SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - F1 2002 Mods

In Part One of our four part series on modding EASports F1 2002 Racing Simulation, we discuss the history behind the mods, discuss some of the premier mods in detail and look towards the future.

by Guest Writer "Rick.50cal" Bourassa

Ferrari photo courtesy of "U-96".

Ferrari. Racing.

These two words are often associated with each other. A great number of Formula fans tend to equate Ferrari to mean winning, as of late. The company's racing roots trace back to a time when Enzo Ferrari was exposed to the world of racing at the tender age of ten, when he decided to take up racing later, when he was a little older. After nearly dying of the flu during WW I, he applied for a job at Fiat, but was turned away. In 1919 he finished the Targa Florio in 9th place. It was a brutal ordeal to enter, only 3 laps, but at 92 miles a lap, there wasn't much point in establishing pole position. Yet numbers like that failed to convey the danger and intensity of the race, and the next year he drove an Alfa Romeo. He retired from race driving, but stared his own company in 1929, and in their first year the company competed in 22 events, and rewarded themselves with 8 victories! WW I flying ace Francesco Baracca's squadron badge featured a prancing horse on a yellow shield, and was adopted by Enzo as the emblem for his now famous company.

Today, the only company professional race team they have is the Formula 1 entry, but their heritage in motor sports continues, thanks to the availability of Ferrari competition products to independent race teams. In recent times, the Ferrari 333SP was available for about 1 million US (parts spare kit included), Sauber had purchased F1 engines from the company, and they have been heavily involved in GT racing series.

Today, Ferrari has an "amateur" series, called the 360 Challenge, which is taking a street Modena 360 and doing slight changes to make it suitable for track racing, modifications such as upgraded brake lines, a roll cage, slicks, and a stripped interior. Yet it's very nearly a street stock vehicle, and in fact the teams aren't allowed to change much, including the gear settings! It's effectively a "spec" series, meaning each car is mechanically identical. Unlike the majority of race series, where a decent driver in a superior car is likely to walk away with a victory, a spec series' entire focus is on the skills of the drivers, as that is the only variable. It's much harder to blame your equipment when everyone has the same as you! Another advantage is cost: you don't need to stress the engine as much, trying to get an extra 20 hp (actually it's "illegal" to change it anyway), because everyone is still only allowed to have, for example 400 hp. This means less engine teardowns are needed, less spare parts, less work from your mechanic. The Challenge car costs only $185,000 USD, but to race one for a season will cost you about a cool million USD, once you figure in the cost of a race team and travel costs. By contrast, a Formula car that just finished qualification might be torn down and some small aero changes made during Sunday morning practice, might have different performance and be a slightly different car. By the time the next race comes around, it's no longer even the same setup configuration, and over the course of a season, the car that is presented at the unveiling isn't really the car that finishes the season!

So why do I mention this? Because one of the latest racing sim mods for F1 2002 has just been released and it's subject is the 360 Challenge. But first before we look at the mod itself, we must cover the roots of this mod.

Some history

"Realistic physics: tested by real racecar drivers" That's been seen on nearly every racing simulator box ever sold. Back in the late 90's, Image Space Incorporated (ISI) made a rather popular racing simulator called Sports Car GT (SCGT). It featured for the time, great graphics, good action, advanced (again, for the time) physics, much better than average frame rates. At a similar point, GPL came out, and while there were hints that it might be a gem, it was in practical terms, a business fiasco at the time, thanks to it being totally unplayable with any AI cars: the frame rates dropped to around 4 fps, on even the fastest, most capable home computers of the time. GPL without a Pentium 3 was like a Ferrari without petrol or tires, and it's true colors would only appear in years to follow. By contrast, SCGT would work well and smoothly, with decent graphics settings, on even the most modest PC's of the day, and it became quite popular, especially among the modification crowds. New tracks were created, new cars with strange physics, such as Bathurst/Panorama Ridge and Pat Painter's M8 McLaren CAN-AM monster (power oversteer like crazy! Very fun, and I look forward to a new F1 Challenge mod for CAN-AM).

EA and ISI decided to go in a different direction and make a Formula1 simulator. Early versions were mediocre but each showed progress (F1 2000, F1 2000 CS, F1 2001). Of the different versions produced over the years, the relevant one to our discussion is F1 2002. In recent times, this latest version, has been modified by one group of enthusiasts back into a GT sim and something more akin to an updated SCGT. Other modification teams have made other series, but there seems to be a common thread: they tend to be accurate in performance and the physics engine seems outstanding, perhaps better suited to representing these types of cars than for the Formula 1 cars the game engine was written.

GT Racing 2002

The biggest, best known race mod is GT Racing 2002. After several months of very hard work, it was released in December 2002 and soon after was awarded 3rd place in FilePlanet's "Best New Mod Awards for 2002"! It features two levels of competition: N-GT, which tends to mean a 2450 lb car with roughly 430 hp, and can include 360 Modena's, Porsche GT-3R's, and others. Performance for the Ferrari entry does the quarter mile in 12 seconds, 0-60 in 3.5 seconds. These are NOT spec series, and the cost is quite high, with the Ferrari example costing roughly $400,000 USD, and professional race drivers drive them. The other class in the series is the full GT cars, which feature Porsche (911) 993Turbo and 996T, the Lambourghini Diablo, Viper GTS-R, Lister Storm GT, Marcos, and of course a Ferrari 550 Maranello, which weighs 1151 kg, and is powered by a 612 hp engine. The whole unit costs $750,000 from Prodrive (yes, the same guys that turn your sister's Subaru into a frenzied rally monster for Pro Rally driver Richard Burns!).

In GT Racing, these two classes coexist on the same race, requiring the slower cars to be wary of faster cars, and the faster cars have to be wary not to hit the "moving chicanes" that could jump up halfway through a corner — much like in SCGT! That said, you can choose to run exclusively GT or N full fields if you wish. However, there is one area of clear improvement over it's past counterpart: the new one is far more simulation oriented. It now features fully implemented telemetry, physics that are so realistic, so real, that each car has it's own very distinct handling feel. In the past, the best simulators featured tires that would be cold or hot grip levels, and the ability to read tire temperatures to help with suspension setup. Yet in this title it goes beyond that — tires get progressively better grip by the third and fourth lap than they did on the second and significantly more than at the start. There also seems to be a modeling of the brake rotor temperatures. With normal cars and trucks the hotter your brakes get the worse they work, and the more likely to fail. On these ultra-expensive race cars the reverse is true — the brakes are built for serious abuse and like their tires aren't working at their fullest when cold. This is another reason to take the first couple of laps easy.

"GT Racing 2002" was made by, and available as, a free 265MB download from the people over at Simbin Development Team (SBDT). First, install F1 2002 but then you must configure the graphics and create a player before installing the mod. The site you downloaded the mod at also features directions on installation, step-by-step, add-on cars and tracks, the 1.2 patch (important to include... size 50MB), and perhaps most importantly of all the very best help and problem solvers/tech support I have ever seen for any computer game. In fact, what's more amazing is that the whole thing is more professional than you could expect yet no one is getting paid to do it!

While you are there, be sure to also download their official Laguna Seca track, and their new "360 Challenge" mod (46.4MB). Also don't forget the 360 Challenge's own 1.1 patch as it fixes a few minor physics changes that slipped through. This integrates itself into your installation of GT Racing and it brings in the aforementioned "spec" series. You won't be driving against either the NGT or GT cars, thankfully!

Go To Page 2

Click here to go to top of this page.