It's almost exactly a year ago I last released an update to the 1994 mod, and today I'm pleased to share with you the next update. Back in 2018, I returned to Grand Prix 4 editing by working on the Ferrari 412 T1B. Seven years later, and I'm still working on this mod. There's so much new content included in this update, but yet there's still so much I intend to do. I hope that with each release, you feel a significant step forward in the mod and that is no less true with the latest release, Version 4.3 of the 1994 mod.
This release is themed around the Pacific GP team, as it is one of the headline new cars included in this update of the mod.
New & Updated Cars
1994 Pacific PR01
For this update, I'm proud to present to you the Pacific PR01. As is my modus operandi for this mod, I'm creating the Australian GP versions first, and so this release includes the generally forgotten low-nose car. Unlike some of the other cars I work on in GP4, I spend a lot of extra time trying to get the details right on my 1994 cars , and that takes much longer, so my release rate for 1994 cars is about one a year right now, though this car began several years ago as the project stuttered slowly in the background amongst my other creations.
During my research, when trying to find good photos where they don't exist, I end up pouring over endless videos that show some of the parts of the car not seen on the photos, mainly around the rear end. Among these videos is a fascinating Top Gear feature from the beginning of the season where Keith Wiggins was saying his car could challenge for the top 6.
To be fair, their main competition that year was the other new team, Simtek. Unlike Simtek, Pacific have a proven track record in the lower categories, and whilst both lacked the budget, Pacific had one more ace up its sleave. It had a Adrian Reynard F1 designed car. Back in the late 80s and 90s, Reynard was an ultra successful single seater chassis maker and had success in F3 and F3000. It's the same Adrian Reynard that BAR hired as a consultant, and based on Adrian's success, boasted they may be able to win their first race in F1. In fairness, for 1994, Reynard did just that when his car won on its Indycar debut.
The thing was, this Reynard designed car was from 1991, and wasn't quite ready enough to make the 1992 season. In fact, Pacific were not the first people to use this design, but Benetton who hired Rory Byrne and Pat Symonds from Reynard and brought the designs with them. So in reality, Reynard's car was developed and used by two teams in 1994, one that was ultra developed in the Benetton B194 and was the class of the field, and then there was this under-developed Pacific PR01, and they were comfortably the slowest car on the grid. Pacific didn't really have use of a wind tunnel, and so had to go for 'best-guess' aerodynamics based off these unfinished designs they had bought, and they struggled a lot with the nose of the car, that lead to them trying out a nose-cone using duct tape, before settling for a conventional low nose design. If you listen to Keith Wiggins' interview with Eurosport for the European GP where the nose debuted, it was created in the hope it would do better and bring stability to the car, not because of any proper research or testing, such was the difficulty in finding funding and expertise.
The car was powered by an Ilmor engine that was two years old, and significantly under-powered by 1994 standards.
Yep, this was the 1990s and Pacific was one of the last of this age of amateur, under-funded teams that brought about the pre-qualifying era of F1. From 1996, F1 would get serious with the 107% qualifying rule where the slowest cars would have to qualify within 7% of the pole time, and F1 got a whole more professional and safe.
With 26 grid limit, the Pacific team would have to out-qualify the Simteks to make it to the race. Gachot managed it in Brazil, and inheritted a place on the grid in Imola following Ratzenberger's tragic accident. At Monaco, both Saubers withdrew after Wendlinger's life-changing accident in practice, and Williams and Simtek both ran one car out of respect for the fallen. In Spain, Sauber only entered one car, and Simtek's Andrea Montermini had a horrific accident in practice, breaking both his ankles. In Canada, Simtek once again, entered only one car. So basically, bar the opening race, Pacific only made it to the grid under mitigating circumstances, rather than merit, and never once made it to the finish of the race if it did. After Canada, neither Pacific troubled the back of the grid.
It's any wonder that I would spend as much time as I did on this car, considering it's track (or lack of) record. Despite the lack of funding and resources, there are parts of the car, like the rear suspension cover area, that changed almost every race towards the end of the year, so picking one version with enough photos or videos was challenging. But the main body of the car was created reasonably quickly, but I lost motivation to continue working on this car several times, and in the end it took me nearly 3 years of on-off development to finish it, slowly chipping away at various details each time. I had to take some inspiration from the Benetton B192 and look for some junior Reynard cars to understand some of the architecture underneath the skin, even though I've modelled only a small part of the rear end internals.
