The drivers might be putting more thought into the lack of driver aids than they let on. You get an idea of Alonso and Piquet's thinking in this article at Formula1.com - here's most of it (I particularly like the bits about the effects of torque and lack of engine braking):

“It is in the low-speed (second gear) corners that you notice the difference because that is where the traction control would normally kick in,” reveals Alonso. “That means you have to change your driving style quite dramatically. Last year we used to go straight to full throttle, but now we need to be gentler and feather the throttle.

“Another difference this year occurs when you get wheelspin because, in the absence of traction control, it becomes impossible to stop it - even if you back off the throttle. When you have wheelspin, the revs rise and you have more torque, which makes the wheels spin even more. Therefore, to deliver a good lap time, it is essential to avoid wheelspin through all parts of the corner, and that is not easy.”

Alonso also highlights the variation in steering inputs: “With traction control we used to get more understeer at the exit of the corner, but this is no longer an issue. Rather, from midcorner onwards, the car oversteers and slides more, which again influences your driving style and the racing line.”

The new regulations have also removed the engine braking systems (EBS) that used to moderate the locking of the rear wheels, and give greater stability, under heavy braking. It is the loss of this system, rather than the loss of traction control, that Piquet believes has the greatest impact.

“The biggest difference you notice with the 2008 cars is not the loss of traction control, but the absence of engine braking control because the car is much more unstable, especially on used tyres,” says Nelson. “When you look at the telemetry, the brake pressure is now much less compared to last year. With EBS you could brake much harder; if you did that without the electronics, you will simply lock up your wheels.”

Alonso echoes Piquet’s sentiments and emphasises the need to adapt set-up accordingly. “Without EBS you do suffer with locking of the rear tyres because stopping a car travelling at 300 km/h is not easy,” he explains. “You have to adapt the set-up of the car to compensate for the loss of all the systems. It will be down to the driver to adapt and I am convinced that as the season develops we will have forgotten what it was like to drive with these aids.”

 

I have this game for about 3 months and haven't had a chance to try it.

My PS3 nick is of course scottinbend. Let me know if you want to get together.

 

I love the idea of eliminating the EBS !

Lets go one step further and go back to steel rotors and watch those braking zones really get big. Just think of all of those passing opportunities then!

I see lots of wheel banging in the future.

So anyone know if this years Pick6 is up yet?

 

Anyone game for the first round of the couch potato PS3 season?
Would love to schedule an online round for Mehlbuhn . . . any takers?



Unleash your inner college freshman with 3rd hand furniture, empty pizza boxes, and 3 bills plus change in the left front pocket . . . and a "C" average!

Oh yeah, misplace your keys beforehand in a drunken stupor, too.

 

Sounds like fun..........when were you thinking of doing this?

Sorry I didn't get online this past weekend, been busy with car prep for track day Sat.

 

ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!!!!

Dude, I am down for some online racing. My PSN handle is xbook. How about tomorrow night, after the F1 practice session? I am on the west coast, where are you?

Plus we have a lot of the MININUTS coming over to our house to watch qualifying friday night. And we'll all for sure be throwing down some laps. Maybe we can see you online then...

 

Ok . . . sounds like we've got three potential PST players, perhaps one CST, and whoever else wants to join. I'll PM everyone for now . . . as I guess this could derail this thread.

However, it would be fun to mirror the actual season.

 

I'm up for it. Let me know when. I've been trying to get online for a few weeks now and have my network finally playing nice but the timing hasn't been right for me to check it out. So let me know.

 

I'm going to place a password protected game online tonight in honor of the '08 season getting underway . . .

Come and go as you can . . . we can use the PS3 chat to leave messages such as "next race at 8:30 PST" for example.

The game will be live starting around 7:00 PM PST. It can be found in "Parabolica"

Name: "Mini F1"
The password will be NAM1

Rough Guidelines:

1) treat it as a simulator and not a video game
2) all driver aids off . . . however "weak" stability control is allowable
3) honor system: use driver POV camera-NOT airbox camera. . . sorry that's a big cheat on assessing the proper line.
4) manual gear change
5) collisions "on" . . . to keep us honest, and hopefully laughing.
6) rules "off" . . . sorry, but IMHO the corner cut penalty is a bit over-zealous at best, and actually makes it unreasonably touchy when trying to use the curbs properly. If you miss the line it costs you anyway.

the main thing is to keep the goofballs at bay who'd rather be rubbin' than driving quickly and cleanly. LOL

 

I have to ask the dumb question...is Fox covering most of the races this year? I cannot find a TV schedule anywhere...

