Abu Dhabi GP Simulation - F1 2011

It's that time again F1 fans and friends! My F1 2011 simulation of the Abu Dhabi GP at Yas Marina has begun! Day 1 is complete and here are my results so far:

Team: Red Bull
Driver: Mark Webber

DAY 1
FP1
Weather: Dry
P1 1:40.738 prime - (white/medium) tires

FP2
Weather: Dry
P1 1:40.483 - prime (white/medium) tires

Update with Day 2 FP3 and Qualifying results coming soon (probably tomorrow)!


UPDATE 11/7/11

DAY 2
FP3
Weather: Dry
P1 1:40.225 - prime (white/medium) tires

QUALIFYING
Weather: Dry
Q1 - P1 1:39.828 - prime (white/medium) tires
Q2 - P1 1:38.528 - option (yellow/soft) tires
Q3 - P1 1:38.962 - option (yellow/soft) tires

Pole position for race day! Woo! Update with race day results coming soon!


UPDATE 11/8/11

RACE DAY
Weather: Dry
Laps: 55
Results:
1st - WEB (me) 1:34:29.258, Fastest Lap 1:39.014
2nd - BUT +2 laps
3rd - VET +2 laps

Yeah...I think I need to up the AI to professional, at least at this track, lol. I beat Button by a tad over 4 min, lapping him twice lol. I did well this race to check the tire strategy before the start - they had me set for opt, opt, opt, prime, and considering the tire bug, I adjusted it to opt, opt, prime, opt. Now, I'm not sure if I fell victim to the bug anyways, because I had 3 option stints even though they weren't consecutive, or if my third set of options were just scrubbed cuz I was low on tires, but the last stint on the scrubbed options was interesting with the tires being in the red the last 5 laps lol. Even though it didn't save me in the wear department, I think putting my option stint where I did was one of the reasons I had such a large lead by the end. Anyways that was my first time redoing the tire strategy and it all worked out fine so I feel much more confident about doing that in future races if it becomes necessary. I need to think about being more careful with my option tires in qualifying, perhaps doing an out +2 and in strategy in Q2, and maybe Q3 also...I can always go back out in the last 10 min or so if need be. I think I could still set P1s in the first 2 Qs without so many laps, and then I wouldn't get myself into so much trouble come race day hehe.

So that's all for my Abu Dhabi sim. I am very excited to see how I stack up to the real race times after this weekend. I'll be back with a comparison blog of course. It is worth noting...I beat Sebastian Vettel's still standing 2009 race lap record by 01.265...I am feeling good about my chances against real life this time! :)


UPDATE 11/9/11

Something else interesting has come to my attention as I looked over my sim data and times from last year. Aside from beating Seb's fast race lap record that he set in 2009, I beat his total race time from 2010 by 5:07.579...FASCINATING! But when we look at the 2009 race where the fast lap was set? Well that's not so amazing...Seb beat my sim race time by 25.844. And my time would only have gotten me 5th. Hmm. Of course, what gimmicks did the cars have that year? I can't remember. I'd say last year is much more indicative of what to expect this year. And if things go like last year, I will be the race winner by a mile and hold the new fastest Yas Marina lap record!!! Will my times hold up? We will find out this weekend!

Buddh International Time Trial - F1 2011

Since we JUST had the inaugural Indian GP, I decided to go back and run a time trial at Buddh International for comparison to the fastest times from this year's GP. When I ran the numbers I got some surprises.

