- 143
- Finland
I don't know if anyone has ever attempted to do this kind of full analysis. I don't know if anyone is even interested but here's one anyway.
Player: Ayrton Senna / McLaren
AI driver skill level ratings:
Mansell 99
Prost 99 (to compensate slow 91 Ferrari)
Alesi 96 (to compensate slow 91 Ferrari)
Piquet 95
Berger 94
Patrese 94 (was raised to 96 after this season)
The rest of the grid is 88-91.
Race 1 Phoenix street circuit (Pay track EKO + fixed 1991 ai by a friend)
Okay this is the street circuit I probably enjoy the most. Detroit, Dallas, Long Beach and Monaco are all very cool tracks too and they have excellent ai's. The pay track ai was screwed and I had to wait for one of my community friends to fix it. That dl link is in the video. If you don't want to buy the track there is a free version alternative. Not as polished but races ok and fast.
He did excellent job and the QF and race work flawlessly now. There's such big gap between the top cars and slower cars though but at least it's all functional now. Mansell took the pole but I was able to overtake him in the 4th lap and won the race. Jean Alesi was sensational here in Tyrrell 1990 and repeated his good performance and got a podium in a Ferrari.
Race 2 Interlagos ASR 1992
Excellent track. Fast ai. I wasn't competitive and ended up at embarrassing 8th in the qualifying. Drove a decent race and 4th place was the absolute best I could salvage from this GP. Mansell was insanely fast and couldn't even match my teammate Berger's speed. I have to find better settings for this track.
Race 3 Imola 1988
1988 Imola is one of the best track conversions ever done. AI is very competitive unlike the 1992 version which has a slow ai Villeneuve chicane. This time I was able to grab the pole with 1 second margin over my teammate Berger. The real times are faster because ASR 1991 cars can't quite reach the genuine top speeds like 360 km/h on the long straights. Same for Monza. With smaller rear wing and correct gearing you're stuck at 339 km/h. But that's a small complaint and it's the same for ai too. The race itself was all Nigel Mansell who took the lead in the 2nd lap and disappeared to the distance. Once again his race best lap was way faster than his QF lap and would have been an easy pole which is a bit weird. Kept Berger and Prost behind me and secured 6 points.
Race 4 Monaco ASR 1992
Always difficult to get a clean lap here. This time I was lucky and grabbed the pole. The pole time is actually about 1.5 seconds faster than Senna's real pole time in 1991. JJ Lehto qualifying 6th was a weird one but he was actually 13th in the real QF and drove a good season with Dallara. Mansell was on my tail through the whole race but when you make no mistakes there's no chance to overtake. The 1992 ASR Monaco track ai and layout is almost identical to 1988. They're both well done and no weirdness, ever. Fully working races and QF's.
Race 5 Montreal ASR 1992
I took an easy pole with 1.4 seconds margin to Mansell. But Mansell got better start and kept the lead from start to finish. His best lap in the race was a second faster than his best qualifying lap. Not very realistic but that's how it was. Piquet was on my tail but I kept the 2nd place and took 6 important points.
Race 6 Mexico ASR 1992
The 1992 ASR version of Hermanos Rodriguez might have a tad slower ai than the 1988 track version but as usual it was pretty close fight between Senna and Mansell. I got the pole, good start and drove a flawless race with Mansell on my tail. No mistakes, no overtake chances. 10 points
Race 7 Magny Cours ASR 1992
I really like the layout of this track. Has fast curves, slow curves and one high speed straight. When you learn the tricks of this track it's very enjoyable. I've hotlapped this track at high 1:17 but this time I couldn't get a good clean lap. Gerhard Berger took his first pole of the season but I overtook him in the second corner (maybe team orders LOL) and led the race all the way until the 10th lap. Then I made a stupid mistake and spun in the hairpin after the main straight and dropped to the 5th place. Fortunately Berger took the win as Mansell got only 6 points.
Race 8 Silverstone ASR 1992
I did a good qualifying lap and took the pole. Mansell was able to overtake me on the Abbey Curve as I made a small mistake. I had no match to his pace and consistency despite doing the fastest lap, but secured the 2nd place. But as this was Mansell's home ground he was excepted to win this race. Berger also beat me since there we no team orders this time. LOL. Brilliant track conversion.
Race 9 Hockenheim 1988
The masterpiece 1988 track version is accurate for this year with the Bremskurve 3 still being old layout version. Always amazing qualifying session here and this was no exception. Mansell took the pole with just some 1/100 seconds margin. He kept the lead and I was driving second on his tail until I spun at the Bremskurve 1 in the 6th lap. Prost, Berger, Patrese, Piquet and Alesi all overtook me. I was able to catch and overtake Piquet and Alesi when I drove like a madman and got 5th place which felt like a victory. Great race as usual.
