My rejectful GPM2 career: Pacific 1995

[Ferrim]

So I’ve decided to put myself on the shoes of Keith Wiggins and start a career at the helm of the Pacific Grand Prix team. For that I will be using Nuppiz’s 1995 Season Mod for Grand Prix Manager 2.

I’ve made several modifications to the mod. I always perform them for every mod I play, for a number of reasons, such as improving balance, changing drivers ratings when I don’t find them accurate, and so on. I’ve uploaded the .gcf file I’m using just in case that someone wants to see what settings I’m using: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SM9RWLM6

I also play with a different track set, adding different overtaking spots so that the backmarkers don’t play such an important role. Those of you who have played this game will know how frustrating it can be. Now it’s way easier to pass the lapped cars, although the chance of crashes is also bigger because of that (it’s a downside that I’m willing to accept). Anyway this is only going to affect the AI cars, for obvious reasons

Pre-Season

After their disastrous debut season of 1994, when they only managed to qualify on a full field for the first race, Pacific come back with better perspectives for 1995. They’ve got to be, because with Lotus and Larrousse going bust and the sole new team of Forti, this season every entrant will qualify and be entitled to race!

Or not... because of a new rule that has be introduced for this season: the 107%! The top teams have lobbied the FIA into passing this new rule, because they fear that the small teams such as us will “relax” now that we have a safe spot on the grid. As if we didn’t want to go as fast as possible! At least, in order to keep high the number of cars on the grid, this 107% rule only applies to a maximum of three cars: if there are four cars outside the 107% of the leader’s time, the quickest of them will still be allowed to start.

(Note: the 107% didn’t exist in 1995, of course, and it was precisely introduced because of Forti and Pacific. But there’s no way to remove it from GPM2. I could have started this campaign with the original GPM game, but it hasn’t as many editing possibilities as GPM2 and when I played it I found it to be too easy to qualify at the top with very poor teams. I just prefer playing GPM2 and, of course, for 1996 and onwards GPM2 will be accurate and GPM wouldn’t. As for the three car thing, it’s a limitation in GPM2: it only excludes a maximum of 3 cars from the race, and any other car outside the limit time is shown as been allowed to start “due to exceptional circumnstances”).

For this season, we have joined forces with the remains of the Lotus team, after we reached an agreement with David Hunt, who had purchased it. Therefore the team is now called Pacific Team Lotus.

On the engine front, we have ditched the pitiful Ilmor units we used in 1994 and have signed a deal with Ford for running their V8 engines, of the same family that the ones used by Benetton last year. (Yeah, this is wishful thinking by Wiggins, but don’t tell him it!).

Meanwhile, on the driver front, Bertrand Gachot will continue driving for the team, now that he’s become a shareholder. He’s already a veteran of 73 GP, having driven for Onyx, Rial, Coloni, Jordan and Larrousse. Alongside him is Andrea Montermini, second in the 1992 Formula 3000 championship and fully recovered from the injuries he suffered last year while trying to qualify a Simtek for the Spanish Grand Prix.

We actually were after promising Finnish driver Mika Salo, who competed in the final two races of 1994 for the Lotus team and had signed a long-time contract with them. After Lotus went bankrupt, he tested with Tyrrell and the team was so impressed that he signed a contract with them. We went to the Contract Recognition Board and tried to convince them that Salo’s contract obliged him to race with us, now that Pacific and Lotus are the same entity. We were very interested on his services for 1995, because we think that he has great potential (the fact that he had some sponsorship money was of minor importance ). But the board ruled in favour of Tyrrell because, they say, the Team Lotus for which Salo signed is not the same as the Team Lotus that is currently claiming his services, that is, our team.

After this failed, we were in negotiations with several drivers, and for a while we were very close to a deal with Pedro Lamy, but finally Montermini's money... eer... driving talent was judged better by the team.

With the full package in place, we went to test our new car, the PR02. In true reject spirit, we had a single day of testing scheduled, and guess what... it rained! Anyway, out we went. Gachot was the first one, and reported to be happy with the setup. At the end of the day, Montermini set a best lap time of 1:41.710, while Gachot was marginally slower on 1:41.741.

So, with everything ready, we head to Brazil, for the opening round of the 1995 Formula One World Championship. This year will be our year!



Overall Preview

World Champion Michael Schumacher is hoping to be able to mount a charge and successfully defend his title. This year he will be helped by the Renault units, that are replacing the underpowered Ford Benetton used last year. But have they been able to build a car as compact as the B194 was, around a quite different engine? In pre-season testing the B195 has not been pretty convincing and pundits are putting their bets on Williams for this season.

Behind the expected fight between the two teams with the best engine, several teams want to lead the chase. After a recovering 1994, Ferrari should be best-of-the-rest, but other teams are looking good: McLaren with the powerful Mercedes engines and Sauber with the last-year championship winning Fords have capable power plants. Jordan and Tyrrell had a strong 1994, but the question mark of reliability is over their heads, as the former are running the troubled Peugeot units that last year hampered McLaren progress, while the latter threw away a lot of points because of technical problems.

Midfield forces should be again the Footwork, Ligier and Minardi teams, although none of them are free of trouble. Footwork are running short of money, as proves the fact that they’ve hired the inexperienced and unreliable Taki Inoue to run alongside Morbidelli, because he brings enormous amounts of money. Ligier and Minardi are in the middle of a legal battle for the use of the Mugen-Honda engine: the Japanese had signed a contract with Minardi, but they walked out of it in the last minute to sign with the French team. Minardi have taken legal action because they had designed their car around that engine and some parts were even being made.

Finally, at the back of the pack, Forti have joined forces with Simtek and us. Our declared goal for 1995 is to beat all of them and join the battle with Minardi, Footwork and –hopefully- Ligier, but it won’t be easy. We may have a better engine than last year, but our contract only allows us to use older versions of it. We are over 50 HP behind the stronger teams’ engines.

[dr-baker]

You've got Mark Blundell down twice, for both McLaren and Tyrrell, and left Salo out of Tyrrell, despite having just said he'll be in at the team. And well done on leaving Mansell out of McLaren, even though at this point in F1 history, he was the most recent Grand Prix winner.

[Ferrim]

You've got Mark Blundell down twice, for both McLaren and Tyrrell, and left Salo out of Tyrrell, despite having just said he'll be in at the team. And well done on leaving Mansell out of McLaren, even though at this point in F1 history, he was the most recent Grand Prix winner.

What the hell...

I'm gonna reupload the picture, and thank you for spotting it! Although that doesn't mean Mansell can't appear later on...

[dr-baker]

Although that doesn't mean Mansell can't appear later on...

[Ferrim]

The 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix

Free Practice didn’t look too bad for us. We are convincingly faster than Forti, although Simtek and Minardi seem to be a bit too quick for us at the moment. Gachot is being faster than Montermini at the moment. At the top of the field, Benetton have been posting pretty convincing times, and clearly faster than Williams...

For qualifying, we believe we shouldn’t have much trouble to qualify. Pole time is expected to be around 79 seconds, which gives us a 5.5 seconds margin to make it. Gachot was on 1:24.9 with a lot of fuel on board.



Williams were clearly sandbagging during practice!

Or weren’t they?

Herbert hadn’t been this close to Schumacher during practice and pre-season testing. The German didn’t look quite happy at the end of the session, and the talk in the paddock was that he had underperformed.

But hey, let’s go to the important things! And that’s that we’ve safely made the grid, with nearly 2 seconds to spare. The drivers were very happy with the car behaviour, although they –understably- reported that the engine lacked some power on the straights. We didn’t expect to be under 4 seconds off the pace, and so close to the midfield.

Star of qualifying: Jos Verstappen, who put his Simtek a brilliant 13th on the grid.
Reject of qualifying: Forti for being miles off the pace, although it was just their first weekend. Honorable mention for Tyrrell, who came from strong performances last year to 9th row on the grid. I bet Salo didn’t thought there would be so little between our team and his

The race

We’ll take a lot of fuel on board. We can’t really hope to past many people on the track with our geriatric engine, so going longer than them should be the better option. Montermini will carry fuel for 26 laps and Gachot for 23.

