Best racing game of 2017

Image is my own from Gran Turismo Sport (Polyphony)

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So I've gone on record as saying over the past few months, I have been obtaining new racing games, being F1 2017, Project CARS 2 and Gran Turismo Sport. Full disclaimer, I know there's also Forza Motorsport and Need For Speed Payback, the reason I am not listing them is because Forza is an Xbox exclusive and I don't have an Xbox, as for NFS, I'm not into that type of racing game, the only times I ever bought into the franchise were the Shift games.

Anyway, for the purpose of this article, it's F1 2017, Project CARS 2 and Gran Turismo Sport. All have their pros and cons, and I'll be going through them all one by one to let you know how I feel about all of them. Offering perhaps a perspective into what you may want to spend your money on, maybe even hopefully having the developers of these games see what they must improve upon. So here goes, starting off our list in chronological order of release, F1 2017.

Image is my own from F1 2017 (Codemasters)

Ever since the F1 titles moved over to the next generation of consoles, the driving feel has always felt very off. On top of that, a lot of the F1 titles made by Codemasters have had a lot of potential and never quite lived up to it for one reason or another, but for what the 2017 title is, it's by far the best F1 game both in terms of quality as well as quantity.

Immediately what puts 2017 up there is the inclusion of classic cars. Along with all the 2017 teams and cars, there is also Ayrton Senna's '88 and '91 McLaren (Though just so you know, the 1988 McLaren requires you to buy it separately, the only one that requires that of you), Nigel Mansell's '92 Williams, the V12 screaming Ferrari from '95, Damon Hill's '96 Williams, Mika Häkkinen's '98 McLaren, Michael Schumacher's two most dominant Ferrari cars from '02 and '04, Fernando Alonso's Renault from '06, Kimi Räikkönen's '07 Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton's '08 McLaren and finally, Sebastian Vettel's '10 Red Bull.

Having originally been introduced in F1 2013 on the Codemasters titles and having been absent ever since, but it really should be a mainstay of the F1 games as it does add so much to what is essentially a copy and paste yearly game pretty much. What was done with 2013 and is expanded upon in 2017 with the classic cars is that you are allowed to race them, and in 2017 the '88 McLaren and all the cars from the 90s are all categorised into a class separate to that of the cars from the 2000s since the performance gap is that much bigger.

Also with the typical track selection, you also get shorter versions of tracks such as Bahrain, Silverstone, Suzuka and USA. Slightly disappointed that we have these instead of classic F1 tracks that were in 2013 but I still find a lot of fun in them, in particular the short version of Suzuka which takes about 40 seconds to lap in a 2017 car, what I like to do is load up a multi-class race with the classic cars, get in a slower C1 car and try and take advantage of the traffic that forms from the C2 cars.

On top of that also, I really love the Championships mode where for example, you can do a Sprint Series where there are two five lap races per meeting with random grids, one-make championships or a Classic Season with classic cars on an F1 calendar reminiscent of early 2000s seasons. Along with that, you unlock invitational events that can include such modes as Checkpoint Challenge, Overtake Challenge and Pursuit, there is so much included that really do make it more than just the F1 drivers, teams and races, before we even get into career mode.

To a further degree than in the previous instalment, the career mode in this game is incredible. Along with unlocking the invitational events, the career mode is heavily invested on developing your car via the resource points you earn for participating in practice programs, where you can improve aerodynamics, the engine, the chassis and overall sustainability. You're always looking to keep developing your car, keeps you invested.

This is before I get to talking about the driving, it feels so much better than the previous two instalments of the F1 game. Putting this into context, I use a Logitech G29 wheel for my car racing games but I did play with the controller for F1 2015 and F1 2016, getting my wheel last year and I did so some driving on F1 2016 and I have to say, the handling model was appalling on those games. On F1 2017, you actually feel the weight of the car all around and you know where your wheels are, it's not just understeering and has absolutely no lack of feel at all.

