===================================================================== F1 World Grand Prix for Nintendo 64 Version 1.0 FAQ/Guide by Leigh Cartwright http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/11755.html wheels128@ignmail.com ===================================================================== CONTENTS 1: Introduction 2: Controls 3: Options 4: Game Modes 5: Drivers and Machines 6: Courses 7: Challenge Mode 8. Tactics 9. Copyright/Credits ===================================================================== 1. INTRODUCTION Formula 1 World Grand Prix (or F1WGP for short) was released for the Nintendo 64 console following the 1997 F1 season. The game is realistically based on the 97 season, with challenges representing real events, drivers and machines that are accurate and courses that represent the real life courses. There are 22 machines, 17 courses (plus a bonus track, but I'll deal with that later), 16 challenges and a multiplayer mode for you to play with. So whether it's Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Benneton or Arrows, F1WGP is the Formula One game with it all. ===================================================================== 2. CONTROLS The controls for F1WGP are basic, and take little time to get used to. A: Accelerator B: Brake C left: Left Hand Side Mirror C right: Right Hand Side Mirror C down: Rear View Mirror C up: Change Views Start: Pause Game Control: Steering Stick Z with A: Put Car in Reverse (car must be stopped completely for this to work) Z/L: Shift gear down R: Shift gear up Start: Pause >> Special controls for accelerating and braking If you quickly tap A, you can maintain your current RPM. If you double tap A before accelerating, you will start a little slower, but go from 3rd gear to 5th much faster. If you double tap B, you engage anti-lock braking (ABS). ABS is the best braking your car can do, and is essential for slowing down to really low speeds in poor weather. ===================================================================== 3: OPTIONS Difficulty settings: Rookie: Nice and easy for the beginners. Keeping your car on the track isn't even the most essential aspect of driving, because you can shortcuts off the track. Cars will quite happily forget about passing you, slower cars will give way when you want to overtake, and chicanes are easily done at 300 km/h plus. You can even have accelerate and brake assists, but you do not need them. Professional: The level that most people enjoy the most, this requires a high level of skill to win on all courses. You can no longer take the easy shortcuts that were presented to you on rookie, and you will need to master cornering. Bumps and knocks to your machine will no start to damage you, and you will be busted up easily if you are reckless. Champion: Forget about picking up 150 championship points or more on this setting - the slightest off road experience will result in damage to your machine, and passing becomes a rarity. The most realistic setting, but also by far the hardest. Another feature of Champion is the 107% rule. You must qualify with a best time that is *less* than 107% of that of the first place qualifier. Therefore, if first place gets 1'40, then you need sub 1'47. And if first place gets 1'06, then you need less than 1'10"62. Simple idea, really annoying to do. Brake and Accelerate Assist: A rookie only thing, this is for the people who have decided that they don't know how easy the rookie difficulty level really is. Brake assist is annoying and not needed, because it makes you brake on the easiest turns. Accelerate assist enables you to get a marginally better start, but again, you don't really need this. The other options refer to how loud you want the music, sfx, how many laps you want to race, etc. ===================================================================== 4. Game Modes Grand Prix The major part of F1WGP. Choose your machine, and brace yourself for 17 tracks in the full season 97 campaign. Your aim is to get enough points to win the drivers championship for yourself, but also the constructors championship for your team. Practice on Friday and Saturday, before going for qualifying. Then do the warm-up and you're all set for the big race. Exhibition Sort of like a practice mode, you race against all the others drivers in a non-GP race. Lots of fun and a very fun way to set fast times and lap people. Time Trial Set your fast times here. You can choose whether you want to race a ghost car (either an CPU instructor or your best lap). 