A very good start for every of the 24 starters. Schumacher blasts past for the lead! Katayama tries a kamikaze move on Schiatarella and both of them collide; they are out of the race. Montermini completes the first lap in 19th with Gachot 20th.

Schumacher not just had a great start, but now pulls away at an amazing race. By the end of lap 3 he’s five seconds clear of Hill. Meanwhile, Gachot complains that Montermini is slowing him down, but it was up to him to have outqualified the Italian yesterday...

...but in lap 5, Montermini reports there’s a problem with his car. A few seconds later he spins, with apparent steering failure. This is not good at all. By this point, Gachot is up to 17th because in lap 4 there was another collision between Wendlinger and Barrichello. Now with free track, he’s started to post very competitive lap times.

Lap 10 and Schumacher laps Inoue. Salo stops in the track with suspension failure. Gachot runs the same luck as the Japanese on lap 12. And precisely Inoue retires at that moment, followed shortly after by Martini. Häkkinen makes the first pit stop of the season on lap 13.

Schumacher pits on lap 16, so that means he’s on a 3-stop strategy. But he’s been able to build such a lead that he rejoins right behind Hill! While that happened, Suzuki -who was just in front of Gachot- pitted, the Belgian is now up to 14th.

On lap 21, Herbert rejoins the track on cold tyres after his first stop, loses it and crashes. He’s out of the race and Gachot up to 13th, that becomes 12th with Panis’ stop. Sadly for us, Verstappen has also pitted and is now blocking him. Finally he pits on lap 23 and rejoins, still 12th, but Morbidelli gets a penalty for speeding. On lap 24, Gachot is up to 11th! He can’t do anything to block the fast-coming Ligiers though, and he loses three positions to them and Badoer’s Minardi.

While all of this happens, Schumacher is cimenting a huge lead, 42 seconds on lap 30. With half the race gone, there’s still... sorry. With half the race gone, the race order is: Schumacher, Hill, Coulthard, Berger, Alesi, Irvine, Blundell, Frentzen, Verstappen, Häkkinen, Badoer, Panis, Suzuki, Gachot and Morbidelli.

Gachot passes again Suzuki as he pits on lap 37, but shortly after his car stops in the middle of the track Suspension failure in his case. and that’s the end of a very promising race for us! I felt he would have been able to re-pass Badoer and Panis at the final stops.

The race enters in a phase of boredom, with no changing of positions. The spreads are so big that Hill gets a stop & go penalty for speeding and he doesn’t lose his place to Coulthard. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as the Scotsman makes a basic mistake and loses it on lap 47. Frentzen is promoted into the points, while Blundell has escalated to 5th after the final stops.

At this point of the race, several drivers started to lose the plot. Morbidelli, Verstappen and Berger all spun on consecutive laps, thus promoting Irvine into the points and leaving just 10 cars still running. Nothing more happened and the race ended with us still looking for our first ever race finish!



Star of the race: Michael Schumacher for scoring such a strong win.
Reject of the Race: Gerhard Berger for throwing away a podium spot.


Very bad post-race news: Montermini’s chassis was destroyed when he crashed. We can’t afford to build a new chassis every second race, so let’s hope to have not too many of these situations in the future...

Taki Inoue was injured during the last race, and he will be out of contention for a while. His place at Footwork will be taken by the Italian Massimiliano Papis.

Our expenditures for the opening race of the season doubled our income, and these will only increase as we hire more personnel to develop next years’ car. We are dealing with several sponsors to increase our cash, because the $4 million currently standing in our bank account (one of them on loan) are not going to last forever.

[Nuppiz]

Although that doesn't mean Mansell can't appear later on...

Yep, because of Mansell's dismal performance during the real 1995 season, I made it so that McLaren's lineup is Blundell-Häkkinen-Magnussen, while Mansell is actually left for anyone to choose (with very bad stats and greatly exaggarated salary).

Edit: Also, after looking at your version of the config, I'm reminded of how much I need to update my mods as soon as the new editor is released.

[Ferrim]

Although that doesn't mean Mansell can't appear later on...

Yep, because of Mansell's dismal performance during the real 1995 season, I made it so that McLaren's lineup is Blundell-Häkkinen-Magnussen, while Mansell is actually left for anyone to choose (with very bad stats and greatly exaggarated salary).

Edit: Also, after looking at your version of the config, I'm reminded of how much I need to update my mods as soon as the new editor is released.

In order to make this story interesting, I'm using a modified exe file that will allow me to use the "customise" option after the first race of the season.

Your original config was pretty much ok, it's just that I'm a maniatic and like to tamper with absolutely everything. Sometimes it seems that no matter what you change, the game will keep throwing stupid results to you; but with this particular one I'm pretty satisfied of the results.

Tomorrow I'll post the Argentinian Grand Prix.

[Ferrim]

The 1995 Argentinian Grand Prix

This is a new venue for the 1995 Season. The Grand Prix will be held at the Circuito Óscar Alfredo Gálvez, that was scheduled to held a race already in 1994, but wasn’t ready in time. It’s a twisty, slow race track.

We are far less competitive than we were at Brazil. The Fortis are still slower than us, but that’s about it. The rest of the field seems to be out of reach, and even worse, it doesn’t look like that we’ll be able to make the 107% cut this time. At least, we’ll have one car on the grid as long as we remain quicker than Forti.

At the top of the grid, Schumacher and Hill are battling again for the quickest times...

Our worst fears were confirmed by the qualifying session. The Fortis were joined by Gachot and they’ll miss tomorrow’s race!



Gachot was utterly disappointed: “We had some problems again today with the basic set-up. It was very hard to achieve a good lap time because the set-up was not efficient and the car was neither balanced nor producing enough traction.” We have no reasons to be happy at all. Schiattarella, Wendlinger, Suzuki and Papis are all clearly struggling if you look at how their teammates are doing, and yet we are well over a second slower than them.

Damon Hill won again the qualifying battle, but Schumacher was nearly there. They will have another interesting battle on race day.

Star of qualifying: Jos Verstappen did again a stellar job in that Simtek.
Reject of qualifying: There are several candidates, including ourselves, but I’ll give it to Karl Wendlinger for being three seconds off Frentzen’s pace.


The race

Our only goal for the race is finishing with no reliability issues. We have no fighting chance at all. Montermini will take a 3-stop strategy so that he’ll be more or less able to remain on the pace until his first stop.

Schiatarella and Morbidelli have to pit at the end of the first lap with accident damage. This moves Montermini up to 21st, but he quickly loses that place as Morbidelli goes past. It just takes 10 laps for the leaders to lap him. It’s just at that point that Hill has a moment of doubt and Schumacher exploits it, moving into the lead as they both lap Andrea!

Luca Badoer is the first retirement, on lap 8, and Coulthard opens the pitstop window on lap 14. Other people begin their stops, but we are so far behind that it doesn’t really affect Montermini’s position. When he pits, on lap 17, Schiatarella passes him and we are dead last! A little bit earlier, Häkkinen spun out of the race and nearly collected Coulthard.

When Schumacher pits after 18 laps, it becomes clear that he’s 3-stopping, while Hill is 2-stopping and doesn’t pit until lap 24. As he rejoins, he’s in front of the World Champion! Schumacher has now around half the fuel than Hill, but he can’t do nothing to pass. Closely behind them is Coulthard, with Berger, Alesi and Frentzen completing the points-paying positions. There are still 20 cars racing.

