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Topic: Elite Press |
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Quote ( Miel Soeterbroek @ February 27th 2018,19:35:37 ) Less warnings from teammates this time, as Edifice was still on our tail and we could use some extra team points
Team orders wowowowowoowowow what a friendly plaaaace..........
:D
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Quote ( Florencia Caro @ February 27th 2018,19:38:43 ) * I was victim of a shameless attempt to put pressure on me... to include a question about the dimensions of certain manager's head in the interview of that certain manager. This certain manager might or might not have a brother playing the game, in a different team 😜
Brilliant!!!
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Dunno who your talking about..………😜
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Quote ( Florencia Caro @ February 27th 2018,22:10:09 ) Who knows who'll be the host next season :0
Just because you'll be doing the 'Master Press' next season don't mean you gotta leave the Elite Press. We promise not to accuse you of being bias ;)
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Thanks for reviving Elite Press and doing the interviews Flo, enjoyed reading them almost as much as getting the notifications! ;)
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Quote ( Florencia Caro @ February 27th 2018,22:20:15 ) Did a minor edition to Miel's interview, as I forgot to include a few lines (had an old version of the interview ready to paste, sorry :/ )
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Where have you gone, Elite Press? I need you ... and more notifications. :-D
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Still waiting on Elite Press to return ...
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Don't wait, make it happen :)
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Quote ( Florencia Caro @ December 16th 2018,22:35:50 ) Don't wait, make it happen :)
Am I allowed to do that?
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(in the Law and Order voice)
In the GPRO forum community, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: The expert managers whose opinions we respect, and the annoying noobs we’re forced to tolerate. This is the latter interviewing the former.
Ah, Elite Press! One of GPRO's finest institutions, brilliantly created by Rimantas Sagatas and expertly continued by Florencia Caro, now sees its torch pass on to … who?? Well, even I have never heard of Brad Marshall, but EP stubbornly refuses to write itself so you’re stuck with me until a more qualified manager pushes me aside.
This season, we hope to continue the legacy started by Rimantas to bring you the insights of some of GPRO’s finest managers. We start by catching up with Ioannis Dimitroglou, who talks about battling Christos for the championship, his thoughts on the PHA saga, and how he sees the S68 championship going …
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Ioannis Dimitroglou
Career start: S15
Elite since: S50 [additional stint S32-38]
Championships: 4 (S52, 55-56, 67); Runner-up S53, 65
Team Edifice
Established: S23
Championships: 6 (S36, 38-39, 54, 56-57)
Cup titles: 6 (S35-36, 38-39, 54, 57)
Congratulations on a very entertaining S67 championship. This, your fourth title, places you in a tie—along with teammate Christos Bobolis—for fourth on the all-time list. Where does this title rank for you in terms of satisfaction of achievement? Can it ever be as sweet as the first?
The first title is always the sweetest one. However, I remember S55 championship that I had a really nice fight with Jan (Pavlicek), while also speaking about the races, race strategies, driver energy etc. It was a noble fight. I also enjoyed last season, because I had not won it for more than 10 seasons so that was like a confirmation that I am can still do it! This title is also important for me, because it was the second time that I managed to win after a big game change, which is encouraging for my adaptability; an important value for real life also!
Few of us will ever know the struggle of a championship fight and even fewer will do so while competing against a teammate. Could you talk about what it was like battling Christos? Does fighting against a teammate make the championship any more or less difficult?
A fight is a fight. Few of us will ever play in a clasico football match, but we need to enjoy the 'friendly fight' even in a 5x5 pitch. Not losing the enjoyable aspect of any game no matter how important a 'fight' is, is also important. So we need to live and enjoy the battles for promotion to pro or master as if they were elite title battles. Competing against Christos was harder than competing against other managers in the game. It is not the same as being in the same group, there are four of us in elite, as in a title fight even the winner can lose many things financially.
Does anything change with regard to communication within the team in terms of discussing race strategy, staff hires, etc.? Or was S67 just business as usual at Edifice?
