 2011 thread anymore? And how is the handling on 2012 compared to 2011?

Oh excellent. If there’s one thing I noticed about 2011′s handling, it’s the sluggish handling at Monaco. I suppose if the wheel input lag was fixed then it wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
And if 2012 is even worse in that regard, would it even be worth picking up?
I also feel like I’m the only person paying attention to the 2011 career thread now.

It’s been postponed until I deal with the American Revolution as an assassin and then score 500 goals as Messi in FIFA 2013:-)

Season 3 – Sauber – Race 11 – Hungary

After my win in Germany, I was offered a contract to go to Sauber and I accepted. The reason behind that was purely because I am pretty tired of driving the Williams even though its a good car. I felt as though a change was neccesary. Senna came back to Williams and I took Perez’s seat alongside Kobayashi.

Quali – 16th
I found it very hard to get used to the new car and to find a setup, as it was not handling too good. I messed around with the setup but it did not seem to make any difference. I made it through to Q2 but could not compete after that. My teammate was over a second quicker than me and I had to settle for a lowly 16th place on the grid. Hamilton took pole with the two red bull’s behind him. Kobayashi was 7th and Alonso surprisingly 13th. It seems as though the Ferrari is becoming less and less competitive as the season progresses while the Mclarens and Red bull’s are getting faster and faster.

I set up my car to be as kind on the tyres as possible, as tyre wear is quite bad at Hungary. But this meant that the car was handling very bad indeed. Especially through the second and third sectors, the car was understeering horribly.

Race – DNF
Again, rain was on the forecast for the race at 60%. I chose to start on primes as to go with a different strategy to everyone else. The first lap was very hectic, with lots of argy bargy from all drivers to try and gain positions. I found myself up to 13th by the end of the first lap. Rosberg was under a second ahead in 13th and Ricciardo was close behind me. At the end of the second lap, going around the last corner, I was too eager on the throttle and lost the rear, spinning into the pit wall on the right and breaking my front right suspension. Ricciardo was caught up in my mistake aswell and he flew into my car, causing his car to fly over me into the air rather spectacularly. So it was a poor end to my race but its fair to say that Hungary is not my strongest track. Hamilton won with Grosjean in second and Button third. The championship leader Alonso could only manage tenth place.

Season Summary

Australia: 14th – 14th
Malaysia: 10th – 7th
China: 10th – 15th
Bahrain: 5th – 11th
Spain: 17th – 16th
Monaco: 1st – DNF
Canada: 1st – 1st
Europe: 1st – DNF
Great Britain: 11th – 4th
Germany: 5th – 1st
Hungary: 16th – DNF

@graham228221

what’s it like post-patch? Is there any noticeable differences in the gameplay?

The handling has changed. Before the patch the racing line had so much more grip than the non-racing line, which meant that you had to stay on it to have maximum grip and speed through corners. Now codemasters have made the whole track have the same level of grip, making it much easier to acheive relatively competitive lap times and not making it absolutely neccesary that you have to stay on the racing line. For me anyway, understeer has become less of a problem. Im not sure if thats just me getting used to the game or whether it has something to do with the patch.

If you are using manual gearbox, then you can now downshift just as fast as F1 2011. I have not blown a gearbox since the patch came out and I downshift pretty fast.

Overall I am dissapointed at how the game has developed. It is now too much like F1 2011 but with huge parts left out, free practice 1 and 2 for example. So I feel as though codemasters might as well have brought out F1 2011 again, but with huge chunks left out of it. I miss the “live the life” feel to the game and the career mode is just dull. The addition of hot laps, season challenge, champions mode and the YDT do absolutely nothing for my enjoyment. They are all pointless features and yet again codies have jumped over the basics which they have still to get right.

For me anyway, F1 2012 is a complete letdown.. the only good things from this game is the slightly improved AI and dynamic weather (the latter which was bugged to start with remember).

I’ve just started my career and I’m still in 2 minds about the game if I’m honest. The handling of the cars is hugely different from F1 2011 and if anything seems to be more like it was in F1 2010. The handling seems so inconsistent. The car seems to go from being really planted to incredibly twitchy from corner to corner. They seem to also have an incredible amount of understeer and tend to snap oversteer if you touch a kerb (I’m using a controller not a wheel by the way). I’m sure I’ll get used to it and eventually master it, but at the moment it is frustrating!