That’s until lap 34, when Schiattarella’s Simtek breaks and Frentzen spins trying to avoid the remainings of his car, while Salo suffers a puncture and equally retires. Montermini is lapped for the third (!) time just before his second stop in lap 34. At the half race mark, the standings are: Hill, Schumacher, Coulthard, Berger, Alesi, Irvine, Blundell, Herbert, Barrichello, Verstappen, Panis, Martini, Suzuki, Wendlinger, Morbidelli, Papis and Montermini.

In lap 39, Morbidelli retires with gearbox problems. Berger loses 4th place to Alesi when he receives a penalty for speeding in the pits. Hill pits for the second time and now has a nice lead over Schumacher, who still needs to pit.

51 laps for Montermini as he pits for the final time. He’s having a good race, reliability-wise, although he’s lapped on lap 53 for the 5th time by race leader Hill, who of course is on lap 58. As a matter of fact, he’s about to be lapped by Papis, who is classified immediately in front of him, on 15th place. Before that happens, Wendlinger puts an end to his miserable weekend and spins off.

Schumacher breaks the lap record on lap 65, but he’s travelling 23 seconds behind Hill. With 5 laps to go, the Englishman leads followed by the German, and then by Coulthard, Alesi, Berger, Irvine, Blundell, Herbert, Barrichello, Verstappen, Panis, Martini, Suzuki, Papis and Montermini. As you can see if you compare with running order in lap 36, it’s been a pretty boring race, and that’s how it finishes! Montermini has managed to avoid being lapped by Papis and by Hill a 6th time, and gives Pacific its first ever race finish!

As they cross the final line, Alesi and Papis have a misunderstanding and they collide! Alesi has a heavy impact against the pit wall and his car flips into the air. It’s a terrific accident, and when it finally stops, the car is upside down. It doesn’t affect the final race standings, but Alesi will miss the next few races: he’s broken both his ankles!



Star of the Race: Eddie Irvine on a composed drive that brought him into the points, overtaking Blundell and Herbert in the process.
Reject of the Race: Sauber. Wendlinger was awful and Frentzen spun when he was running in a points-paying position.

Montermini expressed his feelings after the race: “I am very happy to finish a Grand Prix for the first time and to give the Pacific team its first finish as well. The car worked very well, the engine and the gearbox were excellent” read the team press release.

And now, let’s see the championship standings!




The latest crashes have really worried the FIA. During and after the 1994 season new security measures were taken, including changes in the cars, but in two races we’ve had two injured drivers already. F1 can’t afford to have another season of accidents, let alone of deaths.

[Ferrim]

The 1995 San Marino Grand Prix

Jean Alesi will be replaced by Ferrari tester, Nicola Larini, as he already did last year when the Frenchman was also injured. But the great news of the weekend is another comeback: that of the 1992 World Champion, Nigel Mansell!

After spending two years racing in the USA and deputising for David Coulthard in four events during ’94 (and winning the final one of them, the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide), Mansell joined McLaren for the 1995 season. Now 41 years old, the British found out that he just didn’t fit in the cockpit of the car! So he couldn’t start the season and for the first two races it was the team test and reserve driver, Mark Blundell, who raced the car, scoring three points at Brazil. It was not only a matter of Mansell being fat, because Häkkinen and Blundell also complained that the cockpit was too small, and this has been a source of embarrassment for McLaren.

The fact that Mansell and Dennis can’t stand each other is well documented, and neither him nor McLaren wanted to have him in the team. But Marlboro, as McLaren’s main sponsor, said they needed to have a World Champion in the team, and currently there’s a shortage of those, after Senna’s death and Piquet and Prost retirements. With Schumacher at Benetton, the only one available was Mansell, but a lot of people believe that he won’t last the season.

Of course, Imola is the place where we lost two drivers last year, and therefore there are security concerns, particularly after Inoue’s and Alesi’s accidents. But the track has been heavily changed since last year, with new chicanes being added at Tamburello and Villeneuve; the Variante Bassa changed so that it no longer is a high-speed corner but a straight; the final chicane being brought forward so that the cars doesn’t reach too high speeds in front of the pit entry; the Rivazza corner being also brought forward to increase the run off area, and the Acqua Minerale chicane removed so that the track doesn’t become too Mickey Mouse. The track officials say that now the Enzo e Dino Ferrari track is as safe as it can possibly be.

As for us, we did a little bit of testing before Imola, to improve the car performance, with a best time around 1:34.9 at Silverstone. We hope to be a bit more competitive at Imola but are not holding our breath.

The results of Free Practice are no good at all. In fact it looks like we could be even slower than at Argentina! By the looks of it, it will be another struggle against Forti to have a car on the grid.

Into qualifying we go, on low spirits. We were again 23rd and 24th, but the qualifying results were overall quite surprising:



Benetton and particularly Schumacher’s blistering pace has left the paddock astonished. Schumacher’s time has left 11 cars outside the 107% mark, and vindicates the FIA ruling of limiting to three the number of cars that aren’t allowed to start the race.

We are again more or less where we were at Argentina, and it’s just not good enough.

Star of qualifying: it’s got to be Schumacher, although Häkkinen also made a great effort to qualify 4th.
Reject of qualifying: Ferrari disappointing in front of their home crowd, 6th and 10th.

The race

This time is Gachot who will race instead of Martini. Our only goal is, again, to finish the race, but this time we’ll go on a 2-stopper.

Gachot passes Badoer into the first corner! Coulthard touched weels with Häkkinen at the start and has to pit for repairs. On lap 5, Barrichello spins off. And by lap 8, we are already lapped! Badoer is clearly faster than Gachot but he cannot pass.

On lap 9, a recovering Coulthard tries an overoptimistic move on Salo and touches the Finn, who spins and gets stuck in the gravel. The Scotsman tries a similar move on Katayama and now he’s the one who spins! A disastrous race for Coulthard, and I don’t think the race stewards will be very happy with that.

Larini is having a poor comeback. He pits for the first time on lap 14 and is penalised (what’s going on with the Ferraris speeding in every race?)

Badoer misses his braking point and crashes! He nearly took Gachot! After the race he will complain that Bertrand was brake testing him, but our telemetry shows that it wasn’t the case!

Benetton are easily dominating, and when Hill pits on lap 16, a 1-2 for them seems nearly sure. Mansell is not in the pace of Häkkinen, but he’s running 5th at the moment...

Herbert crashes again! He’s not as far off Schumacher’s pace as Verstappen and Lehto were during ’94, but it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t finish the races! Häkkinen and Berger pit at the same time. That’s now the fight for the podium, and it means that Mansell is now up to 2nd position!

On lap 18, Gachot performs an epic manoeuver into Rivazza: he passes Schiattarella for 17th place! Ok, the Simtek has just stopped, but that doesn’t takes anything away from a brilliant move down the inside... but... Bertrand’s gearbox fails in the following lap! He was about to pit for the first time.

Mansell pits from 2nd and rejoins 5th, behind Schumacher, Hill, Häkkinen and Berger, with Irvine completing the points. But... [Murray mode] look at that! It’s Schumacher! Michael Schumacher has spun off the track! My goodness! Schiattarella suddenly broke very hard and the German lost it trying to avoid him! This is an amazing development, as now Damon Hill leads the San Marino Grand Prix! [/Murray mode] Verstappen retires shortly after when his electronics give up.

On lap 30, Hill makes his second stop. This allows Häkkinen to close on him at Rivazza and overtake for the lead! Berger does the same in the following lap, and after the half-race point, the order is: Häkkinen, Berger, Hill, Irvine, Mansell, Frentzen, Larini, Wendlinger, Morbidelli, Martini, Panis, Papis and Suzuki. Schiattarella spun on his own on lap 30 and Katayama retired with gearbox failure a bit later.

With Schumacher out, this is a close race. Hill is up to speed, but he’s stuck behind Berger, who himself is over 10 seconds behind Häkkinen. But the Austrian pits on lap 38 and gives Hill free air. Häkkinen pits on the next lap and Hill is back into the lead, where a string of fast laps before his final stop basically wins him the race. Frentzen crashes on lap 42, when he was running 6th, and Larini inherits the final point!

