GP4: 2024 Helmets v1.0 by fongu

It's race week for the first race of the season for the 2024 season. 

Are you excited? 

To celebrate, I've been working hard to bring you a complete helmet set in anticipation for the season. 

These helmets, as always, are painted on Jvinu's templates and shapes, without them this wouldn't exist. Thanks to Superman77m for providing lods for the shapes in the pack this season. 

Here's a quick run-down of the helmets and some personal reflections. 

Williams
Albon A striking new logo, along with a very clear blue and pink livery, MDM Designs designed this bold new look, painted by Mad56. The blue on the top for Komatsu is slightly different shade to the rest of the lid, but it doesn't look out of place at all. I like the clean design, it does pop, but I'm not too big a fan of this shade of pink.	Sargeant Logan's helmet is once again designed and painted by Uffe Designs. This season follows a similar theme, but it's simpler and bolder than previous iterations, and makes it an altogether more striking in my opinion. Dark blue, red and white, a colour combination known to work well together with flashes of sky blue. I like it.

RB VCARB, Racing Bulls, Red Bull 2, Toro Rosso? Who knows.
Tsunoda Yuki's new helmet is an iteration from his previous helmet, but this time with a blue base. Designed by Adrien Paviot and painted by BS Designs painted on the only Arai helmet on the grid again this season. To be honest, it's not as striking as previous version in my opinion, besides Red Bull logos which are given space, the other logos are lost or jar with the design. I still like it though, it's just not as good as previous versions.	Ricciardo Danny Ric has kept his design theme from last season. Designed and painted by JMD helmets, this season the helmet sticks with one grey pallette, and I like it. There's room on the back for his personalised messages, but I didn't spot any during testing.

Haas
Magnussen This helmet is really a big advert for Oakberry, much like Alonso's helmets were all done with BWT backing in 2022. It's a nice helmet design, but I miss the distinctive big K on the side. Magnussen has already had two helmet designs, there was a big purple triangle on the side on the first version, but I've opted for the later version that doesn't have it in.	Hulkenberg Both Haas drivers have a white helmet base with purple as a secondary colour, so it's not going to be too easy distinguish them at a glance. Designed and painted by JMD helmets, it's a much tidier design from last season's paint splashes, this season we have green stars. On the right hand side, gone is the simple HULK text, and in is the awkward HLKNBRG. Considering some of the beauties from his Renault days, I'm really not a fan of this one, sorry. This helmet has two distinct versions in pre-season, one has an additional green outline around the purple outline, the other without. I have included the additional green stripe in my version.

Aston Martin
Alonso Fernando's classic design has its roots from his Championship winning days, and as last season, has the Aston Martin wings worked into it. Nice work from MDM Designs, with the helmet painted by Bell Racing. Nice continuity from last season.	Stroll Lance has departed from his helmet design of the last few seasons, and this design, done by Mark Antar, is meant to remind us of his junior helmet design. A trend moving in is more exposed carbon, not just in car liveries, but now helmets too. And this helmet has its fair share of it, a desperate attempt to save weight. Would have preferred another wings design, but a nice green helmet nonetheless.

Sauber Sorry, I mean Team Hinwil
Bottas  This helmet is inspired by the Northern lights also known as the Aurora. Designed by Tiffany Cromwell and painted by Daniel Designs at Stilo helmets, this is a nice helmet design that works in the black and green car. It was a pain to paint and I'm not entirely happy with my effort here in all honesty, but it looks good enough - I hope you don't mind. Maybe this helmet will get an upgrade later in the year, we'll see. At one point in testing, Bottas ran a plain carbon helmet with logos on, but I didn't think it was fair on you to put that helmet in this pack.	Zhou  Zhou Guanyu has a familiar design, done by KV Designs, but it's now in black, with blue and holographic trim. It's also got some of the china pottery designs appearing in a few places. On the back, the skyline of Shanghai. A nice development, with a nod to his past helmet designs, I think it looks great. In testing he ran a version of the helmet with plain grey replacing the holographic effect, which took away a little of its charm for me, so it's the original launch spec I include in my pack.

