F1 Qualifying Comments by Gestalt

I'm waiting on some GP4 reviews before I make my F1 decision!

At last a week I can relate to!

If F1 2002 was a Grand Prix driver, it would be Eddie Irvine.

Couldn't agree more.

If F1 Arcade was a Grand Prix driver, it would be Alex Yoong.

One of the few drivers who feels it's smart to nick the start from the 22th spot on the grid (ok he slipped on the clutch, but that's even dumber).

Irvine is doing nothing but whinging like an old woman at the moment; think it's perhaps time for the old feller to bow out as he's obviously not enjoying it any more!

Where's the "I hate F1 so get me back to the EG design I love" button gone?

Can't wait to hear what you have to say about GP4 as I'm umming-and-ahhhing about whether to buy it.

Might have to dust off my lame steering wheel.

I went to Silverstone in 98 and 2000. It cost about £80 a ticket, which included the bus trip from Cardiff. This year, you have to buy a ticket for the whole 3 day event, making the price upwards of £200.

Needless to say, I'll be watching it on TV.

At Silverstone Jaguar will be using their new car. But they'll still have the same dodgy drivers...

Yeah, I personally much prefer to watch it on the TV. I live not far from BH, so we used to watch F3000 and stuff there, but I wouldn't pay the asking price for Silverstone.

It must be painful for Ford to be beaten so easily by BMW, Mercedes, Renault, Honda and, sometimes, even by a newcomer like Toyota. I entirely agree with Skal (I'll just add that if Irvine, at any point of his career, had managed to drive so well as he was able to talk rubbish, he would have more championship titles than Fangio by now) but I think Jaguar needs more than a change of drivers.

Boy do I long for a proper racing-track in Sweden, the ones we have are somewhat lacking in length, layout and crowdcapacity...shame really.

Btw, I think it's good that teams like Toyota, Sauber and such are doing quite well these days. Good to see the teams behind Williams and Ferarri are getting more even.

Woohoo GP4 is coming out. OK here my predition for most players of this game, based on my own personal previous experience:

Spend 30 minutes trying to keep the thing on the track in practice mode.

30 minutes fiddling with the settings, giving up on the laws of physics in favour of the word "maximum".

30 minutes spending considerably more time in the gravel than you did with the default settings which were set up by people who acutally knew what they were doing

4 hours in full race mode driving the wrong way round the track smashing all the AI drivers to smithereens after selecting "Landrover" mode in the realism settings.

Then go back to watching it on TV. C'mon, if we could hack truly realistic racing games we would all be driving in F1 wouldnt we? Maybe I play too many FPS's...

Startled Pancake, that is uncannily accurate in my case. =/ Although you missed the 30 minutes spent trying to unlock the secret mode wherein I get to drive around in a tank, blowing up anyone that has the audacity to overtake me.

Boy do I long for a proper racing-track in Sweden

It's even more frustating to have one (Estoril) and to be excluded from the F1 championship after FIA demanded some alterations because of internal legal/political questions. Now the track is usable again (Toyota used it already for testing) but I doubt we'll get the GP again soon. Btw, for those of you who still remember the Estoril, the last corner (parabolica), where Villeneuve overtook Schumacher back in 1996 (cornering on the outside) is somewhat narrower. I fear it's been ruined.

Good to see the teams behind Williams and Ferarri are getting more even

Williams isn't really at Ferrari level this year. Right now, it's probably just slightly ahead of McLaren - like McLaren is slightly ahead of Renault. The championship would be great if the Ferrari F2002 wasn't so damned good.

I went to Silverstone about ten years ago, back when they still raced cars in Formula 1. It was the first time i'd ever drank beer in a public place, was hot as hell, and rammed with people. Really enjoyed myself. although the queues of cars on the journey in and out were miserable.

GP4 sounds real promising, specialy as the multiplayer now supports more then 2 machines linked by a friggin serial cable or whatever. Can look foward to the skills of my flatemate, who goes one lap the right way round, during which he gets passed by the saubers, then goes all 'divine wind' before being told to go back to playing solitaire

I just dont like Simulators, be it F1 based or Gran Turismo like. Prefer games like Rallisport is cool, just enough of physics and fun.
Wish some would make a Rallisport level F1 game, thatd be cool.