Of course though I must address the fact that this game being an F1 title, it's not as free as something like Project CARS 2 or Gran Turismo Sport in regards to what it can do and include, but as far as an enjoyable racing game goes then it's definitely up there and I'd highly recommend it if that was what you were seeking. I have some very minor tweaks I'd like to see with the next F1 game, they're relatively small.

One of them is, a bit more authenticity with the way our drivers are presented. If I could point out the photo I used for the top of this section talking about F1 2017, that is an image of myself in a Ferrari next to Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes. You can tell it's me because the race number is 56, and Ferrari's drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen's race numbers are 5 and 7. But my helmet is a copy and paste, my red and yellow helmet isn't branded as it should and I'd love to see that worked on in the next game.

What I mean by that is, if I raced for Ferrari then my red and yellow design would be coated with the Ferrari logo above the visor, with Santander and Shell V-Power along with all the brands that sponsor Ferrari that you will find on their current driver's helmets. But if I switched to Mercedes, their badge above the visor with Monster Energy on either side and Petronas on top of the visor too etc. you get the point. It's a small detail but I'd love to see that, I'm amazed it has not already happened yet.

Same little details go for the driver identification. On a lot of the F1 cars are the three letter abbreviations for drivers, and you're asked to type out yours when you create a driver, I use LMR as mine but on Ferrari's car they don't show it. However if I drove for Renault or Haas, I'd like to see LMR written wherever they have the three letters, which is very nit-picky I know. Moving on.

Other things I'd love to see improved or reintroduced, on F1 2012 and F1 2013, there was the young driver test at the Yas Marina circuit, which acted as a demo and whilst I don't believe it should be forced, maybe have it as an option once you have created your character. It could give you incentive to do it by giving you resource and career points, and perhaps have it forge paths and narrow down team selection. I know there's a system in place on the current F1 games that teams will look at you and think higher or lower of you depending on what you do in races, maybe depending on who you drive for in the young driver test depends on what teams are more likely to be interested.

Something I've blabbed on about for a while now in regards to F1 games, I miss that incredible atmosphere that F1 2010 brought. It always looked so amazing both with how refined the graphics were when you were placed in the pit lane, teamed with the soothing music, I really do hope that the main menu in the next F1 game is reminiscent to that of F1 2010, I want to feel like I'm in the F1 world.

Final thing they need to re-add, split screen. They made a big deal out of it in past F1 games, it needs to return, and with Rocket League allowing split screen online as well, I believe it's necessary as my friend Matthew will often pair up with me on Rocket League and we will go online. Whether it be on my PS4 where he's labelled as my PSN ID with a (2) next to it or if I'm at his place and we are on his Xbox.

If you lot want an overall final conclusion for F1 2017 as to whether you should buy it, here's what I would say. It is the ultimate F1 enthusiasts game, it aims itself as being accessible by everyone but to truly appreciate it, you really have to be a Formula One fan, going off how the development influences your performance in career mode and the selection of classic cars, if it had none of that like F1 2015 then I would not recommend picking it up. But F1 2017 is the best F1 game that Codemasters has produced so by all means, F1 fans, pick up your copy of F1 2017 for Christmas.

Now onto number two, and one that I'm still conflicted over, Project CARS 2.

Image courtesy of www.solvetube.com

I really enjoyed the first Project CARS, it was catered more towards the motorsport enthusiast but I did understand a lot of the criticisms that it was met with. The handling model feeling too stubborn and that you couldn't drift, which I rarely did but I can respect those who do want to, so along with all of the content carried over from the first game as well as more features and promised major improvements, I was very much ready to play the follow-up and was convinced it would be the go to racing game. How is it? Well, as you can tell I am very conflicted.

Firstly I must say all the good in this game. There's so much in here, real-time weather along with a whole range of weather conditions to drive in (Including snow!), track condition evolution, rallycross racing, IndyCar and ovals (Which I have a whole new found respect for after racing them), and a career mode that really is reminiscent of a real life motor racing driver's just like in the first game. I also cannot speak the praises enough of the ability to have preset rules for all forms of motorsport to allow authenticity, and the ability to create and save online championships that can progress on for as long as you want, which is a huge step forward for us motorsport fans.