In the end, I'm happy with how the car turned out, it looks just as detailed as the other cars I've worked on for the 1994 season and I've tried to make the external parts as smooth as I can whilst trying to stay within GP4 polygon limits. It may not be a car that you choose as your eleventh team often, but I hope you enjoy it for the times it does appear.
In this release, a new high-nose version of this car appears from Hungary through to Portugal, when they changed the rear end. The low-nose cars first appears at the European GP at Jerez, which they used to the end of the season.
Lotus 109 Updated
Thanks to Quickslick for some logo updates that I've applied to the car, including the new Shionogi logo from the French GP onwards, and a missing Elite logo at the British GP on the rear of the sidepod.
Thanks also to David Marques from the F1C community for some new rear wings for the Lotus. This includes the version with winglets first tested, but not used, at the Portuguese GP, but eventually used at the Australian GP. He's also created a low downforce rear wing for the German and Italian rounds.
Thanks to both for their help.
Ligier JS39 Updated
Thanks to Quickslick again for an updated Gitanes Blondes logo, which I had used for the helmet update. Now the cars from the Spanish GP onwards have been updated with the more accurate logo.
Sauber C13 Updated
Thanks to Matty from the Automobilista modding scene who got in touch about conversion of the cars of this mod, which I was glad to share. I'm glad the cars look good in other games, I'm all for that. He sent me some updates he had made for the Sauber, which includes the sidepod flip ups and an updated diffuser.
It is my plan, in the fullness of time, to rework every car on the 1994 grid, so these updates serve as an interim edition. There were some compatibility issues with the late season Tissot liveries, and some alpha livery bugs, so I've tidied them up for this release. The French and British GP now have their correct rear wings, and there's two shape variants for the interim Sauber with updated from Matty, the standard update, and the Hungary rear wing that had additional elements.
Track Specific Updates
All cars now have low downforce rear wing configurations at Hockenheim and at Monza.
The Minardi M194 by Loren has a few new rear wing configurations.
I've also updated my McLaren MP4/9 (Spanish GP onwards), Williams FW16B (German GP onwards) and Ferrari 412T1B (French GP onwards) with track specific versions.
As you can see, there's loads of car updates in this update, the track specific versions are starting to come together nicely.
Helmets
I was hoping that the last update would have all the Arai helmets completed, but I ran out of time. However, I am glad to say I have all new Arai helmets for Barrichello, Schiatarella and Noda.
For the handful of races that Herbert and Zanardi ran the Arai helmet, they are also remade and included in this mod, but for the other races, I've chosed to use Öggo's Rheos helmet.
There was a mistake in Olivier Panis' helmet for the non-tobacco races, so that's been fixed in this version.
Tweaks and bug fixes
External Steering Wheels
I first added team-specific external steering wheels quite early on in the mod's development, but now I've revised them a bit. I've standardised the wheel size, and I've updated the gloves to be team-dependent as well. Due to the limitations of GP4, your selected driver in the CSM menu will load the updated wheel and gloves in to the game.
I've also changed the way the mod handles the arm colours, preferring to update them via GPxPatch performance files rather than through Tweaker. Tweaker did not always load the correct colour arms for the Team 11 selection, where as changing the way it is loaded has made the loading of them much more reliable. It also allowed me to change the arm colours for the Larrousse drivers for the Kronenburg races in the early season.
Physics
I noticed that CSM was not loading the physics properly in v4.2, so that is now fixed. I tried to work on the physics, based on some data shared to me by Dahie (formerly of CTDP), however there's still some bugs to iron out of that. I've not had great success in editing physics in GP4 and I'm learning to work within its boundaries. I was hoping to be able to delve back into GP2 and find some values that I could put in, but the physics editor from the older game doesn't really have any cross over with GP4 physics file. I tried to use the torque data, but that also caused issues, so more work needed here.
However, I did receive some updated physics from jcgrj, and they are also included in this release. So there are three options for physics, choose the set of physics you like best in the CSM menu.
Slipstream
I've spent some time working on slipstream values. I took into account the heights of tracks from sea level, general humidity values, as well as some basic variances between the drag produced by different cars and with some AI help, I was able to create some variance from team-to-team and track-to-track of the relative dirty air each car produces. In reality the differences are small, but it was nice to experiment a little with this feature.
Pitstop Tweaks
I have also tweaked the pitstop times from the data I could find from 1994 and made them a bit more realistic.
