GP4: fongu revisits 2020... and here's why

Recently I've been revisiting 2020. I know, I know, who in their right mind would want to revisit that year, we've all expunged it from our memories, I'm sure. But why am I going back to it? 

Well the F1 season was quite interesting, a bit different from the norm. Sure Lewis romped off to an easy championship, his last to date, but there were plenty of other things going on too. From remote controlled trophy celebrations, to the introduction of weird names for Grand Prix, to the crazy low grip asphalt at the Turkish GP that left the cars incredibly dirty in the rain, to that massive crash at Mugello and Grosjean's lucky escape in Bahrain. There was Perez's first win, Russell's debut in the Mercedes, Hulkenberg's great substitute drives and many other great stories. 

So I'm only revisiting 2020 in an F1 perspective, specifically modding 2020 content in GP4. I enjoy the mod, because the F1 calendar that year was interesting, a change from the same old tracks in the same old order. Mugello, the Nurburgring, the Algarve track, Istanbul and the outer track in Bahrain. It was also a 17 race calender, perfect for GP4! 

Back in 2020 and early 2021, I had released the Ferrari SF1000 and I had also released the 2021 Aston Martin livery on the 2020 Racing Point RP20. So I've gone back and given these existing cars in my back catalogue and added some new liveries. I've also backdated my Williams and Mercedes, as well as tackling the Red Bull car too. So there's basically half the 2020 grid updated here with new(ish) cars. 

Here's the details.

2020 Ferrari SF1000 - Tuscan GP livery

2020 Ferrari SF1000 - Tuscan GP livery by fongu

I decided to make the Tuscan GP livery on my version of the Ferrari and I wanted it to be more burgundy. Back then, I was a bit aggressive in my alpha channel editing and I've since toned that down and have been a bit more nuanced in creating them. I'm quite happy with the overall result and I'm very happy to share it with you. 

But the cars didn't look quite right, the 1000th GP for Ferrari deserves a better tribute. They needed the helmets to go with it. And boy did I regret that decision, because these were some difficult helmets to recreate. But I'm happy with the result, let's dive in to a bit more detail. 

Charles Leclerc's 2020 Tuscan GP helmet by fongu

Charles Leclerc's helmet, designed by Adrien Paviot, had a special livery for his Bell helmet. The helmet features the World Champions with paintings of each appearing on his helmet. Ascari, Hawthorn, Fangio, Phil Hill and John Surtees from the original era. Then there was Lauda and Scheckter from the 70s, through to Schumacher and Raikkonen from the early noughties. Then there's also the portrait of the man himself, Enzo Ferrari, in his trademark sunglasses appearing prominently on the top. 

Sebastian Vettel's 2020 Tuscan GP helmet by fongu

This helmet is more of a tribute than an accurate recreation of Seb's Arai helmet for the Tuscan GP. The helmet is split in two, the vintage side and the modern side, beautifully done by Jens Munser Designs. There's not a whole lot of photos around of this one, and there's a lack of replicas and models of it. I love the vintage side, with the creamy white strip on the top, the 'tea-stained' blueprint paper, and various technical scribbles and a blueprint of the Ferrari 325. Like I say, this is my version of it, rather than an accurate replica of JMD's one. I love the split, the original Ferrari logo, and JMD's hand written logo instead of his printed one. Then there's the modern side, with a more vibrant German flag, the glittery highlights, and of course the wireframe of my SF1000. The car is simply my car above with a screenshot taken from Zmodeler. 

As ever, thanks to Jvinu for his helmet shapes, templates and his original 2020 helmets guiding the contours of my version. Of course, this means the helmets are compatible with ASCPRH v1. 

2020 Racing Point RP20

2020 Racing Point RP20 by fongu

Racing Point took a massive risk in 2020. It was the (theoretical) final year of the current rule set, and similar to the 2025 season, most teams simply went for an evolution of their 2019 cars, concentrating their efforts on the new rules. But Racing Point went completely different, and instead went and made a copy of the Championship winning car. The 'pink Mercedes' plan worked for the large part, the team ran competitively, even running 1-2 during the Turkish GP, with Perez taking his first victory in Bahrain. 

I actually quite liked this version of the pink livery, the BWT lettering boldly emblazened across the engine cover and sidepods seamlessly. But due to the mapping of the car, I had to do some adjustments to the logos to make the result look right on the track. In fact, I hand drew the BWT logos, as well as on the front and rear wings. 

I've included Hulkenberg's number 27 car in this pack for his two stand-in races for the team, once for Perez, the other for Stroll. 