McLaren
Norris  Lando has taken his helmet design in-house and has come with a completely new concept for his helmet design. The neon yellow remains, now with black blobs (with a slight green shadow). In testing, he arrived with an updated design, but it's the launch spec helmet design that's in this pack.	Piastri  A very similar design from his 2023 helmet, and keeping the same colours, albeit with the black strip to house the new Monster logos added in. Another nice helmet from MDM Designs, painted by BS Designs.

Alpine
Ocon  Esteban has come up with another red helmet, because he's a Schumacher and Spider-man fan. It's quite a clever design, with EO and 31 worked together into the design on the side, with more exposed carbon worked into the design. I like the design and concept from MDM Designs (and painted by Bell Racing), but the exposed carbon doesn't work for me.	Gasly  This season's helmet is now all sky blue, designed by Adrien Paviot. The design itself has continuity from previous designs, but with a lot more gradients and shapes added. I'm really glad that the logos plastered randomly all over the helmet are gone, this lid should stand out from Esteban's nicely.

Mercedes
Hamilton  With the shock news that Ferrari had signed the seven-time World Champion, I suppose we are all the more eager to see what helmet design he will have when he goes there. Until then, we have this Mercedes GP helmet. Thanks to KV Designs, this helmet is an iteration from the previous seasons design, with more purple and less neon yellow. Whilst it might not pop as much in the cockpit, it is still distinctive, so no complaints from me here.	Russell  George's helmet is a clear development from his previous year's helmet. Amazingly, there's relatively few shots of it around the internet, so I've had to take a litte artistic license on the rear of the lid. He's also ran two different lids in pre-season, one with more blue gradients and sharp black lines, the updated version (included in this set) has a plain blue base, but with slightly blurry black edges. I've not been able to ascertain who designed and painted the helmet yet.

Ferrari
Leclerc  Another helmet from Adrien Paviot, Leclerc's helmet has a deeper red worked into his now familiar design. His name and his number are worked into the background, making it more busy than previous helmets. The deeper red is slightly shiny metallic, so looks better in real life, but I have to say, I'm not a fan of this one.	Sainz  Carlos has his helmets designed and painted by Dave Designs, and has the familiar red and yellow strips rearranged for the new season. A nice new element are the stripey parts on some of the red and black parts that just add a bit of shade.

Red Bull
Verstappen And last but not least, Max's helmet is a rehashed version of this Monza helmet from 2023. Inspired by his father Jos' helmet colours, the colours are more bold and vibrant. Done by KV Designs and painted by JMD helmets, Max also ran two slightly different variants of this design in testing. The silver strip was repositioned and worked into the main blue section on the updated design, but I've included the original iteration in this pack.	Perez Checo has his helmets designed by MDM Designs and painted by Jens Munser (JMD). This season has another Mexican inspired pattern on the blue base, and whilst it was a bit of a pain to do, looks nice. The Mexican flag is a fixture on the top of the helmet, and a deeper yellow has been worked into the design. It's familiar enough, yet tweaked enough to make it distinct yet recognisable as Checo's helmet - not an easy task to achieve.

Phew, that's it! 20 new helmets and a brief run-down on each one. 

Which is your favourite, or which one you do you like least? Comment below. 

Thank you for your support. Happy racing. 

GP4: 2024 Red Bull RB20 Launch Car Released

It's the day before pre-season testing for the 2024 F1 Season and I have a little gift for you.  

I proudly share with you the first 2024 car to be released in GP4...

Nope, this is no joke, I really do have a brand new 2024 car for you to download and enjoy in GP4. 

Whilst the car was only launched a few days ago, there was, albeit briefly, an augmented reality version of the car available on the team's website. I was able to use this car as a base for my own work. It wouldn't have been possible to create this so quickly without it and with so much mystery still behind what Red Bull have created for 2024. 

