F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R06, France

And now back to France, where I think the AI are actually a little weak but not so much that I'm going to talk about it, because I'm not that good around there either.

ANOTHER fast lap for Brett! I think it was following this race that I argued (successfully) that we needed to turn up the base difficulty. We went from 75 to 78, and the results from this point (or so) moving forward amuse me a lot more than they do Brett. But still a great run from him. And a nice little run from me too. Looks like Brett got the better start (as per usual) and was able to hold on to things,  while I was making slow forward progress. Ended up ahead of both Ferraris on track but sandwiched in between them after accounting for a time penalty.

 

Looks like only Charles and Giovinazzi were stuck with the hards today.

Interesting chart showing the progress of the pack. I don't remember Brett leading a big pack but evidently that's what happened. Makes for some mighty tight racing, that does.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R05, Canada

Wow, it's been two weeks since I've published anything here! Time really does fly. With all the changes happening, maybe I should provide an update:

Kat had her Ph.D. defense toward the end of last month. Her parents and sister (and their SOs) and her grandma made the trip, and my parents did too. That made...11 people here for a couple days. Lots and lots of meals out. Lots and lots of money spent. We all had a good time, though.

She also had her commencement (i.e. walk) date two weeks after that, on the first Friday of the month. Her mom showed up for that. More meals out, more money spent, and one nasty trip back to the house after the occasion through one of the harder rains I've seen in this state (and the first one I had to walk through). Only one graduate made a scene about the IU grad student strike.

Meanwhile, she'd already accepted an offer on a job at the University of Houston. I think she accepted it back in March or so. Which means we're moving. Which means we have to pack all our shit up. Which is thrilling. We've been putting it off, mostly, because of family visits and because who wants to live in a bare townhouse for a month or two? But now we're down to the last couple weeks or so, and the U-Haul box order showed up yesterday...so my hope is that I can get motivated enough to pack up the books and lots of other non-essentials this weekend.

With our families visiting in April, they both brought us some boxes of our stuff. My pile was far larger, and I didn't have the heart to tell Kat that it was probably only 1/4 of my stuff (or thereabouts). Kat's includes some kitchen wares (I think that belonged to her grandma before she moved in with Kat's mom), yearbooks and some dance/baton stuff from her childhood (including two VHS tapes of performances from '95 and '01). I got a bunch of books and some old VHS tapes of my own, as well as my baseball card collection, coin collection and my old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So I've had a fair amount of time taken up by going through my own stuff and finding items I don't care for.

I also spent some time and money tracking down a VCR--which are getting expensive, let me tell you--so I could check the contents of the tapes and "rip" Kat's tapes to digital format. Lots of work, that all was. But kind of nice to hear the old whirring of a VCR (which I called a "VHS player" once maybe 5-10 years ago and have been careful not to do again, although I can't forget making that mistake and it occurs to me every time I see a tape at Half Price Books or Goodwill). 

Small note for my own posterity: I still had a copy of one of Grandpa DeRooy's Sonics tapes (WCF against the Jazz in '96, Game 7). The tape still played just fine and the game was still good, but the tape also contained the ending of a broadcast of Inn of the Sixth Happiness. I just thought that was funny.

Anyway, this also means that we need a new place to live. We spent a bit of time looking for places around Madison, WI, as far back as last fall, because we thought that's where we were headed. Nowadays we're more aware of the destination, of course, but the market is rough for us poor people. Buying a house that we'll only be living in for maybe two or three years seems like a risky proposition, especially given the possibility that the housing bubble bursts while we're there. 

So we're looking for rentals, but I want a third bedroom (so we can have separate offices and/or I can have a man-cave of sorts, and I want a garage that we can park in and that I can do some carpentry in (instead of wheeling out my collapsible workbench to the patio along with whatever tools I need every time). Long story short, there are a ton of places going on the market because we're into summer, but they're all getting snatched up before we even have a chance to see them (Kat's going to fly out there for a day or two).

