F1 Fanatic

Race 9: Great Britain
Qualifying: 19th – Race: 9th
In qualifying, on my second lap of my first run I snatched 19th place from de la Rosa by a mere 2 hundredths of a second. I made up plenty of positions at the start but as I was attacking Massa for 6th I had to surrender and defend my position on Hamilton and Webber. They were much quicker but I kept them behind until I stopped on the 5th lap; Webber continued and went fast enough to stay ahead of me once he pitted. I came out in 12th place and rose to 10th at the end of the lap; I was followed by Raikkonen as Senna escaped away from my sight. I wondered if perhaps there was a backmarker left ahead of me: a few laps later de la Rosa answered my questions and pitted, and I earned one place. I defended it until the very end, but in the last lap me and Vergne swapped positions a couple of times: in the end I crossed the finish line ahead, only to find out that de la Rosa, who was 11th at the time, had lost a position to Button by a few thousandths of a second.

Race 11: Hungary
Qualifying: 19th – Race: 1st
I spent an entire free practice session trying various setups, completing 16 laps in total and ending in 21st place. However, with the same setup I finished 19th in qualifying, and de la Rosa was 22nd. I was 9th after turn 1 and made up four more positions at turn 2, reaching 5th place: I didn’t try to keep up with Vettel but started saving fuel and counter-attacking my rivals on the main straight. On lap 6 the Safety Car was sent on track for a collision I hadn’t seen, but I was over half-a-minute behind the leading four so I continued without stopping. I reached the queue at the end of the 7th lap and decided it was a good time to pit, and it was also planned to be the lap on which I had to stop. I came out 14th and the Safety Car left the track at the end of the 8th lap, followed by many other drivers who completed their first pit stop: I rose back to 5th. At the end of the 9th lap those ahead of me also pitted and I took the lead, with de la Rosa 3rd at the moment. Quickly, though, I was leading a train of cars, which caused confusion, collisions and a lot of action. I only just managed to keep my position until the end, winning the race, whilst my team mate dropped down the order rapidly but later inherited a couple of positions, finishing 9th.

Race 13: Italy
Qualifying: 19th – Race: 17th
I was proud of my lap time in Q1, a 1:26.9 which allowed me to take 18th place. I remained in the pits waiting but when and Petrov Button beat my time I dropped to 20th, so I set off and improved by less than a tenths, what was enough to demote Button to 20th and qualify 19th behind Petrov. I rose to 12th at the start but I struggled to keep ahead of my rivals as my pace was awful. When I pitted on lap 6 I had managed not to lose a single position, but Rosberg overtook me in the pit lane. I stayed in his tow and attacked him at the Variante della Roggia, but I jumped on the inside kerb, ran wide and two positions to him and Vergne. A further mistake on the following lap forced me to let Ricciardo through, and I remained 15th for the remaining laps, until Button caught up with me on the penultimate lap, and found a way through after Lesmo 2 as I was also busy defending from Senna. The Brazilian himself also got past as I made another mistake on the last lap and I finished 17th ahead of de la Rosa.

Season 3 – Sauber – Race 14 – Singapore

To say that I was pessimistic going into qualifying was an understatement. Having not played the game for three months, I had no idea what my pace was going to be like.

Quali – 22nd

Qualifying was fully wet, but at the start of the session, the AI drivers went out on slick tyres and set blistering lap times in the wet (yet another glitch/bug in this game). I went out on options and understeered straight into the barrier at turn three. So I would line up 22nd for the race, with Vettel and Alonso behind me not setting lap times for some reason. My teammate was a brilliant fourth and Massa, (my rival), was 13th.

Race – 14th

Thankfully, there was no chance of rain for the race so I decided to go for an option-prime-prime strategy. My initial getaway was good, but I decided to not use kers and save it for the straight after turn 5. Taking the inside line, I gained three positions into turn one, and a further three into turn three. I outbreaked Vergne and Hulkenburg into turn 5 and then got past the two Williams cars into turn seven. Not a bad start!
On the next lap, Rosberg hit the wall at turn 5 which slowed Ricciardo and Massa. I pass all three of them on the straight.

On lap four, I passed Button with DRS and then Kimi into turn 15 by using some KERS out of turn 14. On the next lap, I went round the outside of Webber at turn 5 and then passed Hamilton with DRS. Using the extra speed, I then went around the outside of my teammate at turn 7 to get up to third.

At this stage, I was confortable with the car and I was saving my tyres as I slotted behind the duelling Grosjean and Schumacher. Schumacher overtook Grosjean using DRS and on the next lap, I did the exact same thing to get up to 2nd. Schumacher looked in his element while my teammate was holding up a train of cars. This didnt last long however, as my race engineer told me that he had retired.

On lap 10, I pitted along with Schumacher. While we were both breaking into the pits, I took too much speed and hit the back of him losing my front wing. That was okay though, as my crew would just repair the damage. But guess what, they didnt. So I had to do a whole lap without a front wing and then pit again for repairs. I rejoined in 10th place and the chance of a race win was up in smoke.

