Race 1 Silverstone

 So Race week is here!  All our efforts now about to bear fruit or see how far behind we are.  

Qualifying:  This should tell everyone where their cars stack up.  I am hoping we get one car into Q2 or at least at the top of Q3.  I am concerned about Joe Kerr and his strategy with Bottas but at this point don't want to micromanage. 

Q3: Hamilton sets the fastest time so Ferrari clearly has a great car.  Amazingly both of our cars make it out of Q3!!! What a great day for Cadillac!  

Q2: Ocon for Haas just nips Hamilton for fastest time here.  Maybe Haas has a better car than I thought.  They are both running Ferrari engines but of course so are we.  We get bounced out here with Perez at P15 and Bottas at P11.  Still a good showing for Cadillac and shows we are worthy of being on the grid.

Showing off our car pre race!
 

Q1: Norris takes pole when it counts, Hamilton second and a fiesty Ocon third.  LeClerc in fourth means Ferrari is strong early in the year.  Interesting that Mercedes, which everyone felt to be strong has done poorly.  Red Bull which people felt lacked power does appear to lack power.  

The top 10 grid:

Norris

Hamilton

Ocon

LeClerc

Sainz

Verstappen

Alonso

Russell

Stroll

Hulkenberg

The Race: Silverstone is a pretty even track so our lack of chasse shouldn't hurt too much.  Given our success in qualifying there is an outside chance for points today.  Fingers crossed!   Silverstone is usually a 2 stop race with most drivers using medium, medium, soft.  Several drivers in the back with less than excellent pit crews opt for a 1 stop strategy of hard, soft.  Perez and Stuart Clarke decide to go this route. 

Drivers, start your engines!!!! 

[ The race is done using my tactical rules, not F1 Forward.  As stated F1 Forward will be generic enough to use your own favorite set.]

 

Lap 1 LeClerc passes Ocon at the start to move into 3rd.  Max does the same to move into 5th while Alonso holds off Russell's attempt to pass.   Russell and Hamilton break away from the pack. Bottas is in traffic at P11 while Perez has small space with traffic ahead at P15. 

Lap 5  LeClerc passes Hamilton to take P2.  Norris still well ahead.

Lap 7 Piastri [ P14] DNF secondary to engine failure.

Lap 10 Bottas passes Hulkenberg on the hangar straight [ yea Ferrari engine!] to move into P10 and points!  [ Forgot to take a picture]

Lap 14 Bottas is having a great race! He passes Stroll into P9!  Perez is passed by Gasley back to P15. 

Lap 20  All drivers on mediums pit at this time.  Perez gains time moving from P15-P11. The field is still crowded.  Now he is running on worn, hard tires while everyone else has fresh mediums.  Stuart is aggressive.  Will see if this strategy pass off. 

Lap 22  Albon, attempting to pass Stroll, runs wide into the gravel and degrades his tires to boot.  He drops from P11-P13. Decision time.  Having just pit, Williams keeps him out there for 10 more laps.

 Perez in traffic all day. [ Second car from right.]

Lap 35  Everyone pits for softs.  Verstappens' gearbox picks a bad time to fail. [ DNF]  Perez has a good pit but is assessed a 10 second penalty for stop and go. [ He did.]  I immediately protest! 

 Lap 44  LeClerc's tires are degrading fast trying to keep Hamilton behind him.  Ferrari allows both men to race but orders no risky moves and warns LeClerc to watch his tires as Russell is now P4, 35 seconds behind.  

Lap 46  Hamilton passes LeClerc to move into P2.  

Lap 52  Who cares who is winning.  Bottas is running a fantastic race holding off Hulkenberg as he holds onto P8!  Cadillac gets points in our first race!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Oh yea, the race winner...