Of course there are road cars for those who love road cars (myself included) but Project CARS games have always been catered more toward the motorsport enthusiast and for the most part, it delivers and then some. However what does let this game down is the handling model.

I've been getting better as of late but it's very nervous and vague even when you're not trying to go so quickly. Personally I do find the braking to be very difficult, even with anti-lock braking I still find the tyres to move around when I am trying to slow the car down, and it makes it difficult to push. Plus saying earlier that the cars felt heavy on the first game, they feel like they've gone too far the other way on this version.

Not only that, but I can't really speak for controller players that much since I don't play Project CARS 2 on the controller but I've been told that the promise to make the handling on the pad easier for this version was not delivered. I did play the first game on controller for the longest time and I found it to be decent, but I haven't done that for the new game and I don't plan on doing so. However one thing that continues to plague this game, is user unfriendliness.

Something I personally criticised the first game for, there's so much that you can change and do to the cars that it almost feels a bit overwhelming. I know that when I raced on the first game, I couldn't set up a pit stop to have my pit crew do what I asked them to do in time for my car to pass my pit box and go back onto the track.

Overall, the game is awfully twitchy and having been getting somewhat the hang of it over the past couple of days, I still can't fully get my head around the handling model. Another really off-putting thing it tends to do is if you turn too hard, you get your side tyres developing a fuck tonne of smoke (I get this a lot in IndyCar oval racing, infact it fixes the tyres often in place), and depending on the car when you're braking for a hairpin, the car will squirm and lose mid corner torque. All very complicated stuff, and it would be considering the scale of this game.

I don't know if this game can have a quick easy fix to its handling model or not but what I can say for a fact is that Project CARS 2 is not for the casual consumer. This has the potential to be the perfect game for motorsport enthusiasts, being essentially a motorsport simulator, but aside from the major criticisms I have, there are things I'd love to see in the next game.

Something that Gran Turismo Sport has is a livery editor which I'll touch upon later, along with overalls and helmet colouring, this is something I believe could be expanded upon in Project CARS 3. Again with Project CARS' motorsport centred focus, this livery editor could perhaps work in a way that would make it possible to have your own team and you create your own custom liveries for the cars you race.

Again I cannot stop talking about the motorsport centred focus of the Project CARS games and its career mode in the first game was the best you could have in my opinion, and the follow-up did also include it though I must say, again as is the case with these games, there needs to be a balance.

The first game, I could not get the hang on the karting circuits and I did very much rush through the karting phase in the first game, though trading that for what you get in Project CARS 2 is no progression at all. If you wanted, you could just jump straight into the top of the motorsport tree rather than have to climb through the smaller ranks. I would very much prefer to begin in Formula Rookie, Ginetta Juniors, Renault Clio Cup etc.

Speaking of the progression system, small nit-pick but the choice to remove the Formula B car was a pretty bad one and to have the top of the single seater category be IndyCar when you had not only Formula A but also Formula X. I do think the single seater ladder needs some tweaks as IndyCar may very well be single seaters but not on the exact same ladder as the Formula championships.

I've already gone on about it before but for a game like this, I'd love to see a racing school that would perhaps place you in certain scenarios such as, when is the best time to change from wet tyres to dry tyres on a drying track or how to save fuel approaching the dying laps of the Indy 500 when everyone else is pitting and winning it like Alexander Rossi did last year. I know that Project CARS has a great toy box to pick from and the potential for this could be game changing, since it's no secret that the majority of the gamers aren't all motorsport diehards. I'd love to learn a lot about these things, rather than the boring cone slalom challenges on Gran Turismo games.

Overall, as much as I want to recommend Project CARS 2, I can't. Especially to the casual consumer, give this a miss but if you're like me with a force feedback wheel and a big motorsport enthusiast then you can work with it and I do hope it would improve, even though I expected it to be great from the start.

Last but not least, we are now going to talk about Gran Turismo Sport.


Image courtesy of https://www.youtube.com/user/PlayStation

If you've followed by blog for a while, you'll be well aware of how vocal I was leading up to the release of GT Sport which I will get to. Now I will say that whilst Project CARS 2 was a very difficult driving game for any casual gamer, GT Sport's handling model and online racing system does make it that much more appealing and accessible to the casual gamer.

