Blent

My Australian-based team, Neon Opal F1 Team.

I think you're kind of missing the key part of it... To be able to do most things with this franchise, Codemasters have to get approval from FOM and the teams. I'm pretty sure that the issue is that even if they really wanted to add balance performance to Grand Prix mode, they would need the approval of the 'stakeholders' - i.e., FOM and the teams. Career Mode is one thing, but Grand Prix is supposed to be a representation of the season as it is. I'm pretty sure the likes of Red Bull wouldn't be pleased with giving players an option to have AlphaTauri be as quick as them, or Ferrari letting Alfa Romeo beat them in a race. Is it stupid? Yeah. Of course it is. But that's what happens when you have all these massive teams and corporations all wanting a say in how they're represented in a licensed product to protect their brands.

I wish it worked like that, but Project CARS runs on a totally different engine than the F1 series does. Even if they did use the Imola data they have, it'd still take a huge effort to convert it all to make it run flawlessly in F1 2021 even when compared to just starting from scratch.

I don't want it to happen, but I wouldn't blame CM for coming to an arrangement with FOM to have 2021 as a premium DLC upgrade for F1 2020. I know the contract situation may not allow for that, but given the exceptional circumstances for the last two seasons and how working together in an office is just not possible in the UK right now, it feels like too much to ask for a 'full' F1 2021 of the same quality as usual with the likes of Imola, Portimao, etc being added last minute on top of Saudi Arabia too. Let's not forget that we don't know what CM's plans are for PS5/Series X too and how that may or may not compromise things further.

It's actually really considerate of CM to encourage the disturbingly obsessed to have a week off from doing an event they've already done so they can enjoy this holiday week before the New Year.

I think the game was originally programmed with the idea of the original F1 calendar in mind and that calendar was reflected in the in game calendar you see. That message appears to me to be a placeholder message that was intended to be replaced by the details of the actual F1 calendar as it ended up being, but just didn't get implemented in the end. Probably due to the fact they started the season with the calendar not confirmed.

This is such a minor thing that I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but I was thinking about this while doing a 100% race yesterday and it suddenly seemed quite counter-intuitive that tyre wear on the HUD is measured counting up from 0% at brand new to 100% when the tyres are totally, completely dead. I mean, of course it makes sense. But I was thinking it might be nice to have the option to invert this scale so that it shows tyre life counting down from 100% over time. I feel this might give a better indication of how much you can expect for your tyres in terms of lap times and performance. Given that it is the exact same scale as the existing tyre wear indicator, just reversed, it could even be an option between them, like how KM/H and MPH are, for example. Although I'm not a developer, so I don't know how easy that is! Just one incredibly minor idea.

Rather than agonising over any minor graphics boosts that could come through backwards compatibility on PS5 or XBOX Series S/X, we should just accept that F1 2020 is how it is and look forward to what we can get from a fully purpose-built next-gen entry for the series in the future that will take full advantage of the new hardware. This is a really ugly attitude I've seen from a minority of users on here and it needs calling out. Barry is CM staff, yes, but that doesn't mean he's some sort of butler who is obliged to respond to every thread about every minor gripe and suggestion. We're lucky that we have this space to express our views on the game with CM in good faith and get feedback and info from Barry and have him pass on our problems to developers for investigation. They don't have to give us this space to discuss the games. It's absolutely fine to have issues with the games and express concerns about the series or things you think could be better, but you should do it respectfully and you certainly shouldn't snap your fingers and demand that Barry come to give you an answer about everything. I hope you don't treat service staff in everyday life with that little respect too.

Seems like this story is gaining traction in the media. TMZ have already picked up on it.

Why is that Codemasters' fault? Surely that's an internet connection issue / Xbox Live problem? Especially as you say that only one player - someone streaming no less - was affected by it? Disconnects happen in every online game.

Because - and this will be a shock - a lot of players aren't getting the Safety Car. Myself included. Exactly the same as in F1 2019 for me. The worst thing for me is that I had two Safety Cars in my first two MyTeam races, but then I started additional career modes to grind our Podium Pass XP and even since then I've had zero Safety Cars in 13 more races. It's a very weird quirk in the coding, I imagine.

That's cool. Thank you for enlightening me!

Formula One Management - basically the parent organisation that 'owns' the sport. When they refer to 'FOM car', they mean the multiplayer/MyTeam car that was designed with oversight from FOM to make a generic car that would fit current F1 regulations.

Just out of curiosity because I have no idea how it works, do you have get the patches on consoles 'approved' before they can be released? By the console manufacturers, I mean.

Well considering how many Olympic athletics champions are later retroactively disqualified for cheating... But yes I know what you mean. As someone who enjoys taking part in the Weekly Events and gets a very, very sad ego boost from what percentage I finish in, I totally get the competitiveness of them. But I suppose even with Weekly Events, you get players with massive scores. Either they're cheating, or there's been a glitch of some kind. But it's usually just a handful of players (literally less than five) so it's not really affecting the overall integrity of the competition that much. And, as I say, you can always just discard the illegitimate times and tell who is the actual leader.