Race 10 Hungaroring ASR 1992
This is pretty much the only track that has quite sluggish ai. Same problem with the 1988 version. As usual it was quite easy to grab the pole but the ai was surprisingly fast in the race. Mansell as usual on my tail and the rest of the field didn't drop too much. Usually I make this a rain GP as the spray increases the difficulty but this time I didn't need any more difficulty as I was trailing Mansell in the championship. Grabbed full 10 points and got closer in the championship.
Race 11 Spa 1998
I got the pole with surprisingly bad time. I've done it at high 1:57 with this car before. For whatever reason the ai wasn't doing any better than just over 2:01. They did faster on race trim this time (for whatever reason). Sometimes these just happen. Usually the 1988 Spa QF is fairly competitive but hey I didn't complain. ASR 1992 version of Spa, however, is way too slow. The race itself started well and I was leading until the 7th lap, with again Mansell on my tail. Then Mansell tried a crazy overtake move after Eau Rouge and crashed me off the track. The steering was damaged so there was no point continuing. But then he was out of the race too. First DNF for both Mansell and me. Berger took his 2nd win of the season and Martin Brundle and Brabham got a surprise podium.
Race 12 Monza 1988
The 1988 version again. Amazing track and again it's faster than ASR 1992. This was pretty boring race as I led from start to finish. Berger was able to overtake Mansell and made my championship battle easier. Mark Blundell with Brabham drove well and grabbed his first points of the season.
Race 13 Estoril ASR 1992
This 1992 ASR version is a masterpiece. I have never been on pole here but this time I made a perfect lap (for me) and got pole with 0.4 seconds margin over arch rival Prost who drove the uncompetitive Ferrari this year. For whatever reason Mansell was only 13th in the qualifying which was excellent for me (probably spun I didn't remember to watch the replay). He made the fastest lap but only managed to get 7th place in the race and was out of the points. I took the lead in the championship.
Race 14 Barcelona ASR 1992
I was leading the championship with 82 points against Nigel Mansell's 80. Then Barcelona which has insanely fast ai and it's a track I've never been good at. I was having a decent qualifying lap which could have pushed me to 4th place but then Satoru Nakajima ruined it in his slow lap. I was 7th.
Got a good start and got all the way up to 4th place but then both Piquet and Berger overtook me when one curve went too wide. Prost also overtook me and I couldn't match the ai's speed at all. Ended up 7th. I suck on this track and the ai very, very fast. I tried with rear wing setting at 14 because the track has those slow curves but nothing helped. Zero points and Mansell got the championship lead again with 89 points against my 82.
Race 15 Suzuka ASR 1992
With only two races left and Mansell leading with 7 points I absolutely HAD to win at Suzuka and hope for him to fail like in Estoril. I got the pole, won the race but unfortunately Mansell was right there and took the 2nd place. Alesi took his second podium of the season after fine drive.
There was three point difference in the championship before the last race at Adelaide. Mansell 95, Senna 92. Winning the race would give me the title.
Race 16 Adelaide ASR 1992
I've never been on podium at Adelaide in any of my AC seasons. My best race result is 4th I think. I just can't get even near the pole time here. This time I used the full 15 min. practice to train the corners. Increased the rear wing to 13, set negative toe from alignments and managed 4th place. I overtook Piquet in the start but he overtook me back in the 7th lap. Mansell was overwhelmingly fast and cruised to an easy win and championship. I was about to make a high 1:16 / low 1:17 lap in qualifying but then got a slide in the last corner before the goalline. The race was solid and didn't make many mistakes but I just suck on this track.
FINAL RESULTS
Mansell 105 (real season: 72, 2nd)
Senna 95 (real season: 96, 1st)
Berger 77 (real season: 43, 4th)
Patrese 44 (real season 53, 3rd)
Prost 35 (real season: 34, 5th)
Piquet 33 (real season 26,5, 6th)
Alesi 21 (real season 21, 7th)
Brundle 3 (real season: 2, 17th)
Blundell 2 (real season: 1, 19th)
Modena 1 (real season 10, 8th)
Wins:
Senna 7 (real season: 7)
Mansell 7 (real season: 5)
Berger 2 (real season: 1)
In the real season Patrese took 2 wins and Piquet one surprise win at Canada when Mansell ran out of fuel in the very last lap. Prost failed to win a race in this mod and also in the real 1991 season too. His Ferrari was pig of a car that year and when Prost told his opinion about it to the Ferrari superiors he got sacked. Morbidelli replaced him on Adelaide.
Poles:
Senna 10 (real season: 8)
Mansell 5 (real season: 2)
Berger 1 (real season: 2)
Patrese took 4 poles in the real 1991 season.
Podiums:
Mansell 14 (real season: 9)
Senna 10 (real season: 12)
Berger 9 (real season: 6)
Patrese 3 (real season: 8)
Prost 2 (real season: 5)
Alesi 2 (real season: 3)
Piquet 5 (real season: 3)
Brundle 1 (real season: 0)
Only Stefano Modena took one podium in the real season. He grabbed one sixth place in the AC season. After this season I increased Patrese's AI level from 94 to 96 and Modena's from 90 to 91. Other than that it was pretty damn accurate as Mansell's first 4 races were all technical DNF's in the real one. Prost is already set at 99 so there's no way to improve him and there's no need as only 1 point difference to the real season.
