TaBu has published the tracks for F1Time Season 22.
Monaco is back in the list.
Tracks:
1. Australia - Melbourne
2. Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur
3. Brazil - Interlagos
4. Spain - Barcelona
5. Monaco - Monaco
6. Great Britain - Brands Hatch
7. Estoril - Portugal
8. Anderstorp - Sweden
9. Bahrain - Sakhir
10. Canada - Montreal
11. USA - Indianapolis
12. China - Shanghai
13. France - Magny Cours
14. Austria - A1 Ring
15. Italy - Monza
16. Spa-Francorchamps - Belgium
17. Japan - Suzuka
Test tracks:
1. Zandvoort - Netherlands
2. Kyalami - South Africa
3. Vilnius - Lithuania
As expected, RC is retiring from the F1Time world. "As for the reasons I´m leaving, there is one, plain and simple: I don´t have the time nor the old passion anymore to play it properly. Playing it on a high level demands a lot of time (believe me)." RC told the fellow managers.
Other retirees include
Yih Liang Su
Rui Ferrera and
Robertas Petniunas (Not sure though)
I hope all of these great managers come back sooner or later as we all miss them here in F1Time.
A New Champion for F1Time
Robertas finally achieved what he was looking for. Mebbe fortune was in his favor. In case of a Eld win in the last race, he needed to finish ATLEAST fourth and he finished exactly there. Mebbe's Sow misfortune turned into Robertas' good. But one must appreciate Eld's comeback. Though i personally wanted Robertas to win the DC, my Manager of the Season is Eld. Battling without a Designer for the first two weeks and trailing by 25 points, he finally finished only a point away from the Star. Gratz to both of you. You guys rock!!
Christian finally had a win to bring curtains to the 21st season of c2g1 group. He was close on many occassions, but couldnt add that finishing touch. This would be a morale booster for him and i hope he turns this into a promotion next season. Gago came second to finish 5th in the DC standings which could still earn him a promotion. And the third was a bit lucky for me which should have gone to Ciskokid if had not spun a few laps from finish. That Podium also gave me my TC-DC double and i cant be more happy than this.
The 5th Sponsor issue has grown to such high proportions that TaBu had to change his decision many times to finally console everyone. Now that we have the option to sign a 5th sponsor or to have it chosen by the gameengine at racetime. This effectively doesnt give any disadvantage to guys with better CDs. Also the problem of running with less sponsors due to this change is overcomed. Its a welcome decision for me, the least to say. :)
Woohoo...!!! TC atlast and we are going to c1 as a team. Moreover today is my Bday and i consider the TC as TaBu's Bday present. Not in a mood to write much. Our team had a comfortable 1-2 finish(first of the season) and the TC opponents dropped(Bad Luck). More Bad Luck was for Mik, who was looking good for a Podium finish when his Engine let loose again.. Christian was fast but was unlucky again. Pedro made a mistake and that cost him points. Gago mite be looking for WildCard and he powered his car to a third place finish. And Breugelmans had the best finish of the season when he finished 4th. And i have the DC lead (temporarily though)!!.
Eld is taking the fight to Robertas as he won again (3 wins in a row now). Robertas checked the advantage and came second. The DC fite goes to the wire now.. Who will be Lucky/Unlucky? Will Eld manage to find someone else to help him? We have to wait till Wednesday nite to get the answers.
With 3 more races to go, Robertas had a 13 point lead over Eld. 13 is considered unlucky in most parts of the world. And it certainly proved so for Robertas today. He is in slight financial crisis (he again failed to sign a CD and that mite trouble him for the remaining races if he wants to remain on top of DC standings) and so he selected an aggresive strategy today for POLE. Though the In-Outs in Malaysia is relatively low when compared to other tracks, the less or no chances of overtaking provided the managers with 2 options. One was with 4-5 Stops with Soft tyres and the other one, a 2 stopper with Medium tyres. Robertas chose the first option while Eld went with the later. Robertas put in the initial fuel a little too less and that put him on the tail of Yih after the first pits. Yih also was on 2 stops and in no mood to move over for Robertas to have a go at Eld. This delay inturn caused Robertas to be behind Eld after the fourth stop and again Robertas failed to overtake. The delays proved very costly and Robertas could only manage 4th. Eld got the win again followed by Yih. Nuno came in third position and moved his tally to 60 points.
