No research done but still the best car?

[jimpanse3000]

In my latest save i am playing Williams, who are backmarkers at the beginning. Over the course of the first season i only developed the existing car as far as i could (while not researching any part!) and finally made it to a decent midfield team by the season finale.

Starting the new season i was curious how the car would perform, since i didn't do any research last year. To my surprise the car was a beast, being nr.1 in every category but engine cooling (3rd).
So of course i had a 1+2 in the first race by a big margin. And that kind of kills my motivation to continue with the save - i mean "from last to first" in just one year, wheres the fun in that. specially since i didn't do anything for it.

So now my question is: how can that be? Did anyone have the same "problem"?

[R 4 Y D E N]

in my opinion is a bug, I'm in the third season (second race) with HAAS any despite strong develop and research, 1st season I closed 7th in constructor and in the second season I closed 4th in contructor (but 2nd in drivers with Gasly). Now, with a lot of research in 2nd season, I'm still behind Ferrari and Red Bull, at least in the first couple of races...
Quite impossible without research to have the best car. What is strange is that I always read of people that dominated with Williams in the second season...and You are the last of many. That's way I suppose a possible bug related to Williams only.

[kingarthur772]

Yes R & D and an good Pre-Season-Research for the Car is very important. I see that with HAAS too and tested it with Williams already too.

As well as the complete Buildungs in the HQ which have a lot of Importance too for the Cars, Drivers, Sponsors and all other Team-Parts.

Could be an corrupt File or Save. Jimpanse3000 did you use an inofficial Mod or have you used an inoffical Mod?

If the Answer is yes, then make an Steam-Check and let repair Steam the corrupted files. Then it should work correctly again. If not you have to make the Hard Reset of the Game (Deinstallation, and Deletion from the Remaining Manually and an complete fresh installation).

[SailMan]

I know you said you didn't do research. But did you abuse the design aspect of it ? If you read through the history of this forum, you'll find plenty of people who managed to win with Williams in 2nd season. Common theme in all of them was that they abused the heck out of the design feature of this game.
That part needs to be rebalanced, but yeah if you don't abuse it, you'll see more realistic approach as Raven mentioned.