Okay let's just talk about what I don't appreciate about this game, that I have been complaining about for quite a while, and that is? The lack of circuits, both real and original. The reason why this annoyed me was because in the last GT game (Gran Turismo 6), we had a whole bunch of great top-line FIA real world circuits like Le Mans, Spa, Monaco, Silverstone, Monza, Red Bull Ring, Fuji etc. and considering the FIA is collaborating to create online racing championships with this game, you'd expect GT Sport to have these tracks. But it doesn't.

Not only that but there's a considerable lack of GT original tracks, some of which I know would have been incredible with the racing that can happen in this game. This incredible racing coming from a sportsmanship system which will match you up in races with people who are as quick and clean driving as you, and couple that with the categorisation system that GT Sport has (Which I will get onto), it's just a shame there's such a lack of circuits.

That categorisation I just spoke about, is incredible. I remember back in the day, I really wanted to put together a racing championship between my friends and I but we lacked any sort of major racing category that would make it interesting, we only had Japanese Super GT's back on Gran Turismo 5 and it never sat well with me having them race on circuits that they wouldn't typically race on. If I still had that ambition and all my friends remained in touch, GT Sport would be the perfect game (If it had a decent amount of tracks).

But back on topic, you have the stock production cars labelled as Group N and are all split up via their horsepower into their own individual divisions. So any car you have that develops let's say around 300 horsepower are placed in the N300 class and only cars with any sort of figure of horsepower around that will be able to race alongside you, which can open itself up to allowing a load of cars pushing the edges of the horsepower whilst being extremely light. Road car races aren't that common but they happen and if you want to use your Subaru Impreza road car and make it as fair as possible, you are at least capable.

Then we have the racing cars. This includes Group 4 which is very basic modified versions of production cars, Group 3 which is a universally beloved category and a step up from Group 3 in terms of car model modifications and performance but still retaining the shell of production models. Both are very balanced and feature a variety of models, some of which are real life GT4 and GT3 race cars and the others which the manufacturers that create the models don't have a racing version of in either of those categories.

Other than that you have Group 1 made up of Le Mans Prototype cars, Group B which consist of Rally cars and finally the Group X category filled without restrictions, any car that doesn't confine to any of the regulations, everything from safety cars to the bonkers 400mph SRT Tomahawk X. You also have Vision Gran Turismo cars, a set of cars that were made in collaboration with the makers of GT and car brands, including that SRT Tomahawk car.

One major criticism though of GT Sport is the lack of single player content, since this game is mainly focused on the multiplayer aspect. However, as of November 27th (My birthday!), the game will include free of charge, new content to satisfy that corner of the community, and by corner I think I mean near damn well the whole room. I've said it before regarding the circuits but this is something that really should be in the game from day one. It seems like these days that games really are not complete and then tacking on extras, but more pieces of the puzzle are dished out every so often, mostly for a cost. Polyphony are doing great here in regards to adding content, Kazunori Yamauchi has promised that all content added to GT Sport is free and I do applaud that.

But this game as of now, isn't complete. I am obviously glad with all that is in this game and how incredibly accessible and easy on the user it is, but it does feel like a lot of what should have been in the game from the start isn't in it, just the basics, not anything extra.

Though with that being said, the social features in this game are great. You can create liveries for cars and share them online for other players to download, which I have been doing with my friends. I helped my friend James create a black and green livery for his Group 3 Lamborghini Huracán, along with my friend Charlie with an incredible chrome-blue livery with an immense arrangement of decals on the rear of a Group 3 Audi R8, and finally my other friend Ahmed who loves Mercedes so if he gets GT Sport, we created a Group 3 SLS livery consisting of his signature grey and orange colour scheme. Couple that in with my red and yellow McLaren 650S Group 3 car and I know we are going to have some great races. (You can actually see my McLaren, Charlie's Audi and James' Lamborghini in the picture at the start of this article)

I can say without a doubt that GT Sport is worth buying, and it's Black Friday weekend so it's on discount on the PlayStation Store so get it while you can if you want to have great and fair, balanced online racing but bare in mind that this game really doesn't have everything. You do run into a wall very quickly (not literally), plus the cars have to be bought with currency that you win whilst racing unless you win them on a lucky spin after completing daily mileage of completing a challenge (though I can say from experience, it can be bullshit sometimes).