It was racing time again for the A-Squared team in c2g1. We went in with 2 different strategies to minimise our risk. While Arunis selected 4 stops with his Softs, i went in for a conservative 2 Meds. Arunis got the POLE and that was a good sign for the team. I was only 3rd on the grid, but made a good start to surge into the lead. A damn spin in Lap4 pushed me down to 9th place. Christian again looked in solid form as he led the pack after Arunis' pit. But luck wasnt in his side as he had an Engine Explosion soon. His teammie Stefan also was running for points finish when his engine also let him down. Nezam chose the wrong strategy when he tried 3 Softs. The wear due to that helped us as i managed to win another race. Lanca was second but was a serious threat to my first place. Rogerio, Gago and Arunis took the next 3 positions. Nezam and Teammie Xtra came 6th and 7th. That put our team in the TC Lead for the first time. Now we are hoping to stay there.
Foto - Christian Reindl
Christian Reindl is one of the upcoming talents in F1Time. Starting in c4 in Season 12, he has moved up till c2 and is a prospective c1 manager either next season or the one after that. He has given me lots of trouble (racing) in c3 as well as c2. One weak point noticed by many is his Beer Drinking on Racedays. Doing race orders and then Beer Partying is ok, but not the reverse. :). Christian Reindl comes from Bayreuth, Germany.
Christian Reindl
Motivated by the fact that the gap in TC has come down to 10 points, i decided to race again in Brazil. I was expecting challenges from Christian, Rogerio and Cacador. Cacador doesnt seem to be interested in his Home GP and Rogerio settled for old GB. In the end, it was Christian again and he is the tough guy now :). Higher temperatures at Brazil and having only Pips, Christian was forced to go 3 stops against my 2 stops. The lenghty Pit gave me an advantage and i had an easy win. But i was disappointed on missing POLE. I wasnt expecting it, but at the end when i saw that the gap was just .019, i was surprised. Christian didnt do me any favor as he finished only fifth and more importantly below Nezam. Nezam came second above Gago. 'Cisko' Benjamin utilised his fav track to score 5 points and got away from the relegation threat. Lanca disappointed as he had lots of wear and finally had to settle for 7th.
In C1, though Eld seemed to be slower than Robertas in the WarmUp, Eld fared better in Qual. Robertas got over Eld on Lap11 eventually, but the superior crew determined the race win yday. While Eld had stops of 4.8 and 5.2 secs, Robertas could manage only 6.2 and 8.2 pits. Robertas tried to close the gap, but the tyre wear in the last only further widened it. With the win, Eld cut down the gap to 13 points and moved to second spot. Nuno, the last race winner, came third and also got into third posn in the DC standings. Woodi came sixth and is placed fourth in DC. The Malaysian Brothers are right now at positions 5 and 6 in the DC. "Is it really their time?" I wonder!
The Game in the meantime is on an expansion mode as TaBu opened groups 9-16 in Class 5. At this point when i am righting this, managers are filled in till Group 14. The Server has been working well for the past few days and hope that it can withstand the new surge.
Things changed when we reached Indy for the US GP. We saw a chance for a Team Championship and so we raced leaving aside my plan for a saving race. Christian was the fastest in our group and he took the POLE. Our team came next with myself settling behind Arunis. But once the race started, Christian seemed to be slower than expected. I was at his tail from Lap4 and I had to wait till my first change of tyres to overtake him. In between, Nezam dropped giving us some advantage. Rogerio was on 3 stops compared to our 4 and was threating to take the first place. In the end, i had a comfortable win. Rogerio settled for second while Christian took third. Arunis came fourth and thus gave 15 points to A-Squared. Rox's fan had a disappointing race with Panagiotis settling for 6th place. So we have cut down the TC gap to 10 points from 22 and we expect the Team Championship going down the wire. Another disappointment was Mik's Engine Explosion. This was his fourth try for points and he was set for some as well (he was running 6th), but on all occasions his engine failed him.
