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Тема: Elite Press |
1632 одговора
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You're gonna interview Ethan?
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His face might be a mystery, but his skill is certainly not! After a few teasers that gave me the credibility of a 🤡, it's finally here! Our next Elite Press feature, reigning GPRO Champ:
| Debut Season | 61 |
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| First Elite Season | 72 |
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| Last Season Performance | GPRO Champion |
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| Current Season Standings | 1º |
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| Current Team | Cavali Malati |
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| Current Team Standings | 3º |
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How did you find out about the game?
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There was an advertisement for the game on the Autosport website at the time. I read it, thought I would give it a try, and here I am over five years later with more hours than I can justify on this site.
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How were you recruited by Malati? How did the team evolve from being a beginner’s team to a competitive team consistently having managers fighting for the Elite title?
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As a new player I was quite active on the GPRO chat. Jasper, Nigel, and some other then-Malatis were active there as well and it served as a common recruiting ground for the team at the time. When Nigel was leaving Malati to go to VS before the start of S63 (just as I was leaving Rookie) he sent me a message saying that I should apply for his former spot. I recall being unsure at the time if I wanted to join Malati or hold out on joining a team, hoping to get some experience in amateur first and then get into a better team in the future. It was the next day Jasper messaged me and convinced me Malati was the team I was looking for. I think looking back it’s safe to say it was the right choice.
Since those days, the progress our team has made is quite incredible. I think there have been two key elements to that. The first was a group of active and ambitious newer managers that could share out experiences and discuss our ideas with each other on our discord channel, which allowed us to learn a tremendous amount in quite a short time while helping temper some of our worse impulses. Although many of the managers from that era have now retired, I think we have managed to maintain that environment with our more recent recruits, and it has matured nicely. The second was our approach to developing more accurate formulae and creating our own tools that use them; something that the team owes a lot of credit to Jasper in particular, with other managers such as Diogo and Brad making big contributions as well.
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Us who frequent the GPRO Discord server know about how comfortable you feel talking about tyres 😉. Moving to that topic, do you regret picking Contis in S73?
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Haha. The loss of 30 million on my end of season balance for S73 makes it seem rather bleak indeed, but it was primarily due to having very little sponsorship on the car that season and not from overspending. In fact, I was able to increase my stored sponsorship value by about the same amount to essentially break even financially. To do so in my second elite season was something I recall being quite happy with. That season does mark my lowest final standings position too, but that was largely a result of my start crash with Christos at Mugello where I had the pace for a podium. Considering that, I don’t regret picking Contis that season; however I did find them to be a frustrating tyre. I found their poor qualifying performance in particular to be very frustrating as it led to me being on the receiving end of lots of blocking in races (even understanding it as a trade-off and generally seeing the results come through in the end, in the moment I found it easy to still get caught up in it). This frustration is one of the reasons I decided to pick Hancocks for the first time the following season, which led to my first Elite wins. And I certainly don’t regret that!
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Was S77 a conscious first trophy push? Were you disappointed you could not get your first trophy with that long term driver you had back then?
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In the process of reaching Elite I never targeted a specific season to push for a championship. It seems odd to say now, but being in a team that only had a single season of Elite experience beforehand (and which had unfortunately resulted in relegation), I don’t think I even had a clear idea of what a title attempt entailed at that time. It was only a couple seasons after reaching Elite, when I had achieved my then goal of winning an Elite race and realizing that I could compete at the front did I set my sights on a championship attempt. Knowing that Jasper would try for the championship in S76 I decided on pursuing S77 for myself, using S76 as a preparation season. But going into it I knew that I was weaker than Yug, and that for me to win would most likely require some bad luck on his part. That was not to happen, and finding myself 20 points down after race ten I decided to abandon my attempt to focus instead on minimizing financial losses.
Considering that Yug was, to his credit, the stronger manager, and having never had any sentimental connection to my project driver, I wasn’t too disappointed in not being able to win a championship then. In a way I think that winning the championship with a driver I had developed starting in elite as I did in S83 meant more to me than winning a championship with my project driver would have, as I consider it the harder thing to do.
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Tell us more about the period between S77 and S83. How did you face trophy push preparation as a manager, but also how did the team get involved in the process?
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Following S77 I didn’t really have a plan on what to do next. I briefly considered regrouping for a second push with my driver in S79, but my evaluation was that Dede could manage a stronger position than myself for that season. Having no desire for a repeat of my first championship attempt, I dropped that idea. I also considered doing a Pipi relegation around that time, but my plan involving it didn’t seem particularly advantageous to staying in elite. Ultimately, I spent S78 trying to assist Jasper in his championship attempt, and in S79 I had quite a good season on Hancocks while not really expecting anything. I found a new, somewhat underdeveloped driver at the end of that season and initially only planned to use him to help rebuild my account. As he began to improve, I realized that a championship attempt was possible for me in S83 and began to target that.
