The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Australia 1990

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Ciaran
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The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Australia 1990

Post by Ciaran »

So, I guess I might as well take the plunge.

Welcome to my career mode thread. I'm starting off in 1988, and after randomly picking one of five one-car teams to join, I've ended up with AGS. To begin with, I have to go through pre-qualifying until I pull myself out of it. Oh, and Ciaran O'Driscoll isn't my real name.

My goal for 1988 is to beat my team-mate, and to escape pre-qualifying. If I fail, then I get fired and the career mode is over. So, without any further ado, let's begin!

=======================================================================================
1 April 1988

Irish debutant Ciaran O'Driscoll has topped the timing sheets in pre-qualifying for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix, held on the Jacarepagua circuit in Rio de Janeiro. The Irishman in his AGS was followed by EuroBruns of Stefano Modena and Oscar Larrauri along with the Rial of Andrea de Cesaris. O'Driscoll was upbeat following this morning's session, and is confident that he can qualify for Sunday's race. The Coloni of Gabriele Tarquini and the Dallara of Alex Caffi failed to make it through to Saturday's qualifying session - the latter was six seconds off the pace of O'Driscoll, owing to the fact that he's using a modified Formula 3000 car while his team prepares a car that properly conforms to F1 regulations.

It's hard to pick a favourite this weekend between the McLaren duo of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, who enjoy a massive advantage over their next nearest rivals. Reigning world champion Nelson Piquet - whom this circuit was recently re-named after - is nowhere near them, and is taking his frustrations out on Senna via a war of words, claiming his countryman is "homosexual".
Last edited by Ciaran on 10 Mar 2017, 16:33, edited 20 times in total.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

So, rFactor's AI sometimes sucks at knowing when they're about to breach the lap limit for qualifying. :/ I also forgot to mention that I'm doing half-length races, and rFactor doesn't allow for two qualifying sessions.

=======================================================================================
4 April 1988
Ayrton Senna drove a fantastic race to storm his way to a second place finish, despite losing his front wing in a lap 1 pile-up. Alain Prost was faultless, and built up an unassailable lead that measured 40 seconds when the chequered flag dropped.

Qualifying produced a very mixed-up grid, and things were further complicated as four drivers - Alboreto, Alliot, Gugelmin and Nakajima - were excluded for doing too many laps. Senna lost a front wing and could not post a competitive lap time, and would end up 26th. Ivan Capelli in his Judd-powered March took pole, and for a few brief laps from the start it seemed like someone could challenge the McLaren-Hondas, but alas, Prost would eventually breeze past the Italian and into the lead. Capelli would eventually finish 6th, while Berger, Patrese and Mansell filled out the rest of the points positions.

Constructors Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 15
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 5
  3. Scuderia Ferrari: 4
  4. Leyton House March-Judd: 1

Drivers Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 9
  2. Ayrton Senna: 6
  3. Gerhard Berger: 4
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 3
  5. Nigel Mansell: 2
  6. Ivan Capelli: 1

So, I ended up finishing 19th after two spins, two laps down on Prost. He lapped me on what would be my last lap, and I got a little salty when I saw Larrauri pulled over when I was on my warm-down lap. Also, I was the only driver to pit for tyres, so I guess I need to tweak the AI's tyre usage. My team-mate was 11th. I guess I need to do more work on my set-up.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

=======================================================================================
29 April 1988
After a four week break since the Brazilian Grand Prix, we’re back on European soil.
De Cesaris topped the pre-qualifying timesheet in his Rial, followed by Tarquini in the Coloni, Larrauri in the EuroBrun and O’Driscoll 4th and last to pre-qualify. The Irishman complained of the high kerbs at the Acque Minerali chicane upsetting his driving line and preventing him from going faster. Modena and Caffi would miss out, the latter only just getting accustomed to the new Dallara which was finally race-ready.
Neither Zakspeed would qualify for the race, nor would de Cesaris or Larrauri. O’Driscoll would qualify his AGS in 18th, ahead of his team-mate Streiff, in 21st.
=======================================================================================
My first lap wasn’t great. I bogged down at the start (as always) and got leapfrogged by Johansson (who started 19th), my team-mate and Larini in his Osella. I managed to get back past Larini and Streiff at Tosa, and almost made it through a (predictable) pile-up at Acque Minerali…if it weren’t for baka-Nakajima, and I lost my front wing in the process. Couple that with an over-eager move on Alboreto when the safety car pulled in, and I was slapped with a stop/go penalty. I fought my way back, but I lost the back end on the entry to Tosa on lap 10, sending me into the barriers. Crap.

Joining me in retirement would be Jonathan Palmer, Adrian Campos, Nicola Larini, Nelson Piquet (he put up a decent fight for 3rd until his engine gave up), Gerhard Berger and the two Ligiers of Arnoux and Johansson. Senna screwed up his race again, and was a lap down at one point, before eventually fighting back to 5th. Prost drove another perfect race, leading home the two Williamses of Patrese and Mansell, while Julian Bailey un-rejectifies himself with 4th and Ivan Capelli once again rounds out the points in 6th. To add to my career woes, Streiff is 10th.

Constructors’ Championship:
1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 26
2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 15
3. Scuderia Ferrari: 4
4. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 3
5. Leyton House March-Judd: 2

Drivers’ Championship:
1. Alain Prost: 18
2. Riccardo Patrese: 9
3. Ayrton Senna: 8
4. Nigel Mansell: 6
5. Gerhard Berger: 4
6. Julian Bailey: 3
7. Ivan Capelli: 2
And guess what’s next…Monaco. Oh boy. Let's hope my laptop doesn't crap itself.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

My fears weren't unfounded about Monaco taking a toll on my laptop. At times the game would dip below 10fps, and I instinctively reached for the F6 button to enable invulnerability.

Pre-qualifying saw the loss of de Cesaris and Larrauri. Modena topped the timesheets, with me in second. Qualifying threw up a few surprises. Senna was on pole, but I'd qualify in 6th! On top of that, Caffi was 7th, Streiff was 14th, neither Prost nor the Ferraris could put a proper lap together, and eight cars couldn't set any time whatsoever. The game listed those who had no time by car number, so I had deleted the four with the highest numbers - Boutsen, Arnoux and the two Larrousse Lolas. Maybe I should have gone with championship standing instead.

Somehow, the grid got mixed up, and I ended up 16th. Senna was 2nd alongside Derek Warwick, while Caffi got to start 4th, the lucky git. I had my usual poor start, but managed to get back up to 15th after Sainte-Devote. I took advantage of the AI's slowness out of Mirabeau, and got up to 12th by the hairpin, and 10th by the end of the lap. It didn't take long for the safety car to come out, but before we were expected to line up behind it, Adrian Campos tossed away 8th with a spin out of the Nouvelle Chicane, and Nakajima struck him head-on. Their loss is my gain. :D Monaco's infamous rate of attrition didn't let up. Neither Ferrari nor McLaren would see a car reach the halfway point. Gabriele Tarquini somehow made his way up to 4th, but he wouldn't make it to the end, as he somehow got lost behind a barrier. Eventually Nelson Piquet would score a crushing victory, leading Mansell by over a minute by the time he took the chequered flag. But more importantly...

I'VE SCORED POINTS!!! :dance:

I could see Piquet exiting Anthony Noghes in my mini-map as I crossed the line to start my 39th and last lap. The next nearest car was that of Derek Warwick, a whole two laps down on Piquet. Alex Caffi would complete a fantastic weekend to bag BMS Scuderia Italia's first points with a 5th place, and Mauricio Gugelmin was the last classified driver in 6th, three laps down on Piquet.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I couldn't have done it without the mechanics, they worked day and night to set up the car just right. At the end of the day, I did what I could to keep the car out of the barriers, I may have had a scrape with the barriers that cost me a front wing, but it looks like everyone lost a wing at some stage in this race.


Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 26
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 21
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 9
  4. Jameson's AGS-Ford: 4 (countback: 1x10th)
  5. Scuderia Ferrari: 4 (countback: 1x14th)
  6. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 3 (countback: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  7. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 3 (countback: 1x7th, 1x10th)
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 3 (countback: 3x6th)
  9. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 18
  2. Nigel Mansell: 12
  3. Nelson Piquet: 9 (countback: 1x1st)
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 9 (countback: 1x2nd, 1x4th)
  5. Ayrton Senna: 8
  6. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 4 (countback: 1x19th)
  7. Gerhard Berger: 4 (countback: 2xDNF)
  8. Julian Bailey: 3 (countback: 1x7th)
  9. Derek Warwick: 3 (countback: 1x12th)
  10. Alex Caffi: 2 (countback: 1x5th)
  11. Ivan Capelli: 2 (countback: 2x6th)
  12. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by FullMetalJack »

Best of luck with this career. I'm terrible with rFactor's 1988 mod, so you must be doing well to score points, even if the AGS was a reasonable car that year.
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

To be honest, I've got it set at a difficulty that allows me to match my team-mate's pace, because I use a DS3 and not a wheel.

For Mexico, I tried hitting the naturally-aspirated cars with a 5% power handicap, but as you'll soon see, it didn't go to plan...because I forgot it was more in the range of 20-25%. D'oh. :facepalm:
========================================================================================
27 May
Following his heroic 5th place finish on the streets of Monaco, Alex Caffi struggled to acclimatise in Mexico City, where the track is well over two kilometres above sea level. Both he and de Cesaris would have an early flight to Montreal, as neither would pre-qualify.

Oscar Larrauri made amends for his DNPQ in Monaco by topping the timesheets, two tenths ahead of his team-mate, while I had to be content with 3rd, ahead of Tarquini in his Coloni.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I just couldn't get the Esses right, I was told that I was quickest in sectors 1 and 3, but I was losing a lot of time in the Esses.


28 May
Qualifying saw the loss of Dalmas, Larrauri, Campos and Cheever, the fourth failing to set any lap time. I qualified 14th, with Streiff 16th. Further up the field, Senna was on pole, with Mansell pulling off a shocking 2nd - see what I said about not giving the N/A cars enough of a handicap? Prost was only 8th.

29 May
I struggled off the start line, and plunged down to about 18th/19th. At the first turn, there was a massive pile-up. No-one would retire as a result (I guess I should increase the damage for Canada), but the safety car was brought out as everyone bunched together. I took advantage of the chaos and made my way back up the field. I caught Prost driving slowly in the Peraltada - he had lost his front wing, so I guess he's caught Senna's bad luck. As the safety car returns to the pits at the end of lap 4, I'm into 8th! That soon becomes 7th as I pass Nakajima into the Lago S. I have a drag race with Johansson down the back straight, and although I'm ahead at the end of the Peraltada, I have no answer for him on the pit straight.

Mansell manages to pass Senna as the latter makes a bad getaway out of the hairpin. I watch Johansson pass Boutsen for 6th in the Esses, and I go around the outside of Boutsen in the Peraltada to cap off lap 6. Piquet is next, as he gets a bit sideways in the Esses, making him easy prey. I'm now into the points! :D It doesn't last long, as Senna catches me off guard with his sudden loss of speed out of the Peraltada, and I'm back down to 7th. Prost soon passes me for 7th, and then it was Piquet's turn to have a little squabble with his Honda engine, and I was back up to 7th for about a quarter of a lap before Boutsen tapped me under braking into the hairpin. At this point, Gerhard Berger has blasted past Mansell for the lead and is opening his legs and showing his class.

Berger doesn't remain in the lead for long. Senna gets back up to speed and pulls off a textbook slipstreaming manoeuvre on him into turn 1 on lap 10. My finger slips off my controller's right trigger as I exit the Peraltada, leaving me defenceless on the pit straight as I plummet to 11th. Nakajima and Warwick clash when they enter the Lago S, with the latter going on two wheels but continuing. I really do need to intensify the damage. I slip past both of them and then in the Esses I catch Patrese napping. I'm back into my favourite spot of 7th as I catch Johansson driving slowly out of the Moises Solana S, which soon becomes 6th as - SHOCK HORROR - Prost is suffering engine gremlins in the McHonda, which soon resolve themselves and I'm back down to 7th. Prost easily blasts past Nannini and Mansell who've slipped down the order, and their woes are only compounded when I get a perfect slipstream off Mansell and pass the pair of them down the main straight.

Prost's woes continued as he hits my team-mate, who was coming out of the pits, right in the exhaust pipe. He spins across the track and blocks Gugelmin, Alboreto and me. I leave him for dead in the Esses. Some time in the next three laps, Nannini must have made a big mistake, because by lap 17 I've lapped him. In the meantime Derek Warwick has passed Mansell for 5th, but they soon swap back. Tarquini has a horrific accident entering the Peraltada, as he gets tagged by Perez-Sala and is sent tumbling through the air and over the barrier.

Berger retires with an engine failure on lap 21 - he was 2nd at the time. This marks his 3rd retirement from four Grands Prix. With reliability that bad, no wonder we're ahead of them! I get past Mansell and Warwick by then, so Berger's retirement has elevated me into a podium position! However, I soon have to pit, and that sees me drop to 8th. Within two laps I've caught Schneider, who was running in 7th, and I made quick work of him. Prost makes equally quick work of the pair of us, and he's off on his (not-so-, if you remember his two front wing changes) merry way. Derek Warwick builds up a train behind him, and this helps me catch Boutsen and Palmer and get back into the points. In the end, Senna won comfortably from Alboreto, who had a sizeable cushion over Mansell. Prost finishes 4th, and Warwick and I round out the points. Streiff retired on the 30th lap with an engine failure, while he was somewhere like 12th.

Reject of the Race: Alain Prost - at a circuit that really played to the McLaren's strengths (more than usual), he threw away an almost-certain top 2 finish with two brain fades.

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 21
  2. Ayrton Senna: 17
  3. Nigel Mansell: 16
  4. Nelson Piquet: 9 (1x1st)
  5. Riccardo Patrese: 9 (1x2nd)
  6. Michele Alboreto: 6
  7. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 5 (1x3rd)
  8. Derek Warwick: 5 (1x4th)
  9. Gerhard Berger: 4
  10. Julian Bailey: 3
  11. Alex Caffi: 2 (1x5th)
  12. Ivan Capelli: 2 (2x6th)
  13. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1

Constructors' Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 38
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 25
  3. Scuderia Ferrari: 10
  4. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 9
  5. Jameson's AGS-Ford: 5 (1x3rd)
  6. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 5 (1x4th)
  7. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 3 (1x4th)
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 3 (3x6th)
  9. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I'm very happy that we managed to grab a point today, we expected to struggle against the turbocharged cars, so this is a very pleasant surprise.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by FullMetalJack »

I use DS3 as well. Even so, the AI is far too unrealistic for my liking, as evidenced by Julian Bailey scoring points, and I can't be bothered to mess around editing all the talent files, so I just use F1 Challenge instead.
I like the way Snrub thinks!
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

Agreed. There's a 1989 mod where the McLarens are hopelessly uncompetitive, and I keep making tweaks to try and give them a necessary kick up the arse, without much success. :/

=======================================================================================
10 June, 1988

Caffi's dismal fortunes continued as he failed to make the cut for this Saturday's qualifying session proper. Joining him on an early flight to Detroit would be Gabriele Tarquini. Following his horrific accident in Mexico, many were surprised to see him cleared to race in Montreal, but he was evidently still shaken by the crash, and he propped up the timesheets. At the other end, Ciaran O'Driscoll put himself a whole six tenths clear of the chasing pack.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I feel that was possibly the bravest lap I've done so far in my career, I got the Casino section just right.


11 June
The Irishman's form from yesterday's pre-qualifying would continue, as he would place his AGS in 7th position. Streiff could only muster 13th. The FIA, following criticism that they had handicapped the turbocharged cars too much in Mexico - having ordered a further reduction in boost to 1.5 bar to give the naturally-aspirated cars more of a chance in the high altitude of Mexico City - reverted back to the old 2.5 bar limit for Montreal, but a storming lap (some might say aided by his car's electronically-controlled suspension) by Nigel Mansell threw the cat amongst the pigeons, and he would be joined on the front row by Ayrton Senna.

Thierry Boutsen would add to Benetton's woes as his car failed to set a lap time. The Belgian complained of a faulty gearbox, and after two aborted runs consisting only of an outlap and an inlap, retired the car. He would be joined by both Minardis and the Williams of Patrese, whose own electronically-controlled suspension was suspected of being defective. The position of Adrian Campos is looking increasingly untenable, and we could see him replaced with the Italian Pierluigi Martini in a matter of races.

11 June
O'Driscoll's start line woes would continue into Canada. The Irishman would plummet as low as 11th before getting back up to 10th, but a pile-up after the Epingle l'Ile would claim both his front and his rear wings. He made a valiant effort to bring the car back to the pits to fix the damage, but he would get rear-ended in the pits by Alessandro Nannini. Enraged, he threw his steering wheel at the Italian's Benetton and stormed off into the AGS garage. It was a horrible first lap for the tiny French squad - not only was O'Driscoll out, but Streiff was also a victim of the pile-up after Epingle l'Ile.

Both Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell suffered brake failure entering the Epingle du Casino, and both were eliminated, but both emerged relatively unharmed from their wrecked cars. This promoted Jonathan Palmer to an unexpected lead. With a pair of 7th-place finishes, Palmer was determined to have something to show for his earlier efforts. Prost and Alboreto were also caught up in accidents, and needed to pit. Ivan Capelli added to the strangeness of this race, and was promoted to 2nd. This would end in tears, as his engine expired on lap 12. Within a minute the other March was out, spinning at the entry of the Casino S and getting collected by Ghinzani in his Zakspeed. Both would retire. Schneider doesn't last much longer, as he spins in front of Piquet after turn 10, forcing both out of the race. Schneider tried to continue, but a dramatic suspension failure left him a passenger as he plowed into the tyre wall at the Epingle du Casino, his car launching itself into the catch fencing. Several spectators had to be treated after being hurt by the debris. Schneider was critically injured in the crash, and is unlikely to attend next week's Detroit Grand Prix.