Communication didn't change a lot. We discussed strategies (maybe we didn't always share boost laps with Christos), we discussed staff hires, sponsors, car updates, views on PHA change etc. However, as can be quite logical, when both managers go for the same driver or TD then we don't announce the exact amount of the offer. So I think we are a good team with bonds among team members, so we don't let less important things (game related) to interfere with the most important ones (calling names between us, celebrating when Peter relegates once again and drinking champagne when Tim promotes to amateur).
You and Christos go way back together as teammates, beginning with the Olympus project then reuniting at Edifice in S45. How has your relationship evolved? What have you learned from each other? Would you say the relationship is more competitive than collaborative today?
I have not visited him to Thessaloniki yet though. I remember being for a student exchange program in Germany back in 2010 or 2011. That time (season 30) we discussed race strategies and long-term plans while being in the same group getting ready for promotion to elite in season 31. Both ended up with 25 points, but Christos suffered an unplanned promotion. So, because of sharing views for so long, it is logical that we both learned from each other and I can't remember the contribution of each one. Olympus racing, with loads of data to analyze and some nice teammates to discuss with, helped both of us evolve as managers. We both understood very soon the importance of long-term planning. Christos was better with car update planning and could make better use of knowledge (Nick Tsagkarakis was his mentor that time, but the student became better than the teacher). I think I was better in the research process for new knowledge and gameplay techniques (he still laughs when I propose one of my 'theories' though). He also thinks I am luckier than him and to be honest this statement is a reason to be competitive to each other, in order to prove one wrong :P
You changed drivers prior to R17—presumably to avoid the championship bonus—before officially clinching the title. Does a “gentleman’s agreement” ever take place whereby one agrees to concede the championship after certain criteria are met?
I did that, but I bought a new engine also. :) Will catch the story from the beginning. From the start of last season, after I saw the change in car character and the fact that Robert (Lazlo) went for Contis, I stated that I will go for the title. I knew that Radek (Sus) and Mateusz (Oles) lacked the economic viability to push too hard. Christos told me that he will not push, because of his sponsor situation and this is something that happened indeed in the first half of the season, while on the other hand I was overspending. After it became obvious that Polish guys were left behind, I stopped the overspend and a small overspending from Christos added to a bad strategic decision by myself made it a tight one. However, I had decided that being 9 points ahead in Oval with high temps made it less likely that Christos will win the race. So, I changed drivers, but the new one was also fast. Then, given the 'smoke probabilities', this season's race calendar and the probabilities that I will need 2 points to claim the title I decided to buy a new engine and told that to Christos. He then needed to spend for car update and if he ever won, he would need to pay 60M for bonuses. So knowledge and teamwork helped both of us to achieve our goals without facing high financial drawbacks.
You won back-to-back championships in S55-56, a trick that has not been repeated in eight seasons. Has the competition in Elite reached the point where it is too difficult to prepare multiple sequential pushes or do you think we will see more repeat champs in the future?
Driver energy played its part. If you push the first season, you don’t train your driver, you lose aggressiveness and other managers become stronger. In the past, package was more important and it didn’t change much. In the end of season 54, I didn't have the best overall package, but I signed a super duper driver without spending too much, because drivers at that time were not that important. In season 55, I think he was 34yo so he only had 2 good seasons to serve me so I pushed 2 times. Moreover, other managers didn't have the time to build a really strong driver to beat me as the ones with fast and better prepared drivers had selected expensive tyres and were also running spa training.
After that, Robert was close to achieve that, but Roland was very strong in season 61 and Radek decided not to push for season 64 to ensure S65 title. I think that Robert has a good driver able to win back to back titles, but I am not sure he will make this choice. Alpo has also a fast driver, but I think he will train him next season to go for a second push later.
You have been vocal on the forums about the new car-to-track PHA matching rule. Do you like the way the rule was implemented and has it improved the game? Has the new rule changed your approach to planning?