My Fastest TT Lap
Team: Red Bull 
Sector 1: 27.324
Sector 2: 26.360
Sector 3: 30.584
TOTAL: 1:24.270

Fast Lap Record
-0:02.979 VET 2011

2011 Best Sector Times
Sector 1: -13.685 HAM
Sector 2: +4.134 VET
Sector 3: +9.909 VET

2011 Fastest Lap
+0.092 VET Q3

It's that last one in particular, the fastest 2011 GP weekend lap, that REALLY burns me. I lost to the real Sebastian by just NINE HUNDREDTHS OF A SECOND. It's gnawing at me, because I'm pretty sure I can find that teeny bit of time to beat him! Wish I could have been this quick in qualifying during my sim, too...theoretically if I had been fast enough to make real life Q3 and turned it during my sim Q3 session, it would have been good for 2nd on the real grid, beating Hamilton by two tenths of a sec and some change hehe! Ah well...woulda coulda shoulda!!!  The biggest surprise for me was the sector times. Clearly my setup and style gave me a MASSIVE advantage in sector one (probably didn't hurt that I was dumping 100% of the KERS with the DRS open down the back straight after turn 3 lol). But WOW was I SLOOOW in the other 2 sectors! Its crazy that I was so fast in the first that it made up for the rest THAT MUCH. Crazy!

Yas Marina Time Trial - F1 2011

Started my 'simulator' runs to begin prep for my simulation of the Abu Dhabi GP by doing some time trial-ing at the Yas Marina track. Some interesting data came out of my session today when I compared my fastest lap with real life driver performances at this track. First, my fast lap info:

Team: Red Bull
Sector 1: 17.573
Sector 2: 40.870
Sector 3: 38.606
TOTAL: 1:37.050 

Now to compare what I did to the official track lap record, and last year's real driver performances: 

Lap Record
-0:03.229 VET  

2010 Best Sector Times
Sector 1: +0.176 VET 
Sector 2: -1.493 BUT
Sector 3: -0.793 VET

2010 Fastest Lap
-0:02.344 VET Q3
  
 Not bad! 3 seconds faster than the track fast lap record, and I shattered Seb's 2010 Q3 time by 2 seconds! This was my first time driving the track, but I seemed to get the hang of it pretty quick. I still have some work to do on getting turns 2 & 3 right consistently, but other than that I got things pretty well nailed down. Very fast, fun, and busy track. Looking forward to doing the full race weekend there! I'll come back and update with a comparison to this year's real life times after the race...


UPDATE 11/13

2011 Best Sector Times
Sector 1: +0.165 VET
Sector 2: -0.987 VET
Sector 3: -0.280 HAM

2011 Fastest Lap
-0:01.384 HAM Q2
 

Grand Prix of India F1 2011 Sim to Real Life Comparison

Driving as Mark Webber for Red Bull-Renault, this is how I stacked up against the top session time, my Red Bull teammate, and the real Mark Webber. I'll be comparing both my time in the session and my fastest lap time overall to the real results from each session. Times rounded to nearest 1/10 of a second for comparison.

FP2
(comparison made only to my fastest lap time from Q2, since I didn't record my FP1 & 2 times, and dynamic weather gave me rain in the first 2 practices)
+0:01.4 MAS
+0:01.3 VET
+0:00.6 WEB

FP3
Session
+0:03.6 VET
+0:03.2 WEB

Fastest Lap
+0:02.3 VET
+0:01.9 WEB

QUALIFYING
Q1
Session
+0:01.9 VET
+0:01.6 WEB

Fastest Lap
+0:00.9 VET
+0:00.6 WEB

Q2
Session
+0:02.4 VET
+0:01.8 WEB

Q3
Session
+0:03.2 VET P1
+0:02.9 WEB P3

Fastest Lap
+0:02.9 VET
+0:02.6 WEB

REAL LIFE QUALIFYING POSITION
18th
(15th if Q1 time had put me in Q2, 19th /16th if not replacing the real Mark Webber)

I'm pretty sure my lost time could be found in the following places:
-more optimal use of DRS & KERS
-steering wheel control instead of thumbsticks
-custom setup instead of 'engineers's special' dry preset

Not a bad performance, all things considered. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! The closest I came to real life was against the real Mark Webber in Q1, followed very closely by Q2, where I set my fastest lap of the weekend.

Hoping to come back and update with a total race time and fastest race lap comparison after the race tomorrow!



