Grand Prix World 1998: The Tyrell Challenge Part 20

 Overperformance is back: The 2000 Australian GP

Welcome back everyone. We here at Tyrell are all getting for the 2000 season opener. I recommend you read the Preseason chapter, a link here on this entire line.

Read it? Good. Don't think you need it? Well, that's good too.

Let's get back to the regular schedule, here's the performance chart.

Good ol' performance chart. We'll populate this chart as the season goes along. Hopefully we climb up quickly, very quickly. I aim to bring upgrades at Spain, France, Germany and Italy.

As mentioned before, Nick Heidfeld will be taking over the Driver 2 seat over Takagi. That means we have an opening on the Test Driver seat. There are a few options available. I will reveal who got signed soon enough.

250 Testing Miles is TOO MUCH ... most of the time. This is Preaseason Testing, however. I'll run as many miles as possible. You'll notice we are doing Engine Testing now. That'll be relevant in a moment.

Yep, full bars all around, including the Engine bar.

51% Handling rating is ... I mean, it is alright. I wanted 60-ish%, but that's the best our current Tech. Director and Chief Designer could come up with. The Technology is good all around. Throttle reliability is a bit sus, but we can improve that.

OK, that Engine Testing bar. Last year we signed a 2 year, Partner deal with Mugen-Honda. After some extensive negotiation, we managed to get 2 bonuses. The first was a sponsorship cash bonus, the second, more important, is R&D Assistance. On the "Engine Contract" section, you'll see the "R&D: Assist"? That means we can do Engine Testing, get points and use those points to "Remap" the engine. I can trade points from a certain rating or ratings and put them on another rating.

So, what I did for this engine is take 2 points from Fuel, 2 points from Heat, and put those 4 into Power.

And now Mugen-Honda will get on creating a new Engine Map to our specifications, using the same engine. That's the "in-universe" explanation, actually. We can easily explain this increase in Power as a richer fuel mixture, which also explains the lower cooling efficiency. I plan on creating a Qualifying Spec engine, trading some Reliability points for better Power and less Weight. Don't know how I'll explain the "less Weight" part, though. Also, keep an eye on the "Response" and "Rigidity" ratings. Those ratings are important for setting up the Driver Orders.

OK, the cars are perfectly clean. As expected.

I have plans to expand the size of the Factory. I have to remember to check this at Japan. I can order the construction of a better facility now, and spread out the cost of the thing over the whole season, or I can order it at the final GP and pay the thing on a single go. It is the same cost, no matter when you order it. I'd rather see how much cash we get at the end of the year, then decide how much I want to expand the factory.

Look at this. So many Sponsors! SO MANY!! However, some of these contracts will run out this season. Goodyear and Elf are the important ones.

Here are the bonuses I was talking about. We failed to get the 3rd Bonus. The 3rd Bonus is nothing critical, it just allows us to get the Remapped or Upgraded engines other teams make. I don't think Minardi has enough resources to develop a Remapped engine. They MIGHT have that 3rd bonus and will get to use that new engine we make. I don't mind.

Here's the Sponsorship setup we'll have. We want to max out the Red Bull Support bar, for extra cash. Also, I'm not sure how much cash we'll get this weekend. If I can confirm we'll tons more cash, as planned, then I can increase the effectiveness of the Hospitality by increasing the Catering and Celebrities ratings.

Finally, a quick overview of the sponsorships we'll need for next year. Tire and Fuel are the most important, then 4 Cash sponsors. Keep that in mind.

OK, enough chit chat. It's time to open the season at the Melbourne Street Track.

Track is fairly well round. We don't have to worry about the "Wind" rating punishing our car too much, as our car is a fairly decent now. Still, we want to reduce the effect of "Wind" ...

So, 1 point for "Grip", "Surface", "Braking", "Heat" and "Wind". That rounds out the setup nicely. We also need that "Heat" point. The current Driver Orders we have kinda heats up the engine, and I don't want that to happen. Speaking of Driver Orders ...

So, here are the orders. Let me explain what each does.