To be honest, new PHA rules helped me, maybe because I think that as a team and as a manager, we had understood how car level worked better than other managers. As I had written in the elite forum last season ‘I am fast because I downgraded my engine :).’ However, I think that every manager and elite managers above all need to tell what they believe is better for the game without considering personal gains and goals. I think that the new rule resulted in a raise of the importance of car when compared with driver and thus rebalanced the mechanics which had been largely unbalanced after DE change. Moreover, because of the importance of clever spending when compared to general spending, planning is more valuable which is also good. However, having seen the amount gained or lost due to a bad PHA matching car I think that it is a bit too much. So, a small pre-announced tweak in the importance of different car characteristics would be ideal.
There has been a substantial shift in the distribution of chosen tyre suppliers in Elite the past five seasons. The increase in the Michelini durability in S65 seems to have made it a very popular choice while Bridgerocks and Hancocks have trended downwards. In fact, yours was the first championship by a manger on Michis since Leandro Sereno in S47. Has there been a collective revaluation of tyre suppliers or are we just witnessing a recent fad?
This extra durability bar made a difference indeed because in most races Michis can go with the same strategy as Bridgies. Moreover, because Michis are a blocking tyre, in contrast with Bridges, the more managers select Michis, the better they become. I think that DE plus PHA matching rule lowered the importance of tyres and low-medium temps also helped a lot. However, as far as title fight is concerned I still think that Bridgerock are still far better in normal temps.
You have been in Elite since S50 and so have never experienced the pleasure of a promotion sponsor. The intended goal of such sponsors was to encourage promotions to higher tiers but many managers seem content to take their Elite sponsor and promptly relegate to Master without competing. Is this something GPRO should discourage or do you think it is an acceptable part of the game?
I will not answer directly, because I think this is a really important question. I was of the opinion, even before promotion sponsors were introduced, that managers do not promote to elite, because the middle-pack fight is a really hard and demotivating one. Driver energy helped the revival of different and breakthrough strategies to reach the top of elite, but this didn't help the situation of middle pack managers who either have to choose the contis way or relegate. (slow but stable improvement can’t be achieved at all). Promotion sponsors made this worse because promoters are stronger than before. The retirement of old good TDs, DE, promotions sponsors, all aimed to decrease the gap between master and elite. Goal was achieved, but this didn’t affect top guys as much as the middle pack.
So to return to your original question, even though, promoting to collect promo sponsor, CCPs, train driver, etc. is fully acceptable, a cap to the number of promotion sponsors needs to be brought to prevent the overwhelming pressure of promoted managers to the middle pack ones. My idea would be that any manager can hold to 100% up to one sponsor from the same category (so even 4 promo sponsors could be held to 100%, but not 4 Elite promo sponsors).
How has the promo sponsor affected sponsor negotiations among the perennial Elite managers?
I don't think that promotion sponsors affected negotiations of elite managers a lot. As I said above, they just gave more money to promoters so that when you have managed to get 2 elite sponsors you feel as if you don't have enough sponsor income as almost everyone wins more. I can even run more sponsors at the same time than before, but I feel that this is a consequence of more stable top finishes. I don't think that the packed 100% sponsors are a long-term consequence of promotion sponsors. What would really change elite balance is a higher difference between those finishing 15 and 25 and smaller difference between those finishing 5 and those finishing 15.
Finally, how do you see the S68 championship going?
I really hope we will get a nice battle. Everyone knew that Robert would be the favorite as he selected contis last season just to ensure the championship of this season. His driver is a beast, he can win with a lvl 9 car and he has the money to push more. I guess that he has at least a couple of sponsors with ongoing negotiations close to or at 100%. On the other hand, I didn't expect to see Alpo that strong so this was a positive surprise. We knew he has a beast driver (with surprisingly good energy consumption), but his pit stops could be better and I thought that he could wait for one more season. He also didn't have the financial status to pick Bridgies so he selected Michis. His driver though is cheap so he won't have any problem spending on the car till the end. He is in a top team with the know-how of winning a championship. If Alpo hadn't got a random he would have won the race in a race with Br weather and very high grip. Impressive!
So let's hope good luck to both of them and let the best manager of the season get this trophy!!!
Lucky for us, it doesn't appear either Ioannis or Christos are going away anytime soon so we can expect more exciting battles in the future.
Huge thanks to Ioannis for his thoughtful and thorough responses. A true gentleman indeed, we wish him the best of luck going forward.