C1 battle seems to be almost over. Robertas has a clear lead and neither Yih nor Sow seems to have powered their BMLs good enough to match Robertas. The only competitor, and Real One too, is Eld at the moment. All depends on how close Robertas can get near Eld in the remaining races. But the WU showed a different picture where Robertas came ahead of Eld. Seems like his driver is super-charged for the occation. In qual, Nuno took the pole, seemingly with a Fav track. When the race began, the Double Overtaking Bug cost Robertas to loose his posn over Eld. Arus also was on fav track but he had qualified at the bottom of the table for progress money. All except Nuno were on 4 stops and Arus caught both Robertas and Eld after the first round of stops. The order stayed the same and Nuno won the race from Arus. Robertas finished above Eld and Yih came fifth. Woodi had a terrible strategy going for 2 stops and still finished 6th.
Pijus Jerusevicius was the talk of the town during last race. Starting in c5, he managed to get to the elite C1 group in just 6 seasons. And the fact that he dominated WU in Magnycours gave him some publicity and elevated him to the public's limelight.
But the race was a different matter. Mebbe Pijus' inexperience showed. He could qualify only 4th on the grid and finished 5th. Eld, Osterloh and HS took the first three positions in the grid and finished too in the same order. Osterloh could have won the race had his tyre lasted for one more lap. The win was snatched by Eld in the very last lap. Yih came fourth and so ensured that the DC lead of HS was kept in check. Though HS has a 12 point Lead over Yih, positions 2-5 are too close that any mistake would be costly.
1.R.Petniunas 61
2.Y.Su 49
3.J.Skog 48
4.J.Sjöblom** 47
5.S.Oneplus* 46
The race in our group also had some dramatic moments. I was the only one who went for 4 stops and thus ran away with the POLE money. But when the race started, the 3 Stops seemed better than 4 Stops. But Gago with Meds was too fast that none of the Soft-runners could match him. He was heading for a Big Win when disaster struck. With just 6 more Laps to go, his Engine Failed and i was given the Lead. That was more than what i expected and i couldnt enjoy the race win. Nezam came second with Christian third. In the end my 4 Stops proved better when the tyre wears caused 3 Stoppers to lose time.
The New Rules SUX so much that right now i feel of even quiting the game. Its not that i am opposed to new improvements to the game, but they shouldnt be helpful to some and disadvantageous to others. Providing a new sponsor position for a season to accomodate the Contract costs is fine. But shouldnt it be announced a bit early so that managers can plan accordingly? A typical Sponsorship can vary between 7 to 14 weeks and with this change, the managers who have a contract ending at the season-end would suffer. I am much more worried, as my 3 contracts expire in a row and with the new sponsor, i am loosing 3 sponsor incomes. This would have never happened in the normal scenario. If we dont plan properly and suffer, then we are to blame..a totally different thing. But what if the game/new change asking me to suffer? Whom shd i blame? Thats pure B******T.
Another debatable decision was the new Sponsor dependent on the CD. Well again.. i explained it a couple of times in the forum and sure ..noone heard it. Enough is enough. I stopped Posting when i saw no use in doing it. I dont want myself to be Yelling or to be branded as a Moaner. One must understand that these silly decisions affect more than one may think. As we always say .. We need to step into someone's shoes to think like them. In this case to feel like them :).
Now to the race stuff. Robertas moved out of his Shell and won his first race of the season. He was quite annoyed and unhappy of being branded the Second Best all the time. A bit of luck with Sow and Eld dropping out mite have helped too. Woodi came second and Kolidas came third. Robertas with a string of consistent and strong finishes, now moves to the Top of the DC standings where he has a 9 point lead. Woodi and Sow are tied with 46 points as against Robertas' 55. Yih is not too far away with 44 points.