I tried to salvage the situation however. I was on the prime tyre and I tried to make them last until the end, a full 20 laps on them. I soon realised that it wouldnt be possible and I eventually pitted for options. After setting a few fastest laps, the race was over and I finished in 14th place.

Positives to take from this race? My teammate and rival both retired which helps in my head-to-head with them, and I was able to challenge for the lead, up until codemasters screwed me over with the pitstop. Hamilton won with Schumacher in second. In total, eight cars retired but there was no safety car. I have yet to see one in my career.

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
Singapore: 22nd – 14th

Hi :-) I saw everyone posting in here so I decided to try out career mode. Since this is my first proper try I’m naming it season 1. Nailed the YDT, and chose williams. (Solid british team lol) 50% race Full Qualifying AI on Legendary

Season 1 – Williams – Race 1 – Australia

Qualifying
In FP3 I set the fastest time, so I was pretty confident going into qualifying. In Q1 I started my flying lap, came round the corner and smashed into the mclaren of lewis hamilton. This angered me. I am ashamed to say I restarted, but then there was some clear air and so with a lap on the primes got P1. Q2 was weird… where I had quite easily got P1 in 2 sessions on the trot, this time round I had to fight to stay in. (On options now) I needed to find a tenth of a second to knock out grosjean. I think I found half a second. Q3 here we come… So I watch the computer set the times and skip to 5 minutes. The best attempt, by alonso I think is a 1:27.0, which is extremely slow. I go out and with a lap where I had at least another half a second in hand got pole by 6 tenths of a second. I was ready to do another but nobody beat it. In fact, none of them went out to improve their time at all. Pole position :-) thankyou very much :-) the grid will be edited in or posted shortly. EDIT: Here it is :)

The Grid
1. Harry Westwood
2. Fernando Alonso
3. Sebastien Vettel
4. Mark Webber
5. Lewis Hamilton
6. Jenson Button
7. Sergio Pérez
8. Michael Schumacher
9. Felipe Massa
10. Kimi Räikkönnen
11. Nico Rosberg
12. Pastor Maldonado
13. Romain Grosjean
14. Paul Di Resta
15. Nico Hülkenberg
16. Daniel Ricciardo
17. Jean-Éric Vergne
18. Timo Glock
19. Heikki Kovalainen
20. Charles Pic
21. Pedro De La Rosa
22. Kamui Kobayashi
23. Vitaly Petrov
24. Narain Karthikeyan

I’ll do the race report soon once I’ve done the race :P

Caterham – Legend AI
I’m not going through all the reports, because I can’t remember the races! XD

I do remember however, that Monaco was so crazy we had a red flag and only about 13 cars finished, and Heikki managed to give us a Caterham 1-2!

Also, I took pole in Germany by 6 seconds from Kamui Kobayashi in 2nd, and 17 seconds from Webber in 3rd by being on the full wets when everyone else was on Inters, apart from Kamui who switched to Wets late on.

I then won the race by 49 seconds from Massa after changeable race conditions and always being on the right tyre when everyone else got it wrong.

Season Results
Australia: Ret – 17th
Malaysia: 12th – 5th (Changeable Race Conditions)
China: 18th – 19th
Bahrain: 19th – 2nd
Spain: 19th – 5th (Changeable Race Conditions)
Monaco: 2nd – 1st (Chanegable Qualifying Conditions)
Canada: 1st – 1st
Valencia: 2nd – 1st
Britain: 19th – 6th (Wet Qualifying)
Germany: 1st – 1st (Changeable Qualifying & Race Conditions)
Hungary: 5th – Ret
Belgium: 19th – 3rd (Changeable Race Conditions)
Italy: 16th – TBC (Wet Qualifying)

I’m considering changing my RBR seat. I’m getting a lot of team orders. My dirty double crossing team mate is very rowdy and humiliates me when I’m saving fuel and tires, and sometimes when I’m in the loo.

Race 15: Japan
Qualifying: 24th – Race: 18th
In what was without doubt the hardest qualifying session of the year, I finished last, 7 tenths slower than the car in front of me. However, it was di Resta who started last, due to a penalty earned in qualifying. For once I decided to try something different and start on the hard compound, and despite this disadvantage I overtook several cars on the first lap to reach 17th place, which became 16th when Ricciardo retired, just to become 17th again when Vergne overtook me and to become 16th once more when the Frenchman pitted. I stopped on lap 8 and to my own surprise I was 18th and ahead of both Caterhams, Marussias and de la Rosa. My team mate, in fact, overtook Kovalainen and chased me albeit ten seconds behind me, and was the last car not to be lapped. I finished 18th, but the race winner was for the first time Sergio Perez, who decided to make my life harder after I selected him as my rival; Kobayashi finished second to give Sauber a one-two.