• Acceleration: Has the biggest effect on pace of all Driver Orders. Higher increases pace outright, but could overheat the Engine and increases Driver Errors. These Driver Errors can be reduced by either increasing Engine Response or a better Traction Control Driving Aid. Usually, I set this order to the same as the Engine Response during qualifying and push laps, and lower it by 2 points during the race.
• Braking: Best believe this doesn't affect pace. At least from my testing. Higher increases Overtaking ability, Brake Wear, and increases Driver Errors. The Errors can be reduced with a better Power Brakes Driving Aid. I usually set this to 2 under nominal driving, and only increase it when traffic is around.
• Top Speed: Second biggest effect on pace, the one with the least side effects when controlled properly. Higher increases pace, but overheats the engine and makes the engine vibrate more, which will cause the Rear Wing to be damaged. It can break too. I usually set this to the Engine Rigidity rating, and only increase it during Qualifying.
• Kerb Use: The final factor that affects pace, though not to the extend Acceleration or Top Speed do. Higher increases pace, increases Driver Errors and Suspension Wear. It should be noted that higher Acceleration, Braking and Kerb Use speeds up tire wear and makes it more likely the tires overheat. Driver Errors DEFINITELY overheat the tires, so less aggressiveness means tires last longer and overheat less. With that in mind, I usually set this to 4 under race conditions, 6 on push laps and higher in qualifying.
• Off Racing Line: Just like Braking, higher increases Overtaking ability. It also increases Driver Errors during Overtaking maneuvers, ranging from failed overtakes to SMASHING into the opponents. The lower the "Dust" rating, the more likely these Errors happen. Right here it is maxed out, since that's what I used last race. I'd usually keep this at 6, decrease when alone and there's nothing to fight for, increase when fighting action is going on.
• Line Defence: Simple, higher makes it harder for the driver to be overtaken. Good for holding positions, but that increases the likehood that the driver behind makes a mistake, crashes into the defender and now both are lacking a wing + signifcant damage on both cars. That's how we ended up with just 2 chassis instead of 3 in Season 1, which caused significant grief.
• Overtake: These do the same, basically. Higher increases the driver aggression when they try to pass people. This increases chances of overtaking, naturally. It also increases the likehood of overtaking mistakes, which were already explained.

So, with the Driver Orders already explained, it is time to race. The expectation for this season is fighting for a points finish every race. Will be difficult in these first few races, but by Germany the car should be upgraded and pointing every weekend.

Here's the competitor entry list. Rocking the numbers 5 and 6 thanks to Diniz being an absolute hero last year.

Nice weather to start the season. Hard tires on, so don't expect flashiness in the race.

Again, no flashiness, as expected. Top 10 starting position works. The 1 stop around this street track is good, we can work with that. At the front, Ferrari front row lockout. I hope you see where this is going.

Minardi is not manning the back row. Good for them.

Heh ... good weather. Let's go.

Top 2 for Germany. Points finish for Diniz, picking up right where he left off. He had to hunt down both Mikas along the way. Ran out of time to catch up to Alesi, but man was on it all day. Takagi ... he wasn't bad at all, he just wasn't good.

Minardi is still ... meh. Not a good showing for the Mugen-Honda powered bunch.

Initial points standings. Don't make too much of them.

Let the AAR begin, right after this.

Oh ... OH ... OH!! ... The cash influx! So much moneys!!

Thank you, Mugen-Honda. We'll make good use of those babies.

I'm calling people. Clearly Patrick Head thought Sauber was a better choice. I'm ... sorry.

Jordan?! And yes, there's Nick to Tyrell, as I told you earlier.

And there's our Test/Reserve Driver, eternal Test Driver Pedro de la Rosa.

So ... I told the guys to spy on the Williams cars and mechanics crew, hoping to find an Automatic Gears Driving Aid. Had we found it, it would have been a news report here. Sadly, they didn't find it. I guess we'll have to build it ourselves.

Right. So I put EVERYONE on building an upgraded Gearbox which ... well, it increases pace and that's it. I need to work on the reliability of most components, but before that, I'd work on the Performance of the Suspension (Better Suspension = Better Tire Performance) and Brakes (Better Brakes = Better Overtaking).

The advantages of having tons of cash is being able to run more Testing Miles.

So many points!

High Speed Understeer. So, High "Speed" = faster tire wear. That said, why are we adjusting the Rear Wing to fix this? Wouldn't we want a better Front End? But, whatever, I'm just the manager.

Here's the Remapped Engine. On the Specification, you can see this Power Unit is a MGH - V1000TY - 01B. Translating, a Mugen-Honda V10 for the year 2000, designed for Tyrell. This is the first engine, in its second configuration. This will be our race engine for now. Now we need a qualifying engine.

Like so. Transferred 2 Reliability points to max out the Power. The good thing is we can switch Engine Maps between Qualifying and Race. Well ... we can switch ENTIRE Engine Specs in between sessions. We just chuck a new engine in there. This is old timey rules F1. 1 engine per day.

Thanks to the massive influx of cash, I can maximize the Catering and Celebrities bars. That increases the effectiveness of our Hospitality, which makes Sponsors happy, which gives us even MORE money. I want more cash.

As you can see, I talked to both Bridgestone and Goodyear. Tire performance is quite similar this year, but I noticed nearly all top teams went Bridgestone. We are the top Goodyear team but ... Bridgestone looks good ... I might regret this, but I think I'll jump ship to Bridgestone. I'll use those advantages down there to blitz a Works deal.

Next, fuel suppliers. While I'd like to continue with Elf, their current fuel mixture left me ... confused. So I'm considering other suppliers, Shell and Mobil 1. I'll think about it.

Finally, cash sponsors. I want to keep Petronas on the team. Not sure if we'll be able to, since our personnel are kind of focused on Tyre and Fuel deals. We'll try, and try hard.

That's it for today. Next time, we go to America to the RNG track known as Interlagos, and F1's forgotten nation: Argentina. Until next time.

Like this content? Want to do something entirely optional and support it? Go right here, on this link:
https://ko-fi.com/jose21crisis