Well I can tell you that it's as bug-ridden as GP3 was and it doesn't support seperate axes on a steering wheel's pedals. Supposedly the most realistic F1 game you can buy and you can't feather the brake whilst going around a corner with the throttle half on... back to the development team for the inevitable patch.

Only once went to a GP, Monza back when Mansell was driving for Ferrari, the race itself was astonishingly dull to watch, if 'watch' is the right word - flinch every couple of minutes as several unfeasibly noisy things whip past you at mach 4 would be more accurate - the fun came from watching the crowd. Ferrari fans = nutters.

"the success of our Football Week" = sticking a football in the Eurogamer banner & deleting every football-based post that wasn't on the FIFA 02 thread.

funeee.

Naughty man! We did much more than that...

It's a very nice graphic but I'd still like the option to turn it off that you gave to the footie haters. ;)

a) F1 Week really will only last one week, and b) we're not going to have quite the wall-to-wall blanket coverage we had during Football Week, so hopefully it won't be such a big problem. :)

Where's the Tennis coverage, that's what *I* want to know.....

otto - one thing even someone who hates everything that's Belgian like you do have to admit it's that they have probably the best circuit in the world.

Anyway, it's obvious that you're not a racing car nut. In my case, the very first thing I remember is a little blue Alpine-Renault A110 coming out of a corner in a cloud of dust (Rally of Portugal, one of Arganil stages, early seventies). I know my parents were by my side but I just remember the car. I loved it ever since.

heh - I'm not a big fan, no, though I'm surrounded by motor racing fanboys and they all swear by Spa/Francorchamps so I guess it must have something.

one thing even someone who hates everything that's Belgian like you do have to admit it's that they have probably the best circuit in the world.

Oh yes! If I were to choose one race to watch live, it would easily be Spa (Belgium), probably the most action-packed circuit around, there's ALWAYS a good race there. Unfortunatley, it's also a overly hard track, and serious accidents occur every year.

Some year, I hope to make it to Le Mans and watch it live, one week there and my motorsport apetite would be filled for a long time.

Nice try with that wheel in the Eurogamer logo. Unfortunately the left hand side looks blurred and makes the logo text look dirty. Better luck next time.

"it's also a overly hard track, and serious accidents occur every year"

I still remember the spectacular crash they had there a few years ago. IIRC one of the McLarens span coming out of the first corner on the first lap, someone else collected him, and about a dozen other cars piled into the back of them. It was raining, so all you saw was this wall of spray and then a cloud of debris and wheels emerging from the mist. It looked like total carnage, and I was really worried for a few seconds and probably uttered several choice expletives. Then the mist cleared and you could see that most of the drivers had already hopped out of their cars and were jogging back to the pits to try and claim the spare car before their team mates got back. Probably the most spectacular accident I've ever seen in F1, and amazingly the most serious injury to come out of it was Eddie Irvine had a bruised knee. Shows how solid the cars are these days.

I still remember the spectacular crash they had there a few years ago. IIRC one of the McLarens span coming out of the first corner on the first lap, someone else collected him, and about a dozen other cars piled into the back of them.

Yup, I think it was in 97 or 98, Hakkinen spun around in the first corner and took out 14 or 15 cars in that pile up. It wasn't that overly dramatic, other then seeing you fav. driver (Hakkinen at the time) causing such a thing. I think everyone made it back in the extra cars though. Which was nice. But there was a baaaad crash there last year, can't remember who it was, but he went into the tirewall on the "backside" and had to be cut out and rest for a few races.

Nice try with that wheel in the Eurogamer logo. Unfortunately the left hand side looks blurred and makes the logo text look dirty. Better luck next time.

That's because it is blurred - it's a motion blur. The wheel is moving. Surely it's not that hard to 'get'?

Estoril is the track in Portugal right?
I visted it 3 years and it was dump. Have they cleaned it up now?

F1 Arcade is the game I want from this bunch, firstly because I can spend more time racing than setting up and secondly because Im poor and dont have anything that will run the new games.

That's because it is blurred - it's a motion blur. The wheel is moving. Surely it's not that hard to 'get'?

I know what motion blur is. Do behave. What I'm moaning about is your implementation. There are more ways of doing it than a dirty smear.