For Elite Press, I’m Brad Marshall wishing everyone a happy New Year. May 2019 bring you many podiums and no randoms … unless you’re battling a Versantian!
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Quote ( Brad Marshall @ December 31st 2018,19:03:17 ) celebrating when Peter relegates once again and drinking champagne when Tim promotes to amateur).
Im stili dnurk snice taht tmie.
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Well, if you read between the lines you can learn from these people who generously share the experience, much content to rescue, thanks Ioannis and you, Brad, Happy New Year for all.
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Enjoyable read, thanks for picking up Elite press Brad!
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Very cool and many thanks! I enjoyed it very much!
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Quote ( Ahmet Sonverdi @ December 31st 2018,19:38:50 ) Im stili dnurk snice taht tmie.
Gosh, you're making more sense than usual =]
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Tihs is so ginog itno my blog.
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very good pozdrav iz slovenije
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In the GPRO forum community, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: The expert managers whose opinions we respect, and the annoying noobs we’re forced to tolerate.
If the Noobs are important..Why are the so called experts FORCED to tolerate the other Players?
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without experts, there no n00bs..... let that sink in for a minute
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A truly enjoyable read. Thank you Ioannis and Brad for your time and a great interview.
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I would say a very good first shot, Brad! Keep it up ;)
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Meet the reticent Martin Bedoya, a manager who makes but one forum post a season only because he has much better things to do with this time, such as party on the beach and prepare Elite podiums.
This week, we shine our Bat-Signal on the Bane of Elite …
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Martin Bedoya
Career start: S28
Elite since: S65
Current standing: 4th with 25 points
Last season: 21st with 3 points
Gotham Racing™
Established: S25
Highest finish: 7th (S61)
Top ten finishes: 2 (S61-62)
In such a long and excellent career filled with peaks and valleys, how did it feel earning your first Elite victory on a hot Magny-Cours track in S66? Did you need that to validate your career?
That was pretty fantastic ;). I had a beach party that day (races here are at 2 pm), so for a while I was the awkward guy staring at my cell phone every minute (I am pretty sure many here are familiar with this ;)). After the win, I had to party double to compensate and I might have over compensated at the end ;). GPRO is a game with a lot more valleys than peaks (for most of us at least), so it really feels good to finally win in Elite.
What does it mean to you to be the first Peruvian to reach Elite? Could you describe the racing heritage in your beautiful home country?
To the honest, just as in GPRO, there is not much of a racing heritage in Peru. We haven`t produced any F1 drivers like Brazil, Argentina, or recently even Colombia and Venezuela. There isn´t really a professional racing league here, only club racing basically (I got into that with some success a few years ago actually :)). I guess that translates into GPRO, where as you can see the Peruvian crowd is not very prominent. For many years I was the only one carrying the flag in the higher divisions; it’s great that there is someone else (Daniel Caillaux) racing in Master now, but even among a small crowd, it still feels pretty good to be the first one in your country to have the national anthem played in Elite ;).
You have shown very good pace in the first seven races of S68, especially in warm temperatures. As just one of three managers on Bridgerocks, where did you anticipate finishing in the standings as you prepared for this season? Did you think it might be possible to mount a championship fight?
Actually yes, I had prepared my plan since I reached Elite so this would be my attacking season, and I was naive enough to hold some hope of mounting a championship fight. I still knew it was a long shot, but hey, that’s what we are here for, right?
My hopes lasted basically until I saw Róbert (László) choosing Bridgerocks as well. Since we had both raced with Contis the previous season, I knew he had a monster package. Still, I was actually surprised with how bad my results were in the first 3 races. I haven´t raced with Bridgies before, but I expected them to be a bit more of an advantage, so I´ve been pretty surprised with the pace some of the Michis have shown in non-ideal temperatures, especially Alpo (Kaakinen) and Jens (Frostrup). Wow! They must have some monster package, or more probably really, just know a lot more about the game, than I do :)
Congratulations on securing you first two career Elite poles (Suzuka R4 and Baku City R5). Though it only cost you one position, how disappointing was the late technical issue at Suzuka?
