Grand Prix World 1998: The Tyrell Challenge Part 41

At the top of the world: The 2002 Brazilian and Argentinean GPs

Welcome back to The Tyrell Challenge, where I wrote "Argentinean" correctly on this go around. Also, we won the season opener at Melbourne and start this year LEADING both championships. Of course, don't put too much stock into the lead until ... I don't know, Canada or something like that.

OK, I know you are seeing those drops and thinking "WTH happened to the teams?!". Well, I updated my method of evaluating teams. Instead of using their theoretical performance (Which is what you see in the Preseason and Australia points), I'm now using their real performance, which I can get thanks to the game's built in telemetry (Not that useful for setup work BTW, don't get your hopes high) and some reverse engineering to remove the driver from the equation. This takes into account car performance, engine performance and fuel performance. Tire performance isn't taken into account on this one, as it masks the performance of Hard tire users. It does take into account the car's setup. I'll be posting the performance of the team's best car on the graph. As you can see, we are closer to Ferrari than Preseason testing showed.

That's great to see. Now, more points and wins please. Maybe a pole too.

You are probably used to this graph by now, but I decided to switch it up, now you can see the speeds at each corner. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depends on your unit system of choice, mine is metric) we have the speeds in Miles per Hour.

So, Brazil. Bumpy AF, hard on the engines as it is easy to overheat, rains a lot and it is VERY dusty. For our car with downforce issues, it is not a ... good track ... but we'll make do.

Most of our points in Dust, of course. Heat point to protect the engine, Rain in case the rain strikes.

That's a pole position, first of the year. Fisi just destroyed the field. 4 tenths over Villeneuve, 5 over Nick and A FULL SECOND over The Michael. Prost as best of the rest.

Juan ... come on ... it rained a bit, but that doesn't explain this. He did laps in the wet. He legitimately did not make the 107% laptime! Fisi was THAT quick.

It will rain in like the final 3 laps, rain always happens.

Typical 2 stop around here. I'll test the Scrub sets, which is ... not a good idea I found. Well ... it works on Damp conditions, like this one.

It was the Giancarlo Fisichella show all weekend. Nick helped a bit, mostly in terms of blocking the Ferrari drivers for a while, but by the end it was the Fisi v Ferrari show, an all-Italian affair. Fisi won. In the end it started to rain, and in an interesting case of team orders, Ferrari pitted Villeneuve on the second to last lap. Villeneuve was ahead of MSC, btw. We also pitted for Inters without losing time or positions.

It was also a F'ing demolition derby, as you can see.

Now Fisi takes the lead of this championship.

We have a solid lead up here. We could be overtaken next race, but it would require a Ferrari 1-2 PLUS a Tyrell No points finish.

A year earlier than it happened in real life, but it happened in the same track. Add Fisi to the list of F1 Race Winners.

Huh ... deal signings have started ... this will be a mess or will they be smart?

Lots of deals. I see lots of deals. MegaChin is back and Ferrari got their replacement for MSC. Trulli finally gets a seat again.

Probably the signing of the year, though we won't see true results of it until 2004. Aero Lord Newey will be on Tyrell. Who will stop us? I don't know.

Seriously ...

Updated suspension, to Level 5. Thank you very much.

We have reduced the intensity of our In Between Races testing, which results in the Fuel not being quite fuel. No problem. Fuel ain't that critical.

Car 3 isn't quite patched up, doesn't matter. Cars 1 and 2 are fine, and we still have Car 4.

Reliability is maxed out, and Heat rating extra points will let us run the engine at FULL power without it thinking about blowing up.

We need those Wet spec tires ready, let's start with the most used, the Inter.

Full performance points on the Fuel, Engine Tolerance is next, which will help the Heat rating too.

Look at the price of those shares. Remember when they were like $100k? So, so long ago.

Grip is low, Dust is a problem. We have low downforce. This ... isn't ideal. Let's hope to do fine here. Our only competition is Ferrari, of course.

No need to worry, so all in on Dust rating.

Front row lockout. 3 races, 3 front row starts. Let's keep this streak going.  The Ralf was ... off ... so was The Mika.

Heh ... everyone made the 107% rule.

OK, typical 2 stop ... I hope you are used to that, I think we won't use the Hard tires after Australia, you know.

NICK!! Fisi's first stint was not impressive, the Scrubbed tires were part of the reason I think, but he was slow on fresh rubber too. He was trying to hunt down MSC, but ran out of laps. Traffic kept getting in the way.

... Takagi ... I feel he's taken out a Ferrari earlier in this series ... he has done it in a series.

I hope it is clear to you that no team orders will take effect unless I consider someone else a threatening championship contender. MSC has not done anything to threaten us just yet. The minute he does ... well ... whoever leads the WDC will be driver 1.

In control of the WCC now.

I guess you can now tell why signing Adrian Newey is a good idea, we are getting so much cash!

The Tyrell show, here on Blogspot.

What? WHY?! Why Old Man Hill?!

What is this nonsense?!

We will see those regs in a moment.

This elevates our Gearbox to Level 3.

Low Range Chassis ... huh ... well, Minardi might improve!

Good testing day, we should have a fully upgraded Fuel Mixture now.

Filled up the Response bar, so Driver Errors will be reduced. All we need is to fill up the Heat and Fuel bars. Heat first, obviously.

Now we improve the Wet Weather tire. Grip helps. A lot. Also, added a point of Stiffness.

Yup, maxed out Fuel.

And a fully clean stable of fresh race cars. We should be fine for the future.

That's it for this chapter. It looks like we'll be in control of this season. That said ... Ferrari could still fight us. They probably will. France is a track that won't be fun for us, we always struggle there. We'll see. See you at Italy for Imola.