Summary:
Results wise the championship was extremely close and pretty realistic. In the real 1991 season Mansell was very competitive but like I said he got DNF's from the first four races, all of which Senna won. It would have been much tighter if Williams had the reliability in the beginning of the season. Honda made a new V12 engine for McLaren in the middle of the season and they got way more power. Some QF times are quite spot on, some aren't. It's weird that sometimes in race trim the ai is faster.
The biggest realism issue for me is that AI cars don't have engine failures and make mistakes very rarely in this mod. Those happened surprisingly often in the ACFL 1987 hybrid season I played before. It was amazing in that 1987 season at Adelaide when Berger and Prost crashed and I inherited 2 places. When there's no AI DNF's the race results are very predictable with very few surprises. Same 6-8 drivers are usually on top in every race. But that's pretty much how it was in the real season too. Without engine failures or crashes the small teams had no chance to get points. If you look at the stats I actually had exactly the same amount of podium finishers. Just Brundle instead of Modena.
With my settings it's hard enough that if you run wide even in one corner you're pretty much done in that race. I like it that way. Keeps you on the edge all the time. But when there are no AI DNF's, you gotta be on podium in almost every race. Makes it hard to win.
I have no time to have longer race distances... 10 laps is enough which of course leave the pitstops off. But I'm planning to try one season with 30 lap races. Just have to experiment a bit more before I attempt that. I never start over any races, unless crash happens in the start. If I crash and ruin my race then so be it. Where's the fun in cheating yourself?
I have played 2 full AMS2 seasons with these vintage cars and I gotta say it's still far behind AC when it comes to the atmosphere and driving feel. They are improving and doing great things regarding vintage F1 mods but AC is still easily the king of the F1 hill. You just need to fine tune everything a lot and choose the correct tracks in order to get a good championship experience. That I have done.
The tracks are superb. 1988 and ASR 1992. With the combination of these it's rather easy to make it great. Can't thank enough to the people who made this possible.
The championship was pretty much lost in Magny Cours where I did my only stupid mistake of the season and spun from the lead. Also my Interlagos and Barcelona races were quite terrible and spun at Hockenheim. Berger had low aggression on purpose because he was clearly Senna's 2nd driver. Whenever he was leading he was pretty easy to overtake. We don't want 2nd driver to knock the 1st driver off the track like Coulthard did to Hakkinen at Red Bull Ring 1999.
Mansell has the highest aggression at 45. That's pushing it. With some car mods higher agggression leads to more mistakes and actually slower lap times when they slide and run wide more often... but not that much on ASR 1991. The downside of low aggression is that the ai cars act like idiots when there's a crash and they get stuck behind other car's. But none of this happened in this season. ASR 1991 cars don't crash that much at all.
Sometimes in other F1 mods ai cars retire in the middle of the track and create idiotic accidents. In my 1984 season I crashed at Osterreichring when ai car was parked right after the fast straight behind the hill. None of this crap happened with ASR cars and 1988/1992 tracks. Zero.
Visually, AC with SOL and CSP is incredible. There's nothing I want more. Maybe AMS2 looks better or just as good, I don't know. For me the graphics haven't been that important in years. I still think Richard Burns rally with Rallysimfans mod looks good enough. Perhaps the crowds having a motion would be cool thing to have but not really a big thing for me. I use those vintage SimHub layouts (BBC, ESPN) which are amazing. I also use the CrewChef. A little extra that increase the genuine atmosphere.
AI is excellent. There are absolutely no complaints. They're competitive enough but don't knock you off if you don't make a mistake yourself. I have slower drivers on almost zero aggression because the biggest ai beef is that they don't give you space on their slow warmup lap on qualifying or when they become blue flagged (of course it rarely happens with 10 lap races). That is the only thing that should be improved on AC2. But with them set on low aggression even that is not that big of a deal, really.
ASR 1991 car... what can I say. Amazing. When I was driving this same season with Prost's bad Ferrari, I wasn't nearly as competitive. Among the best F1 car mods ever. However I enjoy RSS 1990 even more as between Senna and Prost I'm more of a Prost fan and enjoy driving his fast 1990 Ferrari.
That's it. If you enjoy this kind of season stories I could make another. As I'm past 40 there's nothing I enjoy more than driving these classic seasons. This was the F1 I grew up with. With analog, manual cars and charismatic drivers. I know quite a lot about F1 and the drivers of this era I've watched the races of this era over and over again and since I have no modding skills at least I can I try and get these as realistic as possible and give the community back that way.
Thanks for reading. Hope at least someone found it interesting. If you want to play this completely free mod and do your own 1991 F1 season, this video description has absolutely everything you need. Including the free Phoenix track, link to the pay tracks improved ai.
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