But overall GT Sport is a great game and by no means am I saying that it's the best one to have in every circumstance and category. F1 2017 has great racing but is in its own little bubble, Project CARS 2 is immense and vast in scale but you need to be precise, isn't as user friendly and you need to be very into the complex side of racing.

However, I say this for you non PlayStation users, GT Sport is a PS exclusive and the Xbox alternate Forza Motorsport's latest entry is apparently very arcade-like in its handling physics but still maintains a slight sense of realism. It also utilises a very controversial loot-box system that have been mentioned in the same breath as Star Wars Battlefront 2 and the recent Call Of Duty titles, and I am going to write an article in the coming weeks about such a thing so stay tuned for that.

I can say for PlayStation users that GT Sport is by far the best game to pick but of course it all depends on what you like, and for Xbox users then Forza is probably also your best bet but don't quote me on it. We are all very deprived of range, really.

Let's say that on a graph, the left is arcade-like racing games and the right is very much simulator style racing games, where do we put these games on a scale? At least for console peasants like myself, you PC master race people with your iRacing, Raceroom etc. can shush for a moment. Need For Speed is very much on the left and it works for what it is, Project CARS is the right and a bit to its side but still on the right are F1 2017 and Gran Turismo Sport, then we have Forza Motorsport 7 which is slightly in the middle riding that line. There are different consumers for these different games.

As we are on Black Friday sales weekend and we are coming up to Christmas, take all of this information as you want but above all else, enjoy racing and enjoy it with your friends or whoever you meet in racing communities.

Alright! Thank you all for reading and I do hope I have helped you out here. If you are new here, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email in the 'Follow By Email' option in the top right if you're on a computer version of this site as appose to a phone. Hope to see you all back here very soon.

So until we meet again,
Luca.

Streaming Service Takeover

Image courtesy of www.twitter.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. We all love binge watching Netflix, don't we? Assuming you have Netflix. What, you don't? Peasant.

Nah don't worry, I get it. You probably can't afford it and honestly with all the pies you need to put your fingers in these days, but that's something I want to talk about because with the understandable attitude of making money that corporations have, how much is too much? Well I can already answer that so allow me.

So to put this into context, I already have Netflix and Amazon Prime. My brother lets me use his Netflix and my parents bought into Amazon Prime, on top of all the sports channels that we have which eats into our savings, I try to remain as grounded and grateful as I can be in regard to what my parents allow me to have. But for the purpose of this article, I will talk about the streaming services that we have.

I wanted Netflix after I heard that Marvel were developing shows to stream exclusively on the platform that were all interconnected, they being Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, the team up show The Defenders and last but not least, The Punisher. I have gone on to enjoy plenty of other exclusive shows such as Stranger Things and Gypsy, as well as finding a load of movies I wouldn't have been able to find elsewhere. As for Amazon Prime, we got it after The Grand Tour was announced but I don't really use it for much else since we can't use it on any other device other than the TV in the living room, and I don't like depriving my parents of their own source of entertainment.

The impact that these services have had are really becoming a pain for traditional broadcasted television, since the modern day consumer doesn't align with broadcasting's placing of time, meaning it's more now becoming if a consumer has time for their media rather than the media having time for the consumer. Even before streaming services were popularised, I remember my parents buying a Sky box for our TV when I was young because I wanted to watch Dora The Explorer right when the school bus arrived.

So with this growing demand in mind for streaming services, it seems that every single production company now want a bite of the pie. This coming as Disney have announced that they will be pulling all their properties from Netflix and other streaming services, and placing not only their existing movies and shows (this including Disney owned brands such as Marvel and Star Wars) but also original content onto their own streaming service.