2020 Red Bull RB16

2020 Red Bull RB20 by fongu

This car is based off the work by Hega and Excalibur's 2021 RB16B and it's basically been restored to its 2020 version. I'm glad their liveries don't change much, year on year, so the textures are largely interchangeable. The textures on this car are made from scratch, but it helped alot to have a reference. I like the high rake on the car, the most aggressive in the field, contrasting with the pretty horizontal Mercedes and Racing Points cars.

Whilst the car was not as competitive as its successor, which won the championship, the signs of growing competitiveness were there, with Max taking two victories. Sadly, Albon struggled, but not without glimpses of his talent on show, it just wasn't particularly consistent nor frequent enough. Thankfully, it did not kill his F1 career.

2020 Williams FW43

2020 Williams FW43 by fongu

2020 was an important one for the Williams team, because the Williams family sold the team to Dorilton Capital, clearing their debts, and ushering in some needed new management and fresh capital. After three consecutive seasons of finishing last in the Constructors' Championship, 2021 saw the team start to become more competitive, and despite a dip in performance in 2022, the team have continued to progress since. 

I went back and looked at my 2021 Williams and I pleasantly remembered some of the really nice details I put into that car. However, that car did start its life as the 2020 FW43 and I found an older version that I could adapt for a fully fledged 2020 car. 

Although I did not bother with the launch livery, this car comes with three liveries. There is the early season livery, plus a version with 'thank you NHS' (the British National Health Service), and then the late season livery which was used from the Eifel GP (yep, another stupid name for a GP) at the Nürburgring. It also includes Aitken's livery when they raced around the outer Sakhir track so I guess that makes it four liveries. 

2020 Mercedes AMG F1 W11 EQ Performance

2020 Mercedes-AMG F1 W11 EQ Performance by fongu

The all conquering Mercedes team would dominate the 2020 season, but it would be their last, as the 2021 season will see a titanic battle for the Championship with Red Bull. This is the introduction to the first black Mercedes, thanks to the influence of Hamilton and their response to the hot topic agendas going on at that time. 

In terms of the GP4 car, this is largely based on my 2021 car, although some of the work was initially done by Isaint. The repetitive Mercedes badges across the engine cover, with five different sizes, took a lot of patience and perseverance but I'm really pleased with the overall result. There is also the number 63 car of George Russell included as well. 

GP4: Gezere's 2020 Alpha Tauri AT01 Texture Update

Well it's been a bumper week of downloads from me. When taking screenshots of the Gasly helmet, I thought I could do a tweak to the textures on the Alpha Tauri. It was a quick edit of the alpha channels to change the reflection on the dark blue, which is matte in real life, with the white parts of the car the classic shiny/reflective gloss. So I've tried to replicate in this little update. 

This is just a tweak to the work done by Gezere, and season updates by Gap177 and the pack only includes the textures.

GP4: 2020 Pierre Gasly Emilia Romagna GP Helmet (Senna tribute)

Well being such a nerd for the 1994 season, it would have been wrong for me not to remake this helmet, worn at Imola at the so-called Emilia Romagna GP by Pierre Gasly in his Alpha Tauri.

The yellow is iconic, and the view from the front in unmistakably Senna's iconic helmet look, particularly with the Honda logo on the visor. The Alpha Tauri logos look nice, albeit a bit too intrusive on the main design, but it's nice to have matte blue against the rest of the helmet which is classically shiny. 

There's tributes on the back to lives lost, to Ayrton Senna, to Jules Bianchi and to Anthione Hubert (maybe Roland Ratzenberger was missed because he doesn't have a fancy logo). Anyway, a lovely tribute to drivers lost doing what they loved.

Download

GP4: 2020 Lando Norris 2020 British GP Helmet

Looks like I'm in helmet mode right now. 

Here's what I thought was going to be quite a simple cut and paste job, but I think this is what cutting and pasting as a 6 year old looks like. Actually the helmet took a little bit of touching up, but I think it's pretty close to the real lid. 

Lando Norris decided to enter a each GP with a new helmet design and for the British GP, he held a competition to design one for him. The competition was won by 6 year old Eva Muttrum, and was an instant hit. 

Download

GP4: 2020 Haas Updated Liveries by Fongu & Excalibur

I wanted to update the liveries for the 2020 Haas painted by Excalibur as they were painted just before the start of the season, so this is just a small update to bring it up to date really. 

The changes are mostly very subtle. 

1. I've darkened the white a little, the reason being that I've added the white border on the nose. 
2. I've combined the front wing liveries from the launch and Barcelona test liveries. 
3. I've lightened the black stripes on the alpha channels, just to make them stand out a bit more. 
4. I've added the #WeRaceAsOne logo on the rear wing endplates. 

New default livery (Grosjean & Magnussen):

I've also added updated the livery for the final two GPs, with Pietro Fittipaldi jumping in the car for the Sakhir GP after Romain's horrific crash the previous week. 

