You know what makes for a good race? Being awake many, many, many hours too early.
You know what makes for a good race? Being awake many, many, many hours too early.
In reply to e30Matt :
I did a couple laps around Sugo in the sierra. That peaky power delivery is too wicked for me to deal with. Do not want to ever drive that car in a series.
e30Matt said:Ok, ran some laps in the other cars and have driven them all now at the Nurburg GP circuit, same day, time, and with 15 laps of fuel. My impressions:
M3 - 2:10.4, but can definitely get into the 2:09's. Slowest of the bunch but fantastic to drive. Would do well on really tight courses where power is less important, but would get murdered on super high speed tracks.
Ford Sierra - 2:10.5 but minimal tuning time. Has the capability to be extremely fast but due to the peaky nature is tricky to drive. If someone tames it then they will be very fast.
Mercedes - 2:09.4, 2:08's are definitely possible without much more tuning/practice. Similar to the M3 it's easy to drive, intuitive, and responsive. The Merc gets better pull out of some corners and overall I think has better gearing and a bit more torque. Slightly faster than the M3 in a straight line, but not by too much.
Audi - 2:09.2, one flying lap with no tuning other than trimming bump stops. This car has a ton of potential and with a little work I don't think the rwd cars can hang.
Skyline - 2:07.9, one flying lap with only a gear change. This car is an absolute ringer, out of the box it's running times as fast or faster than any of the RWD cars top leader board times, and according to those there's still another 2 seconds left in it. That said, it's also the easiest car to drive, almost alarmingly so. It does everything exactly as it should. The handling, grip, brakes, traction under power, all so easy a caveman could do it.
So we should all be driving the skyline and you will drive the M3? 
The AWD urge is strong I may be wanting the Audi. You all know me with AWD cars but that was the other game. I have not touched any of them in this game. I am hoping the fun carries over.
In reply to dean1484 :
I think that type of series could be fun depending on the tracks and fuel and tire usage. The AWD cars drive well but are heavy (the Skyline is 600# heavier than the M3) so I'm not sure how well their tires will hold up, and the massive power will require high fuel loads. So while they may be faster outright I'm not sure how it would play out over an extended race. Could end up being quite close but how each car gets there is very different
I was a bit disappointed that my best lap in quali was a half second off my best lap in practice, but was happy to start in P2.
I spent the first couple laps trying to stay ahead of Air and Dean, then after building a small gap started trying to hang with Sauce. That worked out until lap 6 when I spun. Didn't lose too much time and stayed in P2. Tires were way too hot. Just tried to knock out consistent laps from there to the end and was extra careful when lapping backmarkers. Dubai will be another new track for me.
EDIT: This was the first race where I left foot braked. I can see the advantages of doing it, but it does not yet feel natural to me yet and I need more practice for it to feel like second nature.
My race was lonely. 3 hours sleep meant limited amount of concentration for the race, so I only practice enough to ensure I could run consistent without spinning. My practice times only placed me 10th. I only ran 1 qualifying lap, but was faster and managed 6th. Then the race started and I got a good launch and picked up a position. My car seems to launch really well compared to everyone else. If it was a longer run to T1 I probably would have got at least alongside Dean, but I settled for tucking in behind him. He and Air got a bit of a gap going onto the back straight and that was that. They were faster, I wasn’t catching them unless they made a mistake. So I settled into running laps. I found time almost every lap but my pit crew was never satisfied, “That’s your best lap,” followed by “We just need a bit more, see what you can get out of it.” I heard that combo no less than 3 times. After the first lap, it was basically a time trial. There was a 25-30 second gap ahead and behind me. I guess pleasantly surprised with 5th.
Last night was fun. With the times TJ put up in practice and qualifying I knew he'd be on me and that was indeed what happened. I tried a bit too desperately to get a gap the first couple of laps and made some mistakes, none big enough to let TJ by but he was right on my bumper. Once I settled down and the tire temps/pressures evened out I decided to try running a qualifying lap in the hopes of either pulling a gap on TJ or getting him to make a mistake. It worked and I had a gap that stayed constant for most of the race. TJ nearly got a shot at redemption when a lapped AI car knocked me off track, but luckily I didn't spin and it ended up only costing me a couple of seconds.
