Pinoy Loves Wheels ( The Filipino Motoring Lifestyle Blog): A Look Back in Last Year's Lotus F1 Event in Manila (By: Ivan Isada)

Kimi's Lotus F1 on display in Glorietta 1

The week after the Manila Speed Show, Tattoo had invited me to try out the rest of the simulators the Lotus F1 Team had brought in for the public to try. Early dinner was served, interview of future F1 driver Marlon Stockinger, then an opening of the race simulator challenge was on!

We used a skeleton framed Lotus F1 simulator compared to the simulator I used during the Manila Speed Show weekend. It still ran on the same software except it felt a bit naked since this simulator didn't have the fiberglass F1 body surrounding me.

The goal was simply to put on the fastest lap time in two laps. Whoever clocked in the fastest lap time won.

With Alex, Lotus F1 Simulator Engineer.[/caption]

Alex, the Lotus F1 Simulator engineer fit the simulator to my liking by adjusting the pedals. He said he'd bet on me to win but I knew that I had a disadvantage. The other competitors could gauge my time and learn from my driving. They could see the places where I hesitated and that's where they would push. I tried setting a time as clean as possible but unfortunately someone knocked me off on the very first turn. The other simulator that simultaneously ran was synced to mine. I managed to get out and was worried that I only had one chance of making a good time. The first lap was done and I eventually managed to find a rhythm. It wasn't a good timed lap but it was good enough to get me high on the second lap. The second one was the clutch lap where I could not afford to make a mistake, and I had to be close to perfect. I was happy with the lap time I made but I knew it was vulnerable for others to beat. I only tried to keep the car on the road, clocked in at 1:41 minutes for the Melbourne track and had to just leave things to luck eventually.

Marlon Stockinger pleasing the crowd.[/caption]

As the competition went on its way, there were around three other people who could have given me a scare. They looked focus and determined to do well. They all possessed different driving styles. They all came close to beating my time and were well into the 1 minute 40 seconds range. Like I said, it would boil down to luck in the end. Fortunately enough for me, they all went off the track at some point. But if they had not, the time I set would've easily been beaten.

So at the end, I got the best time. How I wish this were real motorsports. I find it a bit funny that this event had more media mileage than our other local motorsports events. Weird, but nonetheless, the simulator and the people around this event gave a simulated feeling close to competing in an actual motorsport event. It was an awesome event, more so since I surprisingly won again.