On my front, my employer told me they wouldn't allow me to keep my job if I wasn't within an hour of the building. Which makes sense, since I've had to go in to the office all of six times since we got sent home at the end of March 2020. Two of those occasions were to stuff envelopes, something that anyone could do, including the company that prints the letters we end up stuffing. The other four times was to have an in-office day, where I did the same thing I do at home but with the added benefit of 40 minutes of drive time and increased exposure to COVID, gas costs, more noise, etc.

I've been applying for remote jobs, including a few within Cook, all of which I've heard nothing about (except for GE, who was at least nice enough to tell me they weren't choosing me--way to go GE!). But as the last couple weeks wind down, it looks like I might need to either take an in-person job somewhere or will have to at least wait until we've moved to get something new.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R04, Spain

 Back to Spain, or Pain if you take out the S.

Ricciardo back into the lead of the WDC. Looks like we have a new challenger! Red Bull have been a step or two slow through four rounds, but who knows whether they'll bounce back or not. Ferrari has also looked like a distant fourth-place team...they're only one point ahead of Alpine at the moment.

Ocon stayed out during the SC, having started the race on the medium tire. I see why, but I'm still pretty sure it was a mistake on his part, given that he finished 18th.

Hards for Verstappen (!), Sainz and Russell this time out. I tried going back to the softs (looks like I was hung out to dry by the SC along with a few other cars), but it didn't make much difference. The track is just too damn hard (insert Kenan meme).

F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R03, Portugal

Ran a few laps in preparation of Portugal. Unfair for Brett but definitely need to make the round play out like more of the others. And, hell, I just needed to be more comfortable around here. The track is pretty smooth in surface but there's a fair amount of elevation and a wide variety of corners, leading to a few that are easy to spin oneself around on exit.

Managed to qualify myself 13th, which seemed like a victory, and then followed up a great start (6th place!) by holding on to 10th, which definitely was a victory! Brett was a little off in qualifying (not having prepared, I'm sure) and then managed to race himself right up behind me by the end.

Looks like Brett ran the alternate strategy pretty well. He probably coudl have made the softs last a bit longer but who knows. Ferrari ran both their cars onto the hards. This better not be a sign of things to come (assuming I get my wish!).

Wish I could see just how close I was getting to the cars in front of me. Looks like I was separating myself from Leclerc but evidently had a time penalty because I finished behind him. But I think I was closing up on Sainz and Bottas--definitely wouldn't have been able to pull away but hanging with them all is still a big win for me.

Brett, meanwhile, pitted at just the right moment--came out just in front of several cars and was moving slowly away from them (being on the softer compound).

F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R01, Bahrain

On to season 2! We were pretty ticked to have lost ground in the R&D battle, but I suppose it was sort of merited by all the cars we ruined as rookies. Of course, I'm confident the game isn't built to connect those dots, but it works out in a way that's not totally unreasonable.

Well THERE's a finish! First human podium of the career. I felt (and still feel) slightly guilty that we didn't turn up the difficulty even more than we did, because that's just too easy. But a huge sign of encouragement for me in my second season. Brett only finished 9th, but did secure fast lap, so a great day for him too.

Ferrari got the strategy decently right this time around; Schumacher and Gasly were the ones handed a handicap of hard tyres on this day.

It looks like it may have made a difference on this day for Brett because of that fact. He outqualified me and ran right on my tail for the first half dozen laps before a slight spin moved him down and out of the points. Before you ask, no, it wasn't my fault; just a lonely spin, probably at the hairpin if I had to guess. He went for the undercut at this point, and was able to work himself back up past Tsunoda, Bottas and Gasly, and up to Sainz and Schumacher (who was developing a bit of a train after his switch to hards.

I, meanwhile, had been able to hang with one of the Mercedes throughout the first stint, and was able to get them both along with Norris, running second for a lap or two. Norris got by me, but he was unable to get more than a second or two ahead of me. Meanwhile, the hard-shod Mercedes helped me build a bit of a gap to the cars running behind me, and after things sorted themselves out behind me Perez continued to battle Hamilton for 4th, slowing themselves down enough that I was able to maintain the gap until the very end.

Hell of a day.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S02, R02, Emlila Romagna

(Formerly San Marino)

Great day for Brett! Way to bounce back. Sixth and ran pretty damn consistently.

Meanwhile, I trudged around at the back. Beat Dan, at least!

I don't remember anything about this race except for driving around at the back and hunting down Dan and also Carlos having some sort of accident and ending up behind everyone else. I'm not sure if I had an accident or damage or spun or what, but somehow I ended up moving from 13th or so down to last. At least it happened around the predicted time for my pitstop.

Looks like, after that, I was able to run fairly consistent lap times. I wasn't losing much time to anyone, not even the leaders, caught Dan and was catching Russell quickly. That's really my silver lining for the round: even through I threw away a decent result--13h would have been just fine and a huge overachievement for my dog of a Haas, and I don't really expect I could have down it, but maybe 14th or 15th was achievable--I also beat Sainz (my target for season 3) and was about matching Leclerc. Turning heads at Maranello is the key.

Brett, meanwhile, appears to have been running 5th but was demoted a spot due to some corner-cutting penalties or something similar.

F1 2021, Co-Op, Season 2, Preseason

As mentioned in my last post, for season 2 we turned up the difficulty just a tad. We were both shaking the rust off pretty quickly; not of driving the cars quickly, or at least not just that, but also of running in traffic, dealing with the chaos that adding another human driver adds to the experience, etc. So from 75 to 78, haha. We have a bit more data for S2 to change tracks on a race-by-race basis as well, so can make Bahrain more difficult (a necessary change but one we didn't go far enough to fix just yet, as you'll see). If we ever get into decent cars we'll really need to crank it up!

Here's the entry list for season 2. Moved a couple teams around from last season to indicate the WCC standings from 2021, of course, and also added in the new drivers. Mick left me to take an open seat at Mercedes, replacing Bottas (!). I suppose getting a Schumacher into a Mercedes is worth a loss in performance, but hey, at least Mick is better than probably any of the F2 graduates.

Speaking of which, my new teammate is Dan Ticktum. Jesus. Kill me now. The guy is actually pretty poorly rated in the game (much worse than he deserved to be, given what he did in F2 in 2021 in real life). But I guess the choices were Mazepin or Ticktum. I'm not happy. Also, I had to ask Brett to figure out what his car number was because I couldn't find a listing of all the F2 drivers anywhere online.

Bottas took his Mercedes gear and exchanged it for Alpine gear, replacing Alonso, who apparently only unretired for one season. Alonso's retirement doesn't make sense, but Bottas' move there sure does...a factory effort and a pretty damn good shot of crushing his teammate (who somehow finished with 0 points last year).

Everyone else came back to their old seat, I believe.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01 Postseason

With the season over, I just thought I'd post some stills from my homemade spreadsheet for those who like tallied counting stats. Possibly some of the homemade wikis I made, if I can ever get them fixed again. Maybe even an R&D Performance chart replication as well, though that will take some serious work and time...and I also need to be in the game save with Brett in order to start viewing it.

Very balanced distribution of the wins between the top teams; obviously McLaren wasn't on the level of Mercedes and Red Bull over the season, but they had their days. Given the distribution between the drivers of Merc and RB, though, it's kind of astonishing to look over Perez's season. Four straight wins between rounds 2 and 5 and no more after that. In fact, only one more podium besides that for the rest of the season for Perez (occurring at GB, with half the season still remaining).

Less of an even distribution of the other items; Mercedes was dominant on Saturday, but Ferrari managed two fast laps despite not winning any races, not being on pole and only having 4 podiums over the season. Both of those Ferrari FLs was Leclerc, and they appear to be legitimate (neither unrealistically low lap times, like Raikkonen's, or after changing strategy following a crash).

Relative to last season, there's a much bigger dropoff in points scoring below the top four teams. Gasly did almost all of AT's scoring over the season, but was well adrift of everyone above him. Same for Alonso (except he did all of Alpine's scoring).

Terrible years for Ocon and Giovinazzi, and to a slightly lesser degree Stroll. Not sure how those guys couldn't find their way into the points, especially since the driver update was done by mid-season or so of the real-life 2021 season and given their real-life performances in relation to their teammates.