With 15 laps to go, just 12 cars remain in the race: Hill, Häkkinen, Berger, Irvine, Mansell, Larini, Wendlinger, Morbidelli, Martini, Panis, Suzuki and Papis. Then Panis tries to overtake Martini and they crash. Irvine joins them in lap 51... everyone seems to be losing it! Now Morbidelli is trying to get past Wendlinger for the final point... and they also crash!!! WTF? Aguri Suzuki is now up to 6th position, with just 7 cars running!

Damon Hill keeps his cool and scores his second win of 1995!




Star of the Race: Mika Häkkinen in a fantastic performance for McLaren.
Reject of the Race: Domenico Schiattarella: caused Schumacher to retire and silly spun on his own.

A fine comeback for Mansell, who scored three points for 4th place, although partially because of attrition. But the FIA is angry for the high number of collisions during this race. Max Mosley has warned of strong “punishments” for drivers who doesn’t know to behave on track. “A driver can’t pretend to be alongside when his front tyres are not even in front of the rear tyres of the car he’s trying to pass”, he said, pointing at the collisions of Coulthard with the Tyrrell cars, as well as the Martini-Panis incident. “Also they can’t close the door when they actually have another car alongside”, as happened with Wendlinger and Morbidelli. “It’s stupid and dangerous”.



Hill has managed to open a first gap in the championship, although it’s still very early days.

This time, Gachot’s retirement didn’t result in damage to his chassis, and it will be usable at the next race.

[Phoenix]

Good work! Keep up the job!

[Shizuka]

What is Fisichella doing in the drivers standings in a Minardi?

[Ferrim]

What is Fisichella doing in the drivers standings in a Minardi?

I'd like to know that as well. He's Minardi's test driver but, for some reason, the AI decided to replace Martini with him after the Argentina race. I was surprised because neither Martini nor Badoer were injured, and I had never seen the AI do that unless a driver was injured. Anyway, I edited it and gave Martini his place back, but because of that, now Fisichella appears in the drivers standings even if he has never raced.

It's one of those strange things you find with GPM2. In fact, it never stops throwing surprises at you, and this is a good example of that

[Ferrim]

The 1995 Spanish Grand Prix

Despite scoring a point at the last race, Aguri Suzuki will be replaced for this race by Martin Brundle. There is controversy since the beginning of the season about the Ligier car, and that’s only increased now that they’ve scored a point (even if it was through attrition). Last year, Flavio Briatore purchased the French team, which allowed him to take on the Renault engine deal Ligier had, and move it to Benetton. Then he sold 50% of the team to Tom Walkinshaw, until then Engineering Director at Benetton, who wanted to run his own team.

The Benetton-Ligier connection was made quite clear when the French team appeared with a car that is very similar on shape to the B195. It has been in no way as quick as the Benetton (not even close), but other teams are not happy about it. Frank Dernie, the team’s technical director and also formerly employed by Benetton, has come out saying that “of course I’m copying the Benetton, everyone is copying the Benetton as it’s been the fastest car for two years. What am I going to copy, the Pacific?” We haven’t liked at all that comment, and have issued a press statement advising Dernie to shut up. “We’d like to see what kind of car would he be able to design if he was running on our budget. Probably he would either run out of ideas or of money”.

Another team in the middle of controversy are Simtek. They’re also connected to Benetton, as Dutchman Jos Verstappen, their lead driver, raced last year for Benetton. Simtek have a deal to use Benetton’s gearbox electronics package as well. The thing is, they are running out of money. Rumour has it that they have barely make it to Barcelona, this weekend, and that they desperately need some money if they are to travel to Canada in one month time. The promising performance of Verstappen has apparently attracting the interest of some Dutch sponsors, but for the moment there’s no deal on the table.

Amid all these things, the Pacific Team Lotus has arrived to Barcelona with the strong proposal of leaving behind us the disastrous two previous weekends! We are confident that this track should suit us much better than the previous two, and that we will be back to the pace we had at Brazil.

We are clearly faster during free practice, although not as much as we had been expecting. We are closer to the pace, but it seems that the field is overall much closer than at the previous two events. The Benetton vs. Williams duel will continue, but don’t miss Gerhard Berger on the Ferrari...

And these are the results of Saturday qualifying:



We’ve been better, but not good enough! At least we’ll have two cars on the grid again. It was a magnificent effort from Montermini, just at the track where he had his big shunt last season: “22nd place may not seem great, but that final qualifying lap was the absolute maximum the car could give. Not even Schumacher could have improved that, and it’s just a pity that I didn’t break into the top 20 for only a tenth”.

Three pole in four races for Damon Hill. Everything was pretty close, with Schumacher and Berger very competitive, too. The improved performance of the Ligiers on their B195 look-alike won’t be well received by rival teams...

Star of qualifying: Mika Salo did a great job with a troublesome Tyrrell.
Reject of qualifying: Footwork have been awful.


The race

This time, we want to give these Footworks and Wendlinger’s Sauber a run for their money. We go for 2-stop strategies, the first stop on lap 22 for Montermini and 23 for Gachot.

The start and early laps go well. Montermini passes Morbidelli and Gachot passes Papis. Schiattarella has an early stop for damage and we are up to 20th and 22nd, behind Wendlinger. Verstappen crashes on lap 5 and Irvine on lap 6. Gachot joins them with electronics failure on lap 7 And Katayama’s steering fails on lap 9. So, after 10 laps, Montermini is 17th and is holding the two Footworks, although he can’t do anything to leave them behind.

At the top of the field, there’s a 4-way fight between Hill, Schumacher, Coulthard and Berger. The Austrian is the first to pit, on lap 13. Coulthard does the same on the next lap, so it’s back to Hill vs. Schumacher as usual.

Badoer also pits and Montermini is up to 16th. Morbidelli is pushing in hard until he also has to retire on lap 17. Papis pits on lap 19, now Montermini has no pressure from behind. Barrichello spins after his pit stop and is out.

A great moment comes on lap 20! Frentzen has got a penalty for speeding and, as he rejoins, he’s under pressure from Montermini! And Andrea passes him at the end of the back straight!! But he has to pit at the end of the following lap and goes down to 16th, just ahead of Papis. That doesn’t last, as Papis retires shortly after.

Hill and Schumacher pitted at the same time on lap 21 and the order remained the same. Coulthard and Berger are back in contention, but they have 2 stops still to come.

Salo and Badoer retire through a gearbox failure and a tyre burst, respectively. But Montermini’s electronics hang up and he’s forced to retire as well!! This is very bad. We have entered 8 times, started 6, finished just once and retired 5 for every kind of mechanical gremlin...

So there are just 13 cars running: Hill, Schumacher, Coulthard, Berger, Häkkinen, Larini, Herbert, Mansell, Panis, Brundle, Martini, Frentzen and Wendlinger.

At their second stops, Berger jumps Coulthard. They are in a fight against the 2-stopping cars of Häkkinen, Larini, Herbert and Mansell, although only Häkkinen seems to stand a chance.

Hill and Schumacher again pit at the same time, this time on lap 41. Williams are again able to send him back to the track, still on the lead. Undoubtedly the 5-second lead he had prior to the stop helped. Meanwhile, Larini is trying to jump over Häkkinen at his final stop, by staying out longer, but his tyres are shot and he’s blocking Berger, allowing Coulthard to catch them. When he finally pits in, Coulthard attempts an overtake at Berger at the exit of the Renault turn, Berger is too eager to defend his position and they crash. A classic racing incident, and now Herbert and Mansell are in the points.

Larini’s bet has worked, though, and he’s now in a podium position, but he cannot stand the pressure by Häkkinen and spins off with 10 laps to go! This means another point for the second Ligier driver, this time Martin Brundle.

Dominance by the Hill and Schumacher duo is shown by the fact that they’ve lapped the rest of the field, up to 3rd, at least once.

