GRM Project Cars 2 - Series 7: Enduring someone else's car choice

They did not over heat. The drop off was huge. The first half the race I was really fast but they would quickly ware and be the same at the hard tires by the 10 minute mark. By the 20 minute mark the were probably a bit worse than the hard tires. In practice I was in the low 04s in the race my best lap was in the 05s trying to not ware them off the car to fast. 

I also found the the low downforce tune is much better on the tires. I suspect that I slide the soft tires less and that means less heat  the other thing I noticed was with the soft tires I can get on the power much sooner and get less wheel spin.  They also get you much better braking.  

By the way the track temps were 140 at race start. 

The other thing with the soft tires is the ware to about the half way point and the pretty much stabilize there. The only other thing I noticed was my tire pressures were in the 30s where as the hard tires seem to stay in the 29s. 

I didn’t try the softs, but with the hards, once the right rear gets to about 220F the car has no rear grip.  If I drive carefully and focus on trying to be smooth I can keep that tire around 200F and things are ok. I think I’ll have to aim for 2:07-2:08 race pace and just learn to not crash or have on off for 30 mins. 

2:04 is my best lap so far, but I can only do it for a single lap due to tire temps. 

I’m going to try some setup changes to see if I can get it working better. 

Dean is at least 5 mph faster than me on the back straight when I am running my low downforce setup. (1F/2R). 

I've only got into the 5's but tire temps on hards seem stable and wear seems OK on longer runs.  I think I am running a bit more rear downforce than you guys.

The thing is if you run a high downforce setup the AI will run you over on the straits. I had them set at 95/25 and while I would qualify at the front if they are in range on the back strait and you are in a high down force setup they will run you over. My low down force setup is very drivable and I am seeing speeds in the mid to upper 170’s at the end of the strait. With my high down force I am in the very low 170’s and that is only if I get the perfect corner exit coming on to the strait.  

My thought behind my choice of this track is that it is about 50/50 high speed and twisty bits so you have to figure out what part to optimize your car for or see if a compromise is best. The date and time was to get the hottest track temps to also make the tire choices more challenging.  I can make it to the end of a 30 min run with ether tire but what is the best choice?  Be safe with hards but be consistently slower or go with softs and gamble you can jump to a lead than only use what you need to stay there.  

You all don’t want to know what Sauce’s lap times were.  

In reply to dean1484 :

Sure we do.

His best lap is two seconds better than my best lap. 

In reply to dean1484 :

I have gotten a couple laps in the 2:04's, but I can't really imagine where I could pick up 2 more seconds. I'll just have to focus on keeping the car off the walls and out of the grass for 30 minutes and take whatever finish I can get. I won't be able to compete on raw pace with you much less Sauce. I suspect Argo will be fast on the straights as well based on how the Ford GT AI cars perform at this track.

Air, how about I'll take the #92 car and you can have the #91 car, not that they are much different.

OK, that will work.

I am going to try and finalize my track/time choice tonight.

Softs are not a viable option for me for this race. I tried them out, thinking they may be useful for qualifying.

On softs, I can (sometimes) do a single hot lap before overheating the tires if I baby it on the out lap. I can get similar lap times on hards, but can do multiple concurrent hot laps, so no advantage for qualli and there is no way I could make them work for the race.

The Ford is pretty quick in a straight line but no threat when you factor in the time I'm going to spend in the fence.  I am way too hard on tires to get any use out of softs.

I made the softs work and I was down to about 1/2 remaining on my right front in the practice race tj and I ran. 

OK:

Nurburgring GP:  04/07/19 - Summer -  Real Time - 20:00 - Medium Clouds

Made it 30 mins with no crashes in a practice race using my tortoise strategy. Made the race 15 laps instead of 14 I was expecting. Only have average around 2:08 to make it a 15 lapper.  I mostly ran 2:07 laps.

Easier to pull off the tortoise when its only AIs, since you never get into tight wheel to wheel racing much. 

Real conundrum. I can run 06s for a whole race BUT I will screw up. There are three spots that I have to under drive to make sure I don’t screw up. I can run an 04 if I hit all three spots perfect but the risk versus reward is way to high. The other issue is with softs the last 10 minutes or so the overall grip is down to that of worn hards. If I run hards I never really ware them much but I am at least a second slower on them. 

The Ferrari is really good with tires with my current set up. I am hoping to gain an advantage by being able to use softs at some tracks where others can not.  The Vet and the GT 40 are faster cars but I am hoping that I can get them with a tire advantage.  

I just looked at the calendar and I am only going to make two races this series due to travel.  I will make the first two.  I won't even make my own race. So, I think it's only fair that I be allowed to win the first two races.

I haven't seen any wear on softs. It's really amazing. Although, I really haven't seen any wear on anything because I haven't run a lap since our last test. 

In reply to Argo1 :

It looks like I will miss the Spa week. That is a bummer, because I like the 1hr races. 

You are allowed to win the first two races, you just have to beat Sauce.

I am going to run 1/2 F/R downforce for the race. With that setup, I can hit 175mph on the back straight with a good exit from the bottom of the mountain. Not sure how much more I could get in a draft. I messed around a little with less downforce and it starts to make T2 too sketchy for me.

Seems to me that the best approach, is to try to tune the car to maximize the speed on the straights and survive the mountain because the best passing opportunities are on the straights, or under braking at the end of them. The last turn and T1 are easy spots to get past the AI. On the mountain, there really is little to no passing opportunities as long as the lead car stays on the racing line.

Round 1 results:

1 TJ

3 Sauce

4 Dean

9 Air

12 Argo

15 Brad

That track is enjoyable when you get it right and frustrating when it goes wrong. I ended up with a near spin at the left-right after the back straight which lost the small gap I had over Dean. Then I got on the throttle a little too aggressively with hot tires going around T2 and spun into the inside wall which lost me the lead. Other than those two little mishaps my race went well.  Having a pseudo reverse grid with Sauce at P16 to start I think was the only way I ended up winning, but I’ll take it. 

Did anyone save the replay?

I suspect Dean will be fast at Road America as well in his Ferrari. He had good pace at Bathurst and made me push more than I planned in an effort to stay ahead of him.

I did a bit better then I thought.  My last minute tune change was a life saver.  The tune I had for the previous track was not working for me at all.  My main issue was lack of practice for a pretty tricky track.  I did have an unfortunate incident with Argo at the start.  I am not sure if he came in on me in T1, or I was just too aggressive holding my line, but I ended up pitting him.  It probably didn't help that I did a few AI starts that rewarded me for getting some tires on the dirt in T1.

My race fell apart a bit at the end, which I think was mostly just loosing focus (I was holding a decent 4th place for the first part of the race).  The rear tires did not overheat as I worried about.  I did open up the brake ducts a bit before the race, so that might have helped.  It's probably not a bad idea to run the rears a bit larger then needed to help keep the rear tire temps down.

In reply to aircooled :

I think I had my rear ducts at 5% in an effort of maximizing speed on the straights. 

That track requires practice and maintaining focus and some luck.