I'm excited to see a change in reliability from those top four teams for next season. A single retirement for eight drivers over 16 races? I suspect once Brett and I push our way up there we can at least reduce their consistency, but even we aren't responsible for too many DNFs for the AI cars.

...

STOP PRESS: Went back to the game a few nights back (as I was able to get in a couple races with Brett), and snapped a bunch of photos of the R&D chart. Took a bunch of time to try to reproduce the chart--close enough for jazz, anyway--so you could see just what happened over the season. Obviously, there are some problems for Brett and I. We were making decent progress for the first half or maybe three quarters of the season, but after that we kind of pooped out. The Aston/Alpha/Alfa/Alpine grouping stayed pretty tight all season, which must have been nice...for them. Merc and Red Bull were tight most of the season (although Merc had the edge most of the way) and Ferrari/McLaren was painfully tight (as borne out in the standings).

As a note to you, and a reminder to me, I believe we used 75 as our baseline difficulty for the season, at least after shaking out the setup we wanted for the year. We ended up making 78 our baseline for season 2, making modifications on a track-by-track basis as needed.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R16, Abu Dhabi

I promise you that I want to get better at this track. But it's another that I really struggle with. Can't seem to get a good grasp of it. I have done some laps since this race and am at the point where I can keep up with my teammate, I think, but I can't find a way to pull out a gap at all. Actually, I think the track was quite easy back in F1 2010. But hell, that was a long time ago.

One more race and we get down to the nitty gritty of season-end items and contract negotiations, etc. I will have to take a brief break from these race updates to collect all that data, double-check the yearly worksheet to make sure it looks okay, and will have to do some serious work on the wiki pages: they are a big casualty of modifying to make the sheet be only 16 races long but I didn't have the motivation to create fake data to work with so I've been waiting until the first season was over.

Also, I'm going to try to find a way to measure the R&D chart; might just be eyeballing it but I'll try to be as accurate as possible so I can step back and look at some of the outlier performances of the season.

On to Abu Dhabi:

Terrible round for me; I don't think I crashed out or anything, but rather just shut it down. I may have had an engine issue or something too, but wouldn't bet on it. I'm just bad there.

Brett had a great race. Probably his best race of the year. I got to watch the second half from his T-cam and, although he had a big train behind him, he kept composure and didn't let almost anyone by and brought it home jusssssst outside the points.

Elsewhere in the field, Sainz had another nice run to beat out Ricciardo, and Lando increased his gap to Leclerc for P5. McLaren held onto P3 in the WCC, barely, and Tsunoda beat Gasly and scored points for only the third time all season.

Not a good day for me, but a pleasure to see Brett have a solid day (especially since he didn't score any points hah) and very excited to get season 2 underway--actually, the time of writing this, we are up to race 14 of an identical 2022 schedule. But I'm hoping to be less behind my the time season 3 gets going.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R15, Australia

Onward to Australia, a track that I've driven probably a couple thousand miles on over the years. Being a typical season opener for much of that time, I'm sure I just started careers over and over and over. But good golly is it tough!

Hamilton ties up championship #7 in Australia, bouncing back from a rough Brazil to knock Verstappen out once and for all. Mercedes also gets another WCC, having Bottas run with Verstappen all season long. And Sainz gets another podium! Always the bridesmaid so far, but I keep holding out hope for him moving forward.

Looks like I made the wrong tire call again; in this case it appears I had an early off so the call isn't as terrible as usual. But man, both Brett and I were having some big problems here (as well as Mick, who may have gotten together with Brett during this one). The three of us were also running well behind and not making up any ground. Looks like at least I manually retired to move onward--don't know for sure about Brett. Vettel was the first DNF--yay!

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R14, Brazil

Finally, finally, finally onward to the final push of the season. We run through Brazil (love it), Australia (fairly comfortable there because I've run more laps there than anywhere but I find it difficult in the game) and Abu Dhabi (terrible at it but want to get better). Wish I'd asked Brett to give a season recap at some points in the season, because I know he'd have put some effort into the response and it would have been nice to have at least some of his thoughts written amongst all of my garbage...this would have been a good time for a response from him, I think: tail end of a crummy rookie campaign, a few bright spots amongst far too many dark ones and looking to improve considerably over the offseason, etc.