And for the final round at Abu Dhabi, it was the Haas 100th GP, so I've added the 100GPs logo onto the nose and the airbox. 

A big thank you to Arnaud for his part in this project. 

Here's the link: 

Pre-season:

2020 season package:

GP4: 2020 Jack Aitken Helmet download

 

Here's another helmet for another 2020 stand in driver, Jack Aitken, as seen at the Sakhir GP. Jack, stood in for regular George Russell at Williams, who himself deputized for Lewis Hamilton who had fallen ill. Aitken did a great job that race weekend, and it was a shame that it ended with a crash. Honestly, though, I hope this is not Jack's only F1 outing, he does deserve to get a regular seat in F1 in the future.

A nice helmet to look at, and a real test of discipline to recreate! I count around 100 triangles, and it's almost but not quite symmetrical. On the starboard side, it's all different shades of (Williams) blue, whilst on the port side it's a mix of tartans and blues and greens. The design is a development of his previous couple of lids, which incorporates his JA logo (his initials). The British-born driver has Korean and Scottish heritage, says he was inspired by origami, and the tartan and the unicorn (the national animal of Scotland) on the back harks to the Scottish side of his ancestry. #YOTUS apparently stands for 'Year of the Ultimate Send'. 

Again, it's not 100% accurate, there's a little artistic license employed, but then again feel free to comment if you find any differences! Right now, I hate triangles and tartan patterns (I think I'm allowed to say that as a resident Scot)... I'm sure its only temporary! I'm happy enough with the end result, actually better than I hoped for at the beginning. 

As usual, I hope you enjoy it, it's all just for fun isn't it. 

GP4: 2020 Pietro Fittipaldi Helmet download

I'm flitting between a couple of different projects at the moment, I'll have some things to show soon. But it's 2021 launch season, and it means I'm gearing up to create a 2021 car. Not entire sure what yet. I'm still pretty new to Photoshop, and I'm gradually getting used to painting again. So here's something a bit different from me, Pietro Fittipaldi's 2020 Haas helmet.

I haven't painted a helmet since what feels like forever. It's probably because I'm not particularly good at it, and I'm not claiming this to be anywhere near a masterpiece. When I was painting helmets for mid-90's cars they were a lot more exposed. Now much of the helmet is hidden behind a Hans device, high cockpit sides and a halo. Essentially, my poor attempt can be hidden away. 

A nice helmet design, clearly inspired by Emerson Fittipaldi's helmet design from of old, with the circles reminding me of the top of Barrichello's helmet. I like the hints of chrome, GP4 allows me to use a dark grey on the helmet texture, with a white alpha channel giving a nice chrome like effect. 

This is designed specifically for the GP4 2020 mod and here's the download link: 

GP4: 2020 Ferrari SF1000 download

This is the 2020 Ferrari, the car is loosely based on the season closing Abu Dhabi GP. This is a light version of the car shape, so nowhere near the GP4 polygon limit and not in anyway set to replace Excalibur's excellent GP4 version. 

This was mostly me experimenting with some new techniques. It was also an opportunity for me to work on textures in Photoshop, and playing around in GP4 and trying to get a matte paint effect.

 

#ForzaAlex

This is a blog only release: 

Model Updates - first 2020 preseason cars by Spark

Hey model fans,

I hope you're keeping safe and healthy during this very strange year. 

I was so glad that we do have a 2020 season, and I've been so grateful for a shuffled calendar. 

No doubt the global pandemic has affected the model makers, but I'm glad to see that Spark have started releasing some 2020 F1 models, based on pre-season testing. So I've started a 2020 model summary page. I've been keeping the 2019 model summary page up to date too. 

With the new rules on the horizon, most teams have simply updated their 2019 cars for the 2020 season, with Racing Point being the only team to try a new concept, and it seems to be paying off for them. Now that the same chassis needs to be retained for the 2021 season, we'll be looking at these shapes for a while. With the global pandemic affecting revenues, some teams like Haas will not bring any upgrades to the car in 2020, only specific race setups. 

GP4: 2020 Haas VF-20 by Fongu & Excalibur Released

Here it is, the completed 2020 Haas VF-20: 

Pre-season:

2020 season package:

Into the archive:

- Haas F1 team VF-20_readme file ( tyres positions and rear lights positions included)

- 2 cars (Grosjean and Magnussen)

- Tex files (Launch and Barcelona pre-season testings liveries included)

Arnaud (Excalibur) has done a great job in the presentation as always, with fixing my mapping and doing a great job on the textures. I'm really pleased with the result. We hope you like it too.

