F1 2012 Season Challenge Mode

This was my experience with the Season Challenge mode, and what I discovered about how to win the WDC on Hard difficulty.

You can think of F1 2012's Season Challenge mode as "Quick Career". You have just one season of 10 races to try and win the Driver's Championship. Assuming you choose to play on the Hard difficulty setting like I did, you will get to choose one of the 3 lowest tier (tier 4) teams to start with: HRT, Marussia, or Caterham. Medium difficulty adds the next tier (tier 3) up, Williams, Torro Rosso, Sauber or Force India, while easy lets you choose any team. You advance through the team ranks by selecting a rival driver on the team you wish to join and beating them in a best two out of three races scenario. Conceivably you can get to a better team every two races with this format, affording you the opportunity to race with up to 5 different teams over the course of the season.

In keeping with the quick theme, your race weekend consists of one-shot qualifying (just one lap to do the best time you can) and a 5 lap race. You also only have the use of the engineer presets for your car setup. Due to parc ferme rules, this means you can only make an adjustment to your front wing before rolling out to go race. Its hard to meet the qualifying goals your team sets for you when you are in the lower teams because of this. Its a fair trade however since a front wing adjustment can make a massive difference in your race pace and that's what really counts in this mode.

My first time through, my career path was:

Caterham --> Williams (beat Maldonado) --> Lotus (beat Grosjean) --> Red Bull (beat Vettel)

In all cases, I was able to achieve the ideal outcome of beating my rival in back to back races to take their seat*. I reached a top tier team with 4 races still to go in the season. Now that I was with Red Bull Racing, winning races was a foregone conclusion. However, winning the Driver's Championship would not be. While I was tooling around in the lower teams working my way up, the top drivers, Alonso in particular, had been collecting a fair amount of points. I had only scored one win, with Lotus at Austin, and just one other podium, a P3. I only had a small handful of points in addition to that from my time at Caterham and Williams. I realize now that I could have won the championship by taking Alonso's seat at Ferrari after beating him in the rival challenge after my two races with Red Bull. But loving Red Bull I stayed there, and while I won all of those last 4 races, I lost out on the championship because Alonso collected enough points finishing 4th or so behind me to stay in the points lead. Mission failed, but I did come away from it knowing exactly what I wanted to try for my next playthrough.

(*Another important improvement for this years game is actually taking over for the driver you beat in a rival challenge, rather than defaulting to the number 2 driver seat with the number 1 driver still on the team, even if the number 1 driver was the rival you beat. ie If you choose Vettel as your rival and beat him, Mark Webber will now be your teammate, rather than getting Webber's seat by default when you join the team. Nice for us folks that care about which driver is our teammate.)

I noticed as I was playing through the first time that "number 2" drivers from the tier 2 teams were finishing within striking distance of my lower team during the course of the season, namely Grosjean and Rosberg. I had finished ahead of them when I was racing at Caterham. So I decided for my second play to pick Rosberg as my first rival (because I didn't have much success with the pace of the Lotus in my first play). If things unfolded in a similar fashion as last time, I could take his seat at Mercedes and after just two races be in a position to challenge a rival from one of the big 3 (Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari), effectively leapfrogging an entire tier and having a chance to take serious points off of a leading driver while gunning for their seat. I could potentially have a seat at a top tier team with a whole 6 races to go, rather than just 4.

My second playthrough path was:

Caterham --> Mercedes (beat Rosberg) --> Red Bull (beat Vettel)

The Mercedes was a vastly improved choice for me vs the Lotus. I was able to absolutely dominate with it in races 3 and 4, at Silverstone and Montreal respectively, bagging an unexpected 50pts. The silver arrow was particularly lights out at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Wow!

So, Rosberg beaten in two races to move from Caterham to Mercedes. Then Vettel beaten in two races to take his seat at Red Bull. I picked Vettel mainly because he was lagging in the standings and seemed easiest to pick off for my coveted Red Bull seat, but truthfully I wanted Webber as my teammate anyway. Webber was also the much stronger driver and so would be a big help taking points away from the drivers I was chasing in the championship. This time, I was going to a top team just 14pts adrift of championship leader Alonso. For insurance I chose him to be my rival. I win the next 4 races, then take 2nd at Hockenheim in the rain which is enough to mathematically eliminate all challengers and clinch the Driver's Championship with the final race at Abu Dhabi yet to be run. All without having to resort to stealing Alonso's ride at Ferrari.

I really really enjoyed my time with this mode. You get to enjoy the thrill of a season and moving up through the teams in a nice condensed format that is fabulous for those of us that don't have as much time to play. Now I'm not saying I would rather have this than the full career. What I am saying is this is an awesome thing to have available as an option when you want to play and don't have the time for one of your full career race weekends. Really good addition. Much more satisfying than simple quick race.

The path I've presented here is the easiest way. If you are looking for more of a challenge, pick either Marussia or HRT, as neither team has the use of the KERS system. Then try moving on to Lotus. I imagine it would be quite the gamble to see if you could beat either a Mercedes or a Lotus in one of those cars, but there you have it. I declare HRT/Marussia --> Lotus --> Ferrari the proper 'hardest' mode.