VVV Interview Brawn GP's Anthony Davidson

Its been a while since the world of Formula 1 has set the gaming community alight, the heady days of Jeff Crammond and Sony's F1 97' have long since passed. Lots of reasons but a key one has to be a misunderstanding of their consumer, dumbed down physics to welcome anyone into the genre but without the realistic workings appreciated by the real fans. Essentially real F1 fans were left in the cold, many moving to the PC and home mods of games such as R-Factor.


When Codemasters announced their partnership with the FIA to produce future F1 titles it was met with excitement and caution, concerns as to who these titles would be aimed at? Now with a defined audience of consoles such as Wii as opposed to those playing the 360 and PS3 it gives an opportunity for greater focus, and for those F1 fans a period of renewed hope that their beloved sport will finally one day be recreated in all of its glory.


So moving onto the presentation and we see a demonstration of the growth in UK TV viewing figures as Lewis Hamilton came on the seen, now the peak with Jenson Button's recent success. Its all very positive for the sport and gives Codemasters the best possible platform to kick start the franchise. That kick start will take the form of PSP and Wii versions, these being aimed at the more casual markets, moving on we see a video of Anthony Davidson (Brawn F1) and David Croft (Radio 5 Live Commentator) demonstrate their friendly rivalry, and jolly well entertaining it was too.



The first mutli-platform F1 for a long time, this coincides with new branding from the FIA entitled; F1 Rocks, launched in Singapore sponsored by LG, its something we'll focus more on in the future, Wii and PSP advertising leaning to a more familiar F1 feel. Now a live demo of the game for a drive around Sinagapore and this gives us an early opportunity to view tuning options, from simple to in-depth options though the effectiveness of this is yet to be seen.

First impressions of the handling from our perception appears to have that swivel motion while graphically its solid if unimpressive, maybe that's a limitation of the Wii hardware but the near 60fps framerate is impressive. Now onto split screen on the new Abu Dhabi race track, Anthony Davidson comments "this isn't Singapore, I’ve no idea where I'm going" to the entertainment of the audience, then racing his way to victory noting use of the Kers button, a nice touch. Now that we're seeing some clean laps you can see the head leaning into corners, its difficult to tell if that’s off-putting at this stage, I'll need more a proper hands-n on myself.

Following the presentation and time for that hands-on, I select the Bran GP of Jenson Button and hit the Suzuka Circuit, best described as basic the road lacks any camber and handling has no feel. It’s immediately apparent that is a game purely for the beginner, the causal game and should not be taken in a serious regard as an active recreation of the sport. So visually uninspiring but the framerate does help, certainly at this early stage its more of a pick up and play for the novice rather than the long term F1 Fan.

Now time for our chat with Anthony and David, a quality interview and a cracking chap too!


We'll have more coverage on this soon in the meantime, check out the gallery for all of the latest shots.

awesome interview i just wish i could hear a bit better as my comps speakers are about had it

Tiff Nedell, Murray Walker and now Anthony Davidson, who next M Schumacher? lol

Great stuff enjoyed the read...I gotta stick the kettle on more often when I refresh these posts HA!

lol try M, Shumacher plzzzz

Wow, great interview Alan. Davidson deserves an F1 drive in my opinion, he's a great racer and I hope he gets one for 2010 since there might be four new teams joining the F1 scene. Oh and well done with the VVV website, it's lookin' good.

Hey thanks Rich, yeah he's a great chap and I would love to see him in a quality car but realistically it's going to be tough for him, especially with two British world champions on the grid, hopefully we'll have some more F1 interviews in the new year.

Great interview. Alan, you mentioned "some more F1 interviews in the New Year" would be interesting to hear from one of the newer teams or perhaps even Williams with the announcement of Cosworth making their return back into F1.