Anyway, I started my career with Caterham and qualified 24th for my first race (an annoying 0.012 behind Karthikeyan) after really struggling to string 3 good sectors together. I also had what would have been my quickest lap ruined when I came across Glock, Karthikeyan and Vettel all going slowly at the second to last corner. If I’d have been able to finish that lap I probably would have been 19th. I finished the race 20th, 5 seconds behind Heikki which I was happy with after my qualifying woes. I ran strongly in 15th for the first 5-6 laps until all of the AI seemed to up their pace suddenly. I could hold them off for a bit but I eventually fell down the field.

Oh, I thought the tyre scaling issue that everyone on internet forums has been banging on about wouldn’t bother me, but it actually does! Strategy is now non existent in the shorter races (which I have to do because I work long hours, so I don’t have 3 hours to set aside every evening to do a 50/100% race distance and loads of free practice and quali laps). It seems you just have to bolt on a set of options and change them near the end of the race for primes even though they hardly have any wear. It’s not ideal.

@mat-k Yeah I did a few races last night and I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’ve managed to get the hang of the brake balance adjustments which made a massive difference to the way the car turned in and also to its stability mid-corner. So I’m a much happier camper today. I’m still a bit annoyed at the tyre-scaling but I’ll learn to live with the “long stint on options/short stint on primes” strategy.

I’ve also noticed that the lap times the AI post(I’m using legend AI by the way) are incredibly erratic once they get you in their sights . I seem to be able to drop a couple of the lower midfield guys early in the race and drive along at a comfortable pace with them 3 odd seconds behind me. But if I make a mistake and loose 1.5 seconds on a lap the AI seem to become possessed and charge past me easily. They then slow down, so much so that I easily repass them and this starts the process again by which time another car has caught up with us, meaning I become embroiled in a fun but race ruining 3/4 way scrap. Has anyone else noticed this?

Season 3 – Sauber – Race 13 – Italy

Quali – 4th

From free practice, I was not that confident going into qualifying and I was plesantly surprised to see myself on provisional pole in Q3. I went out for a second run to try and improve my time. While I could not, others did and I dropped down to 4th. Alonso took pole in a very tight Q3, with the two Mclarens behind him. Kobayashi was 10th.

Race – 14th

I got a terrible start as my first gear was probably too long, hence why I bogged down. I was in 6th on the way down to the first corner but I got up to 5th as I outbroke Vettel. Then I got into Webber’s slipstream and passed him down the inside of the roggia chicane. The first laps were quite busy, and I got up to 3rd as I passed Button, just like Webber, down the inside of turn 3. On the next lap, DRS was activated and I made good use of it. I had caught up to Hamilton and was in the DRS zone down the start-finish straight. He took the defensive line, I went to the outside but he squeezed me onto the grass. I just about stopped the car on time and made the move stick, a very fun move I must say! On the next lap Grosjean passed Hamilton to get into third behind me. Alonso was 5 seconds ahead in first place. Up until I pitted on lap 12, I had a great fight with Grosjean, which involved lots of DRS passes and even at one stage, being side by side through the two lesmos! I pitted early but it was part of my plan to rejoin into traffic behind Hulkenburg as I would get use of DRS. Seeing how effective it is here, I thought that if I could use it, then I would retain 2nd when the guys ahead pitted. And thats exactly what happend. Hamilton had jumped Grosjean in the pits and he was 2 seconds behind me in third, while Alonso was miles ahead, something like 16 seconds. On lap 17, Hamilton passed me in the second DRS zone. As I was following him closely through Ascari, I underestimated how little grip I would have in his dirty air. I spun and lost my front wing, crawled back to the pits, put on options and rejoined in a fairly miserable 18th place. That was my race ruined but I still was pushing like crazy to salvage something. Rosberg had an engine problem as I was told by my engineer, so I got passed him easily. Vergne spun at Ascari and I passed him to get into 16th. Then Vergne went straight on at turn one and passed me illegally, which disqualified him. I then caught up to his teammate Ricciardo and also Hulkenburg on the last lap. I passed them both to salvage a poor 14th place finish.

It just shows you how tricky this game is. One mistake and you go from 3rd to 18th within a lap. Very frustrating but nevertheless I actually had some great battles for once with the AI. At least thats one positive I can take out of that race. Alonso won with Hamilton and Button also on the podium. Kobayashi was 9th.

Season Summary

Australia: 14th – 14th
Malaysia: 10th – 7th
China: 10th – 15th
Bahrain: 5th – 11th
Spain: 17th – 16th
Monaco: 1st – DNF
Canada: 1st – 1st
Europe: 1st – DNF
Great Britain: 11th – 4th
Germany: 5th – 1st
Hungary: 16th – DNF
Belgium: 14th – 7th
Italy: 4th – 14th