UPDATE 10/30/11

RACE
Race Time
+0:00:11.1 VET P1
+0:00:02.7 BUT P2
-0:00:13.2 ALO P3
-0:00:14.4 WEB P4
-0:01:13.0 HAM P7

Fastest Lap
+0:01.1 VET
+0:00.9 WEB
+0:00.430 BUT
+0:00.444 ALO
-0:00.3 HAM

I threw Hammy in just for fun hee hee...

REAL LIFE FINISHING POSITION
P3

FAST LAP
5th

Wow. Pleasantly surprised by those results! Did not think I would make the podium. Must have been consistently faster over all the laps than Alonso, probably in sector 2 or 3. To put it in perspective, I beat Alonso by a larger margin than Vettel won by. :)

I'm definitely going to do this whole sim & compare thing again for the remaining races. It was really interesting and a lot of fun finding out how I did and how I theoretically might have qualified and finished. I think I will go back and do the races from earlier this season too...Give me something to do during the off season! Lol

Grand Prix of India Full Race Weekend Simulation - F1 2011

I've decided to have a little fun ahead of the inaugural Indian GP by doing a long race weekend simulation of the event in my F1 2011 game. It is my custom to do a race driving for my favorite team (Red Bull Racing) ahead of the real race weekend; it really enhances the real event, at least for me, when I've spent time driving the track, so that come race day I know the whole layout and all of its nuances. Much more enjoyable than being just a spectator. This simulation of the Indian GP is, however, my first time doing the FULL race weekend: all 3 practices, knockout qualifying, and then race day. It will also be my first time running the full 100% race distance. So far it has been interesting and quite fun! I have been doing the different events leading up to the race on different days, as they are done in real life; FP1 & 2 were yesterday, and then today I had FP3 & qualifying. Full race will be tomorrow. The results so far:

DAY 1
FP1
Weather: Rain
Result: P1

FP2
Weather: Rain
Result: P24
(Note: my position was a result of the as yet unpatched intermediate tire bug, which allows the AI to set times that should not be possible on intermediate tires)

DAY 2
FP3
Weather: Dry
Result: P1-1:28.362 prime (white) tires

QUALIFYING
Weather: Dry
Result: P1 Pole
Q1-P1 1:28.117 prime (white) tires
Q2-P1 1:27.065 option (yellow) tires
Q3-P1 1:27.432 option (yellow) tires (scrubbed, from previous session. Selected because of low tire availability)

So there you have it, folks. Pole position for race day! The way things stand I have two sets of fresh options and 2 sets of fresh primes. I'm a little nervous about how far I can get on the scrubbed options from qualifying but I think scrubbing one of the two remaining fresh sets I had at the start of Q3 would have been worse. We'll see what happens! I will of course come back and update this blog once the race is completed. I'm also thinking of posting the top times from the real life qualifying and race, just for fun. Wonder how bad my times will be in comparison lol...



UPDATE 10/27/11

RACE
Laps:60
Weather: Dry
Result:
1st WEB (me)
2nd MAS
3rd VET
Time: 1:30:46.069
Fastest Lap: 1:28.397 (on scrubbed options from Q)

A win for me and Red Bull woo!!! And everything went exactly as I hoped. I pulled a Seb for this race, getting out front into the clean air and never looking back! Never lost the lead hehe. Hope this brings good luck to Mark for the real Indian GP. My boy deserves a win. I'll be back with an update on the real life timing comparison...

F1 2011

F1 2011. The official video game of Formula 1 racing. My new video game crack of choice. Not surprising when you take into account my obsession with real life Formula 1 racing. Now, rather than just watch on TV, I get to live it. From the instant I started my career and climbed into my virtual car, it was LOVE. And I'm not even racing for Red Bull yet!!!