Anyway, here we go:

Another time where the qualifying times are bullshit thanks to the game but are not misprints; those times for Norris and Bottas are the times that were listed.

Bummer of a race for me. I had a nice fast lap (7th best) but finished last. Brett had a solid finish but took interesting route to get there. More on that later.

Chalk up another kill for the Haas strategists, amongst others--hard tires, really? For a shorter distance than the softs were used?

Looks like Brett was running fifth before having an off or something, and ended up pitting early for damage (I assume). I was running around 10th before having an off of my own and pitting as well. We were running 16th and 18th, it appears, before the pit stops shook out and moved us up to 12th and 14th. Then, another Safety Car...can't say why at this point, but it could have been either of us or some damage to someone else, but no one retired so I'm not sure. Looks like we both took the chance on another set of soft compounds with a goal of moving up quickly in a dash at the end.

Brett sure is a lot better at that stuff than I am. He's just more aggressive. I have consistency (relatively) and he has a few laps at most rounds that I just can't touch. So I suspect he'll be getting a lot of poles and fast laps if we can move forward on the grid a bit.

Looks like we both had penalties (Brett 3 seconds' worth, me 6 seconds' worth) and that butchered my final position. We appear to have been running 12th and 14th, respectively, at the line.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R13, USA

And from the frustration that is Japan to the misery that is the U.S. Jeez Louise, do I hate running this track (at the moment). The rhythm section is as rough for me as Silverstone would have been 20 years ago, when I was playing my first F1 games, but for the fact that the games in those days didn't have nearly as accurate a track layout or car handling (I'm looking at you, F1 World Grand Prix for the N64). There was no real rhythm required at that level, with the difficulty being so low and the acceleration being far stronger than top speed was.

So, yeah, I hate running this track. I am terrible at it.

Brett, having recently moved to Austin, definitely and understandably wants to run the track as part of our 16-race season. I would rather not, though I don't care enough to put my foot down.

In short, I was right to hate the damn fucking track. Brett was out after a lap, I was out a lap. I also took out Raikkonen, it looks like; he had to pit early for some early damage and took the opportunity to throw on the mediums, it looks like.

I have a vague suspicion that I might not have actually retired, and rather I decided to manually shut it down just so I didn't have to continue on. If that's what happened, I'm sure my perspective was colored by the assumption --almost certainly correct--that I wasn't going to move forward at all.

Meanwhile, Hamilton has another day strong enough to open up the gap on Verstappen a bit and now sits 41 points up on the field in the WDC; the RBs and Bottas are on life support. Ferrari has a very nice day to bring themselves to within 11 points of McLaren. Leclerc, of course, moves himself into 5th in the WDC. 

Forgot to mention it a couple posts back, but Russell's performance in Belgium brought Williams within 1 point of my Haas team, so the competition for the last bit of WCC payouts is as fierce as ever.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R12, Japan

Speaking of tracks we enjoy and/or think we'll be competitive at due to their simplicity (like Monza), Suzuka is a track that we think the opposite. I enjoy the track on a personal level, and while I wouldn't say I don't enjoy a challenge, it's hard to enjoy a challenge when you only turn 15 laps on it every few months...that's just not enough time to get up to speed with the esses and a couple other corners around here.

Mostly I was just hoping not to embarrass myself. I figured there was a good chance I wouldn't even survive the race (something I suspect Brett feared at every track of this season, but I only had that concern at three or four rounds).

Another strong weekend for Mercedes; they put a bit of a gap between themselves and Red Bull and McLaren, I think, and have mostly maintained it the rest of the season.

Nice little bounceback for Ferrari in their fight against McLaren. Not a huge margin between them, but every point seems to count between these two. And Leclerc is even with Norris!

Looks like Brett pitted early and then went off-sequence in strategy the rest of the way. And Leclerc was the only driver to go onto the hard compound--Ferrari strategy team strikes again!

Per the photo I took of the game screen at the end of the race, Brett was classified but was down two laps. If memory serves, he'd had a whole rotten race and finally binned it in the last lap or so, but it's better than another retirement, right?