I have a hunch that this version of the car will change, perhaps quite dramatically, through the season, so I'm sharing this as the launch specification, whilst it is still relevant. Whilst it seems like most cars on the grid converged upon the dominant 2023 Red Bull RB19, Adrian Newey had other ideas and moved the goalposts once again. If rumours are to be believed, this car will adopt a Mercedes (now abandoned) zero-pod concept, along with the engine cover 'cannons'. As impressive as this car looks out of the box, our hope must be for a closer championship than we've seen in the last two seasons. 

If the car does change, then at least I have a good base to start making some changes to the shape. Because of that, I've not created any lower lods for this car yet. You'll notice that the preview shots below reveal Max Verstappen's 2024 helmet, which is little changed from his 2023 Italian GP lid. Work has begun on the 2024 helmet set, but drivers have been known to change designs before the first race, so I'm not in too much of a rush just in case my efforts turn out to be in vain. 

As I said above, I'm only able to share this car quickly with you because I had a very good base to begin with, so don't expect any other 2024 cars by me until later this year. Anyway, here's the download link for the 2024 Red Bull RB20. Happy racing!

GP4: IMSA 2.5 Random - Porsche 963 LMDH Expansion Pack Released

No sooner had the ground breaking IMSA 2.0 mod released alongside an updated Zaz Tools, Meteoro405 had already started work on version 2.5, the Porsche 963 LMDH Expansion Pack, and now it's released and available for you to download and play.

Yes, that's right GP4 now has its first LMDH car, and I'm excited to announce this because I brought the car into GP4. The car is from mobile game, Real Racing 3, the files extracted by GM25, and the liveries are by Franx D'Aloia and Martin Designs. So I can't claim too much credit, but I think it looks great in GP4. Some of the cars in the existing mod also have their roots in the Real Racing 3 game. 

Meteoro405 has kindly added this car pack into his excellent mod, as well as other really nice CSM menus, graphics, team arts, videos and more. 

You can read more about the mod on the release thread here: https://www.grandprixgames.org/read.php?4,1169296

To install there are three necessary steps:

1. You must have the latest edition of CSM  1.27C (Zaz Tools) installed.
2. You must have IMSA 2.0 Random Mod installed.
3. Download and install v2.5 - Porsche Expansion Pack.

GP4: 2015 Track Pack released

It was when I was adding the track pack page to this site that I thought I could create some trackpacks to fill the gaps. With a 2016 trackpack compiled by Phantaman already available, I set out to compile and share packs, where there were none before, from 2001 through to 2016. So the release of this one means I've fulfilled one of my plans. I may compile one or two more in the future, depending on what is available.

For 2015, the Mexican GP returned to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit. Sadly the famous Peraltada corner is gone, and pretty much every corner being reshaped in some way to the configuration it had back in the early 1990s. However, a stadium section was added to the end of the track, and whilst it is quite 'Mickey Mouse' for the drivers, provides a great atmosphere and podium celebrations. 

The German GP did not take place in 2015, with the Nurburgring unable to host the race and Hockenheim unwilling to fill in. Whilst the Nurburgring would not host the 2017 race either, the F1 circus to return for a one-off race there in 2020 where a 17-race calendar was scrambled together. 

Back to the world of GP4, I mentioned in the 2014 Trackpack that the new RSCT created Red Bull Ring was created for 2015 and included in this pack. F1Virtual also released a beta for their version too. It's the RSCT version that is included in this pack simply because it is more complete, both are great though. 

RSCT also released their version of Sochi, their tracks exploring the limits of what GP4 is able to handle. 

With no updates to Yas Marina and Interlagos since the 2012 versions, we have to settle for the original versions, as well as the 2013 edition of Monza, and the 2014 updates of Monaco and Singapore. 