2 Player The multiplayer mode uses split-screen racing. The screen can be split either vertically or horizontally. Barging your friends is so much fun... Challenges See section 7 for the Challenges section. ===================================================================== 5. Drivers and Machines >> Arrows Damon Hill Nationality: British Starts: 84 Wins: 21 Pedro Diniz Nationality: Brazilian Starts: 50 Wins: 0 >> Williams Driver Williams (name can be changed, real name Jacques Villenueve) Nationality: ? Starts: ? Wins:? Heinz-Harold Frentzen Nationality: German Starts: 65 Wins: 1 >> Ferrari Michael Schumacher Nationality: German Starts: 102 Wins: 27 Eddie Irvine Nationality: British Starts: 65 Wins: 0 >> Benetton Jean Alesi Nationality: French Starts: 135 Wins: 1 Gerhard Berger Nationality: Austrian Starts: 210 Wins: 10 >> McLaren Mika Hakkinen Nationality: Finnish Starts: 96 Wins: 1 David Coulthard Nationality: British Starts: 58 Wins: 3 >> Jordan Ralf Schumacher Nationality: German Starts: 17 Wins: 0 Giancarlo Fisichella Nationality: Italian Starts: 25 Wins: 0 >> Prost Olivier Panis Nationality: French Starts: 59 Wins: 1 Shinji Nakano Nationality: Japanese Starts: 17 Wins: 0 >> Sauber Johnny Herbert Nationality: British Starts: 113 Wins: 2 Nicola Larini Nationality: Italian Starts: 49 Wins: 0 >> Tyrrell Jos Verstappen Nationality: Dutch Starts: 48 Wins: 0 Mika Salo Nationality: Finnish Starts: 52 Wins: 0 >> Minardi Ukyo Katayama Nationality: Japanese Starts: 95 Wins: 0 Jarno Trulli Nationality: Italian Starts: 14 Wins: 0 >> Stewart Rubens Barrichello Nationality: Brazilian Starts: 81 Wins: 0 Jan Magnussen Nationality: Danish Starts: 18 Wins: 0 However, there are two other drivers you can get via the Challenges mode: the Silver Driver and the Gold Driver. These two drivers are impossible to beat. They can do over 600 km/h, and both steer any corner at this speed. ===================================================================== 6. COURSES These are basic guides to the courses in F1WGP. 1. Albert Park, Australia: 5.301 km, 58 laps. Generally this is a high speed course. There is a very sharp right hand turn can be hard to negotiate, so you will need to brake here. Towards the end, there is a turn of similar difficulty, except this is a left hand turn. Brake here as well. 2. Interlagos, Brazil: 4.292 km, 72 laps. Annoying course containing many sharp turns. There are also slopes on some of these turns making them even harder to cope with. Watch the opening left turn - breaking here is a must. The course becomes very twisty just after the halfway point, with a couple of corners that border on being hairpins. Luckily, there are a few nice straights to floor the accelerator on. 3. Buenos Aires, Argentina: 4.259 km, 72 laps. Low speed course with too many corners to count. Watch for the steep slopes and the three hairpins. This course is near impossible in Champion with rain - spinouts and crashes occur all the time, making this course a highly frustrating experience 4. Imola, San Marino: 4.930 km, 62 laps. A nice mix between speed and sharp cornering. There are seven straights of some sort or another, and all end with chicanes or ninety degree turns. Watch the third turn - a 160 degree left - braking to a tiny speed is important. On Champion, you will be busted up on the second last chicane if you do not brake excessively. 5. Monte Carlo, Monaco: 3.366 km, 78 laps. When you combine a high chance of rain with no speed and lots of corners, you get a bad mix. The street circuit of Monaco will cause you headaches. There is an absolutely vicious section of track just before the tunnel - 3 turns all sharper than 90 degrees plus an appalling hairpin. After the tunnel, there are still more difficult corners to deal with, leading up to the sort-of hairpin at the beginning of the home stretch. 6. Barcelona, Spain: 4.728 km, 65 laps. The massive straight allows you to burn some serious rubber. Unfortunately, the rest of the course is a case of "get up to top speed, then brake hard for the corner". A couple of hard corners can result in a trip into the advertising hoardings if not done correctly. 