Just had a fantastic opening race to F1 2016. Stuck it on the expert difficulty and choose a custom race at Malaysia with full qualifying to use as a practice session as such and a 25% race.
Struggled in Q1 getting used to all the different settings you could change and how you can monitor tyres, fuel, talk to the team etc. Was looking everywhere for ERS settings but there's none at all... A far, far cry from the spaceship like complexity of the Ferrari SF15 shortly coming to Assetto Corsa on consoles. All it had to change power settings was three levels of fuel mixture (lean, standard and rich). I kept getting corner cut penalties on my fast laps in Q1 which left me in a shockingly bad 18th considering I'd chose Nico Rosberg. Luckily after almost running out of fuel and coasting around the circuit I managed to pit in, stick on a fresh set of tyres and get round to start a flying lap with 41 seconds left on the clock. The pressure was on to finally deliver a lap and much to my relief I aced a lap with no penalties and finished 4th.
Q2 was slightly less of a struggle as once I got a decent lap in I never felt that threatened. I think I was about 8th or 9th in this session. Q3 I decided to do two flying laps at the start of the session and see where that put me. First lap was decent enough but my second was a disaster so I aborted it and fled back to the pits once more. I didn't feel like I had it in me to go considerably faster so decided to do the cardinal sin of the F1 viewer and stay in the pits and save my tyres...
Lined up on the grid 6th after going through the formation lap. I made a good start and seeing loads of space on the inside I went for the classic Sepang start method of going on the inside of turn 1 which despite leaving you on the outside leaves you up the inside through 3 and also into the breaking zone of 4.
With in mind I was fourth at the exit of turn 2 but due to a poorer line lost a place to one of the Red Bulls with Vettel in close company. That inside line tactic paid off and I was past the Red Bull into turn 4 and up into 4th position.
The next stage was a bit of a blur but essentially I made a gap to my pursuers but didn't quite have enough to catch the cars in front. I think due to my tyre saving in Q3 I was the fastest car on track by the end of the first stint. What I didn't account for was the massive front tyre deg and what I believed would be a lap to hopefully jump the leaders was actually a real struggle on badly worn tyres. I was barely able to keep Verstappen behind as we went almost side by side through turn 5.
This is where my luck came in... Despite having a poor in lap it seemed the AI cars that had pitted a lap before i.e the optimum lap had come unstuck in backmarker traffic who had presumably started on the longer lasting hard tyre, so little time was lost. Then Nasr had some sort of issue with his car that made the marshals throw a yellow and the AI cars formed an orderly queue behind him. Just as I caught this snake of cars the track went green so with no hesitation I must have passed 5-6 dawdling cars between corners 9 and 11!
With this stroke of luck I was up to 4th with only Bottas (had pitted), Sainz (hadn't pitted) and Wehrlein (Hadn't pitted) in front. The successors to Rosbergs seat for 2017 would have to be beaten. Sainz pitted almost immediately so that was 3rd. Then Bottas got past Wehrlein and I was able to follow by in the next few corners so it was between me and Bottas for the win. It took a few laps to finally get close enough in the DRS zone and I coolly made a calculated move to not make a divebomb into the last corner and instead used the second DRS zone on the main straight to blow past him and defend on the inside of turn 1.
There wasn't many laps left by this point so I pushed to break the DRS gap and then looked to save fuel as it was getting a little tight. What I didn't count for was that Hamilton was absolutely flying and with just over two laps to go he overtook Bottas into the final corner. Yet he was still 3.3 seconds behind with only two laps to go so no worries... Last lap the gap was down to 2.2 seconds and I was starting to look in my mirrors a little too often.
By the exit of turn 9 the gap was down to 1.6 seconds and I was starting to feel the pressure big time. I got on the power too early exiting turn 11 and had two wheels on the astroturf losing traction and also more time. Coming into the tricky turn 14 Hamilton was right behind me and this was enough to make me miss my breaking point in turn 14.
I thought he'd got me there and then but luckily his line through 14 didn't allow him to nip through on the inside coming onto the back straight. At this point I knew he'd have DRS and would go for a pass into the final corner. I knew it'd be over if he got that inside line so stayed rigidly to the inside all the way down the straight. He blasted past on the outside with DRS advantage so I stuck it down the inside under breaking. I slightly overran the apex and was waiting for Hamilton to get me on the cutback and leave me devastated on my first race.
What actually happened was Hamilton seemed to have flashbacks to the start of the 2015 US Grand Prix where he seemed unable to turn the wheel quite enough. He hit my rear and we both went spinning on the exit of the final corner on the final lap! I hit the barrier with a force that would've certainly broke the rear wheel of my car but being a game I scampered back onto the track where despite my luck it looked like Bottas would pip me on the line. The fantastic marshals had deployed a yellow almost the instant both the cars were spinning and a very switched on Bottas spotted the yellow and slotted in behind me as I made the last few metres to the line.
A win in my first race in the most dramatic circumstances with Lewis sulking down in 5th was brilliant. Maybe not the best driving game but what a racing game!
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