After a few races, though, it became clear to me that I hadn't quite found the sweet spot yet with my difficulty settings. It's no fun if you always win without any real fight. And I was definitely doing entirely too well with my back of the pack Virgin ride. Now, I fully own up to using assists. ABS, TCS, dynamic racing line, auto gearbox. I have neither the time, the patience, nor the real skill it takes to learn to drive a Formula car with the training wheels off. I'm ok with that. I also realize that I needed to strike a nice happy medium between realism and what my skills can handle. Amateur AI difficulty was too easy. And 3 lap races weren't enough to fulfill the experience I craved.

Putting career mode aside, I decided to play with the settings while racing in Grand Prix mode. I wanted to see if there was something harder than my mostly too easy experience so far that could still avoid the frustration of being too hard for me, yet be close enough to the F1 experience that I love watching unfold on TV every race weekend to suit me. I'm very happy to say that I think I found that sweet spot within the difficulty settings. I have to applaud Codemasters for building the game in a way that made all this possible. It can be tuned to to suit everyone from the n00b that just wants to fly around the track for a few laps and have fun, to the hardcore ultra realism sim racer that wants to spend hours on detailed setup and scrape through 50-70 laps for a real accomplishment. I love that I can have what I need to make it accessible to me, and yet every bit of Gran Turismo/Forza-like fine tuning and difficulty challenge is there if you want it. Every racing game should be built this way.

To start, I upped the AI to intermediate. I do want a challenge, just one that allows me to recover from my more minor mistakes. Increasing race distance to 20% and turning on tire simulation brings pit stops and tire management into the mix, a part of the experience I absolutely want to have, as well as giving me a decently long race without it being too long. Damage sim to full. Penalties reduced. With those new pieces in place, I took a deep breath and climbed in behind the wheel of Mark Webber's RB7. The difference was immediate, and I would have had a great well earned win if not for Jenson Button cutting me off through a turn and me getting a penalty that turned my spectacular 1st place into 4th. RAWR. Aside from winding up 4th, THIS was the experience I wanted!

Just one more experiment needed to be run, which brings us to my play session this evening. It occurred to me after my great race for Red Bull the previous evening that I should take one of the Virgin (my current career mode team) cars for a spin in GP mode with the newly adjusted difficulty settings. Being a lower tier car, I wanted to make sure that making the same difficulty changes in career mode would not jeopardize my progress. If it didn't go well, I would make the changes AFTER I moved up to a better team. As it turns out, I think I had the most fun I've had with this game so far during this experiment. I went straight to race day, since I would get a somewhat random grid assignment that would reflect where my car might end up realistically. 20th on the start grid, out of 24. How well I could manage to finish really would tell me a lot starting from 20th. Before I did my obligatory pit to switch to the faster option tires that would take me through the remainder of the race, I had gotten up to a stunning 9th! Oh yes, this was much harder than before. I was battling, scrapping with the other teams at my level, looking to see just how high I could reach, and loving EVERY SECOND. When I finally crossed the finish line, checkered flag waving after 11 laps of pure fun and epic fights with so many drivers I know and love, I came in 13th. And I was ELATED. 13th from a 20th place start! 7 place improvement! It's not often you find a game where 13th from 20th feels like a win, where you feel like you really accomplished something with that 13th rather than just feeling frustrated that it wasn't 1st. The experience was so perfect, so full of all that makes F1 great, that my epic backfield duel and high (for a Virgin car) finish was every bit as sweet as standing on the top step of the podium.

So, yes my experiment was a success, and I look forward to the fun that lies ahead for me in F1 2011's career now that I've got my settings dialed in. It is my hope that I can, with more practice, get to at least the next difficulty, do longer races (for the sake of getting more out of the tire sim and on track battling), and be able to drive well under realistic penalty conditions. If not though, I am very happy with the way things are now. I'm just chomping at the bit to finally sign up for a seat with Red Bull-Renault. *wink*

Where I Have & Have Not Been

Didn't write this... If only I were so clever! Too funny not to share.

"WHERE I HAVE & HAVE NOT BEEN.

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.



I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.



I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.



I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore."

lol