Another bug fix is the pit lane speed limits were not working track-to-track. The first three races did not have a speed limit, so I've set it pretty high. They then had a a couple of races at 50kph before upping that to 80kph for the rest of the season. The track specific element in Tweaker was not working for me, so now it is managed via CSM.
Direct X
As with some of my other mods released last year, if you choose the Dx8 option, it will load an updated dll file by gplaps that fixes the z buffer bug that causes distant objects to flicker. This works great for tracks, particularly crowds in the stands, but not so much for clipping on cars. You can still choose to use the Dx9 option by crosire, which I've found is more friendly with newer graphics cards, enables 3D sound effects and allows GPxPatch to run with all cores with much less crashing. So it's up to you to decide which you would like to use.
Mirror Options
Another feature in this mod that is available in my other recently released mods is the ability to choose to show your own car in the mirrors. I don't know why the rear wheel flickers if you do this, but I like this feature anyway.
Transparent Visor Tweak
Thanks again to Öggo for bringing out the fix for coloured visors. This mod simply removes the coloured visors hard-coded into the game for the Arrows and Minardi drivers. I did also alter the shade of the visor and the transparency, it's subtle, but I think its more realistic now.
Engine Sounds Updated
Thanks also goes to jcgrj for creating more engine sounds compatible with my mods. This update sees new and improved Benetton sounds.
Hi-res Menu Fonts
Once more, Öggo was able to allow high resolution fonts in the menus. Thanks to Carl_gpgames for the upscaled GP4 fonts.
Some New Video Backgrounds
You will notice that the first intro video has been updated by me.
Thanks to Trevor Sports for supplying me with an AI upscaled BBC intro along with a nice, era-appropriate end card.
I've also updated one of the main menu backgrounds for the in-game menu.
HD Tyre Treads
You can tell who I worked with a lot on this mod! Thanks to Öggo for helping me upscale Alesi_fan's (Ulf) tyre treads. I tweaked the alpha layers manually to hopefully give a more realistic effect.
HD Internal Visors
I have updated the internal visors in HD and added a few more track specific ones, and made the loading of them a bit more robust that before.
Miscellaneous Fixes
There were some other bug fixes, namely the Belgian flag was incorrect on the pitboard, and there was a missing CSM preview, both of which have now been fixed. The team 11 loading is a bit more consistent after a few tweaks.
Thanks so much, again, to Öggo (and Carl_gpgames) for their work on the Individual Meshes and Textures dll. Whilst this works fantastic through Carl_gpgames GP4 Memory Access, now we've been able to implement it into a CSM Mod.
Updated Zaz Tools
Please note you will need to install Öggo's updated version of Zaz Tools. This get's around a bug where if you have GP4 installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\... CSM would ignore the brackets. This simply creates a junction and updates your Zaz Tools to use this new target link to find the GP4.exe.
This install will also add csmprocess file back into Zaz Tools that was missing in more recent versions, as this is vital for the dll injection to function.
The will fix, for some of you, the mods that have batch files that run on starting or exiting the game, namely the IMSA v2.0 Random mod, the IMSA vs WEC mod (and variants) and the 2021 and 2022 mod, to name a few.
CSM Tweaks
This means that the team-specific 3D rims and driver specific helmets are now controlled by this rather than by the patch.ini. Whilst the effect is the same, it is easier to manage via this new method.
Mirrored Treads Fix
It also means that the 3D tyre treads are no longer mirrored as they were previously, which is particularly noticeable in the wet. This looks great with, as mentioned earlier, the new HD treads.
Internal & External Cockpit Visor
There's a better internal cockpit visor now, thanks to this dll and being able to tweak the transpency an colour.
Unrelated to the dll, but fits here, the external cockpit visors have been optomised a little.
Driver specific Internal Cockpits
New to this mod, we now have team specific internal cockpits. Sadly this does not include the dashboard objects and it also does not include team specific steering wheels. But despite that, this is massive progress and this is the first CSM mod to showcase this working.
To go along with this, I've created internal cockpits for each team, and I've remade the readout displays and AI upscaled. At the moment, this is more proof of concept than refined. A few years ago I had started creating team-specific dash boards, and tagging on the internal cockpits from the created cars, some had more love in this area than others. So I hope to be able to standardise the quality on these in the next update.
If you do select a driver in the CSM menu, then that team's dash objects will work properly, but due to the current limitations, it will not load too well on other cars, or if you use the generic dash.
