Grand Prix World 1998: The Tyrell Challenge Part 1

As mentioned in the original posts, I have many plans for this blog. One of those plans originally came to be thanks to the recently released F1 Manager 2022. Now, my PC isn't close to be top end ... or mid range ... or even low end ... It is a potato with a bunch of wires and a monitor attached to it. So instead, I turned around and looked for one of the best F1 management games every to be created. Roll that intro, boy.

Yep, this is Microprose's Grand Prix World. Not your typical Grand Prix World, either. This version has been remastered by Meanie, who shall be called Lord Meanie around this blog for keeping this game relevant. I'm totally sure there's more people to credit for this remaster, but I can't find the readme for it. There are also Season Mods that I'll get into eventually, specially 2022 (unless 2023 comes along first) and 1994.

Anyway, most of the OGs that know this game well know that this game can be quite hard, even more so on a low budget team. And if this is your first seeing content about this game, well, just know that this game can be quite hard, even more so on a low budget team. I could make this so much easier on myself by selecting a good, good team. There's a good selection of those in 1998. However, as seen by the title, I won't be going the easy route.

So you have chosen death: Tyrell's fight to survive

This team nowadays is known as Mercedes ... I won't put the whole name because I don't know the full name. They are pretty good F1 Team. Back here, in 1998 ... they were not. They were about to disappear.

The Tyrell F1 Team was about to die, but got saved thanks to a big cash injection from a company by the name of British American Tobacco. The big cash injection was a result of BAT buying the whole damn team. The result was the team known as British American Racing, eventually went on to become the Honda works team, Brawn GP, then the Mercedes Benz works team. All of that thanks to a powerful cash injection and years of work ... and occasionally, years of suck.

We won't have that luck. That extra cash that saved Tyrell F1? It won't happen in this universe. From the moment we start, we will be screwed.

The job of a manager in a backmarker F1 team in this era is simple ... keep the team alive, no matter what. That's what I must do. Somehow, someway, I must keep Tyrell F1 alive for as long as possible. There's a plan for this, let me explain

• Year 1: SURVIVE!!!
• Year 2: Survive, but less intense. Start increasing the cash money flowing in.
• Year 3: Start building up the team by hiring quality department heads, increase the quality of our suppliers
• Year 4: Keep increasing the quality of the team, most notably Works deals. Success could start happening at this point.
• Year 5: Start contending for something.

That seems like a nice plan ... except that it is a plan, we'll have to improvise on everything. That said, there's one thing that I must note: That year 1 blueprint? It is more desperate than the text implies.

Minardi and Tyrell are the toughest teams to manage, simply because they have minimal cash to work with, Minardi even more so for reasons I'll describe later. Let's begin:

So, here's the main screen. We can see our current Balance which ... is concerning. We can see the big, important personnel we have hired, such as drivers and department chiefs. The quality of them is ... equally concerning, though at least the department chiefs are alright.

The Driver Lineup

I will explain many things through this playthrough, but I will explain them when they become relevant to us, most likely in season 2. So things like Car Setup, Development, Facility Upgrades, things a midfield or better team does ... we won't be concerned with them. What we'll focus on first is our personnel. Admire the talent, skill and ability of our drivers:

Ricardo "Tosser" Rosset and Toranosuke "Goatakagi" Takagi, with Andrea Montermini as the test driver. These scrubs are not here to win races. They are not here to fight for points. They are not here to make a name for themselves, nor they are here to elevate the name of Tyrell. They are here to make sure we don't drown in debt.

Our two main drivers are Pay Drivers. They buy a seat on the team, and will pay us as long as they are on that seat. While not the most effective way to make cash on a functioning team, we are NOT a functioning team. Low midfield and back marker teams NEED Pay Drivers to survive. These two fools will pays us a combined $10.7m. As we will see: This isn't that much. Montermini IS costing us money, but that's small change even for a tiny team like us.

The Department Managers

The only reason, other than having drivers, that we can operate correctly is thanks our 4 departments.

• The Commercial Department: Handles sponsorship, race hospitality and licensing deals. The most important department for backmarker teams, as the bulk of the team's funding comes from sponsors. Not only that, but they will secure supplier deals as well. And you can't compete without Engine, Tires and Fuel suppliers!
• The Design Department: Will handle the design of improved parts, both mechanic and aerodynamic parts. They will also handle the design of the car for the future season. The second most important department for backmarker teams. You can't compete without a car that meets the regulations!
• The Engineering Department: Will handle the construction of the newly designed parts, as well as spare parts for car repairs. They also handle the construction of new race cars, making them the 3rd most important department for backmarker teams. You need to build the designed car, you know!
• The Mechanics Department: Will handle test sessions, which provides the ability to develop the car and supplier components, as well as accelerate research, improve car setup and repair wear and damage incurred during races. They will also handle pit stops during race weekends, and can do more actions, but that isn't relevant to us backmarkers. Not as important, but still relevant. We need to deploy 2 cars to be able to compete.