On lap 17, Ken Tyrrell could only watch in horror as the Cosworth DFZ of Jonathan Palmer burst into flame. This promotes Gerhard Berger into the lead. Unfortunately, in a repeat of the Mexican GP, the Ferrari doesn't last much longer. This leaves Stefano Modena, driving a lowly EuroBrun, leading the Canadian Grand Prix! Alboreto caps off a disappointing weekend for la Scuderia as he retires from 9th. Prost chased down Modena without relent. Eventually, the pressure was too much for him to bear, and with two laps to go, Modena hit the wall at the exit of turn 5, destroying his right-front suspension. It's all over, and several men in EuroBrun uniforms struggle - and even fail - to contain their desolation. Prost wins comfortably over Arnoux, followed by Nakajima picking up his first points. Julian Bailey repeats his feat of Jacarepagua with another 4th place, while Modena has to be content with be classified 5th, ahead of Andrea de Cesaris who rounds out the points. All in all, it was very much a race of high attrition, with engine and brake failures deciding the fate of half the field, with accidents (including suspension failures) and gearboxes contributing to the rest of the retirements.

Following this race, an incredible 12 teams have scored points. With only three races remaining until the list of teams that need to pre-qualify being changed, Benetton, Coloni, Larrousse, Minardi, Osella and Zakspeed all face the proverbial sword of Damocles.

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 30
  2. Ayrton Senna: 17
  3. Nigel Mansell: 16
  4. Nelson Piquet: 9 (CB: 1x1st)
  5. Riccardo Patrese: 9 (CB: 1x2nd)
  6. Rene Arnoux: 6 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x9th)
  7. Michele Alboreto: 6 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x14th)
  8. Julian Bailey: 6 (CB: 2x4th)
  9. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 5 (CB: 1x3rd)
  10. Derek Warwick: 5 (CB: 1x4th)
  11. Satoru Nakajima: 4 (CB: 1x8th)
  12. Gerhard Berger: 4 (CB: 4xDNF)
  13. Stefano Modena: 2 (CB: 1x13th)
  14. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 4xDNPQ)
  15. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  16. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
  17. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x17th)

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 47
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 25
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 13
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 10
  5. Equipe Ligier Loto-Judd: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  6. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 6 (CB: 2x4th)
  7. Jameson's AGS-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x3rd)
  8. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 5 (CB: 1x4th)
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 3
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x13th)
  11. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 4xDNPQ)
  12. Rial Racing-Ford: 1
=======================================================================================
I'll probably dial the damage down for Detroit, seeing as Montreal was such a wreckfest. Here's hoping Senna's luck improves, so that Prost has less of a stroll towards a third title.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

Dammit, after posting that race I'm kicking myself for not using the term "Montreal screwjob"!

Anyway, Detroit '88 causes rFactor to crash because of some problem with its .MAS file. I'm kind of relieved because my laptop would have probably crapped itself. However, I've found a great substitute. ;)
==================================================================
17 June, 1988
Following complaints from drivers and team personnel alike, the Detroit street circuit which has hosted the previous six iterations of the Detroit Grand Prix is no more. Complaints about pit facilities and the quality of the track tarmac - not to mention the train tracks which cross the track at one point - have led to the race being relocated to the nearby Belle Isle. The 3.7km circuit has received a mild, if not slightly warm response from the drivers. The old circuit saw lower average speeds than even Monaco, but event organisers insist this should not be a problem for its replacement.

Minardi have had enough of Adrian Campos's underwhelming performances. Following DNQs in Mexico and Canada, he has been replaced by Pierluigi Martini. Martini returns to the team that he spent the 1985 season with. Martini isn't aiming particularly high this weekend - just getting the car to the finish line would suffice. With only four finishes from ten entries so far this season, we can see why.

Bernd Schneider is now in a stable condition following his horrific accident in Montreal. Both Zakspeed cars crashed out of the unusually high attrition Canadian GP, and with the quick turnaround time between the Canadian and Detroit race weekends, the German outfit could only prepare one car for this weekend, that of Piercarlo Ghinzani. Christian Danner is rumoured to replace Schneider for the French GP. Following the shocking efforts of Andrea de Cesaris and Stefano Modena in Canada, Zakspeed look in danger of being forced to pre-qualify. Benetton, another of only 6 teams to have failed to score any points so far this season, look to be safe thanks to their haul in the latter half of 1987.

As a result of Zakspeed only entering one car, five cars instead of four will progress from pre-qualifying. Stefano Modena was the sole casualty of pre-qualifying. He failed to set a representative lap time, after crashing out on a hot lap early in the session. O'Driscoll topped the timing sheets by a considerable margin of 2.1 seconds to Larrauri, which he credits to a "perfect" run through the S-bend of turns 1 and 2. Following Larrauri are
Caffi, Tarquini and de Cesaris.


18 June
Ghinzani would add to Zakspeed's misery by narrowly missing out on qualifying. Joining him are Larini, Tarquini and Dalmas. Prost starts on pole ahead of Senna, while O'Driscoll's extraordinary form continues with a blistering lap that lands him 3rd place on the grid. Streiff can only manage 16th.

19 June
My usual bad luck off the start line continued, and I'm defenceless against Riccardo Patrese, Michele Alboreto and Ivan Capelli. Andrea de Cesaris is sent spinning around by Philippe Alliot and is lucky to keep the car going. Me and Capelli dice for 5th, and although I get ahead out of T11, after a spin in the kink on the main straight I narrowly avoid the barrier and plunge down to 11th. I begin my fightback shortly afterwards as a mistimed upshift by Gugelmin (then 7th) causes a concertina effect, and I deftly pass them.

After a poor start Gerhard Berger is soaring through the standings, but a badly timed pit exit from Thierry Boutsen forces him to stamp on the brakes shortly after passing O'Driscoll, allowing him back through. Alboreto passes Senna for the lead as the Brazilian misses a gear change, also allowing Alain Prost through.

Shortly afterwards, Prost's brakes lock up, and he's just a passenger as his car plows into the tyre barriers, rebounding right into the path of Senna, ripping his team-mate's front wing off! Senna tries valiantly (or stupidly, depending on your view) to fend off Berger through the tight, slow corners, but it's no use as he has to pit. He emerges one lap down on Alboreto, and quickly unlaps himself.

A collision between Gugelmin and Patrese (then 3rd) as the former emerges from the pits promotes me to 3rd. This euphoria is short-lived, as Berger's Ferrari turbo is too much of a match for the Cosworth DFZ. Berger catches up with Mansell and begins a long fight with him over 2nd. They're soon joined by Eddie Cheever, to the delight of the crowd, as his Megatron-branded turbo engine is also too much for my AGS.

Palmer's engine blows up in spectacular fashion and leaves him stranded on the racing line. Of all the people who could have hit him, it's a recovering Ayrton Senna, once again causing him to lose his front wing, costing him another minute in the pits. Meanwhile the safety car is brought out, and Alboreto botches the restart, sending him down to 4th, and Mansell leads! By this point the next car behind me is nearly a lap down - I guess quite a lot of people have lost front wings in poorly-judged moves. As a testament to my huge advantage over the next-nearest car, I don't lose any positions after spinning. Speaking of front wings, Berger and Cheever lose theirs within a couple of laps of each other, promoting me back into third!

Unfortunately I don't go any higher, as Mansell and Alboreto drive off into the distance, with the Italian taking the chequered flag. Following me home in the points are Eddie Cheever, Riccardo Patrese and Satoru Nakajima.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I can't believe I managed to finish 3rd again. The lads in the garage can hardly believe it!

ROTR: Both McLaren drivers. Despite given what is undeniably the best car on the grid, once again McLaren emerge with no points.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 47
  2. Canon Williams Team: 33
  3. Scuderia Ferrari: 19
  4. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 14
  5. Jameson's AGS-Ford: 9
  6. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 8
  7. Ligier Loto-Judd: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 6 (CB: 2x4th)
  9. Leyton House March Racing-Judd: 3
  10. BMS Scuderia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x11th)
  11. EuroBrun-Ford: 2 (CB: 2x13th)
  12. Rial Racing-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 30
  2. Nigel Mansell: 22
  3. Ayrton Senna: 17
  4. Michele Alboreto: 16
  5. Riccardo Patrese: 11
  6. Nelson Piquet: 9 (CB: 1x1st)
  7. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9 (CB: 2x3rd)
  8. Rene Arnoux: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  9. Julian Bailey: 6 (CB: 2x4th)
  10. Satoru Nakajima: 5 (CB: 1x3rd)
  11. Derek Warwick: 5 (CB: 1x4th)
  12. Gerhard Berger: 4
  13. Eddie Cheever: 3
  14. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  15. Stefano Modena: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x13th)
  16. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  17. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x10th)
  18. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
==================================================================
Once again the Williamses are punching well above their weight, and once again the supposedly all-conquering MP4/4's potential is wasted. Maybe the next two races should see them return to form - the French and British Grands Prix!
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

======================================================================================
1 July, 1988
Zakspeed were back to running two cars, with Christian Danner returning to fill in for his injured compatriot.

Pre-qualifying was tight - only 0.7 seconds covered the field. Andrea de Cesaris and Alex Caffi would miss out, while O'Driscoll was fastest, 0.2 seconds ahead of Larrauri, then followed by Tarquini and Modena.

2 July
Nigel Mansell was the big casualty of qualifying. He attempted twice to set a lap time, only to complain that the engine was not running properly. Streiff also fails to set a lap time. Dalmas and Perez-Sala fail to qualify too.

O'Driscoll put his AGS 13th, but a spin out of the S de l'Ecole ended his session early as he sailed helplessly into the barriers.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:It's a horrible feeling when you're just hurtling arse-first into the barrier. My back is killing me and I've got a massive ******* headache.

Senna scores a pole position ahead of Alain Prost, with the McLarens more than a second up on their nearest rivals.

3 July
I have my usual crap start. I have a scary moment when I spin off at Courbe de Signes, but thankfully the run-off is big enough for me to keep the car out of the barriers. At first I think it's because I've got suspension damage, but after pitting in an attempt to repair it, I spin off at Courbe de Signes AGAIN. It turns out that it's the hard compound tyres which I'm using that don't give me enough grip through that 270km/h right-hander. Ironically, just as I prepare to pit again for softer tyres, I spin off, and this time the run-off's not enough, and the rear of the car slams into the barriers. Race over.

Senna kept Prost at arm's length throughout the race, until his gearbox gave up. Prost had a massive lead of 50 seconds over Nelson Piquet, but with only four laps to go, he had to pit, gifting the lead to the Brazilian. Prost follows him home in 2nd, Arnoux claims the final podium spot, and he's followed home by none other than Stefano Modena and Philippe Alliot, and Stefan Johansson takes the last point. Only seven cars see the chequered flag while another four are classified non-finishers.

ROTR: Ferrari's engines.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 53
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 33
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 23
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 19
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 11
  6. Jameson's AGS-Ford: 9
  7. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 8
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 6
  9. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  10. Leyton House March Racing-Judd: 3
  11. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  12. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x11th)
  13. Rial Racing-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 36
  2. Nigel Mansell: 22
  3. Nelson Piquet: 18
  4. Ayrton Senna: 17
  5. Michele Alboreto: 15
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 11
  7. Rene Arnoux: 10
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9
  9. Julian Bailey: 6
  10. Satoru Nakajima: 5 (CB: 1x3rd)
  11. Derek Warwick: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x12th)
  12. Stefano Modena: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x13th)
  13. Gerhard Berger: 4
  14. Eddie Cheever: 3
  15. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th
  16. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x16th)
  17. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  18. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x10th)
  19. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
  20. Stefan Johansson: 1 (CB: 6xDNF)
===========================================================
I'd hate to be at Benetton right now - Larrousse's points means that there's now been thirteen teams who've scored points. Benetton should be safe, as two of those teams only have one car.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

On to Britain now, I don't really have any high hopes. First off, my Silverstone '88 mod failed, so I had to fall back on GPC's 1979 Silverstone mod.
=======================================================================================
8 July, 1988
Pre-qualifying was even tighter than at Paul Ricard a week ago. O'Driscoll was once more on top, but only 0.3 seconds faster than Gabriele Tarquini, who props up the field, while Alex Caffi was only five hundredths of a second slower than Stefano Modena.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:There wasn't much to separate us, I think our car had too much drag for the straights.

O'Driscoll refuses to comment on rumours linking him to a number of teams for next season, such as Ligier, Benetton and Arrows. Thierry Boutsen is rumoured to be on his way out from Benetton. Although the team's performance in the latter half of 1987 will prevent them from dropping into pre-qualifying, they are yet to score any points.

9 July
A glitch in the timing system - similar to what happened in Monaco - led to a very mixed up grid for tomorrow's race. Although Prost posted the 2nd fastest lap, he would end up starting 15th. Senna would start 2nd, despite posting the fastest lap. A heroic effort by O'Driscoll to drag the underpowered AGS into 9th was forgotten, and he would have to start 17th. After attempting to recover the times set by the drivers, the non-qualifiers were known: Danner, Modena and De Cesaris, while Nicola Larini's Osella lasted a handful of corners before the ancient turbocharged V8 had enough.

10 July
O'Driscoll had his usual poor opening lap. Just like in France, he'd suffer a major scare as a badly-timed move to get back to 17th spun him around, but he kept the car pointing the right way.

Senna made quick work of Nelson Piquet's polesitting Lotus, and Prost was doing his damnednest to get his McLaren back to its usual (and in Prost's opinion, rightful) place at the head of the field. O'Driscoll quickly began his fight back up the field. At the start of his third lap, he passed Martini, Mansell and Alliot at the entry into Copse corner. Prost has by then made quick work of most of the field, launching himself into 4th. Piquet has plummeted down to 14th.

O'Driscoll was allowed no breathing room early on in the race. Soon after his incredible triple pass, Rene Arnoux out-drags him out of Becketts, and the duo duel for much of the remainder of the lap, before the Irishman finishes the job in the braking zone for Woodcote. Mansell attempts to do the same, but gives up at Stowe.

During the sixth lap, O'Driscoll passes both Tyrrells - Palmer at Becketts, Bailey at Woodcote. A tank-slapper for Derek Warwick leads to Johansson losing his front wing and Nannini getting held up. The Irishman is now 11th, and shortly after this, Ghinzani's Zakspeed humiliatingly grinds to a halt in the pit entry lane.

Warwick soon gets back up to speed, and the Megatron-badged BMW turbo engine is too much for the DFZ. O'Driscoll's loss to Warwick is soon cancelled out by a spin from Eddie Cheever. Alain Prost incredibly takes the lead on the eleventh lap, but it doesn't last long. Senna is back in front after a couple of laps sitting behind the Frenchman. After that, Cheever, Arnoux and Mansell clash at Woodcote.

The most shocking moment of the race comes at lap 17, when in an attempt to lap some backmarkers, Alain Prost is sent spinning around by Perez-Sala, and hits the tyre wall between the pit entry lane and the track. He loses both wings in the process, and it's an embarrassing trip to the pits for the championship leader. Senna is left without anyone to challenge him up front.

On his 22nd lap, Nigel Mansell finally finds a way past O'Driscoll, to the delight of the home crowd and to the dismay of the travelling Irish fans.

O'Driscoll spins off on his 25th lap, and while recovering gets lapped by Senna. Any hope of him catching Mansell is well and truly gone. A retirement for Piquet as a result of a rear brake failure into Woodcote promotes O'Driscoll to 8th, but that's as far as he'll go.

Senna wins by around 25 seconds from Gerhard Berger (only his second points finish of the year), followed by Patrese, Nakajima, Boutsen (Benetton have now finally ended their points drought) and Warwick. Mansell is 7th, with Prost 9th, only five seconds off O'Driscoll. To add some salt in Mansell's wounds, Nakajima pulls over on the slowing down lap with an engine failure.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:We weren't going to match the turbos today. I think those two spins really killed my chances of salvaging points, but I suppose beating a double world champion isn't anything to be sniffed at.


ROTY: rFact- ahem, FISA's timing software. The Osella engine is a close 2nd.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 62
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 37
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 26
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 25
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 11
  6. Jameson AGS-Ford: 9 (CB: 2x3rd)
  7. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 9 (CB: 2x4th)
  8. Tyrrell-Ford: 6
  9. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  10. Leyton House March-Judd: 3
  11. Benetton-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x8th)
  12. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  13. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x11th)
  14. Rial-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 36
  2. Ayrton Senna: 26
  3. Nigel Mansell: 22
  4. Nelson Piquet: 18
  5. Michele Alboreto: 15 (CB: 1x1st)
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 15 (CB: 1x2nd)
  7. Gerhard Berger: 10 (CB: 1x7th)
  8. Rene Arnoux: 10 (CB: 2x9th)
  9. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9
  10. Satoru Nakajima: 8
  11. Julian Bailey: 6 (CB: 2x4th)
  12. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  13. Stefano Modena: 5
  14. Eddie Cheever: 3
  15. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  16. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  17. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x16th)
  18. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  19. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x10th)
  20. Stefan Johansson: 1 (CB: 1x14th)
  21. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
================================================================
So, Benetton's points famine is over. Senna has bagged a long-needed win, and on top of that Prost fails to score.

Now let's take a look at the teams relegated to pre-qualifying:
  • Coloni
  • Osella
  • Zakspeed (x2)
  • Minardi (x2)
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

Just after I did the British GP, I managed to find a working mod for the correct version of Silverstone. :facepalm:

Anyway, onto the German GP!
=======================================================================================
22 July, 1988
This weekend sees a major shake-up in the pre-qualifying order. De Cesaris in the Rial, the EuroBruns, Caffi's Dallara and O'Driscoll's AGS are promoted, while the Minardis, Zakspeeds and the Osella of Larini are relegated to fighting it out for the right to participate in qualifying.

Christian Danner's weekend lasted a lap and a half before his Zakspeed engine exploded into a cloud of steam and smoke. Nicola Larini would join him in failing to pre-qualify, 0.55s down on Martini, the last driver to pre-qualify. Tarquini topped the session, ahead of Ghinzani, Perez-Sala and the aforementioned Martini.

23 July
Alain Prost did some work to undo the damage of his non-points finish at Silverstone, by qualifying on pole ahead of Ayrton Senna. Johansson doesn't get a chance to set a lap time, his engine suffering the same fate as Danner's the day before. Tarquini doesn't even finish his outlap before crashing out. Joining them on the early trip home are the two Larrousses. O'Driscoll is 18th, just one place ahead of Streiff.

24 July
Senna gets the better of Prost out of the first corner and takes the lead. O'Driscoll's usual poor start was cancelled out by a few first corner clashes, promoting him to 14th by the time he reaches the Clark chicane, but is blocked as Cheever spins out at the Ostkurve, and Boutsen takes advantage for a few seconds, before the Benetton ran out of room at the top of 6th gear. The Irishman wouldn't stay in front for long, as a late-braking Cheever tapped him in the nameless [I'm pretty sure the Senna chicane didn't have that name in 1988] third chicane. He kept the car running and fell to 18th, which became 17th after passing Nannini into the final corner.