In our group, it was pretty much Normal results again. Nezam as usual was there at the top with Rogerio behind. Teammie Arunis came third to add another 6 points to the A-Squared Team. Christian looked strong in Qualifying, but had to settle for 4th because of his tyres. It was a saving race for me and i finished 13th.
The New Changes for the coming Seasons have been announced.
- You will be able to sign an extra sponsor, so for 1 season ONLY, you will have 5 regular + 1 main sponsor. This will help you to cope with some side effects of the changes about which you are about to read next. Effective: start of season #22
Extra Sponsor is Good. But that based on the CD is quite unjust.
- If you finish with negative balance more than 10.000.000 in debt, you lose your sponsors, they will be reset to 1M each. This will help to stop people from doing silly things in markets like Thomas and others...Effective: end of season #22
A flaw fixed.!
- there will be no engine replacement prices, only engine's contract fee will remain, however, you will have to pay it at once, when you sign engine. Of course, contracts will be more expensive than they are today and will include any and all engine costs, so basically you will pay for 17 new engines for all season long. Effective: end of season #22
Back to old times!
- "Suppliers' fund" will be created, so you can deposit money into it every once in a while, until it is able to cover costs contract fees. It will only be visible to you and any money left, after you pay for contracts, will be added to your balance right before restart happens. Effective: start of season #22
Oh!! There is some privacy there. :)
I had a near to perfect race in Barcelona. My Driver A Ahuja added a POLE, Fastest Lap and WIN to his stats. Except for two laps, i lead the pack. But the two laps of tyrewear could have been avoided. Though i won c2g1, i must admit that Felipe in c2g2 was faster. The Mandlers had to settle for second in both the c2 groups.
The story would have been different if Christian and Gago had anyother tyre than their Pips. Their Pips forced them to go for Harder Compounds and thus became slow. The DC leader Nezam dropped midway through the race and that opened the gates for Arun to complete a Twin Podium for Indians.
In C1, Eld is on a roll. He powered his Mersedes to another win which was a heartbreaking event for HS. He is proving to be the Second Best at the moment. Though he ruled the WU, Eld had the last laugh in Qualifying. And he didnt relax in the race too. The result put Eld a point below his teammie Woodi and HS close the gap on Sow to just one point. Yih finished third and thus ensured that he too stays in the DC race.
And some good news. The Server stayed all through the racetime and everyone could watch it. But the 12 hours downtime of the server after the race completion continues.
Another HOT news in the community is the possible exploit being fixed in F1Time. Managers tried to sign up the Best CDs and go negative. At the end of the season, they loose their staff, but still keeps their Sponsor contracts. That would enable them to save a LOT during the first few weeks and then race in the later part of the season. TaBu right now fixed the issue by defaulting the sponsors to 1M if we are below -10M.
There needs to be some Business Continuity Plan(BCP) for the site. The Server Outages are becoming an issue where it goes down every raceday and the endless wait for the manager starts. More importantly it has put more overhead on our heads. We need to check every now and then for site availability as there is no public announcement(or email) or alternate site where we could find details or updates about the F1Time site. Missing a race has its own consequences and noone wants to miss one. TaBu is doing everything he can.. but he too is human.. I strongly feel its time we start a Webgroup( Yahoo! groups and MSN groups are the only ones i know, but there mite be even better group sites), where the F1Time community can use for Backup plans. An announcement email from one of the GMs would do a lot better to the managers.
The Weekend was crucial. I was out of Sponsorships and my CD was gone. My First and foremost aim was to get that position filled asap. Though i bid for the top guys, once again i realised how big the c1 (or for that matter.. the higher class) advantage is. I had to settle for a lower level CD. It isnt bad.. but not good either. Now i have to live with it.