Each department also has a manager, or chief as I like to call them. Ranked in a scale from 1 to 5, they act as a boost to the overall performance of the department. The Technical Director (Chief Engineer) and Chief Designer, in particular, will be critical to the design of our race car of the future.

Technical Director Harvey Postlethwaite and Chief Designer Mike Gascoyne are THE reason why a Tyrell campaign is potentially easier than a Minardi campaign. They are ranked Level 3, which is solid, but the salary and bonus they command is very low. In simple terms, they are Level 3 chiefs with a Level 2 salary. The mission will be to resign them, quickly. The campaign relies on them coming back. If not, you'll be forced to hire Level 2 chiefs that aren't that good.

As for our Chief Mechanic and Commercial Manager ... they exist ... They are Level 2 Chiefs, there's not much to know about them. Just know that, while they don't have to improve now, they must to if we ever want become a good team.

I will be making calls to see who's available. One thing to note is that, in this universe ALL contracts end in 1998, so everyone is a free agent at the end of the year. I will go into more detail later in the post.

The Design, Engineering and Mechanics Department: A Sneak Peek

Here's the Mechanics Department, the Car Maintenance part of it. Here we'll see the status of our cars, both in terms of Car Wear (which happens due to just driving) and Car Damage (occurs due to crashes or when Wear is 100%). We have 3 cars available, we could build a 4th one. We don't have cash for 4th car though. Car 1 and 2 will be our race cars for the first weekend. I will keep updating this tab for many reasons, the biggest being that we won't be able to properly repair the Wear of the cars most of the time and I'll have to get creative with the 3rd car to survive the season. We might have to do some ... questionable stuff.

This is the Design department, here we can see the performance of the parts, as well as their reliability. We could also see the car's handling rating, which is basically the car's pace rating, but we have to do testing for that. Testing costs many moneys. We don't have MONEY. Don't worry though. At the end of this post, thanks to the power of save game editors, I'll post a chart that shows the true performance of the car based on it's handling, performance parts and engine. That will show you how terrible we are.

That said ... Our lack of performance is NOT the reason we will be in trouble.

The Commercial Department

If there's a department that's going to cause me headaches, it's this one, the Commercial Department. On the image you can see the basic details of the sponsorship deals we have. Basically how much we'll get on the year, how much we'll get per race, how many sponsors there are on the car and how much we actually got from our sponsors. After every race, I'll show you this screen and graph. You'll notice something alarming.

Those are the deals we have right now. Each Team has 6 Cash Sponsor slots, 1 Team Sponsor slot and 1 slot for each supplier, Engine, Tires and Fuel. As mentioned before, if we don't have the 3 supplier deals at the very least, that's it for us. Game Over. We can't let that happen.

Now, you might be thinking that $10.7m from our drivers, plus $7.6m ... $18.3m, that sounds all right. I don't see the issue.

That's because I have not shown everything, and the OGs know it.

This is the detailed sponsorship breakdown. This shows how much money we receive and, in case of suppliers, pay for each sponsor. Now, if you add all the positive values on this screen, you get $7.6m, exactly what the Annual Estimated Sponsorship value says, it didn't lie. That value, however, ignores that we are paying Ford, Goodyear and Elf to use their supplies. If we take that into account, our True Annual Estimated Sponsorship plummets to $550k, negative. This specific combination of sponsors and supplier is costing us half a million, over the year. And while it doesn't sound so bad, there are many things an F1 team needs to operate, like paying salaries, constructing spare parts, traveling to race weekends.

This is why the Pay Drivers are so critical. This $-550k turns into $10.2m positive thanks to the pay drivers ... which still isn't enough for continued existence, but it's better than nothing.

This is the Banking screen, a tab we might visit frequently. Other than our current balance, it shows a comparison between the money we expect to gain next year due to sponsorship deals and pay drivers, minus the money we've made this year. The result is how much money we expect to make next year, if we keep our costs like this year. As you can see, we are expected to make $16m next year for reasons that will be announced on the next post. We've also used $178k so far, making a few spare parts, three to be specific.

