Re: This game does not like you being “out of position”

Ok so it hasn’t slowed the ai down on last lap.

Just won at Spa 22lap race.  I beat max by 24.477 seconds.  And I checked the race director and on both sets off tyres I was consistently a second a lap faster give or take a tenth.   On the hards apart from my out lap and the next.  I was within 4 tenths for the last 10 laps.  And Max was  and so was Max albeit a second slower.     But on his last lap he beat my fastest lap by almost a second.  My teammate Coulthard.  Was 2 seconds faster than his previous fastest lap.  Alonso and Norris… over 2 seconds.  And pretty much the rest were about a second.

Completely stupid 

Race: DC for Haas, rainy Miami:

* started 10th on grid, climbed up to 7th after two laps

* engineer called to stop the car in lap 5, just after VSC finished

* DNF due to mechanical failure

* but no DNF for me listed in Race Director's Incidents tab !! (Ocon was listed as another DNF, also mechanical failure)

* and no failed engine component after race !!

Come on, it's not "challenging", it's just cheating ☹️

I’ve actually given up on Career Mode now.

Fifth season with Aston Martin after four seasons of struggle, regulation change meant my car was equal to the top teams but come the practice sessions I’m still struggling to match the required times and having to drop the difficulty. Qualifying is the same story, Pastori is now faster than me and again I’m dropping the AI level just to compete.

I started a Grand Prix featuring 19-races, set the AI to my usual 90 and didn’t adjust it once, I just won the Championship by over 150pts. I was winning some races by over 30s and didn’t finish outside of the top two at any race. Even Hungary and Spain, which were real struggles in Career Mode, seemed much more level in Grand Prix mode. I’m now going to do this again but with the AI set to 95%.

I’ve now realised there is little point in Career mode;

• Constantly having to change AI setting depending on track. (I was having to adjust AI level 80 at some races just to compete).  
• Constantly having to change tyre temperature settings depending on weather
• Wet races being impossible
• Boring and unachievable practice times (I know I don’t have to do these but I use this time to adjust to the new track)
• Super aggressive AI
• Excessive DNF’s for mechanical issues
• The whole car development model is pretty boring, brake upgrades are pointless but work better for the AI.

I just wish they would change Grand Prix mode slightly, let us use our own name and avatar for the races and turn mechanical failures on or off for both AI and human players.  

I had another moment of game cheating on me 😉 (actually two moments)

I raced in Monaco for both MT (4th best car) and DC (for Haas, also 4th best):

* I had semi-wet quali in both cases so I ended up 3rd and 4th on grid in MT and DC, respectively

* MT:

** same strategy as leaders (S-M)

** good start, jumped to 2nd

** kept it like that until pit stop

** then "there is a problem with left front" long pit stop

** returned as 4th on track

* DC:

** opposite strategy to cars in front (M-S)

** good start, kept position until AI on Softs pitted

** I improved my lap times a bit and create a 3s gap so I could still return to 1st-2nd

** pit stop: "there is problem with left rear" incident

** got back as 5th, couldn't get past AI cars, they lapped same time as me on Mediums and Hards

The game really doesn't like me 😉

There is one thing I noticed, though.

I mentioned here earlier that I had a DNF in Miami but not a mention in Incidents or failed component and 0 RP gained from failure.

However, I noticed that my Turbo got reset to 0% use regardless of having 100+ laps on it. And that is weird. I don't recall exactly which component failed during the race but it could have been that one.

Quite an anomaly, my other DNFs are usually with component 99% (expected) or not changed at all (clearly a sign of game cheating due to out-of-position)