Damon Hill wins the Spanish Grand Prix!



Star of the Race: I'll have to say Pierluigi Martini, by default. He was the only one who managed to come up the field on race day (he passed Frentzen) and nearly scored a point for Minardi.
Reject of the Race: I'm tempted to nominate Pacific's reliability... I'll say David Coulthard because he managed to crash (again) against another car.

And as a result, Hill increases his lead, as Herbert scores his first points for Benetton.



Because of Montermini’s retirement we’ve lost another chassis and we’ll be forced to build a new one for the Monaco Grand Prix. We’ve made a profit at the last race for the first time this season, but we don’t need to be building new chassis... Also for the next race we’ll have a new stepped bottom that will reduce our cars’ weight.

We’ve started working on new CAD and CAM facilities. These will reduce the time it takes to develop new parts, but won’t be ready until 1996. And, finally, we are hiring more people, now that we have some sponsorship in place: several designers, engineers and mechanics to help with the development of our semi-automatic gearbox, our new parts for this year’s car and the design and construction of next year’s prototype.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For the Monaco GP race I'll have to decide what happens with Mansell. He may been a little bit off the pace, but he's had two strong finishes in 4th and 5th and has scored 5 points. Even if Häkkinen scored 10, I don't think it would have been enough for him to leave F1 the way he did IRL... at least not so soon.

And Simtek's fate is hanging by a thread...

[Phoenix]

Leave Mansell a bit more and save Simtek

[Ferrim]

The 1995 Monaco Grand Prix

For this race, the Sauber team have decided to replace Karl Wendlinger by Frenchman Jean Christophe Boullion, who has so far been a test driver for the Williams team. Everyone involved in the deal had an interest on it to happen. Frank Williams is known to be interested on Frentzen, and with Boullion alongside him he has a yardstick to know how good the German actually is. Renault are also interested in giving their protégé a seat. Sauber replaces Wendlinger at a low cost, and of course Boullion gets a drive.

The relationship between McLaren and Mansell is tense. The Englishman has done an acceptable job in his first two races for the team, although he’s not been as good as Häkkinen. But the main problem is not his driving, but his off-track antics. Mansell has always been a whiner, and as he gets older he’s even more of it. Still, he always compensated for it on track, and if he keeps bringing points to the team, even Ron Dennis won’t dare replacing him and angering Marlboro.

As for the Pacific team, we spend Thursday fighting with the car’s setup. The drivers weren’t too happy, but in the end they managed to find a nice balance. We are at our usual place, near the back of the pack, and only ahead of the Fortis. But they are managing to close the gap... We need to bounce back, and soon...

The “highlight” of Free Practice came when Nigel Mansell crashed and destroyed his McLaren at Sainte Dévote. He was clearly travelling way too fast for that corner, and as a result the car impacted against the barriers and finished upside down! Mansell was unhurt, though.

Michael Schumacher is the absolute star of Thursday, managing to lap one and a half seconds faster than everyone else. Are we going to see a repeat of San Marino? Maybe, but with the Jordans 2nd and 4th and Frentzen 3rd, maybe one shouldn’t look too much into today’s times!

In qualifying we are remarkably close to the Footworks, again!



We have managed to qualify inside the 107%, so we are happy. And we are closing to the midfield teams.

Another dominant performance by Benetton. Now they need to capitalise in the race. After qualifying, though, Hill complained that Herbert was blocking him during his final attempt, but nothing came out of it.

Mansell isn’t helping himself this weekend, particularly with a stellar Häkkinen on 3rd, who undoubtedly was the Star of the qualifying session.

There were several surprises here, with Katayama beating Salo and Schiattarella beating Verstappen, who had a lot of problems with his car this weekend. Simtek are short on money and have brought several malfunctioning gearboxes here, because it’s all what they have at this moment.


The race

A finish, a finish, my kingdom for a finish! Monaco always is a race of attrition and, if we manage to be still running at the end, who knows?

Montermini jumps Papis at the start. Larini gets a penalty for jumping the start itself, and with Barrichello and Papis himself pitting for repairs, we are up to 20th and 21st. Then Katayama retires. We are on a train starting on Schiattarella, 13th, and can easily manage to stay at the back of it.

Salo tries to pass Verstappen at the exit of the tunnel on lap 8. That was a desperado move, he overshoots the braking point and Verstappen turns into him, not expecting his car to be there! All of this happens right in front of our drivers, but they manage to avoid the wreckage. They’ve lost a bit of time, though.

At the top of the field, Schumacher is building a massive gap, pulling away from Häkkinen at 2 seconds per lap. Herbert lost 2nd to the find at the start and is leading a train of 7 cars.

Martin Brundle spins at the entry of the swimming pool and Morbidelli can’t avoid a collision. As other drivers begin their pitstops, we climb up the ladder. Montermini pits in from an impressive 13th! Gachot then holds 13th until a recovering Larini passes him at the Nouvelle Chicane, but it took him several laps to make it! We don’t have to worry about Barrichello because he’s retired with electronics failure.

After the first pitstops, Schiattarella’s car also stops and there are 17 cars remaining. Race order is: Schumacher, Hill, Häkkinen, Herbert, Frentzen, Coulthard, Mansell, Irvine, Berger, Panis, Badoer, Martini, Boullion, Montermini, Larini, Gachot and Papis. How long will we be able to outrace the Ferrari?

[Murray mode]

AAAAAAAAAUUUGHHHH! Michael Schumacher crashes at Casino Square and smashes himself out of the Monaco Grand Prix! He was in a commanding lead and has made a very uncharacteristic mistake! And now Damon Hill leads! He’s just pitted for the second time and... look at that!! Damon Hill gets a stop and go penalty for speeeeeding in the pits! Now this is what you call an unfair penalty... and it means that Mika Häkkinen is now in the lead, and McLaren have a very big shot at the race win, for the first time since the late Ayrton Senna’s last ever win in Australia, a couple of years ago... now that would be a very emotional win, as it would also be Häkkinen’s first ever win, and the first win for a Mercedes engine since they came back to Formula One last year... and... and... that’s a Benetton! Johnny Herbert has crashed out of the race! I think that’s the Sainte Dévote corner... yes it is! And there’s also a McLaren there! It’s... oh my goodness, it’s Mika Häkkinen! Herbert and Häkkinen have collided into the first corner and are also out of the race! Now it’s Ulsterman Eddie Irvine into the leeeeeeeead! That’s even more amazing! But I will stop predicting winners now, as it seems that the commentator’s curse is on full work this evening, as this race begins to remember me of the 1982 one, when the race leaders were retiring one after another...

[/Murray mode]

We are up to 11th and 12th, but Montermini spins out! Now that the cars are reliable, the drivers aren’t!

When Irvine and Frentzen pit, Hill is promoted back into the lead. Frentzen passes Irvine as they pit and the race order, with 20 laps to go, is: Hill, Frentzen, Irvine, Mansell, Coulthard, Berger, Panis, Martini, Badoer, Larini, Gachot and Papis.

And we are involved in a controversial incident with 10 laps to go. Gachot is about to be lapped by Frentzen, but the German is surprised by his early braking at Mirabeau, spins and crashes! But this is overshadowed by another, more important incident! A lap later, Papis loses his car at the Loews hairpin, right in front of Damon Hill, who crashes against him! This is an absolutely mad race! There are just eight cars remaining, and Irvine leads Mansell. But the thing is... the thing is...

LUCA BADOER IS ON SIXTH POSITION!!! He has Martini and Larini right on his tail... will it last?

[Murray mode]

Irvine is under pressure from Mansell. Eddie Jordan doesn’t want to look at it... and Irvine makes a mistake at the exit of the tunnel!! Mansell goes down the inside... and he’s through!! Nigel Mansell leads the Monaco Grand Prix with less than 3 laps to go!!!