I didn't have a very exciting race; looks like I switched to the medium compound a lap or three earlier than the AI did. Appears to have worked as an undercut to Ocon, Tsunoda and Giovinazzi, but I then appear to have had an off and ended up behind them all and ran 16th the rest of the way. Not a terrible day, given the track difficulty and the hopelessness of my car (it's been the worst car on the grid all season and slowly lost ground to this point because we had it on "reduced" points for the human participants). But not a great day either. Looking to get back into the points sooner rather than later.

Speaking of the R&D chart, I would like to post on that regularly but the chart doesn't provide enough detail. It's quantified on the chart, but only with gridlines marking off the hundreds. So I can only eyeball it within 10 or 20 points. I'd like to make a ruler of some sort to get a more accurate reading, but I'm afraid I'll scratch up my TV screen in the process. Does a silicone ruler exist?

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R11, Italy

Onward to Italy, a track that I don't think either of us really suspected would be difficult. I don't know about Brett, but I figured I would be able to hang with other cars and let them drag me forward (as can be done at many tracks with two DRS zones). But I underestimated (heavily) the degree to which the DRS train made things a nightmare for someone with a car as bad as mine...when there are three cars closely lumped together in front of you, it's hard to use that next car ahead to keep the gap close because they too are getting DRS the whole time. What I really needed was only one car in front of me...someone fast enough to really help me but slow enough to be able to hang with.

And, well, I don't think anyone checked off that last bit except for Brett, who was slower than me.

Huge win for Ricciardo, especially after his DNF at Spa. McLaren have really pulled themselves together and are maintaining a slight gap to Ferrari in performance, I think, and at Monza it really paid off. Eerily similar to what happened at the real 2021 Italian GP. Hmmm.

Anyway, Ricciardo appears to have fewer problems of speed and reliability than he did in the 2019 edition (where he was a woeful teammate to have). He brings himself well clear of Sainz, which I suspect also induces a few phone calls/meetings/e-mails to occur at Maranello with an eye toward replacing the Smooth Operator.

Great day for Leclerc, too, who puts himself almost equal with Norris in the race for P5 in the Driver's Championship.

Looks like the Mercedes duo pitted right as the Safety Car was coming in and that ruined their race, on furhter review. I don't know what brought out the SC. Looks like we had two of them, actually. Both he and I went back to the soft compound for a late attempt to make up places, but it appears not to have worked AT ALL. Don't know what our problem was, really.

F1 2021, Co-Op, S01, R10, Belgium

I was very excited for our first career trip to Belgium; always a track I've thought I was decent at, and I'm not sure the track is as difficult as the average locale in this game. I'm sure Brett was looking to get things turned around for himself as well, as he'd had a rough time of it lately, while I had recently picking up (small numbers of) points on a semi-regular basis.

Well, it wasn't much better a day for him than the recent rounds (bar Silverstone). Looks like he only made it until Lap 6 or so and was out after that.

Huge win for Hamilton here; that's actually three in a row for him. He has totally erased the gap to Perez that was pretty large at the end of Round 5 (at which point Perez had won 4 in a row), and has now opened up a considerable lead over Perez and Bottas and the rest of the field, with only Verstappen within immediate striking distance. While Perez and Bottas aren't out of it technically, it would take a large amount of luck for them to beat Hamilton now.

+

Looks like something brought out the Safety Car for this round; it saved Gasly's race after some early damage brought him in for a pitstop at the end of the first lap.

As for myself, I was having a great run again and was running 10th (behind Brett) until Brett's DNF. I pitted during the SC and wasn't in a good spot until I confirmed that a bunch of drivers hadn't pitted by the restart and then pitted a lap later (!). I was moved up to 7th momentarily, and ended up letting Gasly after a scuffle with Russell. I slowly faded back (I think I had a touch of damage) into the clutches of Sainz, Mick, Tsunoda, Alonso and Vettel (I had a 3 second penalty too). On track, I was 9th, but with the penalty I was back to 14th. 

All in all a terrible day for Brett. He DNF'd after leading me for the first half dozen laps, and then, while I didn't score, I let both my teammate and his teammate score points.