Friday, 7 March 2025

GP4: 1995 Benetton B195 by David Marques & Fongu

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. 

Happy racing!


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