The Irishman and Nannini duel for much of the second lap, but as Cheever pulls into the pits, an attempt to pass Modena around the outside of the final corner ends in frustration as O'Driscoll is spun around. He's lucky to avoid getting collected as he drops to 20th.

O'Driscoll does well to climb through the order, but on his sixth lap he is rammed from behind by Martini in the third chicane. This time his car slams backwards into the barrier, and his race is over. By this time Prost has resumed the lead. All seems well for the Frenchman...

...until lap 15, when Hockenheim's reputation for being harsh on engines raises its head again, and the Honda V6 in the back of Prost's McLaren bursts into a cloud of smoke. Beforehand, he had been maintaining a steady gap ranging from three to five seconds over Senna. Senna assumes the lead, and holds it for the rest of the race. Only nine cars see the finish line, and Patrese finishes a whole minute and eight seconds behind Senna in 2nd. Ivan Capelli follows him home in 3rd, with Mansell 4th, Bailey 5th and Gugelmin 6th. One could scarcely imagine Mansell's frustration as once again, the car right in front of him pulled off the track on the slowing down lap.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:That absolute James Allen Martini has no f*****g patience. We expected Hockenheim to be difficult, I didn't need to get rammed on top of that. For f**k's sake...


It was a tough weekend for AGS, as once again Streiff would fail to see the chequered flag. Alessandro Nannini could only watch as on his 20th lap, Thierry Boutsen's Ford DFR engine blew. He was running 5th at the time. All in all, 11 were classified, including Boutsen and Martini, who also retired having completed 90% of race distance.

ROTR: Ferrari's engines. This is their third double retirement of the year.

Constructors' Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 71
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 46
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 26
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 25
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 11
  6. Jameson AGS-Ford: 9 (CB: 2x3rd)
  7. USF&G Arrows: 9 (CB: 2x4th)
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 8 (CB: 1x3rd)
  9. Tyrrell-Ford: 8 (CB: 2x4th)
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  11. Benetton-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  12. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  13. BMS Scuderia Italia: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  14. Rial-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 36
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35
  3. Nigel Mansell: 25
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 21
  5. Nelson Piquet: 18
  6. Michele Alboreto: 15
  7. Gerhard Berger: 10 (CB: 1x7th)
  8. Rene Arnoux: 10 (CB: 2x9th)
  9. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9
  10. Satoru Nakajima: 8 (CB: 1x3rd)
  11. Julian Bailey: 8 (CB: 2x4th)
  12. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  13. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  14. Stefano Modena: 5
  15. Eddie Cheever: 3
  16. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  17. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  18. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x16th)
  19. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  20. Stefan Johansson: 1 (CB: 1x14th)
  21. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
=============================================================
In the space of two weeks, Alain Prost's lead in the championship has been slashed from 14 points to 1. Next we shall be travelling across the Iron Curtain for a very different challenge to the seemingly endless straights of Hockenheim - the tight, twisty confines of the Hungaroring. Can Senna continue his revival? Can the Williamses pull off another shock result at a circuit that suits them? Can Ferrari get either car over the line? Find out next time!
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by FullMetalJack »

Here's a thought, even though AGS were expanding to a two-car team for 1988 in this, you shouldn't have had to pre-qualify. I found out that rule didn't come into place until 1989, known as 'The Ligier Rule'.

Larini should have been relegated to pre-qualifying, as Osella were the next lowest ranked team in 1988. Or, if you were to implement that rule a year early, Tarquini in the Coloni should have been exempt from pre-qualifying, with Mauricio Gugelmin's March being there instead.

I doubt it's something you'll lose sleep over, but in theory, you didn't even need to pre-qualify.

Regardless, i'm enjoying this championship and it's unusual results. I'll continue to read your progress. Any idea what team you'll be at in 1989?
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

Thanks for that interesting bit of info, I never knew that.

As for where I'll go for 1989, I'll probably pick a team at random again, this time from the teams that finish in the midfield. I'm toying with the idea of FISA expanding the points-scoring positions for 1989 as a result of lobbying from the midfield teams, but I guess that might not go down too well.

EDIT: I've just noticed what the swear filter has changed w****r to. :D
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My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Bobby Doorknobs »

Regenmeister94 wrote:EDIT: I've just noticed what the swear filter has changed w****r to. :D

You should see what happens when you type c*nt, if you haven't already ;)

And good job on the career so far!
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

5 August 1989
The McLarens are now separated by just 1 point, with Prost ahead. Both are on three wins and a second place apiece, but crucially for Prost, his next best result is 4th, whereas Senna's is 5th. After that, it's 9th for Prost, 14th for Senna. If Senna finishes in the top 4, Prost must finish ahead to emerge from Hungary still leading the championship.

Nigel Mansell is adamant that he is fit to race this weekend, after he caught chickenpox from his son.

Zakspeed's pre-qualifying woes continued, and they were both out. Frustratingly, Christian Danner was only 0.01s behind Pierluigi Martini, a whole 1.8s down on Perez-Sala. Tarquini was a second back from Perez-Sala, and Larini was a further half second down.

6 August
Stefan Johansson suffers an engine failure late in his first hotlap, and is forced to pull in. De Cesaris is next to fall, and is 0.9s off the next car, Larini, and Martini is the fastest of the non-qualifiers, 0.2s behind Yannick Dalmas's Larrousse Lola.

O'Driscoll was right on the ragged edge with a stunning effort that put him 9th on the grid, well over a second faster than Streiff in the other AGS, in 16th.

Senna set his usual blistering qualifying lap to take pole from Prost.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I'm really happy with what we've managed to do today, we expected to do well against the turbos this weekend.


7 August
Senna pulls away cleanly from Prost off the starting line. Further back, O'Driscoll was once more left for dead and dropped to 12th, and had to fight his way back as usual. He has climbed up to 10th by the third corner, and a daring move around the outside of Boutsen at turn 8 gains him 9th place. A dive down the inside of Cheever into turn 12 promotes him to 8th.

Cheever took full advantage of the power deficit of the DFZ against the Megatron turbo, and blasted past the Irishman on the pit straight. This wasn't enough, as he was sold a dummy into the first corner and once more he was passed under braking into the first corner. O'Driscoll then had his sights set on Gugelmin ahead. In an attempt to repeat his move on Boutsen, it all went wrong. Just as he was pulling ahead between turns 8 and 9, Gugelmin spun him around. O'Driscoll was then slammed into by Piquet, and while the Brazilian could return the pits, O'Driscoll couldn't. A promising race was over in just under three minutes.

O'Driscoll's crash brought out the safety car. For many in the audience in communist Hungary, this was their first sight of a Porsche 911. At the end of the sixth lap, the safety car pulled in, and we were racing once more. As a result of the safety car's intervention, it was clear that this race would not see out the full distance. Neither would Nigel Mansell, as he felt too ill to continue, pulling in at the end of his seventh lap.

Prost stayed on Senna's gearbox until pulling off a daring overtake into turn 12 on the 11th lap, but before Senna can fight back, on his 14th lap he gets hit from behind by Alex Caffi, breaking his suspension and ending his race.

Prost would not go on to take advantage of Caffi's mistake - his gearbox eventually gave up, but not before he could classify, 13th and last. Incredibly, Tarquini was up into the points, and Boutsen assumed the lead, but the joy in the Benetton garage was short-lived. Within a lap, his engine had enough, and the lead returned to a Honda-powered car. No, not Piquet - it's Satoru Nakajima! He hangs on to cross the line after the one hour limit is breached, and the race ends one lap short of the scheduled race distance.

Just five seconds behind, Jonathan Palmer would finally break his duck and claim his first points of the season in style. Michele Alboreto was just half a second down, with Rene Arnoux a bit further back, but crucially, Gabriele Tarquini had scored points for the tiny Coloni team, holding off a late charge by Eddie Cheever. Streiff is 10th, scoring his first finish since San Marino, albeit two laps down on the race winner.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I made a fair move on that bathplug Gugelmin, he had no ******* right to make that move. I had a chance to score points but that arsehole ruined it!

The stewards have informed us that they were considering penalties against Gugelmin, but he retired before they could take effect. It's likely he could be forced to start from the back of the grid at Spa in three weeks' time.

With the top four in the championship all failing to score points, there's no movement there.

ROTR: Mauricio Gugelmin. He's lucky to avoid disqualification from this race, not so lucky to avoid any penalty whatsoever.

Constructors' Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 71
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 46
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 35
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 29
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 14 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd)
  6. Tyrrell-Ford: 14 (CB: 1x2nd, 2x4th)
  7. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 10
  8. Jameson AGS-Ford: 9
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 8
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  11. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x7th)
  12. Benetton-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  13. Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  14. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x18th)
  15. Rial-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 36
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35
  3. Nigel Mansell: 25
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 21
  5. Michele Alboreto: 19
  6. Nelson Piquet: 18
  7. Satoru Nakajima: 17
  8. Rene Arnoux: 13
  9. Gerhard Berger: 10
  10. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9
  11. Julian Bailey: 8
  12. Jonathan Palmer: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  13. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  14. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  15. Stefano Modena: 5
  16. Eddie Cheever: 4
  17. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  18. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  19. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
  20. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x18th)
  21. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  22. Stefan Johansson: 1 (CB: 1x14th)
  23. Andrea de Cesaris: 1 (CB: 1x15th)
================================================================
Tarquini's points mean that there's now 15 different teams who've scored points. If we were to change the teams that must do pre-qualifying now, this would demote Rial into the drop zone to take Coloni's place.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

26 August, 1988
Nigel Mansell has obeyed his doctor this time, and will not be participating in this Grand Prix. Martin Brundle, who is currently in the hunt for the World Sportscar Championship title with the Silk Cut Jaguar team, will be replacing him for this race. This will be a once-off appearance for him, as the 1000km of Nürburgring clashes with the Italian Grand Prix, and Mansell could still recover in time for that race.

Christian Danner continued his disastrous run of qualifying results, and once again failed to pre-qualify. He was slowest of all, and Nicola Larini also failed to pre-qualify. Perez-Sala went quickest in this session, ahead of Tarquini, Martini and Ghinzani.

27 August
Prost swiped pole from Senna by just 0.022 seconds, with a lap that left Nelson Piquet in his Lotus nearly three seconds down. Although Gugelmin set a lap that would have put him 5th, AGS had their wish and he would be due to start from the back of the grid for tomorrow's Grand Prix. Rene Arnoux had a nervous fifty minutes - after setting one hot lap, his car lost all power on the Kemmel straight, and he could only watch as he tumbled down the order. Eventually he'd settle down in 26th place, which following Gugelmin's penalty becomes 25th.

Modena, Perez-Sala, Tarquini and Alliot all failed to make the cut for tomorrow's race, with Alliot failing to set a lap, spinning off helplessly into the gravel and beaching his car on his outlap. On his return to Formula One, Martin Brundle could only achieve 15th, separating Streiff and O'Driscoll. His team-mate was well ahead in 4th place.

However, the timing system once again failed, and as a result the grid was drawn randomly. Johansson picked pole, and O'Driscoll was stuck well down in 20th.

28 August
Johansson had a smooth getaway. Down in the midfield, the McLarens had to pick their way through the field. O'Driscoll dropped to 21st, while contact between Gugelmin and Arnoux ended both of their races before they had even driven half a mile. Boutsen spun off under braking for Les Combes, and stalled his car. O'Driscoll was making a valiant effort to climb back through the field, but it is all for nothing as he gets spun around at the entry to the Bus Stop chicane, but this is neutralised as a spin from Nelson Piquet brings out the safety car, but not before Prost can snatch the lead from Piquet.

The safety car pulls into the pits at the end of lap 4, and immediately Johansson loses out to Senna. O'Driscoll climbs to 10th by the end of lap 5, with passes on Warwick, Capelli, De Cesaris, Alboreto and Dalmas, while Caffi struggles back to the pits having picked up a puncture from contact. Alboreto fights his way back into the top 10 on lap 6 with the raw power of the Ferrari's turbocharged V6 outmatching the DFZ in the back of the AGS, even on the relatively short straight between turn 11 and Pouhon. The McLarens are pulling away at the rate of about four seconds per lap from Johansson's Ligier, and Alboreto's race ends just as it was about to get started, as his brakes overheat entering the Bus Stop chicane. The Ferrari slows to a halt on the escape road.

Streiff is just a few seconds ahead of O'Driscoll at this point, and the Irishman starts hunting him down. He gets the job done at the end of his ninth lap. On the eleventh lap, Jonathan Palmer (then in 8th place) hits the inside kerb at the exit of Stavelot the wrong way, and is sent into the barriers. Luckily, the impact is not a big one, and only requires local yellow flags. Warwick has since caught up with the back of O'Driscoll, and a battle for eighth ensues. O'Driscoll blocks masterfully, frustrating Warwick to the point where on their fourteenth lap, he tries to overtake at Pouhon. It ends catastrophically, with O'Driscoll being punted off and sent sailing into the barriers. His race is over.

Warwick continues, but is soon shown the black flag on the 17th lap. Before that, Satoru Nakajima retires from 5th, having been running as high as 3rd for much of the race beforehand, and barely a lap later Riccardo Patrese retired from 3rd.

The big shock comes as on lap 18, Senna's engine breathes its last, blowing up at the exit of Pouhon. Incredibly, this means that Philippe Streiff has entered the points. Prost is left with no-one close enough to challenge, and within a lap, Gerhard Berger retires too. In spite of a magnificent climb to third, with just one and a half laps to go, Martin Brundle's brakes overheat, and he too is out of the Belgian Grand Prix.

In an incredible race of attrition, Alain Prost wins by an incredible margin of 1 minute, 33 seconds from Stefan Johansson in the Ligier. Piquet follows along with Streiff, Nannini and de Cesaris. Nannini's brakes fail entering La Source at the start of his 22nd lap, while de Cesaris gets lapped before he has a chance to start his own 22nd lap.

Upon further inspection of Nannini's car, its fuel was deemed to be illegal, and he was disqualified from the race. As a result, Pierluigi Martini moves up to 6th, finally scoring Minardi's first points of the season.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:This is absolute bollocks. I was ahead of that prick Warwick, and then he just had to shunt me sideways.


Derek Warwick wrote:I was alongside O'Driscoll, and then the fool turns in on me! I was not at fault for what happened to him, the boy should learn some manners. When I was his age, he could have been killed for that!


ROTR: It would have been jointly awarded to Mauricio Gugelmin and Rene Arnoux for an accident which the stewards have deemed as a "racing incident", had it not been for yet another failure on the part of FISA's timing software. Dishonourable mentions go to Benetton, for screwing themselves out of what would have been their second points finish of the season.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 80
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 46
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 39
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 29
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 20
  6. Tyrrell-Ford: 14
  7. Jameson AGS-Ford: 12
  8. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 10
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 8
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  11. Rial-Ford: 3
  12. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  13. Benetton-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  14. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  15. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x18th)
  16. Minardi-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 45
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35
  3. Nigel Mansell: 25
  4. Nelson Piquet: 22
  5. Riccardo Patrese: 21
  6. Michele Alboreto: 19
  7. Satoru Nakajima: 17
  8. Rene Arnoux: 13
  9. Gerhard Berger: 10
  10. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 9
  11. Julian Bailey: 8
  12. Stefan Johansson: 7
  13. Jonathan Palmer: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  14. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  15. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  16. Stefano Modena: 5
  17. Eddie Cheever: 4
  18. Philippe Streiff: 3 (CB: 1x4th, 2x10th)
  19. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th)
  20. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  21. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  22. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
  23. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x18th)
  24. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th, 1x10th)
  25. Pierluigi Martini: 1
=============================================================
Now we're down to just two non-scoring teams so far in the championship - Zakspeed and Osella. On countback, Zakspeed are ahead, on account of a 9th in France and a 10th in Mexico, while Osella just have one finish to their name - a 16th from Brazil. If we were to re-arrange those who have to go through pre-qualifying again, Coloni have been relegated while Rial have escaped.

Senna's bad luck has struck again, and now he's got just five races to undo the damage.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

9 September, 1988
Jean-Louis Schlesser is set to step in this weekend for Nigel Mansell, who is still not fit to race.

There were no surprises in pre-qualifying, as once more Nicola Larini and Christian Danner's weekends ended after just an hour of track time. There was little to separate the two, and they were 0.4 seconds off Piercarlo Ghinzani in the other Zakspeed.

The session was topped by the Minardis, with Perez-Sala leading Martini, with Gabriele Tarquini over a second behind.

10 September
Qualifying was stopped after Mauricio Gugelmin suffered a heavy crash at the Variante della Roggia. At the time, he was on his first timed lap. He had to be airlifted to a nearby hospital.

Gugelmin would not be the only driver to crash out of qualifying. Oscar Larrauri
lost control while trying to recover from an off-track excursion at the Variante di Rettifilo, and was slammed into by Jonathan Palmer. The red flags came out once again, but Larrauri suffered nothing more than some hurt pride.

At the bottom of the field, Ghinzani, Dalmas and Cheever would play no further part in the weekend's activities. Both Ghinzani and Dalmas suffered engine failures, while Cheever crashed out while on his outlap.

At the other end, it was two-by-two for the first four rows, McLaren (led by Prost), Ferrari (led by Alboreto), Williams (led by Patrese) and Lotus (led by Piquet). O'Driscoll was 16th, while his team-mate was only 21st.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:We don't have much hope for this weekend, the engine just doesn't have enough grunt. All I can hope for is to get the car to the finish.


11 September
This morning, the March team informed the press of Gugelmin's condition. He had broken several ribs and a shoulder blade, and is not expected to return to racing until the Japanese Grand Prix at the earliest. Several drivers have been listed as potential replacements, such as Mark Blundell, Roberto Moreno and Olivier Grouillard.

O'Driscoll suffers another terrible start. He gets swamped by the cars behind him, dropping to 21st. Prost has a bad start, and drops to 3rd below Senna and Alboreto. Behind them, chaos breaks out at the Variante di Rettifilo, resulting in the retirements of Rene Arnoux and Thierry Boutsen. The safety car gets brought out, while O'Driscoll capitalises on the chaos and climbs rapidly through the field, including a double pass on Nannini and Bailey into the Ascari chicane and slipstreaming his team-mate on the back straight, climbing to 9th. Meanwhile, Prost takes 2nd back from Alboreto before the field bunches up behind the safety car.