One of the challenges I faced in trying to prepare for my S83 attempt was in generating the sponsorship I would need while also focusing heavily on training my driver to get him to the level necessary to win. By this point I no longer had any stored promotion sponsors, and winning the most lucrative sponsors generally requires progress greater than is possible while focusing on driver training. While I couldn’t escape this dilemma, I was able to use a lot of the medium value sponsors I did have to build up my balance going into the season to give myself some room financially.
My teammates at the time were great with inspiring confidence that I could win a championship and motivating me to do so. Without their positive encouragement I probably wouldn’t have changed my plan from using that driver only to rebuild my account to preparing a championship attempt, as I was hesitant to make another attempt when I wasn’t confident in my chances. At that point in time I didn’t know Ania would also be trying in S83 but I felt that Jan could create quite strong opposition, which had me worried. Of course, being able to see what my teammates had done, particularly Joachim in preparing for and executing his first championship was also a useful reference to add to my own experiences.
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How much did Brad’s S86 trophy have to do with your tyre choice for S91 and S92? What do you believe changed to favor Michis over Br in the recent seasons?
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Having been on Michis with Jasper during his title attempt in S78, I saw then that they had the performance to compete for the championship, at least as an alternate tyre that one could hope for favorable weather on. So I wasn’t really surprised by Brad’s performance on them in S86 (especially considering the changes to Michi and BR peak temp since S78, which to my mind were more favorable to Michis than BRs); it was rather a confirmation of what I already believed. Since then, the changes in terms of rain performance and warmup distance between the two tyres have to my mind made Michis the significantly better tyre, and until further changes are made I think they have become the default for all championship attempts.
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Being the manager with the current longest stay at Elite, how do you feel the Elite league has changed in the last 20 seasons?
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As you point out the competition has certainly changed in the past 20 seasons, with all the established elite managers from when I first arrived now having left, either through retirement or relegation. I think that when I first arrived in elite managers were still adapting to the new PHA system, and resultingly it was a period of transition where it was possible to have significant gains in performance by better understanding and applying this mechanism. This has largely stabilized and so the search for performance has taken on other forms, such as developing ever better drivers in recent seasons.
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How do you picture GPRO evolving in the next seasons?
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I’m not sure what might come next, I don’t think anyone aside from Vlad really knows. But what I would like to see is some change or addition to the game mechanics that shakes up the existing order of things, something that hasn’t really happened since the PHA changes made in S67. Having new elements of the game to investigate and new strategies to try I think gives opportunities for newer managers and teams to move up the order, and forces those more comfortable with the game as it is to adapt or risk losing out. That keeps things interesting, I think.
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Thanks Jorge for the Interview!!
For Elite Press®, Flo 🔮, who'll start looking for her next victiminterviewee soon 😏
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Interesting interview. I've been in the game since 2009 and still haven't managed to evolve as I wanted, much because I didn't keep the focus. The game requires knowledge and a lot of dedication. I have spreadsheets that help me with strategy, I made a channel on youtube where I broadcast and teach other players, and my team helps me a lot.
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Terrific interview. Many tips. It is verified that in GPRO the long-term strategy is very important and of course patience.
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I have to agree about champ tyres and the part about GPRO evolving.
Since they massively buffed Michis back in season 89, I think they have been the nobrainer tyre to push with. Bridges really need some changes, as it feels like a mix between Conti and BY right now, both being mediocre tyres.
It's been a long time since a new feature has been added to the game and seeing how the latest additions have massively improved how Elite group behaves (energy and PHA changes, possibly sponsor changes as well), I think it's always nice to see the shake up how people approach new features. Wehn can engine/fuel suppliers? :P
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Awesome Interview!
Must have had a hard time after leaving an awesome team like Wankel Racing, playing without any team support... :P
Just one question:
I'm guessing a lot of people would be looking at the S100 championship and we might see a rather quick Elite group that season. Will you be going for the championship too?
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Good interview. I was expecting Flo to extract more FOBY info though.
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An interview with lots of insight. Answers to great questions are helpful and informative, for us managers and our teams. Thank you.
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I was really impressed by George being the only type of Elite Stander manager of the game right now. This title is more than deserved. George never Relegated if i'm correct, and that's way too impressive.
Hey, Flo, I'm climbing up the ranks, in 5 seasons, we can have a chat too :D
I tell you how I met Shrek.
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Quote ( Richard Robin Paukson @ April 7th 2023,08:22:53 ) Good interview. I was expecting Flo to extract more FOBY info though.
E = mc^2 😁
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Good interview but this new host is not as pretty as the previous one.
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Quote ( Brad Marshall @ June 20th 2023,03:33:54 ) Good interview but this new host is not as pretty as the previous one.
Agree, it’s like with Bondiada, noone will ever beat the original one ;)
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