As far as the race was concerned, i think i chose the wrong strategy this time. Pretty high temperatures with a InOut time of 14 secs made me go for 3 Meds. But a cutdown version of 2 stops would have been better on afterthoughts. Anyway i wasnt racing for points and so i settled in 12th position. Nezam once again took the win with Rogerio coming in second and Gago in third places. So that put myself, Rogerio and Gago tied with 33 points. By virtue of more wins, i was put above them in the standings. But thats gonna change soon, i know. Also the competition is visible when we look at the next two positions held by Bakas and Kondrat. They trail by just another point and the promo Battle in ON in c2g1.
In c1, Eld is catching up with the DC leaders as he raced to back to back wins. Sure he s making up for the lost time at the start. And with his improved Mersedes Engine, with huge potential under its skin, he should be faster than the rest from nowon. Nuno came second and Sow came third. The win wasnt easy as one think and the podium finishers were seperated by just 4 secs between them. Sow remains in control of c1 with that podium, but with Robertas finishing 7th, he moved to second position ahead of Yih.
The Server as usual failed again. The encouraging thing was that we were able to see the Qual session and 19 laps of racing. TaBu then had to post the results to quench the F1Time thirsty managers.
Today, when I visited the GMail site (I use the Free POP3 service these days and so didn’t login online for a few days), I've seen that the invites Link has changed its shape... And to my surprise... a whopping 50 invites!! So if there is anyone still waiting for a GMail account, please get it from here... :)
The Server tests everyone's patience levels. The New server is fast but not 0% reliable at racetime. Now i think the old one was better - if not fast, it was more reliable. The F1Time community again gathered in the IRC chat to try their luck. But Server let us down again.. Only relief was the Race log posted by TaBu in a site.
In C1, RC again missed the race clearly hinting a move out. I ve tried to contact him, but login history shows that he hasnt logged in for a while. Now for the race, it was a Swedish domination in Melbourne. Eld with his new designer started to climb the c1 DC wall created by Malaysian Brothers. HS again had to settle for second best due to some brilliant defensive driving at the end by Eld. Woodi came third to compliment his teammie.
Rogerio after a string of Bad Lucks got lucky this time and he celebrated it with a win. Arun was second scoring his first points of the season. Nezam went in for 3 stops Softs as against the 2 stops by other managers. It got him the Pole, but also some tyrewear. Coz of the tyrewear, i suffered as much as Nezam. He denied my driver the chance to overtake, but let Bakas pass through :(. Eventually i overtook him, but the block cost me a podium, So i had to settle for 4th best in group behind Bakas.
The server reliability has been questioned so much that some of my fellow managers even started betting on when the server will go down. And it happened just like that. BreadC proved to be the best among the 'astrologers'. :). Earlier when the server goes down, it would have up an hour or two after the race is done. But now, it takes 10-12 hours for restoration. :(
Well.. I was in all sorts of confusion for this race. According to the pattern i followed this season, this one is for racing. But the low lap money gained by just 44 laps in Spa made me think twice. Only when i saw my teammie top the WU timings (10 minutes to Office closure at that time), i decided to give him company and thereby race. Unfortunately i had done my all 4 WU laps till then and wasnt sure where i stand. The Qual was bad when i could manage only 10th. But as the race progressed, i gained positions and was even leading after the pits. But all those good times came to an end when my Engine Blew. It was my first this season and hope to be the only one too. Nezam held on to his position despite a late charge by Kondrat. In the end, both finished within a second's gap and Nezam took away another win. My teammie came third and thats a relief for me. Lanca continued his good show with a 4th place finish.
In c1, Nuno Mendes got his first win of the season. He was followed by Sow and Tof. Sow, with that 8 points, leapfrogged his elder brother to lead the DC now. Tof was really happy with the podium as was evident in his Press Releases :). Again.. RC missed the race and i doubt it to be the starting of a sabbatical. RC is a champion racer and it would be another loss if he decides to retire.