Circuit	Author
Australia  Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne	Jcaranti, F1Virtual
Malaysia  Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur	Jcaranti, F1Virtual, Augustogibim
China  Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai	Jcaranti, F1Virtual, Augustogibim
Bahrain  Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir	Jcaranti, Tumyeto, F1Virtual
Spain  Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló	Jcaranti, F1Virtual, Augustogibim
Monaco  Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo	Hega, JCaranti, TTM, MarioB, Ricardo Lampert, Schueyfan, Josekast, drt01
Canada  Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal	Jcaranti, Prunn, TTM, Augustogibim
Austria  Red Bull Ring, Spielberg	RSCT
United Kingdom  Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone	Jcaranti, drt01, gildoorf
Hungary  Hungaroring, Mogyoród	Jcaranti, F1Virtual
Belgium  Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot	Jcaranti, drt01, Josekast, F1Virtual, schueyfan
Italy  Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Monza	Hega, TTM
Singapore  Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore	drt01, Jcaranti
Japan  Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka	drt01, Jcaranti, Augustogibim
Russia  Sochi Autodrom, Sochi	RSCT, Schueyfan, SkaaningeN
United States  Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas	Jcaranti, drt01
Mexico  Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City	Flash Formula, Ayman
Brazil  Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo	Jcaranti, Neil Caine, Jucksman, gildoorf, ruboy, prblanco, schueyfan, lo2k
United Arab Emirates  Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi	JCaranti, Josekast, KTC, Tojepo, Tumyeto

This package is structured to work with TSM, from Zaz Tools. Due to the size of the files, I was unable to package them using TSM. 

To install, simply extract the files into your GP4 directory. If you have the default track directory set in TSM, it should pick up the profiles and tracks straight away.  

Alternatively, these tracks work fine using GPxPatch direct. 

GP4: ICYMI - January in GP4

There is a huge amount of work that goes into mods for GP4, and sometimes there is a large gap between downloads. But this past month has seen some significant downloads become available and, in case you missed it, here's some more info about it. 

Zaz Tools Update 1.27c by Zaz
	Update 14/01/2024: ZaZ fixed an issue with the PreExecute-variable. The fix is now included in version 1.27c.  I know Carl has had some issues with the mediafire account, but here's a working mirror link.
	Info

IMSA 2.0 Random
	We have Meteoro405 to thank for the CSM update, and this updated mod makes full use of its new features.  Essentially, there was a bug in the loading up bat files. Ariel has written a bat file that produces random variables each time you load the mod.  There are also various track livery options that there are many possible car wad files possible with just a few clicks.
	Info

WEC HUD by AugustoGibim
	TV Style onboard cam for WEC Series 2023.  This HUD goes great with the mod above.
	Info

F1 2000 Mod by rracunis
	Hega has been releasing a lot of 2000 content in the past year, making use of EnzoJZ's models that were left gathering dust for over a decade. They've been updated, mapped and painted, along with helmets, cockpits and other things. Rracunis has kindly put it together in a mod, based on my 1994 CSM mod structure.
	Info

Bell Helmets Pack (XFM-1, M3, AFX-1, Vortex) by Öggo
	Öggo has been slowly working away at various late 1980s - early 1990s helmets, and we've had fantastic Arai, Rheos and Shoei helmets already. Now we have four new helmets, all of them various Bell helmets used in F1 and Indycar. You'll also see these helmets in Assetto Corsa in not too long. I've already started to use the templates on some of these helmets already, I look forward to sharing some of them with you in the not too distant future.
	Info

Sebring International Raceway by drt01
	This is another brilliant track addition to GP4. drt01 has done a fantastic job putting this together. The track is really bumpy, probably the bumpiest track I've tried.
	Info

This is not a new release, but new to my downloads page. 

F3000 International Masters by yaya
	This is a little conversion from Race07, nicely done by yaya.
	Info

Thanks for your support and keeping this site going. Keep racing.