Never in doubt.  Norris and his engineer were touched by God today.  [ I rolled that up as a pre race event. Bottas actually got great car set up; hence HIS success.] Hamilton and LeClerc P2/3.  The big battles were Ocon trying not to slip too far down from P3 and Russell moving up from P8 to P4. And then there was Bottas moving up from P11 to P8 with a brand new team; epic!  Top ten:

Norris        Winner

Hamilton   + 0.30

LeClerc     +0.40

Russell      +1.00

Ocon         +1.20

Alonso      +1.25

Sainz         +1.35

Bottas        +1.55  

Hulkenberg+2.15

Stroll          +2.17

We have more points than Red Bull!  Perez ended up P13 but with his penalty slips to P15 which isn't terrible.  Stuart played an alternate strategy that didn't work.  Who knows if the normal 2 stop would have worked any better?  Bottas was on fire today.  Maybe Joe Kerr is a better Race engineer than I thought?  

Post race Bottas gives several interviews which go well all under the direction of Sarah.  However, in talking to Motorsport, he states that he went with his gut in managing his tires rather than with his race engineer.  So maybe there is trouble there?  Regardless, my first priority for this next week is to get us focused on our chassis.   For today, I will just enjoy the win.  Next up, Japan!

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

The Dream continues...

 After almost 4 years it is time to fire up the blog again.  My dream of a F1 game where you are the team principle has not left.  I just haven't found a great game with which to play out the races with.  I slowly became disillusioned with Race 90 because, it started to appear more and more like a hand management game rather than F1.  [ Still a fun game though!]  I tried Classic F1 which is a great game that gives a good feel for F1.  The problem is it pretty much played itself.  There was no tire management, very few racing decisions.  How am I going to be team principle if I can't show my brilliance?   

So I bought a copy of Red White and Blue Racin from Plaay games and have been trying to come up with an F1 game where I can set a strategy and make some decisions.  After a good year I have that down.  Then came the 2026 season and Cadillac with all the new rules and a new team that was begging for a campaign game!  Imagine starting out with a new team and new rules that nobody understands!  

Well the tactical game wouldn't work with the campaign game I came up with because you really need to separate out driver ratings from the car which the Plaay format didn't do.  So I think I have that figured out now.    

So now I would like to introduce you to a new playtest version of F1 Forward!  I envision F1 Forward to be generic enough to be usable with any tactical racing game.  That said, I am working on this one because it is the one I want to play; several decisions including tires, enough chrome that it feels like F1 can finish a race in less than 90 minutes.  Let's hope I succeed on both counts. 

In F1 Forward you start out as a team principle and have 3 years to make improvements.  I am starting out as Cadillac because who wouldn't want to start with a new team?  

Let's meet the team.

My technical Director is Nick Chester.  He has average skill but is fanatical.  

My commercial director is Sarah Brackster.  She also is average but is cocky.

The person overseeing out Chassis development is Paul Stein.  He has no particular behavioral traits but is below average in skill which isn't great.  Hopefully we can improve this as Chassis development is obviously very important.

Bottas' Race Engineer is Joe Kerr.  He also is below average.  Perez Race Engineer is Stuart Clarke.  He is very aggressive and knows his stuff.  

Pre-season testing  on our chassis moves along rather slowly and we make no gains.  It appears that my #1 job is going to be to focus the teams efforts on improving our chassis. Fortunately, Mercedes comes through with a good engine with power though reliability isn't perfect. Hopefully our engine will keep us competitive while we continue to work on our car.  

Ferrari also appears to have a strong engine. All the new engine makers appear to still be struggling with the new rules.  

In pre season testing McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari all appear to have the fastest cars with Red Bull lacking power.  Max Verstappen, always shy, has been quick to criticize both the new rules and his car.    

 And now we are finally in race week at Silverstone!!!  

Sarah is responsible for all the dog and pony for our sponsors.  Despite some promises she has failed to attract any additional sponsors to the team.  She does hold a gala for Cadillac, TWG and Jim Beam which goes as expected; nothing more, nothing less.  If I didn't need to worry about our chassis I would be looking into our commercial department.  

Next up Qualifying!!!   Stay tuned.