Launch Livery:

Testing Livery:

GP4: 2020 Haas VF20 WIP 2

I've finished shaping the Haas car in recent days. Here's some shots of the car before I started attacking it with bodylines and final small details. The car came close to the GP4 polygon limit of just over 65,000 faces, and I've managed to finish the car with about 100 polygons to spare and no reduction in detail, so I'm quite pleased about that.

Not since 2011, when I created the Ferrari F150th, that I have created a 'modern' F1 car, having been focused on 1990s cars. So it was noticeable that with all the more complex winglets and details that everything took a while longer. For example, the 1990s cars had 3 flaps on the front wing and maybe a vane or two underneath, but now there are 5 elements with more complex curves, with curved holding devices and tyre sensors. 

Obviously the recent attention on the bargeboards area has sprouted so many extra vanes, with the Haas in particularly having lots of different elements. Thankfully there were just a development of the previous year's car, so it did not take too long to decipher photos. I decided to go for the gills on the side of the cockpit, as per the launch version and I almost regretted it when I was running low of polygons towards the end. I hope it adds just a little added interest as they tested various configurations of it during testing. 

For 1990s cars, I would usually be spending lots of time trying to brighten up photos and take a best guess, but thankfully at the launch of the real car in Barcelona, there were some very clear shots of the diffuser. The only element I did not include was the slotted vanes on the underside. The rear fins are unique on the Haas, with the S shaped vents. They seemed to have eliminated any vents at the leading edge of the rear endplate, which suited me when I was modelling it. 

From a more aerial shot of my car, you can see a bit more of the detail on the floor, the slotted vents and all their associated vanes and flips. In order to get all that detail, I had to be economical on the main shape whilst still keeping it smooth, which I think I was able to achieve. 

Since those shots have been taken, I have now mapped the car, split up all the parts to work in GP4 and put a very quick livery on it. The car is now with my friends at RSCT to put the livery on it, I look forward to the results. Until then, here's a quick screenshot of the car ingame. 

GP4: Haas VF20 WIP 1

I thought I would take a break from my 90's GP4 cars, and at the beginning of launch season, I thought I would tackle a 2020 car, and why not the first car that released pictures. It's now the beginning of May and the car is still a little way off.

The Haas VF20 is a mix between the 2019 Ferrari and the 2019 Haas. 

As with the 1995 Ferrari 412T2, I used a mixture of the high poly models of the Ferrari and Haas (around 90,000 faces) from Codemasters 2019 game and also the lower poly versions from Real Racing (around 32,000 faces), and I'm aiming to be somewhere in the middle. 

Work begins at the front of the car, with the nose from the 2019 Haas and the front wings from the 2019 Ferrari. 

As the car developed, I worked on the monocoque and main chassis structure. The rollover bar is mainly the Ferrari whilst the front of the sidepods and vanes are from the VF19. The actual sidepods themselves are unique, and it took a few goes for me to get them as I liked. The rear end of the car is very similar on both models. Front wing end plates have been added, it's basically the late season Ferrari one. 

Having completed the chassis (bar minor tweaks and improvements), I started working on the rear wing. The little indent on the top trailing edge of the rear wing is also unique, with the 2019 cars featuring only one dip in the middle, whereas the 2020 VF20 contains two of these dips. This is also the first halo I've created and I rushed them a bit, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I also started the first iteration of the boomerang wing, which featured on the late season version of the VF19. It took me a few goes to get this right. I also started work on the suspension elements, again mostly a direct copy from the 2019 Haas car. 

The front suspension upper arm at the front is now two separate elements, with a larger surface area to direct the air more. It reminded me of the late 2006 Super Aguri SA06 that I modelled years ago. The front camera was added, along with the top elements of the rear suspension and the beginnings of the super complicated bargeboard and floor areas, along with the triple boomerang that's unique on the 2020 grid. 

Below, this is the latest progress on the car, a lot more complete, but still a long way to go. I felt like the last month I've just been making flips and slots and they are taking forever to model! The vanes under the nose are from the Ferrari, with some additional vanes, and then the bargeboard area is largely a development of the 2019 Haas. The floor along with side of the sidepods is essentially the 2019 Ferrari except the very rear which is a bit more unique to the 2020 Haas. But as you can see it's just endless slots, managing the boundary layers and creating vortices and I can't wait to get to the end of it. 

I put a bit more detail into the cockpit, basing it more on the Real Racing 3 model which seems to have a more accurate cockpit than Codemasters which has a generic one. The mirrors are new, and they look very similar to the 2020 Ferrari. The sidepods and airbox have been refined as has the rear end. The diffuser is from the 2019 Ferrari with changes. The brakeducts have also been added, the rear one in particular has at least 9 winglets attached to it. 

Hope you like it so far. There's still someway to go - I've written a to-do list and it's too long to post here. But when its complete, I'll post some close up shots. 

Stay tuned for some more GP4 news coming soon.