Motorsport Manager - Ups and downs of 2021

 Hey guys,

So I've played my way into late in the 2021 racing season, and now I have a fair bit to write about here.

Firstly, I am no longer the manager of Espirit GP in the World Motorsport Championship.

I started the year spending as much as possible to make the new car the best it could possibly be, designing a new part straight away so that we could score points and get ourselves into 6th in the teams championship. Needless to say, we simply did not have the pace to get points. We started to score points in my last three races, and I spent heaps in the off-season to upgrade the team HQ. A new building, and two building upgrades including a simulator and telemetry, it was a massive disappointment to see that Espirit fired me and have failed to score points when they really should have been able to if they made their strategy correctly. I had a heap of setups that were always at least 70% competitive, and by the race it was always at least 95% competitive. It's a crying shame that I've moved on to better things and see a team that I poured my heart and soul into for almost five years fall to pieces. If it continues in the top tier then I would be surprised. We were always batting out of our weight. The worst team on the grid with one of the best pit crews challenging for the top ten regularly. The fact is that I made a mistake in expecting to be able to regularly finish 6th out of the 10 teams every race, and 6 races in I got the ultimatum to finish 9th or better to keep my job. We started very well, but maybe I pushed just a little too hard so that we were a few places ahead and this may have cost us my job.

Secondly, I am now the manager of Archer BMR in the European Racing Series, banging wheels with my old buddies at Octane. Archer is a very competitive team, and hopefully we can keep it that way in 2022. We're not in the red financially, a lesson from my mistake with Espirit, I had to fire Marion Fournier again. She was with Octane for a few years when I was with Espirit. She's a good driver, but her hotheadedness is a disaster for team cohesiveness. So I've got the drivers more-or-less sorted for the short-term future. I think I should invest in the team's HQ, and I'm keep on keeping the finances green and not paying drivers too much. We'll see how we go. I got my first podium with Nick Chu. Our other driver Cindi Stefanowski is good too, but we haven't been able to make it happen for her yet. I also found a good reserve driver in Kaori Aoto who is a strong backup in case one of the main drivers wants to leave. All of the drivers are contracted as reserve drivers, so it's a bit odd contract-wise. It's been a dramatic day that's for sure. We're in lockdown in South Australia, so maybe I've spent too much time playing Motorsport Manager :P

WTF this is so easy lol!

"This one's for the guys and girls at Espirit GP."

 Anyway I'll post more when there's more to say!

Bye!

Motorsport Manager - Excited for the 2021 season

I'm at the first round of the 2021 championship, and I'm simultaneously nervous and excited for the track action to commence.

The finale three races of the 2020 championship were surprisingly successful. I started spending money on designing new parts, got my drivers the new brakes that they wanted and a new engine for one of the cars. Soon enough we got a bunch more points and moved from 7th to 6th in the teams' championship, where the chairman predicted we would finish. So this season I figured that I would pull my finger out and get the new parts rolling so that we could get points throughout the season. We've also spent as much as possible to get the best possible car for the season. Hopefully we don't have too terrible a 2021 season. I'm putting myself on the line to get the results that we want so badly. Banging around the mid-pack is good racing, but I want podiums and wins. It would give me a warm feeling. I've also set the target of 6th in the teams' championship so that we're getting decent pay from the chairman and I feel that I've learned enough to really go for the results now. I'm sure that there are plenty of mistakes to come. One thing that I'm dead set on is keeping Johnny Navarro until he retires.

Motorsport Manager - Mistakes at Espirit GP in 2020

I had a wet race where I pitted both cars just before the rain started, but it didn't start for another lap and so the wets that I put on both cars were a quarter worn before they were competitive, and what's worse is that I should have put intermediates on. The track was truly wet for two laps, and was only wet enough for intermediate tyres the rest of the time. It was such a stuff-up that I gave up until the drivers complained about their tyres and I switched them to dries. Maybe I could have switched them to dries at the right time, but I was so devastated by how badly I'd screwed up the strategy. We were on for a podium, or points at least and it would have put us in a better position in the championship. Who knows what the rest of the season could have been like.

After looking at the screenshots, I think that Cape Town might have been worse than Beijing.

Then I had a race much later in the season where I got to put my reserve driver into one of the cars for the actual race. I have Sergio Arbeloa, who I used to watch win all the time in the European Racing Series. He qualified 12th and Johnny Navarro was 18th. My weather forecast said that it was going to be wet two laps in, so I had both drivers start on intermediate tyres. The first two laps were tough, especially as Arbeloa fell straight to the back with Johnny, but then the rain hit and we sliced through the field until we were 4th and 5th for a moment and then started falling back late in the race. The track dried up, but I kept running Johnny because he was better on tyre wear and it was going to rain in the last two laps. I pitted Arbeloa because he wanted to be on dry tyres, while Johnny would have been 17th if he pitted or something. It didn't end too badly. We finished 12th and 13th. Not bad at all.

I went from memory and then got the screenshots. Forgive me for being inaccurate, there's been a few rough races and I can't remember everything. Really racking my brain for how to make 2021 worth competing in.

Motorsport Manager - Espirit's year of the year 2019

Hey guys, I'm back with more on my Motorsport Manager career.

Entering 2019 I set my expectations low, spent lots, and painted the car black. There was no guarantee that we were going to have a good season. I think that my expectations of 2018 were high and I disappointed myself that year. So entering 2019 I set the bar low and set the goal low too. As long as we finished 9th or higher in the constructors championship we were fine.

We started off very well with both cars competitive. Then slowly over the next few races we fell backwards. Then we started picking up points again as we developed new parts. Early in the year Amy McCloud was in the top ten of the championship, but fell down the order by season's end. Johnny Navarro was a steady hand for the team and kept scoring well enough. He ended up finishing 9th in the points. Very impressive. I don't think we scored any podiums, but we didn't expect to either. We're supposed to be the worst team in pit lane. Our only strong points are our staff and pit crew. Amy finished 16th in the championship, and I was a little disappointed. I think that she's a good driver who should be doing as well as Johnny but I've screwed up the strategy and lost her some good results. Track position is key, and pitting early has been a mistake for me.

Johnny won driver of the year in 2019, and I won manager of the year. The only rule changes for 2020 are longer races, with 21 laps on average. It's going to be a really tough season, and I think that we're starting off on the backfoot. I get too excited and press the continue button during the off-season and blaze through those three months without thinking. So I think that our reliability and performance has been significantly hampered by my lack of foresight and even lack of experience. I went through this entering 2019 and we were pretty unreliable until about five races in. Hard to say what 2020 will be like.

I've been using my list of setups and it has been helpful only in terms of having an idea of what's good, but not what's great. Once you have a setup, you need to fine tune it to make it excellent and that means swinging downforce, handling, and speed in both directions until you get near 100%. Sometimes you need every session to get it right, even entering the race with an untested setup in the hope that it's better than what you've run before. Hopefully I don't get fired this season. The chairman was happy all year in 2019, even though we were bleeding money in the second half. Contract negotiations are costing me an arm and a leg.

See Ya!