Car specific Collision Meshes
Also available with this mod is the ability to have collision files for each specific car. Thanks to Öggo's collision meshes editor, I was able to create them quite quickly for each team.
1994 Track Pack updated by Gap177
With new cars and many textures and parts upgraded to HD, the old track pack was not a fitting playground for these cars. I'm so pleased to have finally been able to get permission from Gap177 to share his HD upgrades of Plodekk & Cleberpister's updates. These are massive improvements to the originals, and is the icing on the cake of this immense update.
I'm please to share with you another season package of the 1995 Ligier JS41. Once more, this was created in partnership with David Marques, and will be released on both GP4 and Formula 1 Challenge 99-02. As with my other recent releases, this car also comes with a full seasons worth of liveries and body shape changes.
The 1995 Ligier was driven by Oliver Panis in one seat, and then Aguri Suzuki and Martin Brundle shared the other seat. At the start of the season, Flavio Briatore and Tom Walkinshaw (both at Benetton at the time) owned the Ligier team, with the former taking the Renault engine deal with him to the Benetton team. During the season, Flavio sold his shares to TWR. The team would eventually finish the season in fifth place, with Brundle scoring an excellent podium finish at a rain soaked Belgian GP, and Panis went one better at the season finale in Australia, albeit two laps down where only eight cars were still running at the end.
In many ways, this is a 1995 Benetton chassis. Whilst Ligier did receive some of the Benetton updates, the French outfit also took its own independent development path. There are differences on the top of the monocoque in terms of the various bulges that are unique to each car, and the top of the rollover hoop is more acute on the Ligier. Ligier start out the season with a sidepod very similar to the 1994 Benetton, in fact, that's exactly where I took it from. Ligier did take on the rear wing endplate double winglet arrangement that Benetton did, but then developed its own winglet system mid-season. They also went their own way for the front wing. Both the winglets and front-wing developments were taken from my 1996 Ligier. There are also low downforce variants for this car too. Thanks to David Marques for making the unique Ligier dashboard object that differs from the Benetton one. So this car isn't simply just taking a Benetton and painting it blue, but at the same time, I appreciate it did not take too long to make the changes.
I'm very grateful for the excellent paint work completed by David Marques. I'm also grateful for Quickslick for some logo help and testing too.
For the first time in 2025, I wanted to update you on some of the new downloads and updates available for Geoff Crammond's classic game.
It amazes me that over 20 years after the release of the game that there are new tools and editors to improve the game are being made available.
I'm also in awe of those who have the time and commitment and devotion to make a whole track.
Also in this update is a slight update to an existing mod and some new sounds to enjoy in GP4.
Before we get going with the recent updates, you can check out, separately, all the 2025 downloads available here: 2025 Downloads
Individual Meshes & Textures - updated and improved
There's actually been multiple updates since this was first released. By injecting a dll into the game, it allows previously impossible options that are now available to editors. Plus, with the old csmprocess file, it is possible to enable these things via CSM.
Individual internal cockpits, a proper internal cockpit visor, individual collision meshes and a fix for the 3D rims reversed tread bug are all now possible with this tool.
This little update fixes a bug that introduced some weird graphical glitches when updating pit props. Thanks to Öggo for working with me to diagnose and fix the issue.
This lovely new tool not only helps you edit the font files in the menus for GP4, but it also opens up the possibility to have high resolution fonts too.
Another helpful fix is an age annoying uneditable item in GP4. Originally, the Arrows drivers had orange tinted visors and one of the Minardi drivers had a green tint. This was great for 2001, but it was annoying it continues to be seen in mods. Now this can not only be remedied, but all visors are now customisable per driver.
Following on from created lovely high resolution trackpacks for 1996 and 1997, we now have the same treatment for the 1998 tracks. Lovely work in giving some of these older tracks a new lease of life.
Thanks to Jose Gomes on doing some edits to the existing non-CSM version of the 1987 mod:
- change to FULL HD views and positions - change cockpit and steering wheel - fix mirrors - fix crash model of gp4 cars - update sound and commentaries
At the moment there is no CSM version of this mod, but hopefully that will be done soon.
It's fantastic to get new cars being added to the GP4 community. This beautiful Williams comes with 4 shape variations and a full season's worth of textures. The 1999 grid is starting to fill up with some fantastic quality cars.
Built on the dat file by prblanco, drt01 has carefully done the 3D work and created a fantastic atmosphere to this track that has now become a regular on the F1 calendar.