7. Montreal, Canada: 4.421 km, 69 laps. The number one course for lapping your opponents. Watch the first set of corners, and the hairpin, but besides this, it's smooth sailing. Speed through the chicanes with minimal or no braking, and you're fine. 8. Magny-Cours, France: 4.247 km, 72 laps. There are a lot of corners in this course, but most can be taken at high speed. Just before the finish line, you may strike some problems. Congestion here, in addition to the sharp bends, makes for frustrating driving. There are also two other corners that are very sharp - you will need to slow down. 9. Silverstone, Britain: 5.140 km, 59 laps. Just drive fast early, and use some braking to take the sharp corners in the second half of the course. The last few corners can crucify you if you drive too fast. 10. Hockenheim, Germany: 6.823 km, 45 laps. The first corner is easy, and after this there are 4 massive straights for you to break all speed records on. A few annoying turns at the end will require you to drop to around 180 km/h, but this is lightning fast Formula 1 at its very best. 11. Hungaroring, Hungary: 3.968 km, 77 laps. So many sharp turns, and too many hills and slopes. Watch the first and last turns on the course, as high speed just doesn't suit them. A few of the chicanes require some braking. Safety first on this course, as mistakes are quite costly. 12. Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium: 6.968 km, 44 laps. This course is almost 7 km long, but you won't hear me complaining. Two massive straights are finished by a tight hairpin and a series of comfortable corners respectively. Just watch the area before the starting grid, especially on Champion - you need to slow down a hell of a lot to avoid getting bunged up one tyre short. 13. Monza, Italy: 5.770 km, 53 laps. You can speed all day on this course - except for 3 chicanes and 3 corners that ruin all the fun. On rookie, this course is a breeze, with no problems to speak of. 14. A1-Ring, Austria: 4.323 km, 71 laps. This course looks fast, but is so bumpy and frustrating that you never seem to reach the high speeds you want/need. Careful of corner 3 - a sharp right that must be taken with care. Every other corner is either hard or slow, so, this isn't anyone's favourite course. 15. Nurburgring, Luxembourg: 4.556 km, 67 laps. Like the Austrian course, I don't drive a lot on this one. A couple of good straights are negated by three frighteningly sharp turns, including a hairpin. 16. Suzuka, Japan: 5.864 km, 53 laps. A wicked hairpin that you need to seriously brake hard for is the sole problem with this course. A long straight allows you to burn rubber, while the early corners are perfect for lovers of 500 cc motorbikes. 17. Jerez, Europe: 4.428 km, 69 laps. The left turn before the home straight is the hardest in the game. Other than this, enjoy the straights and fun chicanes as you twist and turn your way through the course. There is also an 18th track - a bonus track - but I can't exactly describe it too well. You go through a mountain, along a bridge and do other weird stuff that completely disregards the realism factor in this game. ===================================================================== 7. CHALLENGE MODE There are 16 challenges in this mode - 5 Offensive, 5 Defensive, 5 in Trouble and the Ultimate Challenge. This gameplay mode is an essential part of F1WGP. OFFENCE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. DEFENCE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. TROUBLE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ULTIMATE ===================================================================== 8. TACTICS >> Slow down to make sharp corners - This is a realistic F1 racing simulator with hairpins, chicanes and other hard corners. >> To set wickedly fast times, take off flags, damage, brake assist and your usual difficulty level and put on accelerator assist and Rookie. >> The best drivers to choose are: 1. Michael Schumacher 2. Driver Williams 3. David Coulthard >> The best courses to practise your general driving skills are: 1. Canada 2. San Marino 3. Brazil >> For a challenge, try starting three laps behind in an eight lap race in Canada, Germany, Belgium or Italy with the Gold Driver, and use rookie difficult mode. ===================================================================== 9. COPYRIGHT This whole guide is copyrighted to Leigh Cartwright 2001 http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/11755.html wheels128@ignmail.com You may not reproduce any of this guide without my prior permission. =====================================================================