Mansell starts lap 77 and is going to score his 32nd career win and... AAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHH!!! My goodness!!! Mansell goes off at Sainte Dévote! His engine has stopped and he’s out of the race! This is madness! And... do my eyes deceive me or... yeeeees!!! Coulthard has also got past Irvine and now leeeeeads!!

And David Coulthard wins the Monaco Grand Prix!!!

[/Murray mode]



Star of the race: David Coulthard was the only one who didn’t put a foot wrong. But on F1Rejects’ World, it has to be Luca Badoer! He scores 2 points and is just a 6th place away to escape from rejectdom!
Reject of the race: F1 drivers driving like amateurs!


This is an awful result for Pacific, because now that Minardi have 3 points, there’s no way we can finish the season in front of them This will probably be the crappiest race of the season and we’ve only scored a 9th place.

After the race, the race stewards decided to impose 3-race suspended suspensions to the following drivers: Mika Salo, Johnny Herbert and Bertrand Gachot, because of the incidents they caused during the race. If they are involved in similar crashes in the next races, they will be banned. We can’t really complain, because Gachot had a really stupid moment.

After the race, Irvine explained that “my tyres were absolutely shot and I already knew I couldn’t hold Mansell. Then I made a mistake and that allowed Coulthard to catch me, and that was it.”

Mansell didn’t want to talk after the race, but the reports say that he complained that the car was “undriveable” and that (he says) it was a miracle that he didn’t lose the car much earlier.



Sorry if the race report was a bit too long, but after Schumacher’s crash there were strange things going on everywhere, every lap!

[JeanDenisAlcatraz]

Not too long at all. Legendary, perhaps

Wait for Monza...I predict a points finish there.

[Ferrim]

The 1995 Canadian Grand Prix

Sadly, Simtek haven’t found the money to travel to Canada, and won’t be taking part on this weekend’s race. Nick Wirth, the team’s principal and main shareholder, said there was no point in spending a lot of money just to be in Canada, and that it was better to start working on getting Simtek to the French Grand Prix. That gives him 5 weeks to work on it, and no need to increase the team’s debts. Of course, he needs to get a dispense, because the teams are supposed to appear at every event and fined if they don’t. Wirth has connections with Max Mosley (who was a former shareholder at Simtek, before they joined Formula One) and Bernie Ecclestone is also keen on allowing this, given the potential the team has shown this season.

Taki Inoue is back at the wheel of a Footwork! The team have probably missed his money... I meant his driving!

The trend of recent races continues on this weekend. We should qualify, and this time we want to do it ahead of Inoue’s Footwork.



And that’s exactly what we’ve done! Both drivers are quite happy with their cars. “The balance of the car is very good and has been so for the last few races. It’s a pity that we lack so much power”, said Gachot.

Forti get their first ever race start! Diniz missed by just 0.038s. It shows that the fight at the back of the field is becoming harder and harder.

Star of qualifying: Olivier Panis did a great job for Ligier.
Reject of qualifying: That was a very poor effort by Mansell... I guess he had never qualified that bad since his days at Lotus!


The race

For this race we will split our strategies. Gachot will pit two times and Montermini three. The Italian has a great start and passes the French.

The first laps are very clean. Montermini is at the back of a train led by Boullion, who overtook Frentzen and Katayama in the first lap. Gachot is a full second a lap slower.

On lap 7, Salo retires (Tyrrell’s reliability is leaving a lot to be desired...) and an electric failure puts an end to Forti’s first ever start.

Lap 12: Gachot is lapped... no! He retires with a problem in the suspension as Schumacher laps him. The German is leading, but the top 6 are very close. He’s probably going to pit pretty late.

Lap 15: I can’t believe it, but right when Schumacher is coming to lap him, Montermini’s gearbox breaks and he retires! That Benetton car is somehow causing our cars to fail!! And so we’re out of the race

Schumacher does a better job of clearing the backmarkers, and by lap 20 he is 10 seconds ahead of Hill. They are the last two cars to pit, on lap 23.

After 30 laps, no one has crashed: all the retirements so far have been because of part failures. Schumacher leads Hill, Berger, Coulthard, Larini, Barrichello, Panis, Irvine, Herbert, Häkkinen, Brundle, Boullion, Martini, Badoer, Katayama, Mansell, Frentzen, Morbidelli and Inoue.

Wow, this is getting boring! 40 laps and still 19 cars racing. O-oh!! Something happens on lap 46: Schumacher pits for the second time and... Herbert is there! The German drives through the pitlane and rejoins the track, apparently he will pit again next lap as he has a 30-sec lead over Hill... but... he stops!! Schumacher stops, it seems he’s run out of fuel... Everything is going wrong for Schumacher this season :O

15 laps to go. The race order: Hill, Berger, Barrichello, Coulthard, Larini, Irvine, Panis, Herbert, Häkkinen, Brundle, Boullion, Martini, Katayama, Badoer, Mansell, Frentzen, Morbidelli and Inoue.

On lap 57, Inoue retires with another mechanical problem. A bit later, Brundle spins at the hairpin and is stuck in the gravel. And with two laps to go, Häkkinen joins him: he tries to overtake Herbert, but breaks way too late and runs out of track.

And that’s about it! Hill wins a very quiet and boring race, after an epic Monaco race.



Star of the Race: Rubens Barrichello drove a magnificent race from 10th to 3rd.
Reject of the Race: Schumacher and Benetton were a laughing stock.



Either Benetton stop making mistakes, or Williams and Hill will run away with the titles! Schumacher should have won the last two races and lead the Championship; instead, he's 24 points behind Hill now. And Benetton need also points from Herbert.

Mansell has had a miserable weekend, and whether he has any future at McLaren when the team comes back to Europe remains to be seen.

Back to Pacific's problems: Gachot's chassis has been destroyed, it's the third one we lose this season. This eates any profit we can make, and if this goes on, we'll have to start looking to other sources of money...

[JJMonty]

What happens next?

I wanna read more of this interesting story! You have done a much better job than I did as manager for Footwork that season... and that was with Morbidelli and Zanardi as my drivers!

[Shizuka]

Two words: Bathplugging epic.

[Ferrim]

This is temporarily stopped because I've got an exam next Tuesday, but it will go on

[Bleu]

Is Alesi back when? At the time of French Grand Prix it has been a bit less than three months since his accident, so he should be in action quite soon.

[DonTirri]

simply EPIC.

ps: WE DEMAND DELETRAZ!

[Ferrim]

The 1995 French Grand Prix

And after a long hiatus, we are back, at the seventh round of the season! There are a lot of news...

The biggest news is that, after his disastrous weekend at Montreal, Nigel Mansell is no longer driving for McLaren. The 1992 champion had very strong words to say about his car after the race, and Ron Dennis wasn’t happy to hear them after the team worked very hard to adapt the car so that he would at least fit on it. Apparently there was an argument on Sunday evening at Montreal, and a couple of days later McLaren and Mansell announced that they were parting ways “on the best possible terms”. Mark Blundell will be deputising for him at Magny-Cours, and is expected to keep the drive for the remainder of the season.

The other big news is that Nick Wirth has managed to save his Simtek team! A deal has been reached with a group of Dutch investors that were keen to sponsor the team Jos Verstappen is driving for. The deal was pretty close to collapse and was only announced a week before the race, because Wirth didn’t want to relinquish control of the team, while the investors’ plan involved taking care of the financial side.

With no other option and the promise of team sponsors MTV, Russell Athletic and Korean Air to incrase their support if the deal went through, Wirth had to accept that it was on the best interests of the team and of himself, because otherwise he would have to close the team and leave lots of unpaid bills. The final deal means the sell of an undisclosed amount of Wirth’s shares at an undisclosed price (but rumoured to be not very high). Wirth will remain team principal but will be exclusively involved with the sporting and technical direction of the team, where he has shown great promise.

