DTR F1 SEASON 1 PREVIEW

Finally we are going to race! After months of preparation a bunch of test races and one full preseason week the racing leagues kick off for their first round of action and do so on the Albert Park track in Melbourne, Australia.
We’re going to see who has adapted his racing best to the new version of Codemasters’ F1 game. In this weeks blog i will take a deeper look at all three tiers on what we can expect from our drivers.

CLASS A

Our Monday tier is the one with the fastest drivers out there. Did i say fast? In the eyes of the normal drivers these guys are aliens. That’s how quick they are. Favorites? There isn’t one name above all others, but there are a few drivers that made quite an impression or have won many trophies in the past. To name a few:
ZeyroAK, Justasas, Mcloud, Petr_Vole made quite an impression so far, but drivers as Shaby2K, ScuderiaSeb, SimsiDanger and Jensen are all championship winners in simracing leagues. I mean Seb and Simsi have fought out some legendary battles for titles together. They all know championships are not decided by one race, a win, a pole or anything like that. What counts is consistency. Who is able to consistently get podiums throughout the 12 race season? I wouldn’t dare to bet my money on who comes on top, but i have to make a top 3 prediction with what i know and have seen so far it would look like this:

ZeyroAK
Justasas
Shaby2K

I’m pretty sure some will not agree or tell me others are faster then one of these guys. Well sure, you’re probably right, but are they also able to do it week in week out? Are they able to recover in a race when things go southways or will they give up? Focus and determination is what will bring out winners on top and i believe these three drivers have that in them.

Before we go to the next tier, let’s not forget there is a whole bunch of other great drivers in this league as well. We’ve got a young talent as Brent who just keeps improving, but does need to get his bottle under control. His nickname BrentTheBottlejob is a name he earned fair and square. We’ve also got Cameroon’s fastest driver, Kasel, who had made a giant leap in speed and skill over the last months. Sure, he won’t be winning races, but we will surely see him in the top ten often. He will partner up with Tikkuhd, the second Finnish driver in this tier. Another good and solid driver, who is only getting better and better. Of course there can not be a racing tier at DTR without an Austrian driver in it. We’ve got plenty! Apart from legend Simsi we’ve got Vienna-24. This young Austrian can beat any of those top drivers on a good day so we will surely see him on the podium a few times this season. Other well known drivers are the Dutch duo of Tencaate and Donkeydaan. Solid, steady, sometimes racing with elbows out, but lightning quick and very hard to beat. Do you think that was it? Oh no, there’s also Fruitful, Thepinkspartian, JD_Barca and a few quick but lesser known drivers as AJ-BAYO and mbennyd. Last but not least, there’s Ben. Aka iiBbEeNnii. Never heard of him? Go watch his youtube channel as this man has made some very fun and good simracing video’s.

I don’t know what your plans are on Mondays at 6pm, but these guys are ready to put on a show and you can watch them live! I know what i’ll be doing.

CLASS B

Sure your Monday night of racing is top notch, but in Class B on Tuesday we’ve got some very good and fast drivers as well. Some of them would do pretty good in Class A too. But hey we’re talking B now. So let’s name some candidates for the championship:

Chalkerz
Bruma
Wesley
Blaackmamba
Invisible
Bossmotz
Xavi
xMissil

The experience some of those drivers have combined with their speed make them a threat for any championship. Drivers as Bruma and Wesley even have mutltiple titles on their resume and when it comes to statpadding, expect to see Wesley filling up that statsheet with poles and fastest laps whenever he sees an opportunity.

Some other very good drivers are Manlikedonkey, Florian and young talents such as Shaqattack and Evilmaster, but also veterans as Composite, Trenki, Milo and Ralph. Those last four will probably not be fighting for wins, but if there’s an opportunity in a race to snatch up a podium or a top 5 count on them to be scoring good points through the season. That leaves us with a few lesser known drivers like Frischgezapftes, Xypickess aka ‘Pickles’ and Michael. After the test races it’s hard to say where they’ll end up in this league, but let’s find out!

Oh and let’s not forget about Prof. Profprateek won’t be racing fulltime, but when he will, the multilingual Indian driver will give those championship contenders a hard time out there.

CLASS C

On Wednesday night you’ll see a combination of everything. Seasoned veterans, simracing beginners and ambitious young guns. What we’ve seen in the past is that young drivers, especially new ones can become candidates for most improved driver during a season. This makes it incredibly hard to predict who will fight for the championship. In a preview however you still need to name some who will be up front even if we haven’t seen all drivers in action yet. So here are my thoughts about who we can see up front:

Billy
Stuart
Nellboy
AL2737
Jetfish

Let’s add some context into my nomination for these 5 drivers.

Billy, still young but very experienced. Even won a league championship before. He is young and ambitious and after taking some time off from league racing he’s back and ready to fight for a new title. He’ll be teaming up with Stuart, who is on similar pace as his teammate. The experience of winning a title might give Billy an edge over his teammate, but this duo is a force to reckoned with.
Nellboy might be a little less quick then Billy and Stuart, but an intelligent driver with patience. Always there to score good points and a gentleman on track. Watch him in round 4, Bahrain. That’s a track he’s won multiple races on.
AL and Jetfish are bit unknown, but according to my intel, they are quick. Very quick. They do lack a bit of experience and still have something to learn on strategy and racing in traffic, but they’re like a Mercedes. If they can drive in free air, you’re going to have a hard time stopping them.

Other very quick drivers are Wazza, who will surely be on pole a few times, but also will have quite a bit of DNF’s behind his name. Ennz who is very very quick, but is still finding his way into this version of the game combined with reducing his assists. Once he’ll get the hang of that he’ll be up front in this field. Mikey will do well too, but like Ennz, needs to stop spinning round. Another veteran who is having a hard time staying on track without using assists is Bogarovski. Never the fastest, always there to scoop up some points though. Talking about veterans, Skipper and Peet_der_Pirat have quite a few races under their belt as well. You can count on them to be good midfielders. Alex has shown some decent pace in preseason and will be someone we will see doing well in this championship. More unknown drivers are Annihilator, Sandoe, Tarek, Flutsch, Overdrive, Matthew and Reapzz. They don’t have a lot of kilometers under their belt and that makes it really hard to predict how they will do. No reason to count them out though and be assured that some of these drivers will be on the podium at some point.

Who do you think will do well in this upcoming season? Agree or disagree with my predictions? Let me know in the comments.