Now, this worries me ever so slightly. If I could liken it to anything, it's like Britain leaving the European Union or Catalonia leaving Spain, by that I mean it could spark a whole chain reaction of other production companies breaking off and making their own streaming services. All the power to these companies because I can't expect them to appeal to the convenience of the consumer at the expense of losing a shit tonne of money, I feel like there's a line that may be crossed here.

Just putting aside for a second the belief that Netflix may lose out big time, I honestly believe with the original series' and the small independent movies, that this could mean for a big boost for the indies and Netflix as well as all the other streaming services. I think they'll be fine, what concerns me is the possible hit in the pocket for us, the consumer.

Think about it, imagine a household of people who want to watch all these amazing movies by these studios as well as all these great shows they're hearing about, like that upcoming Star Wars TV show, but they're already paying way too much as it is. I mean, such a high profile show as Star Wars would probably be on top of their priority list but my point is, if Fox make a streaming service and Warner Brothers make a streaming service as do Universal and DreamWorks as well as Paramount and MGM, okay maybe a some of those wouldn't as they're a bit obscure.

Regardless, do you see my point? I call this the 'pizza' effect, no not the kind it has on me where I can't move for a few hours after consuming it. What I mean is, if you make the pizza too big with the same amount of cheese, then eventually it'll become hallow and not taste as nice. I'd hope that metaphor works because I think it does.

I honestly believe this will majorly screw with the consumer, with too much being asked of them for too little of a reward, I honestly think this will backfire. It just takes the companies big enough to be able to have their own separate service to do it before the much smaller money hungry people to perform a reactionary move, think the demand is there for their properties to be successful in their own right on their own streaming service, see how weak it does and temporarily screw over the consumer.

Again, I can't fault them for wanting to make money, it's how the world works, but there has to be a balance because if these companies try and break off into their own individual streaming services then we won't be able to pay all of them unless we were all very rich, which we aren't. This is why I have a proposal to make, and this applies to all streaming services.

Okay so let's say we can have an incredibly basic membership, the service is free (Hold on, it isn't all clear cut) but, advertisements play. I would hope people would understand that if they don't part with money, then they'll have to watch advertisements and I don't see that as a bad trade off, I mean one issue could be if someone installs AdBlock then maybe a workaround could be this type of membership only be allowed on gaming consoles or part of a TV package as appose to a computer which can utilise AdBlock.

I know that sounds a bit too good to be true and it probably is, an alternative would be paying an extremely small sum and still getting advertisements running, but maybe a free membership where you have to pay to buy the films or series that you want to watch, like what they do on YouTube. Which sounds shit, like getting a mobile game where it's free but to do literally anything, you have to buy it, but I don't mean it as in a progression necessity but more just buying what you know you want to watch.

If Amazon had it, I could just buy all episodes of The Grand Tour and be on my way. Maybe if I was interested in watching Preacher or definitely the upcoming Hanna series, I would buy those as well and not bother looking elsewhere. Maybe you could charge per series and only have access to them either on rent for a fraction of the cost for buying them completely.

I am of course trying to strike a balance between consumer engagement and corporate profit, I don't claim to be an expert in any of these areas of course so if there's a detail I have missed, feel free to tell me in the comment section below. That's the thing about me, I have the basic outlines for an idea that I wouldn't have proposed if I didn't see a benefit everywhere, and leave it to the actual experts to refine it ready for execution or discussion.

However, don't say I'm being naïve because I'm not, I know for a fact that the head of Disney won't read this and act on it thinking it's in the best interest. I'm just worried for the future of entertainment should everyone start thinking they need to divide everything into their own piece of the consumer pie and really screwing us over. That's why I'd like to see my solution implemented, but I know it won't happen, at least not now when the corporations have the dollar sign eyes.

If there's anything I'd like to end on, it's again that we need to be hopeful but remain realistic, this inevitable implosion of greed will be a huge inconvenience of us but as ever, we are all part of this environment and either it will destroy us or it will change. If we speak with our wallets, of course it will change but because of how I see it going, not only will it be a case of us having to speak with our wallets or refusing to bow to the system, we will just be physically unable to do so.