Thanks! After the win and track record at Magny Cours last season, the Suzuka pole felt pretty sweet. To stay motivated in this game you need to set yourself small targets, so completing the trifecta in Elite was nice, but especially since it came like a big surprise to be honest. For some reason, Suzuka is a track where I´ve always had great results, with different drivers who don´t have it as a favorite (maybe it´s mine, this game is so full of unknowns :)).
At the beginning of the season, I decided to spend as much as I could in order to stay in the fight, but after the very disappointing Adelaide race, I had basically decided to check out from the championship and try to save some money so I could at least stay in Elite for a while longer, so I pretty much knew I was going to smoke in the last laps. I was a bit surprised with how soon it came, but very happy in the end that I managed to lose only one position.
You made things interesting at Baku City by nearly erasing a six-second deficit as you chased down eventual winner Róbert László. Was this a combination of late boosts by you and energy loss by László and did you think you might just pip him on the final lap?
It was exciting to watch for sure, but painful as well! It sucks when you know you needed just one more lap to win, especially in Elite!! I also lost like 6 seconds on pit stops, so this race left an itch as if I could´ve done a bit more. I actually had no boost laps at the end, it was just Róbert running out of juice.
Starting 3rd at Istanbul (R6), you appeared to have great pace but constant blocking and a costly late driver mistake kept you off the podium. How did you see this race?
Yes indeed!!! That mistake hurt!! I think pace-wise I should’ve probably been second. Jens was on a different league. I was blocked the first stint in 3rd place and lost two positions during the first pit, gained them back, and then the costly mistake came near the end. Considering that I was on Róbert´s tail and that he smoked the last few laps, I would´ve gained second for sure.
Mistakes are another one of those issues that I don’t quite get. For some reason, I seem to make a lot more than most of my rivals. I had six in Adelaide, which probably cost me another podium as well.
Earlier in your career, you took on a long-term driver project starting in S47 that ultimately ended in your relegation from Master. By contrast, your current run to Elite saw you exclusively use short-term drivers. How would you compare the two approaches? Do you find one superior to the other?
I think the long-term driver project is more difficult to execute. I made a mistake in the driver I picked, which I obviously realized way too long into my project. It is also difficult to manage OA and keep sponsors happy. When I realized that my driver was too expensive and not really good enough for Elite, I decided to relegate back to AMA and start a new long-term plan with short-term drivers. This second time around was actually a lot easier given the earlier experience.
Still, my promotion to Elite in season 64 was unplanned. I was actually building up to promote in season 65, but I got to the penultimate race with the chance to promote. Getting to Elite after such a long while in the game was pretty alluring, so I decided to just go ahead and take it. Maybe, long term-wise, it wasn’t the most intelligent decision because I believe I could’ve promoted with a bit more money, but it did not turn out that bad either as I was still able to execute my plan to be competitive this season.
Having said all that, I do believe that if you pick the right driver in the long-term project, and execute the difficult plan correctly, you can arrive to Elite with a solid, cheap driver, which is not easy to come by in Elite.
You are one of three managers recently sent to Elite by Gotham Racing. Is this the result of FOBY-type breakthroughs within the team, or more about good planning by individual managers such as yourself?
I think it is a result of both. Over the long seasons, we´ve obviously gained a lot of experience as a team and Andrew (Massey) has built, and continues improving, an amazing tool for setup and planning. But, being completely honest, we do lack some Elite experience, especially since Niklas Sörén left the game. So, in order to give that last step, it has involved some good planning by individual managers. Both Ville (Pohjanen) and Gonzalo (Alvarez) are excellent strategists and planners. The team has a bunch of new members right now, so I think we are in sort of a transition process. Hopefully we´ll manage to translate this recently acquired Elite experience into more Gothams consistently succeeding in Master and Elite.
Indeed Gotham is safe with the likes of Martin and his teammates patrolling the city. Big thanks to Martin for breaking his silence to give this great interview!
For Elite Press, I’m Brad Marshall wishing you a happy Grobnik GP. Tune in next week for more Elite news, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.
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Nice read! Well done to both!!
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