Grand Prix World 1998: The Tyrell Challenge Part 30

 The Era of Deception: The 2001 Australian GP

Welcome back to the Tyrell Challenge. I hope you are up to speed, there's a preseason chapter for that. Now ... do not expect a good result like in the 2000 Australian GP. At the time, we only had the Big 3 ahead and we outperformed Sauber for reasons. This time there are 5 teams ahead. Less chances for good results. While that seems bleak, not everything is what it seems around here.

We are higher than we started last year, closer to the Big ... 5 ... Top 5. That means we'll get there quicker, with less upgrades. Expect Engine Power upgrades for Brazil and Argentina, so we can get closer. Then the first true, big upgrade on Spain, France, Germany, Italy and maybe Japan.

Say hello to everyone that's new. We hope to fill some of the Driver stats columns with numbers. Preferably double digit numbers on everything but Pos.

Just this news flash. No retirements it seems.

An extra $1m is good enough. Thanks FIA.

Let's set things up quickly here. Here's the Hospitality setup. I will reduce the priority to 5% so we can deal with our Sponsor Negotiations quicker.

Big preseason test so we can figure out how our car performs and improve some of the components.

Maybe I should have maxed it out, considering it is preseason after all ... doesn't matter.

As usual, our Driving Aids carry over. The Technology parts are all right. Priority right now is making the Suspension be usable. Reliability to 3 and Performance to 4 or 5 is my usual before I won't on anything else (I'm looking at you, Brakes)

OK, here's the new Spec 01B engine, or at least how it'll look like. Took some points from Fuel and Heat and gave them to Power. Will need another remap to get full power, though.

We have a Works deal with Shell. Said deal allows us to Control R&D. That means that we can turn the testing points into both Remapping AND Improvement points, as you can see.

Here's the result. I added 2 points to Performance (Contrary to what I said in the past, + Performance = + Fast, not Fuel Efficiency). The 02A Spec will arrive for Brazil.

Same thing here. FIVE points of improvement for the Tires!

2 Grip points and 3 Temperature points make this Hard tire spec easier to use.

Thanks to the fact that the Factory is bigger now, we can hire more people, up to 100 per department, of different qualities. Now, some are more cost efficient than others, Good and Average personnel tend to be the most cost efficient. But for now, the mission is filling up the ranks. We can fire and hire different personnel when we reach 100 people.

We can also build the other facilities. The least important I think is the Wind Tunnel, since you can hire a Level 1 Wind Tunnel anyway. The most important I think is the Test Rig, since it improves the results of Testing, which means you end up using less cash.

Here we go then, the season opener at Melbourne, the other Australian street circuit. A solid opener, will expose the ill handling cars, as well as those with poor reliability. We don't suffer those issues ... mostly. We should be fine. Pace is the only concern.

That's why I dumped nearly all of our points into the "Dust" rating, more Grip, Overtaking and Defending Ability and less driver errors. "Heat" helps us protect the Mugen-Honda and the brakes.

Mika Salo got hosed by Benetton. Anyway, here's your Official Competitors List.

I know, I know, this looks bad, even compared to the 8th-10th we got last year. However, this is better than it seems. Don't let the positions trick you. Look at the time difference ... let me calculate the time difference. 

Diniz is 0.885s off the pace. Heidfeld is 1.678s off pace.

Last year, Takagi was the faster guy, 1.9s off the pace. Diniz was 2.265s off the pace.

Conclusion: We didn't fall back. We advanced. It's just that there's more dudes ahead of us.

Simple Juan stop strategy. We'll try to do the long 1 stop today, maybe we can overcut people.

P9 and P10 is a solid result, all right. A lap down, yes, because race winner Jan Magnussen(!!) did a 1 stop, just like us. That's why we beat Mika by nearly 30s. MSC had a meh race. Williams is back. We had Benetton caliber pace for a good portion of the race.

Poor Tora.

Don't put too much stock in this.

Or into this.

We won't be making $2m a race this go around, Takagi isn't here to give us all the money of Japan.

Now, I did not show the Australian GP News Flash for a simple reason, I don't want to show just yet who was signed by who. I will show the news flash on the next chapter.

Finally Auto Gears level 2. Auto Gears helps with Engine Reliability, so I don't really have to focus on it too much. There is the chance for RNG Engine blow ups, I'll be careful.

With a durable enough Suspension made (Which we'll need because Brazil wrecks cars), time to buff up the Clutch Reliability.

Here's something funny. Bridgestone quickly supplied us with a Spec 02A of their own ... however, the Spec 02A made by us is FAR superior.

Solid day of testing ... mostly because I put 350(!!!) miles because I had to save some mechanics times in order to patch up the cars.

Fast Corner Oversteer. Low grip at high speed tracks. Interlagos is slow speed, so we should be safe. Still, we need that fixed. We'll suffer at Imola.

Here's the future 01C Spec engine. Full Power hours!

Time to work on the Softs. This one is nearly the Ultimate Soft, which is what I like to call Max Ratings components.

And here's the 03A Spec Fuel. 1 tick of Performance and Tolerance. Tolerance reduces Engine Heat, which ... we could have used for Interlagos ... whatever, the deed is done.

Yup, the cars were so wrecked that we had to resort to use Car 4 right away. Just know that having a Works deal is not fun when you want to upgrade EVERYTHING quick. When everything is up to Spec though ...

Here's the typical checkup on the Share prices ... $200k+ is great for us for the start of the year! Business be blooming!

Here's what we are looking at in terms of Sponsorships. I called EVERYONE. Well ... every Team Sponsor, every Works Engine supplier: Merc, Ferrari, Ford. Peugeot was not available as they had long term deals. Instead I called Hart just for fun. Both Tire suppliers and every Works Fuel supplier ... aka just Shell. Also, a few Level 5 Cash Sponsors. 

I brought 2 Sponsor Advantages with us, which means we'll probably have a Works engine deal right away. Then we'll prioritize the Team, Tires, Fuel and Cash.

That's it for this chapter. Next up is Brazil, with quite unpredictable weather and AI DNFs, as well as Argentina, a meh track for us, but that could change with the Full Power "V-TEC" Mugen-Honda. What will happen? Who will be the new Engine supplier? And what about the Tyrell Number 1 driver? All that next chapter.

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