So let's brave this corporate storm and I'll see you out on the other side.

Thank you everyone for reading. As ever if you're new here, follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat and if you're on laptop, look for the Follow By Email option if you want to have my articles sent straight to your inbox. Before I bid you my farewell, I want to ask, if I gave this blog a new name, what would you guys come up with? I kind of want to include the word 'Blab' in there, I kind of like the word and it works with my articles being very much blabs. Keep the word Red in there, so right now I have Red's Blab. Not sure how I feel about it on its own, let me know any ideas you have.

Anyway, so until we meet again.
Luca.

Dean Stoneman - A recovery drive

Image courtesy of www.autosport.com

Note from Luca: Hi everyone, I have a personal update after the article but I didn't feel like it was appropriate to ramble nonsensically about myself at the start. If you give a shit, read what I have to say after my article. Thank you.

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca, and motorsport this season has been quite the enjoyable ride for myself in all disciplines. I am always looking toward not only the top level championships like Formula One, MotoGP, World Endurance, Touring Cars etc. but also as you know, looking down the ladder for the upcoming champions of tomorrow.

However back when I was just getting myself invested in just Formula One and not knowing too much about the junior formulae, I remember hearing about the battle going on for the 2010 Formula Two championship between now former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer and a guy named Dean Stoneman. Whoever ended up winning would participate in a young driver test with the Williams F1 team at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi after the season had concluded.

Stoneman ended up winning the championship, he participated in the young driver test and was poised to race for the following year in the Formula Renault 3.5 series alongside now Red Bull F1 race winner Daniel Ricciardo, but was forced to withdraw after Stoneman was diagnosed with very severe testicular cancer.

From what I had been researching, Stoneman's cancer was so severe that he was scheduled to go in for treatment immediately and very nearly had to have his legs amputated, with it having been Stage IV which had spread to his lungs and abdomen. This story as you can probably already tell, has a happy ending and Dean is still thankfully alive and seemingly in good health, despite a few of the side effects that continue to plague him, that being lack of feeling in his legs.

What followed has been a remarkable story, Stoneman returned to motor racing in 2012 competing in powerboat racing (Where his father Colin had been a previous champion), with the aim of returning to full fitness. Stoneman went on to claim the championship in P1 SuperStock UK championship that same year and he was fully focused on getting back into cars, and made his return with the BTCC support series Porsche Carrera Cup GB for 2013.

This is where it hits close to home for me because I went to Croft that year with the sole intention of meeting Deano. His return to car racing had caused many strong headlines as he was setting the world alight with his Carrera Cup results, including a double win on his debut at Brands Hatch. He maintained a strong level of results, including a win the day before I attended the Croft BTCC race day event, before seemingly taking victory on that day, though later he got excluded.

Dean was disqualified for a very aggressive manoeuvre on reigning champion Michael Meadows and the rails came off of his championship charge, with a race meeting ban after accumulating too many points on his racing licence for overly aggressive racing. He ended up fifth in the final championship results, which was an incredible effort anyway considering the circumstances, and I believed Stoneman would have a great GT career ahead of him since an enclosed cockpit of a single seater may prevent him from moving his legs around as much as he needed. I was wrong.

In the twilight of that year, Stoneman was drafted in to race in the season finale for the GP3 championship in Abu Dhabi, with the intention to just be there to test the car after the event. Stoneman surprised everyone with a very respectable sixth place in race one which meant a third place start for the second race, and improving to second place in the race. Again, one remarkable result and propelled Stoneman right back in the thick of it in single seaters, looking at an attempt to reconquer.

For 2014, Stoneman remained in GP3 and took victories at Catalunya, Spa and Monza with the Manor team before jumping ships to Koiranen (who he raced for in the previous year's final round) and taking further victories at Sochi and Yas Marina. He ended the year second in the championship behind Alex Lynn, and was snatched up by the ever trying Red Bull Junior Team at the expense of Lynn for the following year.