Points updated. Dean and Air show... I mean replay is posted (but still not embedded). Apologies for fat fingering the button and having to catch back up to the end of the race, as a bonus you get to see how amazingly consistent my laps are at 5x speed.
Regarding the Dean contact: First of all, I think you can say I did a pretty good job of not hitting him... right up to the point that I did.
For the first one (18:10) it looks like I drifted (understeer) out and somehow got the worst of that and got pushed back to the inside. A bit of a "smash my face into your fist" kind of thing. I just did not get setup well for that corner since I normally oversteered through the whole thing. (I will try the new upload image feature here):
For the second one (42:20) that seems like what we have seen a few times, no view of someone next to you. I got inside then pinched as you came down for the apex which bounced you back out. I thought I drifted out (which I did ) and hit you a lot later then I did. I probably should have verbalized my position, but I was being a bit quite at that point since it was pretty clear you had "modified" your driving lines near the end there.
Good "not hitting Dean" practice for the most part and Dean did a great job of not being intimidated by me being VERY close to his bumper in many cases.
That was a fun reply to watch.
You did not look that close in my mirror. That was great fun Air!!!
After the first contact I slowed a little to see if you would catch back up. Then it was let the games resume. I was having great fun putting my car where you wanted to be. You did a fantastic job of keeping the pressure on. I tried to keep you guessing in the last corner as I could run that a couple different ways.
Dubai track temp starts at 145F. Going to be slippery with our overheated tires I'm guessing. Did a few laps to try to get to know the track.
I just tested for a while. Pressures stabilized at about 27.3. I may take a little pressure out but overall not bad. I was slow. Best was in the high 18s and the AI was in the 14s. I was averaging in the 19s or even the low 20s.
In reply to dean1484 :
Dubai National? I think we're practicing on different versions of the track because those times are not making sense to me.
EDIT: I am running 34-35's with my best laps in the 33's.
There is only one Dubi track yes?
In reply to dean1484 :
There are 3 configurations. GP, national and a third one.
I was doing what ever the track was that Brad was it set up for after last weeks race.
Ok going on now to see if I was on the wrong track
Wrong track on my part. I am on and sent invites to everyone
dean1484 said:I was doing what ever the track was that Brad was it set up for after last weeks race.
I was on 3 hours sleep, I can’t be held responsible for the events of last week.
Ok testing tonight was interesting in that with the higher tire temps camber on each individual tire becomes important. We also learned that tire pressure greatly effected your ability to get a one off best lap but would end up with a slower average. What I found was that a two psi pressure drop netted me a full second off my best lap but the average over the next ten was a full second or more higher per lap once the pressures equalized. Tire pressure also did not change overall temps that much. Camber did help with temps by slowing me to get a better tire temp average across a tire this netted me a slightly lower temp on Amy given tire. It also made the tires seem to be more predictable when you got them really hot. The driving on ice feeling was definitely much better.
The high track temps really make this one interesting. It is a tire torture test. I don't think there is any way to keep them from overheating, but it is possible to keep them in the green zone, but easy enough to get them to turn yellow if you overdrive or have a big slide.
There are a couple turns where I need to practice a bit more to figure out the best way through still, but it is a fun track overall. I think I have settled on my cold tire pressures and they are maybe 1.5# or so less than I ran at Sugo. This is the first race I remember where the tire pressures at the race start are below the steady state values, so the first lap actually has the lowest pressures that you will see the whole race.
I still have yet to turn a lap on this track, probably should do that tonight.
In reply to e30Matt :
In the same boat but given my current workload I’m not sure I’ll get any time prior practice tomorrow.
Its going to be a race where I get to see if I get faster through the race and can actually catch or stay ahead of the bots. I’m not going to have anything from you humans.
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