It took little more than twenty seconds for the safety car to be called back out again, as once more there was a pile-up in the Variante di Rettifilo. O'Driscoll had to take to the grass to avoid a crash, and dropped to 12th. On the restart, he was caught napping by Ivan Capelli, and the two went side-by-side through the Curva Grande before Capelli lifted to avoid colliding with Palmer, who was being held up by an early-braking Alliot, and as a result O'Driscoll was back into the top 10. Nakajima lost his front wing and could only watch as O'Driscoll passed him through the Ascari chicane, and by the end of the lap O'Driscoll was up to seventh, as Nannini had to pit for a new front wing, and De Cesaris could not put up any resistance.

The safety car returned once more as a spin from De Cesaris out of the Variante della Roggia causes a few front wings to become detached. After the safety car returned to the pits, Senna loses out to Prost and Berger, and shockingly, a spin for Jean-Louis Schlesser holds up Patrese and Alboreto. O'Driscoll is temporarily 4th until Alboreto and Patrese pass him again, but more importantly, Ayrton Senna goes too deep at the Variante della Roggia, but within a lap he climbs back up to 2nd, but is at least ten seconds behind Prost.

On lap 18, Piquet spins out of 4th and hits Berger and Patrese, promoting O'Driscoll to fourth! Four laps later, Senna crashes out, as his brakes fail at the Variante della Roggia.

Prost wins by 45 seconds from Michele Alboreto, but the surprise of the race has to be Ciaran O'Driscoll. The Irishman held on to finish third for the third time, and impressively, managed to keep a constant gap to Alboreto of around five seconds. He is followed home by Jonathan Palmer, while Philippe Streiff gives AGS their first-ever double finish in the points, and Luis Perez-Sala takes the final points-paying position for Minardi. Frustratingly for Senna, Prost's engine catches fire on the slowing down lap.

Prost's win has stretched the gap between the two McLaren drivers to 19 points. Senna won't benefit from dropped points, as the Frenchman has already failed to score in five races this season. A source at McLaren, who wishes to remain anonymous, blames Senna's retirement due to a brake failure on his off-track excursion in the middle of the race.

ROTR: Senna's brakes.

Constructors' Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 89
  2. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 46
  3. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 39
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 35
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 20
  6. Jameson AGS-Ford: 18
  7. Tyrrell-Ford: 17
  8. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 10
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 8
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 5
  11. Rial-Ford: 3
  12. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  13. Benetton-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  14. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  15. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
  16. Minardi-Ford: 2 (CB: 2x6th)

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 54
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35
  3. Michele Alboreto: 25 (CB: 1x1st)
  4. Nigel Mansell: 25 (CB: 2x2nd)
  5. Nelson Piquet: 22
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 21
  7. Satoru Nakajima: 17
  8. Rene Arnoux: 13 (CB: 1x2nd)
  9. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 13 (CB: 3x3rd)
  10. Gerhard Berger: 10
  11. Jonathan Palmer: 9
  12. Julian Bailey: 8
  13. Stefan Johansson: 7
  14. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  15. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  16. Philippe Streiff: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 2x10th)
  17. Stefano Modena: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x13th)
  18. Eddie Cheever: 4
  19. Andrea de Cesaris: 3
  20. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  21. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  22. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x13th)
  23. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x18th)
  24. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  25. Luis Perez-Sala: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x11th, 1x17th)
  26. Pierluigi Martini: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x11th, 1x18th)
================================================================
Senna really can't catch a break. The championship is now Prost's to lose - with four races to go, even if Senna wins all of them he'll still lose the title if Prost finishes second in all of them.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

23 September, 1988
Roberto Moreno was revealed as March's replacement for the injured Mauricio Gugelmin. Moreno competed in the last two Grands Prix of the 1987 season for AGS, scoring a point for the small French team. Nigel Mansell returns to Williams, having been too ill to race in Belgium and Italy.

For once, Zakspeed would manage to get both cars through to Saturday's qualifying session. Danner scraped through by just 0.03 seconds ahead of Nicola Larini in the Osella, with Tarquini also eliminated. Martini led the Minardis at the head of the timesheets.

For Danner, progressing to qualifying is a huge relief. It is rumoured that Zakspeed might only run one car in Japan and Australia, probably due to Danner's run of DNQs and DNPQs. Since returning to Formula 1 to replace the injured Bernd Schneider, Danner is yet to finish a Grand Prix.

24 September
Ivan Capelli stunned onlookers as he snatched pole position from Alain Prost by only 0.04 seconds. Ayrton Senna could only manage third, most likely due to traffic on a lap that takes little more than 80 seconds to complete. The field was quite tight in qualifying, with Ciaran O'Driscoll taking ninth with a lap little more than half a second slower than Capelli's.

At the other end of the field, the Zakspeeds will start from the back of the grid, with Danner in front of Ghinzani. They qualified at the expense of De Cesaris, Dalmas, Caffi and Larrauri.

25 September
Those hoping for Capelli to hold off the McLarens had another thing coming, as off the line Prost got the better of him. It wouldn't be long until Ayrton Senna also passed him, while behind them, Berger and Patrese clash, as do Moreno and Mansell. Mansell was left beached in the gravel at turn 1. O'Driscoll climbs into the points as a result.

It wouldn't last long, as entering turn 3, the Irishman hit Gerhard Berger in the rear, losing his front wing while giving Berger a puncture. At the head of the field, Prost pits, complaining of damage to his suspension, gifting the lead to Senna. Senna soon pits, complaining of the same problem as Prost, promoting Nakajima into the lead! Senna tries to climb back through the field, but on lap 16, he loses his front wing while challenging for 5th, forcing him to pit again. McLaren's dismal weekend was capped off when on lap 22, Senna and Prost retire within seconds of each other, albeit with Prost two laps down on Senna, still complaining of suspension problems. Ivan Capelli has long since retired at this point, with his engine catching fire on lap 12.

O'Driscoll also tries to fight back through the field, and at one point is up to 9th before he is forced to pit for new tyres at the end of his 29th lap. With just seven laps to go, on fresh tyres he makes a final push for some points, and fights his way back into 6th on the 35th lap at Orelha.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't get a fairytale ending. With barely a mile to go, he spins under braking for Parabolica Interior, letting Stefan Johansson take back 6th. He must settle for 7th. Further ahead, Satoru Nakajima once again takes victory, ahead of Nelson Piquet by only 0.8 seconds. Riccardo Patrese took the final place on the podium. Alessandro Nannini scored his first ever points with a fine fourth place, with Streiff and Johansson rounding out the points.

The double retirement for McLaren means that all Prost needs is to finish ahead of Senna to become world champion. Piquet is just 26 points behind and thus still has a mathematical chance of winning, but that's all.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I was just following Berger and then he hit the brakes when I wasn't expecting it. I'm sorry to the team, we had a good chance today for another double points finish, and I blew it. I'm sorry.


ROTR: Ciaran O'Driscoll. With McLaren's, Ferrari's, Mansell's and March's woes, this should have been all too easy for him to take some points. A last-lap spin threw away a precious point to his team's rivals, Ligier.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 89
  2. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 54
  3. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 50
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 35
  5. Ligier Loto-Judd: 21
  6. Jameson AGS-Ford: 20
  7. Tyrrell-Ford: 17
  8. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 10
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 8
  10. Benetton-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 2x10th)
  11. EuroBrun-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 1x10th)
  12. Rial-Ford: 3
  13. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  14. BMS Scuderia Italia: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  15. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
  16. Minardi-Ford: 2 (CB: 2x6th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 54
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35
  3. Nelson Piquet: 28
  4. Satoru Nakajima: 26
  5. Michele Alboreto: 25 (CB: 1x1st)
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 1x11th)
  7. Nigel Mansell: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 3xDNF)
  8. Rene Arnoux: 13 (CB: 1x2nd)
  9. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 13 (CB: 3x3rd)
  10. Gerhard Berger: 10
  11. Jonathan Palmer: 9
  12. Stefan Johansson: 8 (CB: 1x2nd)
  13. Julian Bailey: 8 (CB: 2x4th)
  14. Philippe Streiff: 7
  15. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  16. Derek Warwick: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  17. Stefano Modena: 5
  18. Eddie Cheever: 4
  19. Alessandro Nannini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  20. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th)
  21. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  22. Alex Caffi: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  23. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x13th)
  24. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x18th)
  25. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  26. Pierluigi Martini: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  27. Luis Perez-Sala: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x11th)
================================================================
It could have been the one race where Senna could have turned the tide, and he blew it.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

30 September, 1988
Following yet another double retirement for McLaren, all Alain Prost needs to do is to finish ahead of Ayrton Senna to take the championship. Nelson Piquet needs to win with Alain Prost failing to score to keep his own minuscule title hopes alive.

Piercarlo Ghinzani couldn't even finish his outlap before his engine blew, and Nicola Larini crashed out while trying to improve on a time that would eventually consign him to 5th in the session. Perez-Sala once again topped the pre-qualifying charts, ahead of Tarquini, Danner and Martini. With rumours that Zakspeed are cutting back to a 1-car effort for Japan and Australia, Danner's performance was just what he needed.

1 October
Eddie Cheever and Michele Alboreto were the shock casualties of qualifying. Neither could set a lap, with Cheever crashing out on a hot lap while Alboreto's gearbox lasted only a matter of minutes. Rene Arnoux also crashes out, but not before he set a lap that would put him 27th on the grid. Andrea de Cesaris joined the non-qualifiers.

At the other end of the field, Ayrton Senna took pole from Alain Prost. Ciaran O'Driscoll took an incredible 7th place, while his team-mate could only muster 17th.

2 October
O'Driscoll has a decent start and loses no positions off the starting line. He climbs to 5th after the first corner and takes 4th while slipstreaming Nakajima on the back straight. Senna holds off Prost for the time being, while once more Christian Danner's race ends prematurely courtesy of a badly-timed overtake attempt by Jonathan Palmer into the 12th turn.

O'Driscoll caps off an excellent opening two minutes of the race with an overtake on Capelli into the first turn on lap 2. Suddenly, it all goes wrong for Ayrton Senna. His pace drops off dramatically, and at the end of his third lap he pulls into the pits, along with Ivan Capelli! O'Driscoll doesn't stay in second for long, as Nelson Piquet gets back through on the back straight. The duo duel for much of the following two laps, with O'Driscoll overcoming the triple world champion with a daring dive down the inside into the final corner at the end of his fifth lap.

Just two laps later, O'Driscoll suffers a minor scare as he goes wide out of turn 10, and his car hops across the gravel before he gets the car back onto the track, now down in 5th. More importantly, Senna pulls into the pits once more to retire the car due to gearbox problems. With Piquet in 2nd and Prost leading, the Frenchman looks set to take the title.

On his ninth lap, Mansell drops to fifth as a result of passes by Roberto Moreno and Ciaran O'Driscoll, within the space of just thirty seconds. Two laps later, O'Driscoll has climbed to 2nd, taking positions of Moreno and then Piquet.

On the 17th lap, Alain Prost has crashed out! Like O'Driscoll, he goes wide at turn 10, but unlike O'Driscoll, he doesn't keep the car out of the barriers. O'Driscoll takes the lead, but not for long, as he too has a brush with the barriers, spinning out of turn 15, ripping off his front wing against the wall on what would normally be a driver's right-hand side. He pits immediately, and drops to 9th.

Moreno and Piquet fight for the lead after O'Driscoll's pit stop. Eventually they would come to blows, as Moreno hits the back of Piquet and gives his fellow countryman a puncture and loses his own front wing. The lead goes to none other than Satoru Nakajima, and now Prost is all but confirmed as champion. This promotes Julian Bailey and Stefan Johansson into podium positions, with O'Driscoll trying desperately to close the gap. Eventually Johansson loses his front wing while trying to navigate some lapped traffic, promoting O'Driscoll into 3rd.

With only one lap to go, O'Driscoll once more spun out at the exit of turn 15, losing his front wing. Julian Bailey's engine fails early in the final lap, robbing him of his first ever podium finish. O'Driscoll hangs on to take second place, 42 seconds down on Nakajima and with Moreno just three seconds behind. Perez-Sala scores some vital points for Minardi, and Derek Warwick and Alex Caffi round out the points.

With Piquet eventually failing to finish (but still classified), and Senna also not seeing out the race, Alain Prost is the 1988 World Drivers' Champion.

ROTR: McLaren. Once more, the MP4/4's potential is wasted thanks to its fragility. They should have wrapped up the constructors' honours long ago.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 89
  2. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 63
  3. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 50
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 35
  5. Jameson AGS-Ford: 26
  6. Ligier Loto-Judd: 21
  7. Tyrrell-Ford: 17
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 12 (CB: 2x3rd)
  9. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 12 (CB: 2x4th)
  10. Benetton-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 2x10th, 1x11th)
  11. EuroBrun-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 2x10th, 2x13th)
  12. Minardi-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 2x6th)
  13. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x9th)
  14. Rial-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x16th)
  15. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  16. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
Thanks to Perez-Sala's 4th today, Lola would be relegated to pre-qualifying if we re-arranged the teams that would have to go through it.

Drivers' Championship:
  1. (C) Alain Prost: 54
  2. Ayrton Senna: 35 (CB: 3x1st, 1x2nd)
  3. Satoru Nakajima: 35 (CB: 3x1st, 1x3rd)
  4. Nelson Piquet: 28
  5. Michele Alboreto: 25 (CB: 1x1st)
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 1x11th)
  7. Nigel Mansell: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 3xDNF)
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 19
  9. Rene Arnoux: 13
  10. Gerhard Berger: 10
  11. Jonathan Palmer: 9
  12. Stefan Johansson: 8 (CB: 1x2nd)
  13. Julian Bailey: 8 (CB: 2x4th)
  14. Derek Warwick: 8 (CB: 1x4th)
  15. Philippe Streiff: 7
  16. Ivan Capelli: 6
  17. Stefano Modena: 5
  18. Roberto Moreno: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  19. Luis Perez-Sala: 4 (CB: 1x4th, 1x6th, 1x7th)
  20. Eddie Cheever: 4 (CB: 1x4th, 1x6th, 1x8th)
  21. Alessandro Nannini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  22. Alex Caffi: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x9th)
  23. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x15th)
  24. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  25. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x13th)
  26. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x18th)
  27. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  28. Pierluigi Martini: 1
================================================================
6 October

O'Driscoll to March?

Following a stunning drive to take second place in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, a source at the Leyton House March team has commented on rumours linking Ciaran O'Driscoll to their team. They confirmed that they were considering him for the 1989 season, but insist that nothing has been finalised yet. Such a move may leave a bad taste in the mouth of Mauricio Gugelmin, who is currently recovering from injuries sustained in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix.

Leyton House March is one of several teams linked with the Irishman for 1989. O'Driscoll himself has ruled out a move to his current team AGS's French rivals Ligier. Other teams that have been mentioned include Benetton, Lotus and Arrows.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by FullMetalJack »

Just out of interest, are you taking into account the career length of drivers you are replacing? If so, replacing Cheever at Arrows may be a good idea, since 1989 was his last season anyway, and you've clearly earned a move up the grid.
I like the way Snrub thinks!
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

I never thought of Cheever's retirement in 1989. I have them listed as one of the teams that I'll pick randomly for 1989, along with Benetton, Lotus and March.
==================================================================
28 October, 1988
Piercarlo Ghinzani clings on to get through pre-qualifying, despite his engine blowing early in the session. Luis Perez-Sala was the shock casualty of pre-qualifying, not even getting in front of Christian Danner. The other Minardi of Martini was at the other end of the table, well over a second clear of Tarquini in the Coloni and Larini in the Osella.

29 October
Qualifying was interrupted as Satoru Nakajima crashed out heavily at turn 1. The Japanese driver was caught unawares by the EuroBrun of Oscar Larrauri, who was exiting the pit lane. He was sent flying across the gravel, and then his car dug into the gravel and flipped into the barriers.

Neither Ghinzani nor Patrese can set a lap time, and Tarquini is also eliminated. Although he set the 27th fastest lap, Philippe Alliot would be allowed to start as it emerged Satoru Nakajima would not be able to take further part in the weekend. Roberto Moreno took pole from the new champion Alain Prost, while Senna could only manage 5th. O'Driscoll took 11th while his team-mate Streiff was 16th.

30 October
A poor start for O'Driscoll saw him drop to 15th off the line, and was back into 13th entering the S-curves, when disaster struck - a disaster named Eddie Cheever. O'Driscoll spun off and slightly tapped the barriers, but was able to keep going, and fell to 25th. An excellent recovery followed, and he reaches as high as 8th, but on lap 13, it all fell to pieces, once again due to Cheever. The American spun out exiting the Casio Triangle, right in O'Driscoll's path. O'Driscoll lost his front wing and needed to pit.

Meanwhile, Moreno lost the lead on the third lap, and Larrauri crashed heavily at the final corner. Senna also picks up rear wing damage and plunges down the order.

O'Driscoll's race went from bad to worse as he was deemed to have broken the pit lane speed limit, and was hit with a stop/go penalty. After the penalty, he was a lap down on Prost and down in 18th, just after the halfway point of the race. He recovered to take 10th by the end of the race, more than forty seconds down on Streiff in 8th. Senna fought back to take 5th at the end, taking his first points since the German GP, and at one point he managed to unlap himself against his team-mate.

Prost won by 59 seconds from Berger, and Alboreto helped to complete Ferrari's first double podium finish of the year. Capelli, Senna and Piquet rounded out the points. Senna raised a few eyebrows with a forceful move on his compatriot towards the end of their 26th and penultimate laps, into the Casio Triangle.

ROTR: Ciaran O'Driscoll. The Irish driver spoiled a great opportunity to score points had it not been for his stop/go penalty.