 

I'll second that! Fox IS covering too many races again this year but Speed is still carrying most of them. I can't get anything useful from Speed TV's schedule section though.

 

Hit me up. i wanna put some laps in online.

 

In case anyone's still looking for Speed's coverage schedule for this weekend:

Formula 1 coverage on SPEED from the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia:

Thursday, Mar. 13, 2008
11:00 p.m. EST Australian Grand Prix Practice (L)

Friday, Mar. 14, 2008
11:00 p.m. EST Australian Grand Prix Qualifying (L)

Saturday, Mar. 15, 2008
11:30 p.m. EST Inside Grand Prix
12:00 a.m. EST Australian Grand Prix (L)

Sunday, Mar. 16, 2008
1:30 p.m. EST Australian Grand Prix (re-air)

 

ITV has picked up rights to show F1 practice as well as the race this year, including practice 1! And they're going to stream it from the web site at www.itv.com. So that's at 7:00 eastern time tonight for session 1...

 

Boogity boogity boogity! Let's go racin' boys!

 

so where's the race this weekend - where on TV I know the race is down under.

 

Please don't tarnish this thread...take it back NOW!

Racer and Autoweek magazines had good season TV schedules printed...maybe they are also available on their websites?

 

Ha! I don't 'do' Nascar, but I still know about you 'Mr Waltrip'

SpeedTV Channel carries the Practice 2, Qualifying, and Race.

If you don't get that you can watch it online at www.itv.com...

The schedule for the actual sessions etc are at www.formula1.com, with a gadget at the bottom that lets you convert the dates and times for your time zone. (Assuming you have your PC set to the right time zone. Many folks don't and just correct their clock which breaks things like this widget)

By the way. For those of us who don't have / won't buy a game console whats a good PC based racing simulator. I'm not into Nascar, drifting, or the tuner scene. I happen to like F1, vintage, sports cars in that order. A Goodwood Festival of Speed simulater would be perfect. I'd buy a inexpensive wheel and pedal set up. But I'd be looking at moderate cost for all. I've been in computers for a while and burned out on games generally in the 80's. I don't care about on line linked racing. More interested in decent photo realism and most importantly realistic car capabilties / physics.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

It's not perfect, but Vdrift is an open source (free as in beer and speech) racing simulator that I like. It works on both my linux boxes and my mac laptop. There is a windows version, but I cannot vouch for how it is. It's still in development, you can't really race anyone yet (everything but Brands Hatch crashes for me with an opponent), and collisions don't work between cars. Like I said, its far from perfect, but it is free, and actively being developed (I just noticed a release candidate was put out in Feb. So, the issues mentioned before may be gone.). It also has both a classic and r50 mini, plus the ring, mmmmmmm. It supports my cheapo wheel/pedals, but is not _that_ photrealistic. Its main focus is realistic physics, though. So it may be just what you are looking for.

 

EA used to make F1 racing games for PC, but it looks like the last version was 2002. You probably can get them cheap on Ebay. They'll be out of date, but the good news is they'll probably run really well on a 2008-era PC. I don't see anything more recent than that.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/f...ml?sid=6083389

 

www.rfactor.net

 

If you are looking for the best PC racing game you have got to get Race 07 WTCC. It is by far the best out there. Next would be GTR 2.

 

Grand Prix Legends? That's the first name that comes to mind.

BTW, I don't have a steering wheel setup yet for the PS3. I just use the controller. Cheesy yes, but in an odd way as such a steering wheel setup is a compromise to begin with, it kind of removes all of that and gives the experience a nice separation from reality. At least for me, anyway.

I also think you might be slightly more impressed with the visual and physical characteristics of the PS3 game than you think . . . it is definitely a big step forward from prior versions.

 

Isn't PS3 = Playstation 3? I don't have any game consoles, looking only for products that work on the PC.

Thanks for all the leads gang.

Now the bad news. The ITV coverage is not viewable outside the UK. I just tried. I imagine there's a way around that through a proxy site but not something I'm going to find in the next 4 minutes. Rats. Have to wait for P2 at 11pm local.

 

Grand Prix Legends 2004 Demo:
http://www.bhmotorsports.com/GPL/downloads/3239

Alan