Can we look forward to a flight-sim week when the Farnborough Airshow is on in a few weeks? :-)

Speaking of which, Farnborough 98 (I think it was 98) is the only time I've seen an F1 car moving, other than on the TV obviously. It was the two seater Mclaren and I'm pretty sure that, other than Concorde taking off a couple of hundred metres from me, it was the noisiest vehicle there!

Can we look forward to a flight-sim week when the Farnborough Airshow is on in a few weeks? :-)

How about getting Raymond Baxter to write something?

Actually it was Coulthard who caused the massive pileup, he got on the gas too soon on a wet track and spun it into the wall and with zero visibiltiy everyone ploughed straight through him.

Also Spa would be crap to watch a GP because each lap is well over 1 1/2 mins and the race is 44laps so you would see little of the action at your spot.

I've been to Silverstone for the last 5 years, and my tickets are free!!!

It is a shit facility though i have to agree

Wasn't there talk a few years back that they replace Silverstone with another english track?

There are more ways of doing it than a dirty smear.

It isn't a dirty smear though. It's a grey tyre moving really fast. Did you expect it to be bright pink or something?

Wasn't there talk a few years back that they replace Silverstone with another english track?

They were talking about sending it back down here to Brands Hatch iirc. Don't know what happened there.

But isn't BH quite small? It was a few years since I saw it on the telly, they ain't showing BTCC here anymore.

Well the British Grand Prix started out there if I'm not mistaken, and they were prepared to do some expansions and redesign to accomodate the sport in its current form.

"Can we look forward to a flight-sim week when the Farnborough Airshow is on in a few weeks"

Unfortunately none of us really like flight sims, so that would be something of a non-starter. :) We've got some other special events planned for the future, but if I told you what they were I'd have to kill you. And anyone else who read the post. Which would seriously reduce our readership.

Maybe that would solve the MCV accusation of cliqueness. If you methodically killed everyone who posted, say every six months it may bring a freshness to the boards. :)

It isn't a dirty smear though. It's a grey tyre moving really fast. Did you expect it to be bright pink or something?

It's a dirty smear. Live with it. Other techniques do exist including, partial frames and streaks. You'll also find that different parts of an image can be made to blur at different rates. I'd say you could do with bringing out the highlights. Not only that, a tyre has circular motion and should blur in a radial fashion.

Max, let it go !

lol!

Mouse, the graphic is just fine, it looks like a wheel moving at speed.

Honestly. /tuts/

Haven't they sometimes staged the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch?

There's been talk for ages about Brands Hatch getting the contract for the British Grand Prix, simply because Silverstone is a $hitehole (by all accounts). There has been a shedload of money spent at BH over the last few years, something they've been very vocal about, especially after the chaos of the April mudslide!

a tyre has circular motion and should blur in a radial fashion

You have clearly got way to much time on your hands.

Grand Prix 4 is pretty cool. Unfortunately, like all the GP games you need a wheel, keys just don't cut it.

Interestingly I was suprised when they said it would come out on the XBox. I really couldn't see the anal sim gameplay appealling to the fanboy console gamers, but they have stuck in several different view modes (like the one shown in the screenshot) to make the game feel more arcadey without actually changing much. Since the view of the track is better it makes it loads easier to drive, but oddly since the suggested gear can't be seen, you need to know the tracks better than ever to play in these mode. Odd.

Not only this the game is not just a ramp up of the graphics engine, I mean - WOW - they finally changed the shitty menu system! =] Marvellous!

EDIT: Silverstone is a $hitehole (by all accounts).

Now here is an interesting(!) fact. Silverstone is not a shitehole, but it does have one - I know - I built it! =]

LOL @ Ky.

There are numerous arguments regarding BH vs Silverstone. As I've not been to Silverstone I can only go by comments made by others, but personally I'd like it to stay where it is and they address some of the issues raised. I just kinda like the race being where it is, call me a stick-in-the-mud (baboom tish).

Who let Max out from underneath his bridge again?

>> Where's the Tennis coverage, that's what *I* want to know.....

Hehe, could always dig out my All Star Tennis review I did for EG. ;) Tennis really is uber dull tho.

You have clearly got way to much time on your hands.

Funny that nobody said that when I wrote a post in defence of Eurogamer being attacked by a shabby trade magazine. At least I took the time to explain why I thought the tyre looks like shite, and suggested how it might be improved. This is more than a lot of people do in the single minute it takes to write a post.