Constructors' Championship
  1. (C) Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 100
  2. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 64
  3. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 50
  4. Scuderia Ferrari: 45
  5. Jameson AGS-Ford: 26
  6. Ligier Loto-Judd: 21
  7. Tyrrell-Ford: 17
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 15
  9. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 12
  10. Benetton-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 2x10th, 1x11th)
  11. EuroBrun-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x8th, 2x10th, 2x13th)
  12. Minardi-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th, 2x6th)
  13. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x9th)
  14. Rial-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 2x15th)
  15. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  16. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. (C) Alain Prost: 63
  2. Ayrton Senna: 37
  3. Satoru Nakajima: 35
  4. Nelson Piquet: 29 (CB: 2x1st)
  5. Michele Alboreto: 29 (CB: 1x1st)
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 1x11th)
  7. Nigel Mansell: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 3xDNF)
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 19
  9. Gerhard Berger: 16
  10. Rene Arnoux: 13
  11. Jonathan Palmer: 9 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x4th)
  12. Ivan Capelli: 9 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x4th, 2x6th)
  13. Stefan Johansson: 8 (CB: 1x2nd)
  14. Julian Bailey: 8 (CB: 2x4th, 1x5th)
  15. Derek Warwick: 8 (CB: 1x4th, 2x5th)
  16. Philippe Streiff: 7
  17. Stefano Modena: 5
  18. Roberto Moreno: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  19. Luis Perez-Sala: 4 (CB: 1x4th, 1x6th, 1x7th)
  20. Eddie Cheever: 4 (CB: 1x4th, 1x6th, 1x8th)
  21. Alessandro Nannini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  22. Alex Caffi: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x9th)
  23. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x6th, 2x15th)
  24. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  25. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  26. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x18th)
  27. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  28. Pierluigi Martini: 1
================================================================
McLaren have finally sewn up the constructors' championship, four races late compared to real life.
================================================================
31 October

Nakajima, Larrauri out of season finale in Adelaide
This publication has learned that neither Nakajima nor Larrauri will be fit to race in two weeks' time in the Australian Grand Prix on the streets of Adelaide. Nakajima's injuries are deemed to be far more serious than the Argentinian's, and it's believed that EuroBrun may also lack the resources to repair his car for the next race weekend.

It is not known whether Lotus would field a second driver, but one prime candidate for the seat may be Martin Brundle, who currently leads the drivers' standings in the World Sportscar Championship.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

My laptop hates Adelaide. Carrera4's 1988 version causes a CTD, there's a 1989 version but that has a crap frame rate and a glitch where you can't actually do a pit stop. I even tried the Clipsal 500 version, but every time I want to pit, the game thinks I've taken a shortcut and makes me repeat the lap.

So, I started thinking. What other famous racing circuits are there in Australia?

If you said Mount Panorama/Bathurst...you'd be wrong. Nope, we're going to Phillip Island!
================================================================
12 November, 1988
With Larrauri and Nakajima out, there was to be no need for a pre-qualifying session at the start of the race weekend. The circuit was only cleared for use on Monday afternoon, as in a shock move, the city council of Adelaide voted against staging the Australian Grand Prix in the middle of September. This was prompted by revelations of how much it was costing the city to retain the right to host the race. The Mount Panorama Circuit, close to the town of Bathurst, was deemed to not be up to the standard needed for Formula 1.

Instead, renovation efforts at the Phillip Island Circuit, close to the city of Melbourne, were ramped up to prepare the track for hosting the Australian Grand Prix. The track was initially due to re-open in December, and the renovation was complete on the 5th of November, a month ahead of schedule.

Following his 11th place in his debut for the Larrousse team, Aguri Suzuki would not make the trip down to Australia to fill in for Yannick Dalmas, who has been diagnosed with Legionnaire's Disease, but instead that job would go to Pierre-Henri Raphanel. Raphanel only finished joint 13th in this year's Formula 3000 season.

Alain Prost looked set to end a championship-winning year on a high, taking pole from Ayrton Senna. Ciaran O'Driscoll scraped through after crashing out at the Southern Loop corner, with Gabriele Tarquini only a tenth of a second off the Irishman. Nicola Larini and the two Zakspeeds would also fail to qualify. Philippe Streiff is 17th.

13 November
Prost gets away cleanly, while Senna is hot on his heels. For one last time, O'Driscoll would have his typically poor start, but makes it up in the corners, climbing to 16th by the end of the race. Nigel Mansell gets punted off entering the Lukey Heights section, and Arnoux pulls off after only four corners.

16th becomes 15th for O'Driscoll as he slipstreams Capelli into the first corner at the start of his second lap. By the time he reached Siberia corner, he was making his way past his own team-mate for 13th. The hard work is undone as
Stefan Johansson gives him no room exiting turn 11, forcing him onto the grass and sending him plummeting to 24th.

Piquet's engine hits the self-destruct button exiting Siberia on his third lap, and Johansson and Caffi come to blows too, allowing O'Driscoll back up to 21st. Before he can make a comeback, he spins off at the first corner at the start of the fifth lap, and it's all over. The front right wheel is ripped off, as is the front nose section, in a crash resembling that of Johnny Herbert at Brands Hatch in August.

Up front, Senna could not be shaken off by Prost. The high speed corners - perhaps more suitable for motorcycle racing than Formula 1 - made it difficult for the Brazilian to get through. Roberto Moreno was doing an excellent job of holding back the Ferraris of Berger and Alboreto in third place. On lap 16, though, the Judd V8 in the back of his March gave up, and his podium dreams went up in smoke.

Senna finally passed Prost on lap 17, taking the lead entering the hairpin at turn 10. On lap 19, Prost hits the back of Philippe Alliot while trying to lap him entering the hairpin at turn 4. Alliot loses his rear wing in the initial collision, and then loses his front wing in the tyre barrier! It's a long trip back to the pits for him.

On lap 20, the unthinkable happens. Entering turn 4, Prost dives down the inside of Senna...and then they touch wheels. Senna tries to get the better drive out of the hairpin, but is caught behind some traffic that Prost easily clears. Before the lap is out, disaster strikes for Prost, and his car gets stuck in first gear. It's all over, and the Achilles's Heel of the MP4/4 has struck again.

Senna has a massive lead over Gerhard Berger in second, so big that Prost didn't even lose second place while crawling back to the pits to retire. Unfortunately, Senna's engine has different ideas, and on lap 27, it's all over. Berger takes over the lead, but two laps later, he too retires, after damaging his suspension while trying to lap a backmarker. Michele Alboreto, in his final race for La Scuderia, takes over the lead. Alessandro Nannini is up to second, but fate is a cruel mistress. On the final lap, his engine blows, and six vital points for Benetton are all gone.

Julian Bailey takes over second place as a result, and Philippe Streiff takes the final place on the podium. Stefano Modena caps off a fantastic year with fourth place, with De Cesaris and Perez-Sala finishing off a bizarre top 6.

ROTR: Rene Arnoux. The Ligier driver lasted a number of corners that could be counted on one hand before breaking his suspension in a poorly-judged overtaking attempt.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. (C) Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 100
  2. Camel Team Lotus-Honda: 64
  3. Scuderia Ferrari: 54
  4. Canon Williams Team-Judd: 50
  5. Jameson AGS-Ford: 30
  6. Tyrrell-Ford: 23
  7. Ligier Loto-Judd: 21
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 15
  9. USF&G Arrows-Megatron: 12
  10. EuroBrun-Ford: 8
  11. Minardi-Ford: 6
  12. Benetton-Ford: 5 (CB: 1x4th)
  13. Rial-Ford: 5 (CB: 2x5th)
  14. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 3
  15. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  16. Coloni-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th)
  17. Zakspeed: 0 (CB: 2x9th)
  18. Osella: 0 (CB: 1x14th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. (C) Alain Prost: 63
  2. Michele Alboreto: 38
  3. Ayrton Senna: 37
  4. Satoru Nakajima: 35
  5. Nelson Piquet: 29
  6. Riccardo Patrese: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 1x11th)
  7. Nigel Mansell: 25 (CB: 2x2nd, 2x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x7th, 3xDNF)
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 19
  9. Gerhard Berger: 16
  10. Julian Bailey: 14
  11. Rene Arnoux: 13
  12. Philippe Streiff: 11
  13. Jonathan Palmer: 9 (CB: 1x2nd)
  14. Ivan Capelli: 9 (CB: 1x3rd)
  15. Stefan Johansson: 8 (CB: 1x2nd)
  16. Stefano Modena: 8 (CB: 2x4th)
  17. Derek Warwick: 8 (CB: 1x4th)
  18. Luis Perez-Sala: 5 (CB: 1x4th)
  19. Andrea de Cesaris: 5 (CB: 2x5th)
  20. Roberto Moreno: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  21. Eddie Cheever: 4 (CB: 1x4th)
  22. Alessandro Nannini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  23. Alex Caffi: 3 (CB: 1x5th)
  24. Thierry Boutsen: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x8th)
  25. Philippe Alliot: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 2x9th)
  26. Gabriele Tarquini: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x12th, 1x18th)
  27. Mauricio Gugelmin: 2 (CB: 2x6th)
  28. Pierluigi Martini: 1
  29. Yannick Dalmas: 0 (CB: 2x7th)
  30. Oscar Larrauri: 0 (CB: 1x8th)
  31. Piercarlo Ghinzani: 0 (CB: 2x9th)
  32. Martin Brundle: 0 (CB: 1x9th)
  33. Bernd Schneider: 0 (CB: 1x10th)
  34. Aguri Suzuki: 0 (CB: 1x11th)
  35. Nicola Larini: 0 (CB: 1x14th)
  36. Adrian Campos: 0 (CB: 1x20th)
  37. Christian Danner: 0 (CB: 3xDNF)
  38. Jean-Louis Schlesser: 0 (CB: 1xDNF)
  39. Pierre-Henri Raphanel: 0 (CB: 1xDNF)

Colin Chapman Trophy
  1. (C) Canon Williams Team-Judd: 98
  2. Jameson AGS-Ford: 72
  3. Tyrrell-Ford: 50
  4. Ligier Loto-Judd: 42
  5. Leyton House March-Judd: 40
  6. EuroBrun-Ford: 17 (CB: 2x2nd)
  7. Larrousse-Calmels Lola-Ford: 17 (CB: 2x3rd)
  8. Benetton-Ford: 16
  9. Minardi-Ford: 15
  10. BMS Scuderia Italia-Dallara: 10
  11. Rial-Ford: 9
  12. Coloni-Ford: 4

Jim Clark Trophy
  1. (C) Nigel Mansell: 52
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 46
  3. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 44
  4. Philippe Streiff: 44
  5. Rene Arnoux: 27 (CB: 2x1st)
  6. Ivan Capelli: 27 (CB: 1x1st)
  7. Jonathan Palmer: 25 (CB: 1x1st, 1x2nd)
  8. Julian Bailey: 25 (CB: 1x1st, 2x3rd)
  9. Stefano Modena: 16
  10. Stefan Johansson: 15
  11. Luis Perez-Sala: 10 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x7th)
  12. Alex Caffi: 10 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x4th, 1x5th, 1x6th, 5xDNF)
  13. Thierry Boutsen: 9 (CB: 1x2nd)
  14. Andrea de Cesaris: 9 (CB: 3x4th)
  15. Philippe Alliot: 8
  16. Alessandro Nannini: 7 (CB: 1x2nd)
  17. Mauricio Gugelmin: 7 (CB: 1x4th, 2x5th)
  18. Yannick Dalmas: 7 (CB: 1x4th, 1x5th)
  19. Roberto Moreno: 6
  20. Pierluigi Martini: 5
  21. Gabriele Tarquini: 4
  22. Aguri Suzuki: 2
  23. Oscar Larrauri: 1
  24. Martin Brundle: 0 (CB: 1x8th)
  25. Adrian Campos: 0 (CB: 1x13th)
  26. Jean-Louis Schlesser: 0 (CB: 1xDNF)
  27. Pierre-Henri Raphanel: 0 (CB: 1xDNF)
================================================================
That's the 1988 season done and dusted. I'll probably get to work on tweaking the 1989 mod to produce realistic results, and might factor in AGS's stunning success to give them a better shot for that year.

As a result of this season, EuroBrun would be un-rejectified, as are AGS. Luis Perez-Sala is also out of the rejects list, along with Julian Bailey.

McLaren have had atrocious reliability. They've suffered double DNFs five times, and Ayrton Senna only classified in seven races, contributing to him ending up behind Michele Alboreto! Of his 37 points, only 11 came from the second half of the season.

Another disappointment are Benetton. In the real 1988 season, they finished third with 39 points. They score just over an eighth of that amount here, and are quite possibly the biggest victim of AGS's success story. They end the season 12th, and the Benetton family must be seriously regretting pouring so many millions into the team.

Larrousse-Lola, Coloni, Zakspeed and Osella are all condemned to pre-qualifying for 1989. They will join the second Rial, Onyx and the returning Brabham team. With EuroBrun shrinking to a one-car effort, I might be generous and let Larrousse get one of their cars through pre-qualifying.
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Re: The rFactor career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???)

Post by Ciaran »

At the moment I'm gearing up for the 1989 season, would anyone know about how prize funds were distributed in the late '80s?
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

I might as well give an in-universe update for the off-season, but first, I've tried to get F1 Challenge to work. The 1989 mod causes CTDs, and it's a pain in the ass organising pre-qualifying. I've tried running rFactor in an 800x600 window in the hope that it could improve the frame rate, as I haven't really been able to avoid frame rate drops in F1C.

Anyway, onto the news!
I Can't Believe It's Not Autosport, 14 December 1988 wrote:Cheever: Tall drivers "screwed" by new rule

Eddie Cheever, who had finished the 1988 season 20th with 4 points, came out strongly against one of the more overlooked of the new regulations for the 1989 season, stipulating that the driver's feet must be situated behind the front axle line of the car. Standing 6ft 1in tall, Cheever is one of the tallest drivers on the grid, and with many teams aiming to emulate the low-slung McLaren MP4/4's cockpit, Cheever feared that, "Tall drivers like me are going to get screwed by this!" Cheever may have another reason to worry - the 5ft 7in-tall Irish driver, Ciaran O'Driscoll, has been linked with the USF&G Arrows team, following a stunning season with the Jameson AGS team which saw them finish with 30 points and 5th in the Constructors' Championship.


I Can't Believe It's Not Autosport, 21 December 1988 wrote:Nakajima to miss 1989 start?

Following his horrendous crash at his home Grand Prix two months ago, Satoru Nakajima broke both legs after cartwheeling through the air following a collision with Oscar Larrauri. A spokeswoman for the Japanese driver gave an update on his health, and states that while he is likely to recover, it won't be in time for the 1989 season opener at the Autodromo Nelson Piquet in Rio de Janeiro.

A source at Lotus has confirmed that they are looking at several drivers to take the Japanese driver's place. AGS's Ciaran O'Driscoll and Tyrrell's Julian Bailey are the lead candidates to fill in the role.
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by FullMetalJack »

I can't believe it's not Autosport? Nice.

On another note, I really have to get back to my 1988 career; I did do Japan PQ but that's all i've done in ages.
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

I Can't Believe It's Not Autosport, 6 March 1989 wrote:Both Larrousses to enter pre-qualifying

FISA, the governing body of Formula 1, have reiterated that Larrousse will have to enter both cars into pre-qualifying sessions for the 1989 season.

Despite Eurobrun shrinking to a one-car effort for Gregor Foitek for 1989, largely in part because of a split in the team between Swiss businessman Walter Brun and his Italian partners at Euroracing, which would mean 25 - not 26 - cars would automatically take part in qualifying, FISA have refused to allow Larrousse to automatically qualify.

One former team owner, speaking from a function at the Chilean Embassy in London, said that allowing a two-car to enter only one car into pre-qualifying was "absolute b******s".

The Times, 16 March 1989 wrote:Streiff fighting for life; O'Driscoll damning of AGS

Philippe Streiff is fighting for his life following a horrific crash while testing for the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix in Rio de Janeiro in little under three weeks' time.

The Frenchman, who was driving for the plucky AGS team and contributed 11 of their 30 Constructors Championship points last season, lost control of his car and, according to eyewitness reports, tumbled violently through the catch fencing.

Irish driver Ciaran O'Driscoll, who was Streiff's team-mate last season when he made his debut, and now drives for Arrows, has slammed his former team for "dropping safety to an afterthought", citing the car's roll-hoop breaking off. O'Driscoll himself had two massive crashes in the AGS last year, in the French and Australian Grands Prix.


I would have had some results to post tonight, but my controller went full Andrea Sassetti and ignored all of my commands, and went full-lock to the left. At least I've got pre-qualifying done:
Image
With AGS only entering one car after Streiff's crippling crash, the top 6 - Modena, Brundle, Caffi, Dalmas, Weidler and Alliot - all go through to main qualifying.
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Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - BRAZIL '89

Post by Ciaran »

25 March 1989
Image

Alboreto was the big shock of qualifying, with the 2nd-placed driver of 1988 barely scraping through at the expense of his team-mate. Qualifying 0.4 seconds slower than his compatriot Nannini, Alboreto's stunningly poor performance was blamed on Tyrrell's shoe-horning in of Cosworth's new DFR engine into last year's Tyrrell 017. Speaking to I Can't Believe It's Not Autosport, Ken Tyrrell stated his ambition of having the Tyrrell 018 ready for San Marino in four weeks' time. Similarly to Tyrrell, Eurobrun had troubles of their own in modifying the Eurobrun ER188 to take a Judd CV, a somewhat more considerable challenge than it would have been to upgrade to the new Cosworth engine.

The first three rows resembled the queue for Noah's Ark, with Ferrari locking out the front row, with McLaren and Williams taking the second and third rows respectively. Gugelmin, Winkelhock in the sole AGS, O'Driscoll and Capelli rounded out the top ten.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I feel like there were a couple of tenths left in me and the car. Obviously it's not ideal to start behind your old team, but I've got 31 laps to do tomorrow, so I'll see if I can grab a point or two.

With Ferrari pioneering a revolutionary "semi-automatic gearbox", those starting outside the top six should have reason to hope for points.

26 March
Image
Jacarepagua was, above all else, a heartbreaker these past few weeks. On the final lap, as he was leading out of Norte and onto the back straight, Ayrton Senna went for fourth gear...only to hear the sickening crunch of an ill-fated gear. Patrese blew past, with the Italian taking the chequered flag convincingly from Alain Prost, who took second on the run down to the penultimate corner, Box, but with all of his might, Senna hung onto his team-mate's gearbox out of Box and the final corner, Vitoria, a sure-fire statement of intent.

Ferrari were the big losers of the race. Mansell spun to the back of the field on the first lap after getting tagged by Boutsen, with the former suffering a puncture and the latter a mangled nosecone. Ciaran O'Driscoll took full advantage of the early carnage, running as high as 4th ahead of Patrese until the Irishman messed up the exit of Vitoria at the end of his 6th lap, dropping him into the clutches of the Marches. Unfortunately O'Driscoll couldn't manage his tyres, and had to change them on lap 16, dropping to 14th. His efforts to catch up with the Marches were in vain, and he could only recover to 9th.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I can't understand it...I had the pace today, but my tyres were starting to go by the middle of the race. I thought I might as well pit and make the most out of fresh rubber, but here I am down in 9th.

