Am I the only one that thinks this?

There is a possibility of hidden attributes on drivers that we cannot see. Lets call it driving style:
[list]
[*]Button's Style: Smooth driving, fixed to the line, and saving tires
[*]Alonso's Style: Aggressive driving, using the outwith area of the track for advantages, and goes extremely tight on corners (note hockenheim)
[*]Schumacher's Style: Loose driving style, using oversteer to assist with steering around corners, Kimi uses this method too.
[/list]

And there is Gangnam Style.

In all fairness, if there is hidden attributes then there shouldn't be. That's making things too random. There is no possible way to know whether the driver you are going to hire is good or not.

But is there a guarantee in real life ?

Maybe there is no "guarantee" Alin, but atleast teams have a chance to test with their drivers, get to know them, how they perform under pressure, learn their driving style and things of this nature. On iGP we do not have this luxury, we're stuck to numbers on a sheet and if some of them are hidden .. Well that makes things rather impossible.

It would be cool though if we did have a 2D "5 lap test session" or something when hiring drivers ;) How cool would it be to boot up a race with 10 potential drivers you want to hire or something? ;)

Possible feature, maybe to go into YDA. For now, don't whine, you got the best driver atm but, Monteiro is nearly finished his defense training, next season, you have a front row competitor :)

another theory to throw into the mixer (speaking to a guy in my league today remind me to post of this)

5/5 qual not always best. under the old rules 4/5 was better at some "longer" tracks (belgium) and some of the hotter tracks (abu d, bahrain etc)

new rules with automatic 5/5 qual ruin this though. its a shame.

not 100% sure i am correct but it was a common theme i was noticing.

under the rules it says something like "qualifying is done with the tyres being optimum temperature at the start of the qualifying lap" or something of this nature.. well, at some of those tracks, 5/5 is too much for one lap if your tyres are grey in the beginning and not blue.

Hidden attributes help to create more "game" into the game, if everyone knew everything then it would just be a race to get the best driver based purely on numbers. The fact that hiring a new driver has an element of risk makes it a tough decision; agonising over tough decisions and then stickng to those decisions is what makes this game fun and not just a quest to make the best spreadsheet.

Just my tuppence.

I'd say there should be minimum contract lengths for drivers and financial penalties for ending them early too, to reduce driver turnover in leagues. But meh.

+1 Jon.
I thought there were penalties already??

I've seen penalties for ending supplier contracts early, not for drivers. Unless I wasn't paying attention.

I think this is great feedback for the devs of the game. 

Brent: yep :).  *goes scribble down notes*

/ PICK Andrew's notes
/ READ notes

## take kid to school
## pick up suit from dry cleaning
## go to dentist
## visit grandma
## shopping for dinner at the mall
## buy flowers

/ END list

Should of picked up his harddrive, I'm sure all the Project Management is on there ;)

Another possible theory:

- Drivers are worse at qualifying when you max out their attacking.

I think they are a better all round driver and much faster in the race with attacking maxed out, but I'm noticing a distinct relationship between my drivers atm where Mansell is consistently qualifying worse than Lauda even though he is always faster in the race. Mansell has maxed attacking, Lauda is 75-80% there. When Mansell didn't have max attacking he used to put it on the front row nearly ever race.

I think it could be a bug in the program. Something running off the scale when training more. I mean it could be maximum attact at 18 instead of 20, then if you train more, instead of 19, you get 1 (18+1). Just a theory.

it would be nice to have info on how this works. Maybe we have to mix up our numbers and the correct combo will creat a driver no1 can beat. Its a shame we cant keep some stats lower than others because of the training system.

I think the purpose is to keep it hidden. If they told us how it worked everyone would have the best drivers possible.

I don't even know if I am on the right track or talking out of a hole in my butt, but I'm 90% sure I'm on the right track. There's a few other things I want to try but I don't want to try them with Mansell or Lauda.

You know, come to think of it I had some drivers in the past on another team where I maxed out phys/speed/defending on both drivers (both had 16 talent and were the same age, so that helped compare them) and one was far quicker than the other. The thing is, the one who was faster had about half of his attacking training completed so instead of training attacking on the slower driver, I maxed out technical instead.

Any way to cut a long story short the driver with max technical was faster in qualifying and in races towards the end of my time having them than the driver who had max attacking and no technical. I don't know why I didn't think to try this again sooner..

I spent sometime this afternoon looking into this. (another boring meeting)

I don't have a lot of data, but I looked at race times. They improve & then deteriorate.

This particular driver didn't quite get to be fully trained, but was 98% there, so from the perspective of training, more of it only worked up to a point. However, I wonder if age is impacting this too. Clearly said driver was getting older during this training, almost 9 years from start to finish.

So.... Did he get worse because he received more training, or because he was getting too old? Or is something else going on?

Furthermore, how accurate is the data, given the changes in ambient temperature over the 6 months or so that I had him?

With regard to age, I wonder too whether drivers have an inbuilt sell by date; beyond which their performance degrades? If so, how is this affected by training?

So many questions, so few answers...

I don't think the age is as bad as we think. Lewis' driver Kubica was basically the same as Mansell (with a similar training pattern for most of his career) and even when he was well into his early 30's he was still very dominant.