F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R07, Austria

 In F1 2019, I'm pretty sure that Austria was the easiest track; I recall running 2nd with the Mercs in that game in a crappy Renault that had fallen down the table a bit, and that was only a round or two after I couldn't hang with anyone but Williams/Haas/Alfa at Canada, a track that places similar emphasis on straight-line speed. In this year's game (maybe last year's too, I'm not sure) the track and the AI are much more demanding. Still, having just finished 10th at a track I think I'm bad at, I figured I had a good shot.

Well, at least Brett got something out of it. His first career point! Well done and no complaints. Well...maybe one complaint.

The game has within it some decent applications of rules. Among these is watching for illegal overtakes and also allowing a window (10 seconds, I think) to give them back to the person that was illegally overtaken. In this case, Brett illegally overtook Vettel out of the last corner and then had to give it back, so began to slow and pulled toward the inside of the track. Vettel, for some reason, was hesitant to take it back, so wasn't going all that fast. My problem was that I was right behind the two of them and saw an opportunity to execute a double overtake and didn't think that Brett would start to actively brake to get Vettel back by him.

Over a season later (in game time) and were are still talking about it between the two of us. I see Brett's conundrum and have experienced it myself, and I can understand his desire to quickly give the place back so he can carry on. Biased though my own view may be, I was miffed (and still am a bit) that he braked on the straight...one simply doesn't have the reflexes to handle that sort of reaction on a main straight when you're as close as I was at that moment.

Looks like Brett started on the medium tyre and ran the alternate strategy, which I think he'd say was correct. He was running 12th, by my count, after getting by Vettel, and finished 10th of course. I swapped onto the hard after the incident and was on that until there was a late Safety Car (for Ocon, who had an issue...possibly with me, I don't remember anymore), at which point I went back onto the medium (I think this was an error of the strategist that I didn't catch, don't know how else that could have gone wrong). Ocon ended up getting me due to a time penalty I'd gotten for the earlier incident with Brett.

A few other guys going onto the hard for no discernible reason again--both McLarens and both AlphaTauris this time around.

Minor footnote: looks like Stroll had a problem earlier in the race, which he was unable to do much to recover from. If memory serves, it was an off in the infield portion of the track, and was while he was running between Vettel and Brett. So I'm going to give that one to Brett, but who knows who was really at fault.