A botched downshift by Mansell led to a terminal over-revving of the new Ferrari V12, and brought an expected early end of the race for him. Ferrari's front row lockout would be for nought, as with 29 laps down and 2 to go, Gerhard Berger retired from 3rd place after taking a kerb too harshly, allowing Prost through. This elevated Gugelmin back into the points, where he would remain until the end, a welcome result for his return after his heavy crash while qualifying for last year's Italian GP.

Constructors' Championship
  1. Canon Williams-Renault: 12
  2. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 10
  3. Leyton House March-Judd: 3

Drivers' Championship
  1. Riccardo Patrese: 9
  2. Alain Prost: 6
  3. Ayrton Senna: 4
  4. Thierry Boutsen: 3
  5. Ivan Capelli: 2
  6. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

21 April 1989
On Friday morning, lawyers representing the Streiff family stated that they intended to sue AGS for the injuries sustained by him in his horrific testing crash over a month ago, citing the failure of the rollbar in the accident.

Image
Martin Brundle was a shock casualty of pre-qualifying. He could only go 7th-fastest, behind Yannick Dalmas, the fastest of those who failed to pre-qualify. His team-mate Stefano Modena topped the timesheets, an astounding 0.8s clear of Alex Caffi in the 2nd Dallara. The pair of Onyxes seem to have sorted out their set-up problem from Brazil, with Belgian rookie Bertrand Gachot leading the Swede Stefan Johansson. Piercarlo Ghinzani scraped through in his Osella, just 0.003s clear of Dalmas.

22 April
Image
Ayrton Senna could only manage 9th, as his qualifying runs were ruined by traffic. Before he could get a clear lap, his gearbox failed, leaving the Brazilian a spectator for the rest of the session. To the audible delight of la tifosi, Nigel Mansell took pole, with Prost slotting in between him and his team-mate, Gerhard Berger. The BMS Scuderia Italia's Dallaras pulled off a shock result of 4th and 5th, with de Cesaris leading Caffi. Both drivers attributed their stunning performances to their Pirelli tyres, which seem to be better at warming up than the Goodyears.

Tyrrell registered a humiliating double-DNQ, in spite of them switching to the new 018. Joining them on the early trip home are Johansson for Onyx and Perez-Sala for Minardi. Swiss rookie Gregor Foitek easily made up for his poor performance in Brazil by lining up 17th on the grid.

23 April
Image
Thierry Boutsen was denied his maiden victory in Formula 1 despite a stunning defensive drive, fending off Prost (and later Senna) only to lose the lead at Rivazza on the penultimate lap. Riccardo Patrese earned the hate of la tifosi with a botched pit stop, which saw him drive right across Nigel Mansell's path as the Ferrari driver left his pitbox. Patrese could keep going, but Mansell stalled the engine. Ferrari's day was over by the 11th lap, with Berger once more complaining of suspension problems and halting the car at Tamburello. When interviewed later, Berger recalled the suspension feeling "unstable" when he went through the 190mph left-hander a lap previously.

A possible points finish was thrown away by Ciaran O'Driscoll as the Irishman spun out at Rivazza on lap 21 while in 4th. He clipped the wall, losing the front nose cone, and had to pit for repairs. He made the most of the fresh tyres, and fought back from 15th to 10th. The sight of Tarquini in 8th was an added kick in the teeth, with the Italian now ahead on countback.

Meanwhile, it was many happy returns for the Brabham team as they scored their first point since returning, courtesy of Stefano Modena.

ROTR: Ciaran O'Driscoll. There really is no excuse for spinning off at Piratella unless it's mechanical.

Constructors' Championship
=1. Canon Williams-Renault: 22
=1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 22
3. Leyton House March-Judd: 3
4. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 2
5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 1

Drivers' Championship
  1. Alain Prost: 15
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 13
  3. Thierry Boutsen: 9
  4. Ayrton Senna: 7
  5. Ivan Capelli: 2 (1x12th)
  6. Andrea de Cesaris: 2 (1xDNF)
  7. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (1x11th)
  8. Stefano Modena: 1 (1xDNF)

================================================================
Up next is Monaco. Gaben have mercy on my laptop. :chilton:
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

Monaco was a pain in the ass to get done. I had to quit twice because the bloody safety car got stuck, so I had to turn that off. :facepalm:

==========
5 May 1989
Image
Volker Weidler has the unenviable accolade of being the only driver slower than a goddamned Zakspeed.

6 May 1989
Image
Disaster strikes for Ferrari on Berger's first hotlap, as the Austrian's gearbox broke on his first hotlap and he crawled back to the pits. Brundle goes straight on at Nouvelle Chicane and gets stuck on that service road, and Derek Warwick went off at Sainte-Devote. Alboreto's humiliating season continues.

7 May 1989
I forgot to screencap my results.

Cliff notes:
  • Prost hit Modena at the start, spinning him around and letting Caffi into 2nd!
  • On lap 15, Prost messed up an overtake attempt on Mansell at Portier. Yeah, I don't know why he tried either.
  • On lap 17, Mansell went off at Sainte-Devote. While he did manage to continue, he'd never get back into the points before crashing out at Nouvelle Chicane on lap 32.
  • Boutsen screwed me over on lap 25, when he brake-checks me out of Anthony Noghes next to Jonathan Palmer's wrecked Tyrrell. I lose my front wing in the process, but at least he gets his comeuppance the next lap when he screws up an overtake on Modena at Nouvelle Chicane.
  • I fought back to 2nd over the last 13 laps, mainly because Modena and Caffi really dropped off the pace in the last 2/3 laps.
  • Oh, and this happened. Just in Monaco, not Interlagos.

Top 6:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 1'00:22.151
  2. Ciaran O'Driscoll: +31.350
  3. Alex Caffi: +32.016
  4. Stefano Modena: +35.651
  5. Alain Prost: +44.274
  6. Riccardo Patrese: +45.024

ROTR: Thierry Boutsen, for picking an utterly stupid time to both brake next to Palmer's wreck and to try to overtake Stefano Modena.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 33
  2. Canon Williams-Renault: 23
  3. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 6 (CB: 1x2nd)
  4. BMS Scuderia Italia: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 4
  6. Leyton House March-Judd: 3

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Alain Prost: 17
  2. Ayrton Senna: 16
  3. Riccardo Patrese: 14
  4. Thierry Boutsen: 9
  5. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 6
  6. Alex Caffi: 4
  7. Andrea de Cesaris: 2 (CB: 1x7th)
  8. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x12th)
  9. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

Sorry for keeping anyone waiting, my laptop's left-clicker broke, so I haven't been able to take screenshots of the results and then present them in a presentable format. So, I'll do quick reviews of every race I've done since my last post, which would take us up to the British GP!

26-28 May: Mexico
Larini gets excluded from pre-qualifying after crashing into Moreno in the pits. I throw away a 6th in qualifying because the game glitches out and tells me to give away positions to everyone. Mansell retired with 8 laps to go, and then 4 laps later Prost retires too, leaving Senna unchallenged at the front. He leads home Berger, Patrese, Brundle, Warwick and Nannini.

2-4 June: USA
We're robbed of a great fight when Prost's gearbox fails during qualifying. Berger gets excluded for doing too many laps, and Boutsen crashes out at T1 on what would have been his first hot lap.

The race barely gets over the 75% distance mark, thanks to SIX safety car periods! Mansell takes the win from Senna, after the Brazilian screws up a restart and drops down the order and has to fight (literally, sometimes) wheel-to-wheel to work his way back up. Patrese, myself, Warwick and Joachim Winkelhock (!) round out the points. Gregor Foitek somehow worked his way up to 7th until Larini screws him over in a botched overtake into T4 on the last lap!

16-18 June: Canada
Boutsen rounds out a crappy North American tour with a gearbox failure in qualifying, as does Gerhard Berger.

At the start I get caught up in a crash, and I then need to pit to fix the damage. I eventually retire on lap 15 after getting too intimate with the wall at the exit of T4. Surprise, surprise, Prost retires with five laps to go. Mansell wins once more from Senna, Brundle, Modena, Alboreto and de Cesaris.

=======================
Between Canada and France
=======================
Alboreto's points in Canada save his bacon, as instead Ken Tyrrell's axe falls on Jonathan Palmer's contract in favour of French hot-shot Jean Alesi, currently taking F3000 by storm.

Johnny Herbert resigns from his role at Benetton, citing his foot injury from last year, and wants to return to rehabilitation. In steps McLaren's test driver, Emanuele Pirro.

Yannick Dalmas is another driver who feels like he's not at 100%, and leaves Larrousse, with Eric Bernard stepping in.

Finally, the oh-so-careful Derek Warwick hurts his back in a karting crash in Jersey, so Martin Donnelly will fill in for him.
=======================
7-9 July: France
Pirelli can't get their tyres to work at the Paul Ricard Circuit, and not a single Pirelli-shod car gets through to the main qualifying session. To further their woes, the four DNQ spots are taken up by Pirelli-shod cars.

Benetton bring in their new B189, and immediately they feel the benefit - Nannini gets himself into a scrap for the top 6 with the Williamses and Tyrrells!

The race is restarted twice (because the safety car got stuck in the barrier at T1 both times). Senna wins from Mansell, Patrese, me, Alboreto and Pirro! I even led a few laps around the 3/4 mark.

14-16 July: Britain
Coloni and AGS debut new cars, the C3 and JH24 respectively - the latter only being brought for one driver, Tarquini, as AGS continue to fight a court battle with the Streiff family.

The effectiveness of the new Coloni shows, and Moreno finally gets through to the main qualifying session.

The race is restarted once (because the safety car got stuck in the pits), and I crash into Caffi and take a drive-through penalty for that. Neither McLaren makes it to the chequered flag, leaving Berger to take the win from Nannini, Alesi and Boutsen.

Oh, and Foitek takes 5th. Gregor Foitek. In a Eurobrun. Took 5th ahead of a pack headed by Alboreto. A pack that also features Piquet, Gugelmin and Warwick. Just...drink in the Gift of Gregor.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for Eurobrun to escape pre-qualifying in the 2nd half of the season. They join Rial, Osella, Onyx, Zakspeed, Coloni and Larrousse.

===========================================================
Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 63
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 39
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 38
  4. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 16
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 14
  6. Benetton-Ford: 8
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 7
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 6
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 3
  10. Eurobrun-Judd: 2
  11. Kronenbourg AGS-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 46
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 26
  3. Nigel Mansell: 24
  4. Alain Prost: 17
  5. Gerhard Berger: 15
  6. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 12
  7. Alessandro Nannini: 7 (CB: 1x2nd)
  8. Martin Brundle: 7 (CB: 1x3rd)
  9. Stefano Modena: 7 (CB: 2x4th)
  10. Michele Alboreto: 6
  11. Alex Caffi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x7th)
  12. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 1xDNF)
  13. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  14. Andrea de Cesaris: 3
  15. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  16. Gregor Foitek: 2 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  17. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x12th)
  18. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x13th)
  19. Emanuele Pirro: 1 (CB: 1xDNF)

Next up is Germany. Gods help my engine.
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

28 July
The ageing Judd CV engine does Gregor Foitek no favours on the power circuit that is so dependent on power. But at least he can count his lucky stars that he isn't Philippe Alliot, who knocks his suspension out of whack on his out-lap and fails to set a time. His team-mate Eric Bernard picks up the baton for Larrousse and sticks his car at the top of the timesheets. Moreno, Weidler and Gachot go through too.

29 July
Boutsen suffers yet another gearbox failure! Emanuele Pirro also fails to set a time after crashing out.

The audience takes a collective deep breath as Derek Warwick is hit in the braking zone for the Ostkurve by Luis Perez-Sala. The Arrows slams into the tyres and is flipped over onto its engine cover. The session is stopped so he can be flown to hospital.

In the end, Gerhard Berger heads an all-Ferrari front row, with Senna 3rd, Prost 4th, myself 11th. Warwick would qualify 14th, but is in no shape to race, promoting Pierluigi Martini to the grid.

30 July
News emerges of Warwick's condition. He's conscious, but the crash had aggravated the injuries which put him out of the French Grand Prix. Perez-Sala will learn his fate on Wednesday.

The McLarens clash into turn 1, with Prost coming off worse, dropping down to 8th. Although I have one of my usual crap starts, I get back up to 9th after the Nordkurve. Alesi tags Nannini at Ostkurve, and while Nannini can keep going, Alesi can't, and his wreck brings out the safety car.

There is only a single lap of action before Prost and Berger collide at Ostkurve, and once more the safety car is brought back out, but not before we get some dicing for the lead between Mansell and Senna.

The wreckage takes until the 9th lap to remove. On the 10th lap, Capelli tags me out of Ostkurve, sending me spinning around. By this point, there are only 12 cars remaining, and I drop to 10th.

I began what I hoped was an epic comeback by using Caffi's slipstream on the north straight on the 11th lap. Another epic comeback in the making was that of Alessandro Nannini - at this point, he was fourth! On top of that, he had just taken that position from Gachot! Nannini leaves Gachot in his dust, and the Belgian is caught up by Capelli and Brundle.

Their squabbling brings me into their battle for 5th. I clear Capelli at the Third Chicane on the 15th lap...only to bin it at the Agipkurve. I get too wide at the exit and lose the rear...right into the barrier on the right-hand side of the track. The suspension is ruined, and so is my day.

Two big name retirements strike in the space of two minutes. First to go is Patrese, and the next is casualty is race and championship leader, Ayrton Senna. Mansell assumes the lead, and Gachot also retires, his hopes of points (and possible un-rejectification) snatched away.

There's a scrap among Caffi, Capelli and Tarquini over 4th through 6th. By this point Mansell, Nannini and Brundle look very safe - lonely, even - in 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

But then Mansell gets a rude awakening. On the beginning of lap 22, he loses all drive. His hopes of slashing the deficit to Senna from 22 to 13 points are up in smoke, just like his Ferrari V12. Alessandro Nannini, having barely scraped through the first lap, is now the race leader, and for the last 13km or so, no-one can mount a challenge. Benetton, having had a terrible 1988 season which left them on the brink of being dropped into pre-qualifying, have been saved by the B189.

Behind him, Capelli is forced to ditch his car in the gravel trap of Nordkurve on the final lap after his brakes fail. Brundle is a distant 2nd, 35.6 seconds down on Nannini. Caffi is 3rd, followed by Tarquini, Martini and Grouillard. Capelli is classified 7th, and Mansell is classified 8th.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I can't excuse my crash. I took a wide entry to the...the...Agip corner, was it?
(Yeah.)
Yeah, I took a wide entry into Agip, I think I might have got my tyres dusty, and then I put a wheel on the grass on the exit.


ROTR: Gerhard Berger. A schoolboy error from the Austrian robbed spectators of a potential battle for the lead between Ferrari and McLaren, and perhaps robbed Alain Prost of any hope of retaining the title.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 63
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 39
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 38
  4. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 20
  5. Benetton Formula-Ford: 17
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 16
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 11
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 9
  9. Kronenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  10. Leyton House March-Judd: 3
  11. Minardi-Ford: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  12. Eurobrun-Judd: 2 (CB: 1x11th)
  13. Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 46
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 26
  3. Nigel Mansell: 24
  4. Alain Prost: 17
  5. Alessandro Nannini: 16
  6. Gerhard Berger: 15
  7. Martin Brundle: 13
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 12 (CB: 1x9th)
  9. Thierry Boutsen: 12 (CB: 1x12th)
  10. Alex Caffi: 8
  11. Stefano Modena: 7
  12. Michele Alboreto: 5
  13. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  14. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  15. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  16. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th)
  17. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x7th)
  18. Pierluigi Martini: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  19. Gregor Foitek: 2 (CB: 1x11th)
  20. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th)
  21. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x12th)
  22. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x13th)
  23. Emanuele Pirro: 1 (CB: 1xDNF)

===========================================================
Anyone for Lotus-Lamborghini in pre-qualifying for 1990? :pantano:
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

Martin Donnelly is called up once more to fill in for Derek Warwick at Arrows. However, the Ulsterman won't be available for the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks later due to a clash with the Birmingham Superprix, prompting rumours that Eddie Cheever could be on his way back to F1 for one or two last showings, but Arrows have refused to comment.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I don't see how Eddie can return, to be honest. He's about six inches taller than me, and I'd say there's just not enough room in the car for him! (laughs)


Pre-qualifying
Image

Qualifying
Image

Race
Image

Enzo Coloni wept tears of joy as Roberto Moreno picked his way through the field to take third place behind Berger and Patrese. Once more, Mansell was denied a chance to make any major in-roads on Senna's championship lead, and Patrese was able to cement his position as Senna's closest challenger. Meanwhile, Gregor Foitek was classified in 6th despite suffering an engine failure on the 32nd lap.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I just can't believe I've had another points finish robbed from me. I switched to a 1-stop strategy because it offered a way to be more aggressive around here, but the engine just wouldn't co-operate.


Lotus-Lambo getting stuck in pre-qualifying is starting to look likely now. :facepalm:

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 63
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 50
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 44
  4. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 20
  5. Benetton-Ford: 17
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 16
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 8
  9. Coloni-Ford: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  10. Kronenbourg AGS-Ford: 4 (CB: 1x4th)
  11. Leyton House March-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x7th)
  12. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  13. Minardi-Ford: 2
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 46
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 32
  3. Nigel Mansell: 26
  4. Gerhard Berger: 24
  5. Alain Prost: 17
  6. Alessandro Nannini: 16
  7. Martin Brundle: 13
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 12 (CB: 1x9th)
  9. Thierry Boutsen: 12 (CB: 1x12th)
  10. Alex Caffi: 11
  11. Stefano Modena: 7
  12. Michele Alboreto: 5
  13. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 3xDNF)
  14. Roberto Moreno: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 2xDNF)
  15. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  16. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  17. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  18. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  19. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x7th)
  20. Pierluigi Martini: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  21. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th)
  22. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x12th)
  23. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x13th)
  24. Emanuele Pirro: 1 (CB: 2xDNF)

Next up, I'll try to get the RFE Weather plugin for rFactor working for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
Posts: 300
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

The F1 1989 mod is such a pain in the ass when it comes to getting RFE's Weather Plugin to work. I had to create new tyre files which only had the "full wet" compound, as otherwise the AI either:
  1. Went straight for dry tyres, and ended up driving as if they were on ice.
  2. Switched to dry tyres when pitting, and ended up driving as if they were on ice.
=======================================================================================
As the F1 circus moves back across the Iron Curtain (which, if reports from the likes of East Germany, Poland and even the Soviet Union are to be believed, is in the process of rusting away) to Belgium, Arrows, Larrousse and Tyrrell announced some driver changes.

