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Which F2 Is For
You?
As a quick perusal of the cars' spec sheets will show, there
are three cars that don't make very good F2s because the donor
chassis are way too heavy: the BRM, Honda, and Cooper (called
Coventry in the game, but let's dispense with circumlocutions
forthwith, eh?) at 1381, 1313, and 1231 lbs., respectively. If
you want to play with these dinosaurs, exit here.
That leaves the Brabham, Lotus, Ferrari, and Eagle. In real life,
the Brabham BT-24 was little more than the team's BT-23 F2 car
with a pushrod V8 shoehorned in where the 1500cc 4-cyl. engine
resided before. As it happens, GPL's F2 Brabham is the most potent
car in its class. With no horsepower advantage, the Brabham F2
outscores its rivals with an aero drag so low that the car is
invariably several mph faster on the straights than the others.
Along with the Lotus, it is also the lightest F2 (at 1105 lbs.),
which gives it unparalleled mid-range acceleration. The Brabham
is also the smallest (with a 93.5-in. w.b. and 53.0/55.5-in track),
which confers a maneuverability advantage on tight, narrow tracks
like Monte Carlo and the Nurburgring.
The real-life Lotus F2 also had a model number one short of the
F1 designation (the 48 to the F1's 49), but in fact the two Lotii
were completely separate cars. In GPL, they are basically the
same car with different engines, and the F2 version picks up
the F1 chassis' advantages: light weight and small size (a 95-in.
w.b. combined with a wide 60-in. track). I find GPL's F1 Lotus
very demanding to drive, but the F2 version is a pussycat. (The
Brabham is tricky in either variant.) In general, the Lotus is
the second-most potent F2 in the game, rarely much slower than
the harder-to-drive Brabham, and occasionally quicker. It's certainly
less tiring to drive. If you have to choose one, chose this one.
Ferrari didn't produce a F2 car until 1968. The Tipo 166, a V6,
basically used a half-size 312 engine in a much smaller chassis.
In GPL, the F2 Ferrari is commendably small (a 94.5-in. w.b.;
59.5/59.8-in track) and light (1129 lbs.), and handles with more
aplomb than any other car in the game, but Papyrus inexplicably
saddled it with an aero drag factor so high that its top speed
(and thus its lap times) are almost never as good as its rivals.
Pity. But it is so forgiving that it makes an ideal beginners'
car.
Among the top four, only AAR never made a F2 car. The Eagle's
chassis was designed to do double duty, but in a more powerful
class (Gurney used the T1G as the basis for a Champ car, and
after his F1 effort came a cropper, devoted his efforts to making
it a winner in USAC racing--it won the Indy 500 the following
year). Although GPL's mythical F2 Eagle is reasonably light (1165
lbs.) and well-streamlined, it's as wide as the Lotus and rides
on an ultra-long (96.5-in.) wheelbase, both to accomodate the
lengthy Weslake V12 and Gurney's lanky 6'3" frame, so it's
not as nimble as the others, and considerably less so on some
tracks than others. Nonetheless, it's such a pleasant car to
drive that I've included many setups for it here. |