There's another factor to consider in terms of Revenue.

We will be getting some of the money the FIA makes out of the TV sponsorship deals. $3m for the whole year. Which isn't a ton. Not only that, but the FIA plays favorites. This extra funding isn't based on our finishing position last year, it isn't a cash prize. It is, instead, based on how much the FIA likes the team. Teams that perform well and aren't trying to create chaos due to complains about races or regulations are good, teams that are terrible or start complaining are bad. The top teams, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, those guys are in good standing in the FIA. We are bad and are NOT in good standing with the FIA. This will change as the season moves along, but we need to perform decently. The FIA cash can be a good boost.

The Big Deals: Team Sponsors and Engine Suppliers

As I've said before, we need 3 supplier deals to survive. Ideally, we also need a Team Sponsor, because they pay more money than any other sponsor. However ...

... there are only 7 Team Sponsors, and they are more likely to sign with a top team than a bad team, like us. I'll try to call Red Bull and see if we can get a deal going. They'll probably turn us down, however.

In that case, we can still have a Team Sponsor, but they won't pay nearly as much as those guys up there.

Now, let's explain how engine suppliers work:

• Fuel: Higher means better fuel consumption, so we can load less fuel to complete a stint. Less fuel means faster car on race conditions.
  
• Heat: Higher means a better cooling system. We can push the engine more without it overheating. Overheated engines wear faster and lose power.
• Power: Simple, higher means more powerful engine, which means faster car. In fact, 1 point of power equals a 1% increase in Car Handling Rating.
• Reliability: Higher means that the engine is less likely to fail during the race. Similarly, we can push the engine more without it turning into a grenade.
• Response: Higher means a flatter torque curve, which in game translates into less driver errors. Higher response means the driver can be more aggressive on the throttle for extra pace.
• Rigidity: Lower means that the engine will vibrate when it runs at high engine speeds. This vibration goes through the chassis and can damage the rear wing, to the point of braking it. If the engine has low Rigidty, we won't be able to run higher RPMs, which will limit our Top Speed.
• Weight: It might have an effect on power, but what I'm sure of is that Higher rating means a lighter engine. A lighter engine won't heat up as much as a heavy engine.

 

 

You can make your own judgement about the engines, but my personal opinion is:

• Mercedes probably built the best engine on the grid, followed closely by Ferrari.
• Mecachrome, Mugen-Honda and Peugeot are on the second tier. Peugeot is the most balanced with a focus on cooling, Mugen-Honda is good on the peripheral ratings but it is down on power and reliability, while Mecachrome would be the best, with solid power and reliability, but will shake itself to death.
• Ford and Hart are Mugen-Honda, but even more extreme. Down on power, unreliable, but the other ratings are competitive. The difference is that Ford can evolve, Hart won't.

While logic would says that we should try to take Mercedes or Ferrari engines ASAP, they might not want to even talk to us because we are a terrible team. Instead, we must talk to other suppliers. There's another 2 factors to consider: a) Engine ratings will change at the end of the season, specially if the FIA orders an engine regulation change, b) Some supplier are considerably better at improving their engine and are more resistant to regulation changes.

Yep. Engine Suppliers have their own set of ratings. Fortunately, these ratings are common for all suppliers. In fact, the Cash rating is common for all sponsors. To explain:

• Cash: How much money this sponsor deals with. Higher means they will pay more money when a deal is secured. However, they take more time time negotiate with and, in the case of Suppliers, Higher Cash ratings means their Customer deals are more expensive.
• R&D: Exclusive to Suppliers, this rating pulls double duty. First, higher R&D means the supplier is better at developing and improving current technology. They are more likely to develop upgrades as the season progresses, and are likely to improve their supply in between season. Second, higher R&D means the supplier isn't as affected as others when it comes to regulation changes.

With this in mind, we can see that Ferrari and Mercedes are the best suppliers, Mercedes being the best. They are followed by Ford due to the high R&D, Peugeot and Mugen-Honda. Finally, Mecachrome and Hart are the worst suppliers. On that listing you can also see the type of deals available by each supplier, but I will talk more about those when a deal can be put together.

For now, we are done, this is the prologue to the season. Next post will be the season opener, the Australian GP.

Finally, I will show you 3 charts. The first shows the lineups and personnel for this year, the second will shot Team Sponsor, Suppliers with their R&D rating and type of deal, and the final chart will show current performance rating.

For easier identification, Tyrell will have an orange hue around its performance line. Can be helpful when they are difficult to see, like they are right now.

We are so bad.

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