Perhaps the greatest surprise is the debut of CART driver Michael Andretti at Arrows, believed to be at the behest of their American title sponsor USF&G. The son of 1978 World Champion Mario, he has shown great pace at road courses so far, and the Arrows is not one of the more complicated cars to drive on the F1 grid. He will be racing for the remainder of Warwick's absence as Martin Donnelly shifts his focus to Formula 3000.

Johnny Herbert returns after a lengthy stint of rehabilitation for Tyrrell, as Jean Alesi also has Formula 3000 duties to worry about. Understandably, Herbert won't be filling in for Alesi for the rest of the season as he, in his own words, "doesn't feel like I'm at 100% yet". Also returning to fill in for a F3000 driver is Yannick Dalmas at Larrousse.

On top of the driver changes, Eurobrun revealed their new sponsor, the German liquor brand Jägermeister, for the weekend.
Image
Pre-qualifying would end up being the only dry session of the weekend. Both Rials would qualify, along with Coloni's hero of the Hungaroring and Nicola Larini in an Osella.

Yannick Dalmas and Stefan Johansson would provide one of the most rejectful moments of the weekend, when they collided on each other's first out-laps.

Image
The heavens opened for qualifying. March were sent home early as Gugelmin had a tank-slapper on the pit straight, and Capelli aquaplaned off on the run down to Eau Rouge. Julian Bailey also crashes out, while Olivier Grouillard suffered electrical problems which prohibited him from even leaving his garage.

An absolutely spectacular lap was produced by Alain Prost to take pole ahead of Gerhard Berger by nearly 2 seconds. Ayrton Senna must be content with 3rd, alongside Alessandro Nannini for a revitalised Benetton team.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I think we took a worthwhile risk today with my setup, I've got one of the best times in the first sector, but I just can't get close to anyone like Prost in the second [sector].

=======================================================================================
The race was brought to a standstill after a pile-up on the run down to Eau Rouge, triggered by Mansell aquaplaning. Alboreto, Piquet and Martini are also taken out, but luckily are able to take the restart, albeit from the back of the grid.

The restart is less eventful, and although Gerhard Berger snatches the lead from Prost, he too aquaplanes off exiting Le Combes. This time, all his crash does is bring out a local yellow flag, and there's no chance he can take the restart. Meanwhile, Ayrton Senna blasts past Prost at the first chance he gets, and the Brazilian takes the opportunity to show the wet weather mastery which helped him drag a Toleman to 2nd in Monaco in 1984 and a Lotus to victory in Portugal in 1985, amongst other accolades.

At the other end of the field, Alboreto, Mansell and Piquet were cutting a path through the opposition. On lap 4, I'd suffer the first of several spins as I barely keep the car out of the barriers at that left-hander after Rivage. My race is ruined on lap 10 when Mansell's engine blows up right in front of me exiting Pouhon, ripping off my front wing, and I plunge to 16th. I survive a divebombing from Arnoux at La Source on lap 12 which sends me up in the air, Michael Schumacher at Adelaide in 1994-style, although this time he's the one who retires on the spot. On lap 19 I try to overtake Alboreto for 12th at La Source, only to spin out at the exit, into the wall on the inside. My race is done.

Further up the road, Moreno wrestles the Coloni to what would eventually turn out to be 5th, much to the chagrin of Nelson Piquet behind him. Senna wins by 3.7 seconds from Prost for a long-overdue first 1-2 of the season for McLaren. Nannini is cruelly denied the final podium spot as his engine fails just before the braking zone for the Bus Stop chicane! Instead, his teammate Emanuele Pirro steps up to provide what is essentially a 1-2-3 for McLaren drivers. Martin Brundle takes 3 points for 4th, with Moreno and Piquet following him.

ROTR: Ciaran O'Driscoll. It had been hoped that the Irishman could thrive in the miserable weather this weekend, but it was not to be. His series of spins was his undoing.

=======================================================================================
Constructors' Championship
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 78
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 50
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 44
  4. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  5. Benetton-Ford: 21
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 16
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 9
  9. Coloni-Ford: 6
  10. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  11. Leyton House March-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x7th)
  12. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  13. Minardi-Ford: 2
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 2x8th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 55
  2. Riccardo Patrese: 32
  3. Nigel Mansell: 26
  4. Gerhard Berger: 24
  5. Alain Prost: 23
  6. Alessandro Nannini: 16 (CB: 1x1st)
  7. Martin Brundle: 16 (CB: 1x2nd)
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 12 (CB: 1x9th)
  9. Thierry Boutsen: 12 (CB: 1x12th)
  10. Alex Caffi: 11
  11. Stefano Modena: 7
  12. Roberto Moreno: 6
  13. Emanuele Pirro: 5 (CB: 1x3rd)
  14. Michele Alboreto: 5 (CB: 2x5th)
  15. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 3xDNF)
  16. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  17. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  18. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  19. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  20. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x7th)
  21. Pierluigi Martini: 2 (CB: 1x9th)
  22. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  23. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x9th)
  24. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
  25. Mauricio Gugelmin: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x12th)
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Re: The rFactor (and F1C) career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-

Post by Ciaran »

8 September, 1989
As pre-qualifying got under way, the big story of the paddock was the bombshell dropped by Scuderia Ferrari. The Italian squad pulled off a coup; they had signed none other than Alain Prost. Tensions had been running high between the reigning champion Prost and McLaren for some time, due to a string of mechanical DNFs, preceded by a DNQ in Phoenix, along with his teammate Ayrton Senna's 32-point advantage over him. For Prost, Ferrari offered promise with their new semi-automatic transmission. For Ferrari, the Frenchman brings the skills that won him three Drivers' Championships.

Meanwhile, further down the grid, Alesi and Bernard returned from their Formula 3000 duties to replace Herbert and Dalmas respectively.
Image
Eric Bernard needed little time to re-adjust to Formula 1, topping the timesheets in pre-qualifying ahead of Philippe Alliot. Stefan Johansson and Volker Weidler would follow, while the Colonis of Moreno and Raphanel proved unable to adapt to Monza, which was especially galling for the Brazilian, having scored six points for a team that was barely holding off the Yamaha-powered Zakspeed cars at the start of the season.

9 September
Image
It was a good day to be Italian on Saturday, as Ferrari took 1st and 3rd on the grid, while Italian drivers (led by Alessandro Nannini for Benetton) took the rest of the places in the top 5, with Prost - treated by the tifosi with an unprecedented degree of respect following the announcement of his move to Ferrari - taking 6th.

At the other end of the grid, it was a dark day for Lotus. The winners of no less than seven constructors' titles and six drivers' titles were sent packing as Piquet and Bailey were nowhere near beating the time set by Rene Arnoux in 26th, marking the first time in Lotus's long history as a constructor where none of their cars would qualify for the race.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:The car felt really good today, I think we've a good shot at points tomorrow because the car just felt so stable and balanced this weekend.


10 September
Image
The crowd erupted with Schadenfreude as Senna's Honda engine didn't even wait until the lights were out to start emitting an ominous smoke. He barely made it around the first Lesmo corner before pulling off to the side as the engine breathed its last.

O'Driscoll would provide most of the entertainment up front. A tap from behind by Ivan Capelli on the third lap at della Roggia would do little to dent the Irishman's day, and he fought back from as low as 10th to take the final step on the podium. Between the 10th and 22nd laps, he even had the audacity to duel with Alain Prost of all people, before dropping back to save fuel.

Once more, Williams' drivers would fail to capitalise on a Senna DNF. Of the 4 times Senna has failed to finish, Boutsen and Patrese have only finished once each.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:Am I pissed off with Capelli, yeah, but I wouldn't put it past Prost to have still held onto 2nd even if I didn't get hit by [Capelli]. At the end of the day, it's four more points in the championship, and it puts us [Arrows] back into contention with...Brabham, is it?
(Yeah.)
Brabham, yeah, I'd be lying if I said I can't believe how they've made it that far out of pre-qualifying, but then again Philippe [Streiff] & I did the same for AGS last year.


ROTR: Gabriele Tarquini. The Italian failed to get the job done on Stefan Johansson entering Ascari, and then tried to finish it off in the middle of it. The result was two detached Goodyear-shod wheels and two cars that were going nowhere fast. Given the rate of attrition today, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise if Tarquini could have beaten Martini to that final points-paying position.
=======================================================================================
Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 84
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 59
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 44
  4. Benetton-Ford: 24
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 20
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 9
  9. Coloni-Ford: 6
  10. Leyton House March-Judd: 5
  11. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  12. Minardi-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x9th)
  13. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 2x8th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 55
  2. Gerhard Berger: 33
  3. Riccardo Patrese: 32
  4. Alain Prost: 29
  5. Nigel Mansell: 26
  6. Alessandro Nannini: 16 (CB: 1x1st)
  7. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x9th)
  8. Martin Brundle: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x11th)
  9. Thierry Boutsen: 12 (CB: 1x12th)
  10. Alex Caffi: 11
  11. Emanuele Pirro: 8
  12. Stefano Modena: 7
  13. Roberto Moreno: 6
  14. Michele Alboreto: 5 (CB: 2x5th)
  15. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 3xDNF)
  16. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  17. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  18. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 2x7th)
  19. Mauricio Gugelmin: 3 (CB: 1x8th)
  20. Pierluigi Martini: 3 (CB: 1x9th)
  21. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  22. Ivan Capelli: 2 (CB: 1x7th)
  23. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  24. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x9th)
  25. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
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Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Portugal '8

Post by Ciaran »

22 September
There were two resignations to report since the Italian GP. First of all was the Luxembourg-born Belgian driver Bertrand Gachot, citing a lack of testing opportunities at the new Onyx team. Formula 3000 driver J.J. Lehto has been brought in for the time being as Stefan Johansson's new teammate.

Meanwhile, at Coloni, Pierre-Henri Raphanel complained of being "neglected" in favour of his Brazilian teammate Roberto Moreno. The final straw appears to have been the tiny (and apparently shrinking, having lost their R&D head Michel Costa and lead designer Christian Vanderpleyn) Italian squad only bringing one updated front wing (courtesy of freelance engineer Gary Anderson) to Estoril for Moreno. Italian driver Enrico Bertaggia has been called up to fill in for Raphanel.

Also missing are Alesi and Bernard, who have an F3000 championship to worry about, and Michael Andretti has returned to across the Atlantic as Derek Warwick has "fully recovered" from his crash during qualifying for the German GP.

Finally, Williams took the wraps off the new FW13. Having raced with an updated version of last season's FW12 - originally designed for a Judd engine - the team now has a car which is purpose-built for Renault's V10s.
Image
Unfortunately, things didn't work out for Coloni. Moreno was three tenths off grabbing the last pre-qualifying spot, and complained of a lack of straight-line speed, which he felt made the difference between himself and Weidler, who took the last pre-qualifying place. Bertaggia, on the other hand, looked as if he was very much out of depth.

Later, Nicola Larini was excluded from the session after missing (or ignoring) the weighbridge.
Image
23 September
Prost's revival continued, with the Frenchman taking pole from Mansell. Crucially, though, Senna was right behind the duo.

There were some teething problems for Williams's new car, not helped by Boutsen getting caught in traffic and subsequently mired in P13. Patrese had better luck, putting the car in 5th, ahead of Mauricio Gugelmin's March.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I'm very happy with 7th today, and I'm happy to see Derek back. It's just a shame he couldn't get enough laps done today, though.


Image
24 September
For Ciaran O'Driscoll, today was a reminder of how cruel a mistress Formula 1 can be. With only five corners between him and two points in the Drivers' Championship, the Irishman was knocked into the wall by his old friend from Monza, Ivan Capelli.

Capelli would finish fifth on the road, but was later stripped of this by the stewards and excluded from the race altogether. As for O'Driscoll, he brought his ruined Arrows home in a lowly 17th, with the rear-right suspension bent out of shape. His result is all the more tragic when one factors in that he recovered from a first lap incident caused by Michele Alboreto, who spun Mauricio Gugelmin right into O'Driscoll's path. It's a testament to the incredible construction of F1 cars - and that the crash happened at Curva 3, one of the slower corners on the track - that the March and the Arrows were able to continue and still remain in contention for high finishing positions. O'Driscoll was one of many requiring a pit-stop at the end of that first lap, but that wouldn't deter the Irishman from climbing back up the ranks until that fateful final lap encounter with Capelli.

Up front, spectators were treated to a battle between Ferrari and McLaren, with Prost coming up tops, ahead of Mansell and Senna. For Prost, this is a vital win as it brings him up to 2nd in the Drivers' Championship, leapfrogging the Ferrari drivers and Patrese.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:That ***** Capelli just barged through like a ****ing brat. This is F1 in Estoril, not ****ing Ford Cortinas in a ****ing Essex demolition derby.

Ivan Capelli wrote:For me, it is quite simple, I went for the gap, but then [O'Driscoll] moved into it. He left me no room, the crash...it could not be avoided.


ROTR: Christian Danner. For German F1 fans, he has been the cause of a day to forget for them, as he attempted to move into a gap that Winkelhock had no intention of keeping open for long enough for him to exploit. A potential top 10 finish - perhaps even a point, had Capelli and O'Driscoll's clash been more serious - slipped from his (and Rial's) grasp.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 97
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 65
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 45
  4. Benetton-Ford: 26
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 20
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  8. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 9
  9. Leyton House March-Judd: 8
  10. Coloni-Ford: 6
  11. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  12. Minardi-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x9th)
  13. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 2x8th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 59
  2. Alain Prost: 38
  3. Gerhard Berger: 33
  4. Nigel Mansell: 32 (CB: 2x1st)
  5. Riccardo Patrese: 32 (CB: 1x1st)
  6. Alessandro Nannini: 18
  7. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x9th)
  8. Martin Brundle: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x11th)
  9. Thierry Boutsen: 13
  10. Alex Caffi: 11
  11. Emanuele Pirro: 8
  12. Stefano Modena: 7
  13. Roberto Moreno: 6 (CB: 1x3rd)
  14. Mauricio Gugelmin: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  15. Michele Alboreto: 5
  16. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 3xDNF)
  17. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  18. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  19. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  20. Pierluigi Martini: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  21. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  22. Ivan Capelli: 2
  23. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  24. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x9th)
  25. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
=======================================================================================
So this is how Foitek felt when he got taken out of the 1990 Monaco GP. Feels bad, man...but not as bad as how Lotus must be feeling.
Last edited by Ciaran on 15 Sep 2016, 20:38, edited 1 time in total.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
User avatar
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Joined: 09 Mar 2015, 18:14

Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Spain 1989

Post by Ciaran »

29 September
After crashing out of the Portuguese GP last Sunday, Christian Danner has been fired by the Rial team. Ex-Coloni driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel has been brought in for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, Riccardo Patrese has reverted to the FW12 for this weekend.

As the European season comes to a close, rumours are flying about not only about the driver market - the latest one being a possible Piquet retirement after a terrible season which sees his team, the illustrious Lotus, on the verge of dropping into pre-qualifying - but also the engine supplier market, with no less than three manufacturers planning to make their debut, all with 12-cylinder engines in different configurations.

First of all is the Austrian company Neotech, with the most ordinary of the trio, a 70-degree V12. It's believed that the engine's development is being financed by Walter Brun, owner of the Eurobrun team, following their windfall of prize money for finishing 10th in the Constructors' Championship last year.

Up next is Subaru, with a flat-12 - a configuration not seen in F1 since 1980 in the back of a Ferrari. Carlo Chiti's Motori Moderni company has been entrusted with the project. It's believed that the engine is intended for Minardi, although Coloni have also been mentioned.

Finally, there's the Life project of Ernesto Vita, with the twelve cylinders arranged in three banks of four cylinders apiece - a configuration totally alien to the world of motorsport. Little else is known about the team, except that they plan on entering their own chassis, which would make them only one of two engine suppliers - the other being Ferrari - to do so.

Image
For the first time since Mexico, both Onyx cars got through pre-qualifying. They were joined by Moreno and Foitek, while Enrico Bertaggia was saved from propping up the timesheets as Nicola Larini barely got out of the pit lane before his car succumbed to an electrical problem.

Image
30 September
Gerhard Berger put his Ferrari on pole, but Ayrton Senna was doing just enough to position himself to take the title by the end of the weekend.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:The car was feeling pretty good today, I'm very happy to take 10th considering who's ahead of me.


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1 October
Alain Prost's race - and title defence - was cut short as he hit the abandoned Arrows of Derek Warwick while following Ayrton Senna. With that, his title reign was over at the very circuit that it began a year ago.

As for O'Driscoll, he was running 5th when he lost a front wing on the 8th lap when he ran into the back of an unsighted Roberto Moreno driving slowly away from the scene of a collision with Foitek, forcing him to the back of the field as he pitted for repairs. He managed to work his way back up to 9th before colliding with Mauricio Gugelmin on the 22nd lap when attempting an overtake around the outside of Turn 3.

Up front, Senna took the lead on the 16th lap from Gerhard Berger, and from then until his engine failed, he ran away with the race. On lap 35, disaster struck for Ferrari. Berger ran out of fuel just before the braking zone for the Curva Dry Soc hairpin, and Nigel Mansell ran right into the back of him. It was the news that Senna wanted to hear above anything else.

With Senna's engine failure on lap 36, and Mansell being forced to pit for a new front wing, the lead fell into the lap of Thierry Boutsen in the new Williams FW13. For Williams, it's their first win since the Brazilian GP, but understandably that's been overshadowed as Ayrton Senna had sealed his first drivers' championship, and Ferrari's measly haul of a single point from Jerez means that McLaren have retained the constructors' honours.
=======================================================================================
Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 97 (C)
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 66
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 57
  4. Benetton-Ford: 32
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 20
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 12
  9. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 11
  10. Coloni-Ford: 6
  11. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  12. Minardi-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x9th)
  13. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 1x7th)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 59 (C)
  2. Alain Prost: 38
  3. Riccardo Patrese: 35
  4. Gerhard Berger: 33 (CB: 3x1st)
  5. Nigel Mansell: 33 (CB: 2x1st)
  6. Thierry Boutsen: 22
  7. Alessandro Nannini: 18
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x9th)
  9. Martin Brundle: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x11th)
  10. Emanuele Pirro: 14
  11. Alex Caffi: 11
  12. Stefano Modena: 7
  13. Ivan Capelli: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 1x7th)
  14. Roberto Moreno: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 3xDNF)
  15. Mauricio Gugelmin: 6 (CB: 1x4th)
  16. Michele Alboreto: 5
  17. Jean Alesi: 4 (CB: 1x3rd, 3xDNF)
  18. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  19. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  20. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  21. Pierluigi Martini: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  22. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  23. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x8th)
  24. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x9th)
  25. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
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Ciaran
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Joined: 09 Mar 2015, 18:14

Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Spain 1989

Post by Ciaran »

20 October
Minardi have replaced Martini for the Japanese GP with Paolo Barilla, a 28-year-old who is heir to the Barilla pasta empire, winner of the 1985 24 Hours of Le Mans, and currently drives for Nakajima Racing in Japanese Formula 3000. Giancarlo Minardi hopes that Barilla's experience on Japanese circuits will serve his team well this weekend.