Jean Alesi is finally back at the wheel of the Ferrari, after missing the last four races. He will need to perform really well, because teammate Gerhard Berger is having a good season and Ferrari are rumoured to be looking for new drivers for next season. The problem is that there is no obvious candidate: Schumacher apparently has a contract with Benetton for ’96, and his Mercedes connections will probably mean McLaren are more likely to snatch him at some point in the future. Hill is having a very good season, but there are doubts about what his ultimate ability is.

And, finally, Martin Brundle will drive again at France and Britain, because Aguri Suzuki did not find the money he was expected to bring for these two races.

At Pacific there are no changes for this race, but we have started to look into new “financing ways”. We really want to qualify again and have a strong race!

Another not-rainy weekend. Rain has yet to appear this season, and as we are hopeless anyway, it could really help us. Maybe at Silverstone...

The pack seems to be even more closely bunched together at this event, and we could see a full, 26-cars grid for the first time in the season. We are looking for a new battle against Forti –who are improving all the time- and Inoue, but there are weird things going on during practice: Verstappen sets a magnificent 7th place, Minardi and Tyrrel are also upper midfield while Jordan and McLaren are no-where...

This trend of surprises goes on on Saturday evening!



David Coulthard will start from pole but the real news are somewhere else. Jos Verstappen will start from 6th place for Simtek! Remarkable performances from Tyrrell and Minardi and poor showings by Jordan and Ligier.

Montermini has set another magnificent qualifying time, a little more than 3 seconds off pole! We are looking forward for the race because we have a realistic chance to move forwards.

Star of qualifying: Jos Verstappen’s tremendous effort to qualify the Simtek 6th.
Reject of qualifying: Ligier, as this is the team’s home and testing track.


The race

A 2-stop strategy is the way forwards!

No incidents at the start and the first laps. By lap 5 we are already travelling on no man’s land, slower than Morbidelli, faster than the Fortis.

Lap 7: Alesi is all over the place as he tries to hold the clearly faster car of Jos Verstappen through the corners! But his engine is way better on the straights and the Boss has no chance to overtake. Blundell in 7th place is way behind.

Lap 9: Gachot out! He’s the first retirement of the race He couldn’t steer into the corners and spun off the track. A few meters up the road, exactly the same problem hits Montermini! Both of them out on the same lap! With this awful reliability there’s no much we can fight for...

Lap 14: Jos Verstappen is the first man to pit! And it looks like an ordinary pitstop. This makes no sense, it seems he is on a 3-stop strategy when he didn’t need to take any risks... Irvine pits as well. On the previous lap, Badoer has retired with electronic failure, and now Moreno does the same because of a tyre burst.

Lap 15: Herbert and Häkkinen pit.

Lap 18: Katayama and Boullion pit. Katayama gets a 10-second penalty for speeding and that probably ruins his chances to score.

Lap 19: Hill is the first of the frontrunners to pit. Coulthard is clearly slower than Schumacher. Berger and Alesi follow them pretty closely.

Lap 21: Coulthard and Berger pit, and they rejoin clearly in front of Hill. Schumacher leads Alesi until they pit on lap 24: they keep their positions. As the leaders pit, Inoue loses his car at the Adelaide hairpin and retires.

On lap 25, Salo tries to overtake Barrichello (on cold tyres) and they crash.

Verstappen has managed to avoid traffic after his first stop and is again on the tail of the leaders! Herbert and Blundell seem to be his only menaces for the last point. After 30 laps the order is: Schumacher, Alesi, Coulthard, Berger, Hill, Verstappen, Herbert, Blundell, Häkkinen, Martini, Frentzen, Irvine, Schiattarella, Katayama, Brundle, Panis, Boullion, Morbidelli and Diniz.

Herbert opens the second round of pitstops on lap 32, followed by Verstappen. They are definitely 3-stopping, and so far it’s working for them... Hill pits again on lap 36, he has nothing to lose. Morbidelli joins teammate Inoue on the retirements list.

Coulthard opens the final round of pitstops on lap 44. Berger pits one lap later and it’s enough to jump him! Hill’s strategy is not working, as he’s still behind them. He manages to overtake them on the track, as he’s now lighter, but his final pitstop will probably demote him again. Alesi pits for the final time on lap 47 and Schumacher does on lap 48, the order remains unchanged.

Verstappen pits again on lap 50. Herbert stays out! He has now a chance to overtake the Simtek. He pits just one lap later and that’s not enough to pass neither Verstappen nor Blundell: Verstappen is running 6th for Simtek with 20 laps to go! (That’s probably reject heaven, but very bad for me in the constructors championship, another team scoring points). Martini retires with suspension failure.

With all the stops done, the order is: Schumacher, Alesi, Berger, Coulthard, Hill, Verstappen, Blundell, Herbert, Häkkinen, Frentzen, Katayama, Schiattarella, Irvine, Brundle, Panis, Boullion and Diniz.

Schiattarella, Diniz, Frentzen retire before lap 60. On lap 62, Häkkinen comes to lap Brundle but the Englishman doesn’t see him and they crash.

Nothing else happens before the end of the race. Michael Schumacher wins on style and the championship battle is alive again!



Star of the race: it has to be Jos Verstappen. I thought his strategy was bad, but it served him well.
Reject of the Race: I could say Williams’ pitstop strategies, but I can’t miss this chance to give Pacific’s awful reliability the recognition it deserves!

Fourth lost chassis out of 12 race starts! Seriously, this is going to bankrupt me, because I need to save money for next year’s chassis and engine and I’m losing a quarter of a million for every new chassis.



Schumacher has reduced the gap to 16 points, but Williams remain clearly ahead. Herbert's place at Benetton was rumoured to be taken over by Verstappen from Britain onwards, but Simtek's revival has saved him. For now.

Just 4 teams left to score is bad news for us! Finishing position means everything: the higher we finish, the better sponsors we get for next season, and the more money we have!

[Londoner]

Well done Simtek! If only this had happened for real in 1995, who knows what might have been had they the money to continue.

[Ferrim]

The 1995 British Grand Prix

In a desperate effort to improve reliability, and because the next race is held precisely at our home track, we’ve done a little bit of testing at Silverstone in the week before the race, with Gachot’s new chassis. He sets a best time of 1:34.4, that means we are over half a second faster than at the beginning of the season.

Silverstone is a track where the car is very important, with high downforce, a strong engine and good traction out of the slow corners all being necessary to perform. Therefore the gaps should be bigger than at Magny-Cours.

The news is that there’s a very big chance of rain for this weekend, for the first time of the season (I can tell you I didn’t know it when I wrote about that in the French GP report, I was just wondering).

Free practice begins in dry conditions, but the sky is cloudy and it starts to rain halfway into the session. Our knowledge of the track is good enough and we find a proper wet setup. The results are meaningless, with Häkkinen, Barrichello and Salo topping the time sheets with their dry-track times.

Qualifying takes place on a rain-soaked track. Lap times are well over 1 minute and 40 seconds. We are relatively competitive in the conditions, way faster than the Fortis and Inoue’s Footwork and mixing with the Minardis, Morbidelli and Schiattarella. The atrocious conditions slightly improve towards the end of the session and the top teams manage to improve their times, leaving a lot of cars outside the 107%, but the grid order does look fairly normal:



Inoue, Moreno and Diniz will miss the race as they were the three slowest cars.

Star of qualifying: That was a memorable qualifying lap by Michael Schumacher.
Reject of qualifying: Forti were completely out of their shape, just when they were making some progress.

20th and 22nd on the grid is ok for us, but now we need to finish the race. With changing weather, everything could happen!

The race

Low degradation of the wet tyre compound gives us more strategical freedom. We will split our strategies, Montermini will 2-stop and Gachot 1-stop (let’s hope they actually make it to the time of the pit-stops!). That way we’ll have different weather situations covered.

Visibility conditions are very poor for the race start, as in qualifying yesterday. There are concerns among the drivers.

Luca Badoer stalls on the grid! Montermini passes Martini and Gachot moves ahead of Schiattarella. So far, so good.

