Grand Prix World 1998: The Tyrell Challenge Part 22

Upgrade Nations Unite: The San Marino and Spanish GPs

Welcome back to The Tyrell Challenge. One of our departments is in absolute hyper drive. Last season the Commercial Department got us a tons of Sponsorship deals, and they are allowing us to SWIM in cash-money and I love it. The other departments have been average, as expected. The most notable planned event of today is a Car Aero Upgrade for the Spanish GP. How much we'll improve? Ask the Performance Chart.

Ferrari will also bring an upgrade for Spain, which technically is bigger than ours in raw numbers, but that's irrelevant. Look at the size of that Tyrell upgrade in chart form. LOOK AT IT! Two more upgrades and we might overtake Sauber!

Imola is a pretty fun track. Weather is usually stable, brakes suffer ... not sure why. We should be in and around the points this weekend.

I decided to experiment a bit. I decided to boost "Speed", to see if we can see better results. This will happen for the next 3 races. Also added points of "Braking" to improve ... Braking prowess.

Oh, rain. You know what this means. Stop the Count moments, start!

Diniz >> Mika, stop the count!

The Tosser >> The Mika, STOP THE COUNT!

Diniz & Takagi >>> The Michael, STOP THE F'ing COUNT!!

The count didn't stop. Still, Diniz > Frentzen confirmed. Let's see what we do during the race.

It will rain. At Imola. Not as Planned™

2 Stoppers for the boys.

... Just as Planned™. Ha! Haha!! Now, this could have gone a bit better, Diniz was in net P1, but The Mika ... is The Mika. No chance to hold him off. Villeneuve had a shot at winning this but ... well ...

Yeah ... Ford moment ...

I love the Points screen. We leave Imola scoring the 2nd most points of the weekend! Over teams better than us! Yes, yes, rain and all that. My comment would be ... who cares?

Heh ... I like the current standings. I HOPE the jinx doesn't reach us and only affect the Big 3 ... well .. Big 4, Sauber is better, and if they continue to fall ...

Only the Top 5 have points. Questions about competitiveness are being asked in the media and around the paddock.

Insert "Vince McMahon Money" meme here.

Ah, see. You see what would have happened had we chased the Works Goodyear deal? Tears!

I'm not concerned with Cash Sponsors ... for now. As for Tora ... I hope he can help them rebuild.

... we actually don't have that "Improved" Engine. It won't arrive this chapter. I THINK I glitched the game a bit due to my Engine Remaps. I'll find a way to fix it ... I hope.

Yep, our Commercial Manager is somewhat right. These could have been disastrous news.

First, a Throttle Reliability Upgrade. At some point soon, I'll have to stop building Part Upgrades, as I'm running out of Spares.

Second, we are on the final stage of our Aero Upgrade. Usually, it would take an extra round to fix this. However, there's no need to wait that round.

We can skip that phase by carrying over a the Research bar, and applying those Research points.

That single point is enough to allow us to Construct the Component. This boosts the Car Handling rating from 51% to 56%, a 5% boost. Had we completed the design completely, it would have jumped from 5% to 6% which ... just not worth it.

And now we can do our Test Plan, which resulted in a full Set-Up and Development bars.

Our next car issue is "High Pitch Sensitivity". In simpler terms "Rake Sensitivity". What this does is: Increase Suspension Wear (Not a concern, as Level 4 Suspension Reliability counters that), Reduced Overtaking Ability and Reduced Grip at high Wind Speeds/low Wind Setup Points. So, ideally we increase the Wind settings at the tougher tracks. It shouldn't be THAT big of a factor. The overtaking part IS the concern.

The Race Cars are totally fixed, I hope we don't have to rely on the T Car ... yes, there's a T-Car functionality in this game. Haven't had to rely on it since the guys haven't killed the car in Qualifying yet, and if they ever do, they will be fired on the spot, I swear to the GPW gods!

Uh-huh, Circuit de Catalunya will be the first track where we test out the new upgrades. It is the ultimate test track, so this should give us a decent test to our pace.

Yep, more "Speed". We definitely need that "Overtaking" point, considering Spain and our Chassis' ... uhhh ... shortcomings.

Diniz is just too much for Frentzen to handle for the 2nd Weekend in a row! Takagi was running Hard compound tires and was a no factor due to that. This is a data gathering race for Takagi.

So ... Diniz on a 2 stop, short first stint, long 2nd stint. The idea is getting a good race start, then holding on for the 2nd stint. And hopefully the guys ahead have issues.

Takagi's objective for today is simple. We need to know how good the 1 stop is for future seasons.

OK, we have to thank The Chin, David Coulthard, for holding Mika Salo in the pit lane. That allowed Diniz to jump him. Diniz then blocked for his life for about 10 laps to claim a point. Takagi ... well ... 1 stop wasn't as good as expected. Duly noted. Other than that ... Diniz had an elite start, jumping to 4th on the race start. He defended for a while, but McLaren be too quick for us.

I expect Diniz to climb up a bit, later on the season. Hopefully, same with Takagi. We must beat Salo, just like last year.

Points standings looking alright. Remember, P3 is our spot. We NEED to get up there. It will happen in due time. I hope.

I hope you are used to this message with 7 digit profits. I'll comment on it when it gets lower.

OK, interesting changes here. Fisi to Arrows is ... I like the move.

Team Enstone running out of cash, perhaps?

OK, we'll start the design of the new car ASAP. We'll take a look at those regs a bit later in the season, when the technology regs are released.

That's the Level 2 Traction Control, we'll take that, thank you Design department.

And that's a Reliability Upgrade for our Brakes.

The Test Day was effective, I think.

Design has started now. Clearly, the Design process benefits us.

Oh, that deal is SOOOOO close!

The Shell deal IS done, however. That's something less to worry about.

Yup ... we are talking to MasterCard.

At this point, I figured out that there was a glitch or something. So, to see if we can free those engines, I decided to mod up the 01D Engine Spec (Which we never received). It is well rounded, so this is a good race engine I think. We'll see if, after Monaco, the game allows me to use that 01E Engine AND allows me to start Remapping the 02A Engine Spec.

That's it for this chapter. Next chapter, Monaco, where late DNFs always change the race results, and Canada, which I'll never forget again.

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