Back where he had intended to go before he had to stop racing, Formula Renault 3.5 for 2015 and Dean delivered some very respectable results but not setting the world alight, and after a late bargain in GP2 in the latter part of that year, Stoneman didn't look set to make it to Formula One. So he began looking over the Atlantic, and sealed himself a drive in the IndyCar feeder series Indy Lights with the Andretti Autosport squad for 2016.

This gamble looked to have paid off, as Dean Stoneman took two victories including the Freedom 100, Indy Lights' equivalent of the Indianapolis 500 after an incredible last-lap battle with eventual 2016 Indy Lights champion Ed Jones, separated by 0.0022 at the line! He finished fifth in the championship and as far as I am aware, spent this year pretty much on the side-lines with only a guest drive in the Blancpain GT Series.

I know this is almost written out like a Wikipedia page but I want to get across how great of a driver Dean is and that he deserves a race seat in IndyCar and I so hope he does get one. With the Carlin team moving into IndyCar as early as next year, I'd love to see Dean as well as another great British driver who I have had the fortune of meeting, Jack Harvey possibly race for them, though I'm aware Carlin already have one drive taken so it would have to be between those two for the other ride. Either way, I'd hope they both make it into IndyCar full time but I am talking of course here about Dean.

With this incredible story about his recovery, and considering IndyCar being an American sport, I think Stoneman would fit perfectly over there when you take into account the coverage he would get. Which sounds quite shallow without context but considering sponsorship plays a huge part in helping drivers get into racing, I don't think it's particularly wrong to say it.

Of course if there's anything I can say, it's that Dean Stoneman isn't just "the racing driver who had cancer", it happened and it derailed probably a much more successful career but he has risen above it. He doesn't deserve to have the wheels come off of his racing car, and the moral of this article is that neither does anyone else.

I purposely wanted to write this for a November release, since we now are all thinking about cancer awareness. Cancer affects all of us whether it be actually us or someone we love, and whether that battle is lost or won, things are never the same but it's always up to us to overcome it.

Speaking for myself, my mum had cancer back when I was too young to understand, and thankfully she is alive and well to this day, and I feel like if I didn't have her, my life would have turned out so incredibly differently and not in any way for the better. I can't speak really for the countless families because I was too young to understand what was going on and it wasn't until years later that I learned of the gravity of the situation.

At the time and over time, I didn't suffer the emotional trauma of the possibility of my mum dying and of course she is still alive so it's no place of mine to speak on behalf of the countless numbers out there. I do however know that I will more than likely go through it in some way, and I think I'll be ready and I'll try and rise above it, whatever form it takes.

My hope is one day, maybe in my lifetime or maybe not, that cancer can be beaten. But until then, take it from Dean Stoneman as one of the many examples of rising above this awful disease, thank you all for reading.

Personal update: Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed my article. So it has been a fair few weeks after my last blog post saying I'd take a break. I am motivated to write and I have a few ideas for articles to write here, but I'd be lying if I said everything was perfect, because of course it never is.

I'm still absolutely furious and devastated about the new Kingsman movie and how they've disrespected the characters and the cult following, and I have not budged. My petition now has over 550 supporters (Link here if you'd like to sign: https://www.change.org/p/matthew-vaughn-bring-back-roxy-in-kingsman) and I also volunteered to write for LRM Online about it all, which I believe is my best work yet (Link to that here: http://lrmonline.com/news/how-kingsman-the-golden-circle-screwed-over-female-fans/).

I wrote an email to Marv films a few days ago and I'll be phoning them on Monday to see if they got it. This will not go away for me as this means too much to me, I know my own state as I do reset back into getting incredibly worked up about this and it's the new norm for me with something distracting me and lifting me up temporarily, but it's manageable. I have some amazing and supportive people around me and I can smile despite this shitty situation. I won't be making a habit of these rambling personal updates.

We all fight our own little battles, I just chose to make mine public because I needed a way out. Where I can put my thoughts and not go nuts, of course there's a privacy line but I know where to cross it, at least I would hope that I do. So I appreciate a lot of you who were concerned for me, and I will want to continue posting at the rate that I wanted to, at least three articles per month, but I won't push myself considering the circumstances.

Thank you again everyone, so until we meet again,
Luca.