Coulthard spins under braking after 2 laps. He was trying to overtake Blundell but he was travelling too fast for the conditions. On lap 4, Verstappen also crashes trying to pass Salo. It is really dangerous out there, both Montermini and Gachot complain on the radio about aquaplanning at some points of the track. Schiattarella spins on lap 6 and Katayama retires with electric failure after 7 laps. On lap 8, Gachot is lapped for the first time. Just 18 cars remaining, Montermini in 16th and Gachot on 18th and last place.

After 10 laps, Montermini is lapped by Schumacher as well. He’s a few seconds behind Morbidelli and could pass him depending on pit strategy.

Herbert and Panis are the first drivers to pit, after 11 laps. Berger, Häkkinen, Hill and Blundell also do shortly after, which is surprising. Gachot had been lapped by some of then and now he’s relapped again as they catch him after their stops, so he’s losing a lot of time as he lets them pass. Morbidelli has to retire after 15 laps and Montermini is now 15th, although he can’t really make any more progress unless other people retire.

As all that happens, Schumacher is flying and has managed to open a gap of over a minute to Hill, who is still in 2nd in spite of having already pitted.

Irvine is the next one to spin, on lap 20, and Panis also spins a bit later. Lap 20 is the moment of Montermini’s first stop, but he manages to overtake Salo (who has just pitted) before! A very important move, as Martini was right behind him and now there’s a car between the two. Coincidentally Martini also pits at the end of that lap. They rejoin in front of Gachot.

Lap 21: Gachot catches Martini, takes a tow at the straight, and overtakes him! A clinical move to take... wow! 14th position! We are running 13th and 14th at the moment, and that’s a pretty remarkable achievement! A bit later, Gachot catches Montermini, but has the presence of mind to not try anything stupid... sadly, his left rear tyre suddenly explodes on lap 24, and he’s lucky not to crash into Montermini!

Running order on lap 25 is Schumacher, Hill, Berger, Blundell, Häkkinen, Herbert, Alesi, Barrichello, Frentzen, Boullion, Brundle, Salo, Montermini and Martini. Frentzen is the next driver to fall, on lap 31.

Schumacher is having a tremendous race. On lap 35 he’s lapped the entire field bar Hill!

Martini pits 2 laps before Montermini, and we manage to keep 12th place. Rain gradually begins to stop from lap 45, but it’s probably too late for it to affect the race result.

Race order with 10 laps to go: Schumacher, Hill, Berger, Blundell, Häkkinen, Herbert, Alesi, Barrichello, Boullion, Brundle, Salo, Montermini and Martini. That’s until Häkkinen spins on the drying track, trying to overtake Blundell!

There’s just a handful of laps to the end of the race, but most teams are deciding to bring their drivers in! And we are not amongst them because there’s really no point on doing so. Thanks to that, Montermini is the fastest man on track for a short while!

Lap 56: Andrea Montermini sets the fastest lap of the race: 1:34.033!

Lap 57: it’s rainiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!! (holy shite, I’m gonna miss a few laps...!)

Lap 58: Montermini passes Salo for 10th place! Schumacher, Hill and Blundell all beat Montermini’s lap record, but only for a couple of seconds.

Lap 59: everyone (bar Montermini) starts to complain about their tyres. (Yet Schumacher manages a 1:28.6 lap, it seems it’s not that wet...)

Lap 60: Brundle pits. WTF? (“And what is Brundle doing...?”) Montermini catches him during the final lap but runs out of time to pass him.

Lap 61: Schumacher wins! He’s lapped everybody :O And we’ve managed to finish another race, probably the best of Pacific’s history so far.



Star of the Race: let me nominate Andrea Montermini for a charging race and staying on wet tyres at the end!
Reject of the Race: Luca Badoer culminated a very poor weekend stalling at the start, but there weren’t many rejectful moments on this race. Most of the incidents happened because of the bad weather.



Schumacher and Benetton are on a middle season charge, as we complete the first half of the 1995 season. Stay tuned for interesting news about the Pacific team, and other things!

[Phoenix]

Heck, I was genuinely expecting to see Pacific score a point for this race!

[dr-baker]

Heck, I was genuinely expecting to see Pacific score a point for this race!

You weren't the only one!

[Ferrim]

News of the paddock

There will be three changes in the driver line-up for the German Grand Prix: Aguri Suzuki at Ligier (replacing Brundle), Hideki Noda at Simtek (taking over Schiattarella for the second half of the season) and... Giovanni Lavaggi at Pacific!

With Bertrand Gachot being regularly outraced by Andrea Montermini and also developing the hobby of destroying our cars, the team has decided to give a well-deserved break to this promising Italian driver. He has been very successful in different racing series, winning the Interseries championship in 1993. He has F1 experience as well, as he was the test driver for March in 1992. He’s developed a wide range of racing cars knowledge, both in touring cars and in single-seaters. He’ll be a good asset for the team, and will hopefully help us to move forwards.

Meanwhile, everyone in the paddock seems to be reporting that Michael Schumacher and Ferrari have done a deal for 1996 and beyond, but they keep denying it. Schumacher’s salary would at least triple what he currently earns, and his Benetton contract wouldn’t be a problem because he has an option to leave the team at the end of the current season.

[DonTirri]

News of the paddock

There will be three changes in the driver line-up for the German Grand Prix: Aguri Suzuki at Ligier (replacing Brundle), Hideki Noda at Simtek (taking over Schiattarella for the second half of the season) and... Giovanni Lavaggi at Pacific!

But...But...But... Deletraz

[tommykl]

Yes.
wh-wh-wh-wha-what ab-b-b-out Deletraz

[Bleu]

He will come in at Portugal as he did in real life?

[Ferrim]

Maybe, maybe not.

Besides that, I think Lavaggi also has his fair share of supporters here

[JJMonty]

Let the story continue!

Question..... do you look at the whole race when you do these? Or just skip for final result and make up the story?

[Jack O Melley]

Maybe, maybe not.

Besides that, I think Lavaggi also has his fair share of supporters here

The great Johnny Carwash!

Epic and amazing story, let it continue

[Ferrim]

Let the story continue!

Question..... do you look at the whole race when you do these? Or just skip for final result and make up the story?

If you skip the race, the results are unrealistic and even stupid. So I always watch the races.

For the moment this is paused, but I have every intention to continue it.

[JJMonty]

Well every time I try and watch the race...... I always end up dead last..... but when I try doing stuff to "pace them up", they crash

Tips please?

[Ferrim]

I never use the driver orders. Particularly the "do or die" is like cheating, your cars become several seconds faster per lap. I rarely use the sliders: if you tamper a lot with them, your drivers will usually crash.

If you choose a good team and have proper setups for the track, the only thing that can make you be stupidly slow is if your drivers have less than 3* in experience. There is a bug in the game that if your driver has 1* or 2* in experience he will be like 2 seconds slower than he should, but it only happens if you manage the team he's driving for. When managing a team with inexperienced drivers, I increase their experience to 3*. As experience does also help the driver to be a bit more consistent and avoid crashes, I reduce their stamina and/or intelligence by the same amount, which increases the chances that they will screw up during the race. And so I don't feel like cheating

[JJMonty]

So altering their stats isn't cheeting but saying "do or die" is

Ok then

[Ferrim]

So altering their stats isn't cheeting but saying "do or die" is

Ok then

"Do or die" makes you several seconds per lap faster. The AI can't use it.

Increasing experience to 3* allows my driver(s) to be as fast as an AI driver would be. The AI drivers are ok on 1* o 2*, yours aren't. But your driver is a little bit better with 3* experience than with 2* or 1*, like he should have. Therefore I decrease other stats, to compensate for that. The result of it is to level the playing field.

I wouldn't need to use these sorts of tricks with a very old game if a decent F1 management game came out, but sadly it won't!

[JJMonty]

Well then! Lets write to Geoff Crommand and demand a remake!