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Yannick Dalmas was once again drafted in as Eric Bernard had the final race of the 1989 International F3000 season to do, but it was no use as both Onyxes and Osellas took up the pre-qualifying positions, with the young Finn JJ Lehto on top of the timesheets. Dalmas crashed out before he could even finish his out-lap.

21 October
Jean Alesi must have regretted staying with Tyrrell this weekend while the International F3000 series went to Dijon-Prenois. The Frenchman, who had scored a 5th place last time out at Jerez to put himself over his vastly more experienced teammate, failed to set a time as his gearbox failed on his first hotlap. To make matters worse for his team, Michele Alboreto was rammed at the pit exit by Nicola Larini. Rene Arnoux was the last to miss out on qualifying for tomorrow's race, as he qualified nearly two seconds down on Olivier Grouillard in the other Ligier, thanks to an engine fire when trying to improve on his first hotlap which was ruined by traffic.

At the other end of the grid, Alain Prost put his car on pole ahead of Ayrton Senna to complete a McLaren 1-2. The Ferraris were right behind them, with Mansell ahead of Berger.

Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:I'm glad with 11th today, I just beat Derek [Warwick] so that's just the icing on top. I think I could have gone three, maybe four tenths faster, but I think that I blew my best chance of doing that when I took too much kerb at the 1st Degner and spun off, at least I didn't stall the car.


22 October
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The race was run in two heats after a massive crash for Gabriele Tarquini on his 12th lap. His AGS went wide at the exit of the second corner, spun out of control and flipped over as it became lodged in the gravel at the outside of the first of the S-curves. The red flags were brought out as the marshals required the medical car to be brought out. As of the time of writing, Tarquini has undergone tests, but is believed to be uninjured. For the tiny French team, it is a cruel reminder of the crash suffered by Philippe Streiff while testing for the season-opening Brazilian GP.

Tarquini wouldn't be the only driver to exit dramatically. Alain Prost was sent spinning into the barriers at the first corner as one of the brakes on his McLaren failed while he was chasing down Senna, who took the lead off the Frenchman off the start line. While Prost was able to emerge from the wreckage unaided, and a subsequent medical test showed no signs of internal injuries, the Frenchman left the circuit without so much as a word to the rest of the McLaren team.

As for O'Driscoll, the Irishman's race was ruined as he was tagged at the exit of turn 2 on the opening lap, and dropped down the order like a stone, and ended when his front-right wheel was torn off as triple champion Piquet spun right into his path at the exit of the Hairpin.
Ciaran O'Driscoll wrote:This p***k's a three-time world champion? No wonder Lotus are going to be stuck in pre-qualifying!

Riccardo Patrese was also denied a chance to restart as his engine blew up towards the end of his 12th lap, but before the red flags were shown. The Williams team were denied permission to allow Patrese to take the restart in his spare car.

Upon the restart, Senna was untouchable, building up a 10 second lead (on the road) by the end of the 18th lap. The top 6 was decided by the first heat of the race, with no driver able to build up enough of a gap to anyone else to overhaul anyone else. Stefano Modena, who perhaps stood the best chance of posing a threat to those ahead, made an unforced error when he spun exiting the final chicane on the 13th lap, and got collected by Joachim Winkelhock. Both were able to continue, albeit without their front wings, but bizarrely, Modena couldn't get his car to turn into the pits at the end of the 14th lap, dropping him to 9th on aggregate.

As for Nelson Piquet, his race came to an end on his 18th lap after colliding with Grouillard in the S-curves and going nose-first into the tyre barriers, a far cry from the performance of the other two Brazilians who'd be classified 1st and 4th on aggregate. For Senna, it gave him a very belated opportunity to celebrate his title win after failing to go the distance in Spain.

Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 106 (C)
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 72
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 61
  4. Benetton-Ford: 34
  5. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  6. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 20
  7. Leyton House March-Judd: 16
  8. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 14
  9. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 11
  10. Coloni-Ford: 6
  11. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4
  12. Minardi-Ford: 3 (CB: 1x9th)
  13. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 1 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 1x7th)
Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 68 (C)
  2. Gerhard Berger: 39
  3. Alain Prost: 38
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 35
  5. Nigel Mansell: 33
  6. Thierry Boutsen: 26
  7. Alessandro Nannini: 20
  8. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x9th)
  9. Martin Brundle: 16 (CB: 1x2nd, 1x3rd, 2x4th, 1x11th)
  10. Emanuele Pirro: 14
  11. Alex Caffi: 11
  12. Mauricio Gugelmin: 9
  13. Ivan Capelli: 7 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x7th)
  14. Stefano Modena: 7 (CB: 2x4th, 1x6th)
  15. Jean Alesi: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 4xDNF)
  16. Roberto Moreno: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 3xDNF)
  17. Michele Alboreto: 5
  18. Derek Warwick: 4
  19. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  20. Andrea de Cesaris: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 2x7th)
  21. Pierluigi Martini: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  22. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  23. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x8th)
  24. Olivier Grouillard: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x9th)
  25. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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Ciaran
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Joined: 09 Mar 2015, 18:14

Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - Japan 1989

Post by Ciaran »

3 November
Grand Prix racing was back in Adelaide, much to the relief of the drivers following last year's hastily-arranged detour to Phillip Island near Melbourne. Some drivers complained of how hard it was to follow other cars due to the frequency of mid-to-high-speed corners, as well as the toll it took on the cars!
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The pre-qualifying session was held under wet conditions, with both Onyxes, the Larrousse of Eric Bernard and Foitek's Eurobrun going through. On his final Grand Prix weekend before retiring from F1, Piercarlo Ghinzani had no hope of pulling off a fairytale ending to his career, and will leave with a career total of two points to his name.

As the day went on, the conditions worsened, and weather forecasts for the weekend showed no signs of mercy to the people of Adelaide.

4 November
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Fears over Alain Prost's and Gabriele Tarquini's fitness were put to rest at the start of the weekend, as both showed up to compete. However, while the former stormed to pole in conditions which almost surely favoured the champion-elect Senna, Tarquini was one of many (including both Marches) who came too close for comfort to the walls, and as a result could get nowhere near setting a representative time. Martini, on the other hand, suffered an engine fire. Rene Arnoux would start his final F1 race in 25th, ahead of his teammate Grouillard right at the back of the grid.

5 November
Just as the teams were lining their cars up on the grid, the British tabloid News Of The World went to the presses with a bombshell, aimed squarely at Nelson Piquet.
News of the World, 5 November 1989 wrote:LYING EYES
Lotus driver Nelson Piquet LIED about eyesight to carry on career!


Lotus - once flying the flag for Britain at the head of the field - now stand on the brink of being RELEGATED to the pre-qualifying sessions for the 1990 F1 season. The News of the World has EXCLUSIVE news (totally on the condition of Nelson Piquet, their senior driver, and confirm that the 37-year-old Brazilian has been SNEAKING OFF to a private clinic in Milan for his EYES since 1987!

Our source (whose phone line we DEFINITELY DIDN'T TAP) says that he had suffered up to an 80% LOSS in depth perception as a result of crashing out of the 1987 San Marino GP. Piquet now stands accused of putting his own career ahead of his team, and today, only a 5th place or better can redeem him.


News of the exposé didn't reach the Lotus camp until the cars left the grid for the formation lap, and it was easy to see the fury etched onto team principal Rupert Manwaring's face after hearing the news.

The red flags didn't take long to emerge in the monsoon-like conditions which hounded the race. Senna has a relatively poor getaway, enough to allow both Patrese and de Cesaris alongside into the first corner, which was no place for three F1 cars to go side-by-side. Both Patrese and Senna went over the kerbing in the middle of the corner, landing awkwardly, and from then on a pile-up was inevitable. Prost was halfway down the Brabham Straight before the red flags were finally shown.

The stoppage gave ample time for repairs, and all of the drivers affected - including Arrows' Ciaran O'Driscoll - had a spare car to jump into. The restart was not so messy, but it was just as much of a headline-grabber, as Prost collided with Senna into Turn 4! Prost moved to the inside to defend his position, but Senna was edging ahead at the corner exit, only to get knocked into the barriers by Prost! Prost would not get away unscathed, though, as his front wing was torn off!

On the 6th and 7th laps, Lotus suffered arguably the worst 90 seconds in their history. Firstly, Bailey came to a stop at Turn 14 on his 6th lap while in 16th, as an oil leak erupted into a fully-fledged engine fire, and then came Piquet's turn on his 7th lap, with his own engine blowing up as he entered Turn 13. Lotus were finally condemned to pre-qualifying, and Piquet was in no mood to talk to the press afterwards.

The race was brought to a halt once more as Gerhard Berger's Ferrari - abandoned on the Brabham Straight on his 19th lap - was struck by none other than Alain Prost, caught out by Olivier Grouillard slamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with his car. The delay in bringing out the red flag bunched the field up, and 14 cars remained to take the restart. Prost wanted no part of it, claiming that the conditions were too wet for a restart.

On the restart, Mansell, who was leading at the time, was hit from behind into Turn 5 by second-on-the-road (but third, behind de Cesaris, when the red flags were shown) Patrese. The Italian veteran had locked up under braking and punted Mansell onto the gravel. Patrese dived into the pits, while Pirro took over the lead for Benetton. It wouldn't last long, as de Cesaris took the lead under braking into the Dequetteville Hairpin towards the end of the 23rd lap, helped by the rookie hitting the brakes too hard, locking up and almost sliding into the barriers.

Meanwhile, O'Driscoll was making steady progress through the field. Having been classified 7th on the restart, a little over 6.1 seconds down on Mansell, while he had one of his customary poor starts which dropped him to 10th, he was back up to 6th by the end of the 22nd lap, and 4th by the end of the 25th. This, of course, was totally overshadowed by a storming performance by Gregor Foitek. The Swiss driver took fully advantage of the chaos ahead, and took 2nd 4 laps after the restart thanks to mistakes further up the road, with another mistake by Pirro - this time a spin as a result of going over the kerbs at the exit of Turn 8.

With Eurobrun themselves at risk of being knocked into pre-qualifying due to a shock result for a team beneath them, the failure of the Judd CV engine in the back of Foitek's car on his 31st lap as he entered the braking zone for the Dequetteville Hairpin brought some men in the Swiss team's garage to tears. Now, all they could do was wait. Pirro couldn't take advantage, with yet another mistake which tore off his front wing, promoting O'Driscoll to 2nd. Not only would he have to chase down the vastly more experienced de Cesaris for a win, but having had a 3.710 second deficit to him as the red flag was shown, he would also need to build up enough of a gap to 2nd to take the win on aggregate.

The Irishman chipped away at the Dallara's advantage as the laps wore on, and on the final lap, de Cesaris made a crucial mistake. He lost the rear end in the first chicane, spinning over 360 degrees, letting O'Driscoll take the lead on the road. De Cesaris was able to keep the car going, but the damage was done. Ciaran O'Driscoll opened up a 6.894-second lead, obliterating De Cesaris's advantage. Ireland and Arrows had their first-ever win in the Formula 1 World Championship.
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Ciaran O'Driscoll, over the team radio after being told the aggregate result wrote:**** YES! YES! YES! OH MY ****ING GOD, YES!

Ciaran O'Driscoll, in the press conference wrote:I...I'm still trying to come to grips with the result. There were, I guess, eight guys in way better cars who could have won this, and...only three of them made it to the restart, only two managed to actually finish and only one got any points! The car couldn't have behaved any better, and to be honest we were hoping for a point or two, never mind the win!

Behind him, despite a 5th place for Ligier that would have placed them above Eurobrun, they were knocked into 14th - and therefore pre-qualifying, just like Lotus - by none other than the newest team on the grid, the Moneytron-sponsored Onyx team, thanks to a podium finish by Stefan Johansson!
=======================================================================================
Constructors' Championship:
  1. Marlboro McLaren-Honda: 106 (C)
  2. Scuderia Ferrari: 72
  3. Canon Williams-Renault: 61
  4. Benetton-Ford: 37
  5. USF&G Arrows-Ford: 29
  6. Brabham Motor Racing Developments-Judd: 23
  7. BMS Scuderia Italia Dallara-Ford: 20
  8. Leyton House March-Judd: 16
  9. Tyrrell Racing Organisation-Ford: 11
  10. Coloni-Ford: 6
  11. Moneytron Onyx-Ford: 4 (CB:1x3rd)
  12. Krounenbourg AGS-Ford: 4 (CB: 1x4th)
  13. Minardi-Ford: 4 (CB: 1x5th)
    ===Pre-qualifying cut-off===
  14. Equipe Ligier Gitanes-Ford: 3 (CB: 3x7th)
  15. Eurobrun-Judd: 3 (CB: 1x11th)
  16. Camel Team Lotus-Judd: 1 (CB: 1x7th)
  17. Fondmetal Osella-Ford: 0 (CB: 1x7th)
  18. Rial-Ford: 0 (CB: 1x9th)
  19. Larrousse Lola-Lamborghini: 0 (CB: 1x11th)
  20. West Zakspeed-Yamaha: 0 (CB: 32xDNPQ)

Drivers' Championship:
  1. Ayrton Senna: 68 (C)
  2. Gerhard Berger: 39
  3. Alain Prost: 38
  4. Riccardo Patrese: 35
  5. Nigel Mansell: 33
  6. Thierry Boutsen: 26
  7. Ciaran O'Driscoll: 25
  8. Alessandro Nannini: 20
  9. Emanuele Pirro: 17
  10. Martin Brundle: 16
  11. Alex Caffi: 11
  12. Andrea de Cesaris: 9 (CB: 1x2nd)
  13. Mauricio Gugelmin: 9 (CB: 2x4th)
  14. Ivan Capelli: 7 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 1x6th, 1x7th)
  15. Stefano Modena: 7 (CB: 2x4th, 1x6th)
  16. Jean Alesi: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 5xDNF)
  17. Roberto Moreno: 6 (CB: 1x3rd, 1x5th, 3xDNF)
  18. Michele Alboreto: 5
  19. Stefan Johansson: 4 (CB: 1x3rd)
  20. Derek Warwick: 4 (CB: 2x5th)
  21. Gabriele Tarquini: 3 (CB: 1x4th)
  22. Olivier Grouillard: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x7th)
  23. Pierluigi Martini: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x9th)
  24. Gregor Foitek: 3 (CB: 1x5th, 1x11th)
  25. Joachim Winkelhock: 1 (CB: 1x7th, 2x8th)
  26. Nelson Piquet: 1 (CB: 1x8th, 1x9th)
  27. Luis Perez-Sala: 1 (CB: 1x10th)
  28. Rene Arnoux: 0 (CB: 3x7th)
  29. Julian Bailey: 0 (CB: 1x7th, 1x8th)
  30. Piercarlo Ghinzani: 0 (CB: 1x7th, 1x15th)
  31. JJ Lehto: 0 (CB: 1x7th, 2xDNF)
  32. Martin Donnelly: 0 (CB: 1x7th, 1xDNF)
  33. Johnny Herbert: 0 (CB: 1x8th)
  34. Christian Danner: 0 (CB: 1x9th, 1x11th)
  35. Volker Weidler: 0 (CB: 1x10th, 1x11th)
  36. Nicola Larini: 0 (CB: 1x10th, 1x14th)
  37. Paolo Barilla: 0 (CB: 1x10th)
  38. Yannick Dalmas: 0 (CB: 1x11th)
  39. Philippe Alliot: 0 (CB: 1x13th)
  40. Eric Bernard: 0 (CB: 1x20th)
=======================================================================================
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
User avatar
Ciaran
Posts: 300
Joined: 09 Mar 2015, 18:14

Re: The career of Ciaran O'Driscoll (1988-???) - 1989 DONE!

Post by Ciaran »

A few changes between the real 1989/90 off-season and this career mode's off-season:
  • Nelson Piquet has retired in disgrace after the revelations about his impaired depth perception. Benetton immediately cut off negotiations with him for the 1990 season. Instead, they've signed Roberto Moreno to partner Nannini.
  • While David Brabham is getting to grips with Grand Prix cars, Bernd Schneider will fill in for him for the US & Brazilian GPs.
  • After the sale of the Onyx team to the Swiss trio of Peter Monteverdi, Karl Foitek and Bruno Frei, Stefan Johansson quit before he could be pushed out to make way for Gregor Foitek. Johansson will take up the vacancy left by Joachim Winkelhock at AGS.
  • Tyrrell will use re-badged "Mugen-Honda" V10s in exchange for granting seats to Satoru Nakajima and Emanuele Pirro. However, Pirro caught hepatitis, and Erik Comas will fill in for him while he recovers. Jean Alesi leaves for AGS, after Gabriele Tarquini was paid off.
  • Alex Caffi will stay at Dallara, but just a few weeks prior to the season opener in Phoenix, he broke his wrist in a cycling accident. At least Gabriele Tarquini will have some work filling in for him until his expected return for the San Marino GP.
  • After losing out on automatic pre-qualification and investing heavily in Neotech's engine project, Eurobrun have little choice but to hire Volker Weidler alongside Claudio Langes. At least ATS & Rial are paying a decent amount for sponsorship.
  • After getting manufacturer backing from Subaru, Coloni have maintained a two-car operation after finishing 10th. Bertrand Gachot will be joined by newly-crowned Japanese F3000 champion Hitoshi Ogawa.
Manager of Calsonic Team Impul in Formula E, K-Apex in PES & Eurasian F3 and Mitsuoka in Alt-F1 '76.
My career mode thread - 1988: AGS (19pts, 9th) // 1989: Arrows (25pts, 8th, 1 win!)
You'll never DNF if you always DNPQ. #RollSafe
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