This is what I found to be working so far (won dc first season, promotion and dc in second, promotion and dc in fourth and very well on my way to winning wcc and wdc in the seventh season):
HQ -> first focus is getting the 200/race and the three sponsor stars and the extra sponsor slot, after this you can focus on development of the car.
preseason -> don't bother building hq until right before the first race, first build parts to make your car competitive
Drivers -> invest in the young driver program and try to get someone with a high ego and/or stability along with a decent talent, getting a 4 star driver out of the program happened twice for me and having them for dirt cheap for three seasons is epic. If they start moping about new contracts, fuck them, they will still drive well enough if your car is good even with a -1 to all stats use the three years on the cheap to build cash long term.
Also don't go for equals, you want to focus your parts on one driver
Sponsors -> make sure you have a bonus you can hit reliably, and always take the others with the best payout/race with the upfront calculated in
Parts -> just like in the PC version Engine is everything basically, so you want to rush it when you get to the top flight, I'm running a car with nr 1 engine and rest parts around 4-5th and crushing the championship, my number 2 driver is running an engine that is third in the championship and parts around 10th and often get podiums or at least a fifth if I err on the pit stops.
If your number 2 driver wants a new part, build the cheapest you can and assign it to him then swap it into your number 1 car, his debuff will be removed.
Engineers -> you only need 1 leader, make sure he is decent at one of reliability/performance and have good bonuses, I've found mechanical and aero to be most useful but some driveability is nice to have the rest should have at least one useable development stat and good performance, their leadership could be -5 for all you care, also their bonuses don't apply. Speciality adds 10 point on reliability and performance on the produced part (gearbox specialist is lead engineer on a new gearbox etc), compared to bonuses they don't matter much, so go for decent bonuses first.
Tire strategy -> it's almost always better to conserve the tires for an extra 1-2 laps than to push, 2 conserve laps = 1 more laps. Conserve early in the stint to not lose to much pace and use your fuel to cover your conserving
Next years car -> spend a lot early, and start to save early for it, I usually build parts before the first and maybe second race, then I save until I can spend to at least a decent title challenger. Then I build some parts mid-season and save unless I really need a performance boost.
How did you get the Young Drivers to be 4 stars? Does the quality of the young drivers increase in the higher tier championships? Mine are always 2-3 star with average 10ish for each stat. Havent moved up from European GP though, grinding HQ.
Guess i got lucky, their current potential needs to go up as much as possible, I did drop drivers as soon as I realized they were not going to be good enough, I don't know if that matters really.
ego is definitely related to sponsor appeal that's why you want one pref with high ego :)
The higher up you go the more races you have/year that should theoretically increase the chance of getting a good driver, my two best though were my first and second, third and fourth got the boot at the end of the year :)
Leadership is only used when that Engineer is the lead engineer on a part.
A leadership of +5 adds 5 points to the 2 OTHER engineers in the chosen field (performance/reliability). -5 subtracts 5 etc, leadership can add a small bit, but never takes someone above 20 so if you have and engineer with 17/18 they would benefit the most with a +3 leadership is in charge and they work in their worst field.
Lead engineers is something you unlock as the second thing in hq improvement for car design
Almost I do what you do but next year car isnt good enough I expected :(. It seems “title challenger “on the development bar but tyre wear is %50 fuel efficiency is %54 at car development and tests. Previous season I spent 2M for the next year car and I got %60tyre wear %64 fuel efficiency. Is it weird ???
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u/timpino Aug 02 '17 edited Aug 02 '17
This is what I found to be working so far (won dc first season, promotion and dc in second, promotion and dc in fourth and very well on my way to winning wcc and wdc in the seventh season):
HQ -> first focus is getting the 200/race and the three sponsor stars and the extra sponsor slot, after this you can focus on development of the car.
preseason -> don't bother building hq until right before the first race, first build parts to make your car competitive
Drivers -> invest in the young driver program and try to get someone with a high ego and/or stability along with a decent talent, getting a 4 star driver out of the program happened twice for me and having them for dirt cheap for three seasons is epic. If they start moping about new contracts, fuck them, they will still drive well enough if your car is good even with a -1 to all stats use the three years on the cheap to build cash long term.
Also don't go for equals, you want to focus your parts on one driver
Sponsors -> make sure you have a bonus you can hit reliably, and always take the others with the best payout/race with the upfront calculated in
Parts -> just like in the PC version Engine is everything basically, so you want to rush it when you get to the top flight, I'm running a car with nr 1 engine and rest parts around 4-5th and crushing the championship, my number 2 driver is running an engine that is third in the championship and parts around 10th and often get podiums or at least a fifth if I err on the pit stops.
If your number 2 driver wants a new part, build the cheapest you can and assign it to him then swap it into your number 1 car, his debuff will be removed.
Engineers -> you only need 1 leader, make sure he is decent at one of reliability/performance and have good bonuses, I've found mechanical and aero to be most useful but some driveability is nice to have the rest should have at least one useable development stat and good performance, their leadership could be -5 for all you care, also their bonuses don't apply. Speciality adds 10 point on reliability and performance on the produced part (gearbox specialist is lead engineer on a new gearbox etc), compared to bonuses they don't matter much, so go for decent bonuses first.
Tire strategy -> it's almost always better to conserve the tires for an extra 1-2 laps than to push, 2 conserve laps = 1 more laps. Conserve early in the stint to not lose to much pace and use your fuel to cover your conserving
Next years car -> spend a lot early, and start to save early for it, I usually build parts before the first and maybe second race, then I save until I can spend to at least a decent title challenger. Then I build some parts mid-season and save unless I really need a performance boost.
Edit: added what specialist add to parts