Due to the limitations in GP4, we have to settle for a shortened version of the famous track used for the Le Mans 24 hour race. Thanks to Davide for updating the track to 2024 standards, ideal for the IMSA vs WEC mod I worked on last year.
Viking says "I am exploring the limits of GP4 builder's possibilities. I built a 19 km circuit, with 3924 sectors. It cannot go beyond 4000 sectors. I added a lot of heavy objects to see if it still worked and it does. The lap time is 4mn 25, very long. The circuit is very winding but with very wide turns. Thank you to F1 virtual for the building at the pit entrance."
Jose Gomes continues his good collection of engine sound updates with this one from the end of the 1970s. This Ferrari sound fits really well specifically with the 1979 mod, and other similar era seasons.
This is not a new download, but I was asked if I could share the 1994 Tyrrell separately from the mod. Here it is as a stand alone download, the Australian GP version.
I'm really excited to share with you this new car package, created in partnership with David Marques, for the 1995 season. It's a brand new Benetton B195 Renault that took Michael Schumacher to his second World Championship, in dominant fashion, and brought home the Constructors' Championship to Enstone for the first time.
After a tumultuous 1994 season, Benetton proved they were a Championship winning team, without the cloud of scandal and cheating hanging over them. For a number of years, Schumacher had shown signs of his generational talent, and it was on full display during a 1995 season when he did not always have the best car. In a genius move, Briatore had bought the Ligier team in 1994, which secured him the lucrative Renault engine contracts, which he duly put in the Benetton.
Johnny Herbert had a less happy time, as he and Flavio simply did not get on. However, the season still produced two wins for the Brit, but neither he, nor Alesi or Berger when they tested the car post season, were able to exploit the pace out of the Benetton that Schumacher was.
1995 Benetton B195 by David Marques and fongu
Similar to the 1994 Benetton that I created a year prior, I was able to use the Codemasters F1 2020 as a template to make this car, ensuring I had good accuracy and detail to emulate. I was able to create this car using my own skills and modelling preferences that I have acquired over the years. Having such a good reference really does help speed things up when modelling, but be sure to know that no parts of the Codemasters car is on this car, this is 100% my car shape. Similar to the 1995 Ferrari which I made a few years back (also with David Marques), I've tried to keep this car simple rather than spending too much time on the finer details, as I would do for the 1994 cars, however it still holds up in terms of quality.
Included are a number of shape changes as you progress through the season. The early season car started with a bendy edges to the front wing, the additional part of the rear of the airbox, and rectangular barge boards. The front wing became a more conventional flat shape for the later part of the season, along with a conventional smooth engine cover, whilst the bargeboards developed in shape, something they would keep for 1996 and 1997. There are also low downforce configurations for both the front and rear wings and hopefully all of these changes are captured in the release poster for the car above.
Whilst I did a very early draft of the livery, the main credits for the textures goes to David Marques in providing the textures and logos for the whole season. He was able to fix my terrible attempt at mapping and has done a great job in making the car look as great as it does.
1995 Benetton B195 by David Marques and fongu
Now before you get too excited about the rate at which I've been releasing cars of late, it's worth saying that the car took over a month to build, and I did about a year ago. The development of the car lay dormant for a long time until David Marques helped me to progress this project. It's probably of no surprise to you that the next car is not too far away, that being the 1995 Ligier, which on the outside, really resembles the B195. There are subtle differences and they did go in some different development paths, but more on that when that car is released. But to try and temper your expectations, after that release, don't expect the same rate of releases of more 1990s cars.
As with the 1997 Jordan released recently, this is a joint F1C '99-02 community and GP4 release. You can see how this car looks in that game, as well as downloading this car for F1C's 1995 mod here: https://wookey.forumotion.com/t1265-f1-1995-season
Whilst I admire and envy the editability that F1 Challenge game, I do think, albeit I am quite biased, that the cars do look better in GP4 overall. In parts, I wish GP4 had a similarly deep repository of mods. But I'm glad, as always, that my work benefits not just the one game, but is being ported and used in other games.
1995 Benetton B195 by David Marques and fongu
Back in the world of Grand Prix 4, at the moment, you will receive the car as a stand-alone package, but I do intend to include it as a 1995 mod update in the near future. I want to at least use a more up to date helmet shape for this Benetton and upgrade the helmet textures for Schumi and Johnny. Anyway, until then, enjoy this car.
