Formula Lee 2017

The 2017 Formula Lee season kicked off with a lap of the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne in a Ferrari in dry conditions at Midday just to ease us all back into the competitive spirit for the new F1 season. And what a season opener it was for everyone. We’ve had the most entries to date with 41 virtual drivers taking part in this race and a couple of newcomers topping the time charts with incredible times. Of course there were some familiar names from the 2016 season making their return, but the honours went to Geoff Sharp with a time of 1:25.216. Here’s the full rundown of who finished where…

A 2 week challenge for China in the morning in a Haas in the dry. this race saw a few debutants on the grid and we’ve now had 61 different entries to this season’s competion and the standard is right up there! A different winner this week with Bradley Chambers taking maximum points on his debut with a 1:35.949 from 2016 challenger James Penney and Australia victor Geoff Sharp.

The full rundown looks like this:

Well that was a nightmare! Bahrain isn’t a circuit that was deigned with wet racing in mind and it showed. The difficulty of the circuit and the short time meant that there was only 31 entries to this challenge, but it there were some high quality times in there. In fact the top 3 entries on PS4 were all in the top 100 times in the world for the circuit! But once again, Geoff Sharp came out on top with an amazing 1:44.802

The Sochi challenge was in a Renault in the afternoon in dry conditions and also had the 1st ever prize available for a race. UltraFlix are now sponsoring a £10 Amazon voucher for the winner of each race for the rest of the season and the 1st winner was Geoff Sharp (who actually thought he would be struggling to get into the top 10 with his time!) Also due to internet problems, there were 3 extra positions awarded after we’d read the results out on the podcast.

To show some love for Fernando Alonso, his home race challenge is a McLaren in dry conditions in the morning. And for the 1st time in Formula Lee history, we’ve got prizes for the top 3 positions! In addition to the £10 Amazon voucher donated by Daavid Foley from UltraFlix, We have Pro Pack upgrade codes for the Apex Race Manager mobile game from Beermogul for 2nd & 3rd place (avialble on IOS & Android). Once again it was a closely fought race with Geoff Sharp taking the honours again. The full results were:

Lee’s had his Jenson fan hat on to celebrate his favourite driver coming back for (what he says is a) one-off appearance at the Monte Carlo circuit to cover for the Indy 500 bound Fernando Alonso, so it’s a McLaren again, but we’re racing in the wet at sunset and once again we had some great times coming in all week, but Geoff took the 1st prize again with the only time in the 1:27s, but we have 3 prizes per race for the rest of the season now thanks to UltraFlix, so Bradley & Pete take home a £5 and a £2 Amazon voucher respectively!

So it was all about speed in the end round the Montreal Circuit and there were a flurry of last minute entries this week too. In the end it was fairly tight at the top with the top 10 all finishing within exactly 1 second of each other  in a Mercedes in the dry. Once again though Geoff Sharp came out on top of the pile just missing out on breaking into the 1:11s by 3/1000 of a second! The full rundown looked like this

So a Sauber in the wet round Baku, what did we do to deserve this? This week’s was described as “Torrid”, “A true test of skills” and “Downright evil” which about sums it up. Before the race frequent occupant of the top step on the podium Geoff Sharp promised that if he came out on top on this one he would donate his prize to a random entrant and that’s exactly what happened so congratualtions to Frank Poe who was drawn randomly on the podcast episode 111! So here’s the rundown:

With the Austrian Race being at the Red Bull Ring then of course the challenge is going to be in the dry in a Force India! (yep, we thought it would be in a blue car as well!) It’s the quickest lap on the calendar with the fastest corners and needs a quick but grippy setup. Once again Geoff Sharp came out on top, although if Luke Nipper had got his tiome in sooner then we’d have had a different winner this week! Here’s the times that were legal though

What could be more British than rain at Silverstone? How about a British car in the rain at Silverstone, so that’s what Lee has gone for this week! It’s a lap of the British Brand Prix circuit, in the wet, in a Manor! (some of us think all this power has gone to Lee’s head)

Who came up with that for a plan? That was one of the toughest laps that have been set on here! It was nip and tuck right to the end again, but once again, Geoff prevailed with a time that he claimed nearly crippled him in the end!

For the Hungarian challenge, we’re back to dry weather and the chosen car this time round is a RedBull. Cutoff time is 7PM (UK)/2PM (EST) on the 31st of July. Good Luck or sok szerencsét as they say in Hungarian (according to Google Translate)

Well that was a tough one! and for the 1st time in seemingly ages we’ve got a different occupant on the top step of the virtual podium! Congratulations to Luke Nipper for winning this week and in other Formula Lee related news, this week was the race where we passed over 100 entrants since we started this at the Italian Grand Prix last year! And there are still 2 members of the 3Legs4Wheels team (Dan & Paul) that are still yet to score a point!

Even though there’s no German Grand Prix on the real F1 calendar this year, it’s still in the game, so instead of having a summer break we’ve got an extra race for the next 2 weeks! So it’s that’s is a lap of Germany in a Renault in the dry. And for the 2nd time on the bounce, Luke Nipper came out on top beating championship leader Geoff Sharp into 2nd place. In fact the top 3 was identical to last time out in Hungary!

So for the last time we raced on the 2016 version of the Codemasters F1 game and of course it was a tricky one before we start on the new shiny 2017 version. This was a McLaren in the wet round Spa and we got ourselves a new winner too! Congratulation to Chris Aulby for his maiden win! Full results below

Monza was the first race with the new regulations (OK the new Codemasters game F1 2017, but that sounds better) and it’s been the most popular challenge to date with 53 entries, including a time set in the Ferrari Simulator in Monza! It was also the tightest finish we’ve had to date with only 2/1000 of a second separating the top 2 but Chris prevailed and won his 2nd consecutive race! Here are the full results…

That was a back and forth battle for this challenge and in the end Geoff came out on top altough it was close with him & Chris for the full 2 weeks! The full resuts are:

Another wet race and this time was at the Sepang Circuit. If this is the last time F1 & Formula Lee tackles Malaysia, it certainly gave us something to remember (the memories may not have been good though! The final times looked like this:

It was a short 1 week challenge for Suzuka and in Lee’s absence, Paul set this one and decided to go for a Toro Rosso as they will be having Honda engine next season and Honda own the circuit (that took a lot of thinking!) This was another week where the winner wasn’t certain until the last hour of the challenge, but Chris came out on top again for this one! Here’s the full rundown:

There’s only one thing we could for the US Grand Prix and that’s a Haas in the dry! While COTA might be one of the best tracks to watch a race on, it’s actually one of the trickiest to get a good setup for and this was proved by the variety of times that people came out with!

You can tell Lee was back from holiday this week as for the 2nd year in a row it’s the slowest car on the grid and it’s a wet race again, so it’s a Sauber in the wet and that was about as much fun as you’d expect! Even though it was only a 1 week challenge, we got a few good times in and the leaderboard looks like this:

So it was Felipe Massa’s final home race and it was just as well that we did run it in a Williams in that case! We also had a new name on the top step of the podium, so congratualtions to Ole Vestli for his 1st win. Here’s how it panned out for everyone

In “real” F1 style, we brought the 2017 season to a close at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi in a Mercedes and just like the real thing our champion elect didn’t take the win at the last race of the season! This is how things finished in this race:

The final standings for the 2017 Formula Lee season. Well done to our champion Geoff Sharp with Chris Aulby in 2nd and Pete Bull taking the 3rd step on the podium. The final standings with all 138 entries are below: