GRM Project Cars 2 - Series 8: All the women (or men) who are Indy-pendent...

Decent qualification I end up in 4th. Lap one go to the outside heading to turn one and back out of it a bit thinking I would just slide in at the back at the AI loves to punt you in T1. . But the AI decides to have a big wreck and I am now stuck there on the outside with three cars blocking the track. With one car on top of another. The  AI is stupid and it takes for ever for the track to clear. So by turn two I am more than a half lap behind race over. At this point I decide to take a phone call so I put the AI in. Got back in the car at the halfway point and ran some ok laps but also made some dumb mistakes. 

In reply to dean1484 :

So, spinning into the pits is now "decided to take a phone call"?

That was a challenging track that punished mistakes. Other than one collision with an AI that Brad witnessed where I plowed into a slow AI backmarker going into the fountain, I could've made the race with damage on and been ok other than that. Not sure if I could pull that off again.

I was happy to get into the 1:06.2's for qualifying. That was my fastest lap ever there, so I'm glad that I could get it when it counted.

Sorry I missed for some reason I thought it was today and I was practicing until 8pm last night and logged off.

In reply to trigun7469 :

No worries. Laguna Seca next week....on Wednesday night.

T.J. said:

I was shooting for an average laptime of 1:09 and managed to average 1:10.3 excluding 1st lap and pit-in/pit out laps. If not for my 3 bad laps, I would've averaged 1:09.5.

When I exclude the 1st lap and pit in/out laps I also averaged a 1:10.3.  I'm sure if we were both on the same strategy from the beginning things would have been a bit different, but that's still amazingly even pace between the compounds.

My strategy from the beginning was just to run hards.  I couldn't keep the reds under the car for any extended period of time but could thrash the hards for longer than the fuel will last without worry.  Rather than try extreme pace management it was just easier to learn how to drive the hards and be done.

From practice I knew I couldn't touch TJ's outright pace, and my hope was to start P2 and hold it.  I learned from the practice race I did before that the car is hard to drive the first few laps until everything is properly hot and some fuel burns off.  I ended up making a couple mistakes and letting both Dark and an AI through.  Then Dark had an issue at the roundabout which caused the AI to just stop, so I took the joker lap and cut straight through the roundabout.  The joke ended up being on me, the stewards weren't too keen on that move and I had to give P3 back to the AI, which cost me about 8 seconds waiting for him.  

After that it was a game of cat and mouse with TJ, and I closed the gap quite a bit but from his lap times it was apparent that he wasn't out of tire yet.  I was starting to get nervous that he would do a one stop strategy too, and if he did it would be close but he would have the upper hand.  I would be faster at the end, but he would have track position and it would be very difficult to get past.  When he pitted with 38 minutes left I was relieved as it was too soon to execute a one stop strategy and make it on fuel.  After that it was just hammering out laps, trying to keep it clean and maintain he gap as best I could.  I did end up getting hit by the AI twice, once in the last corner and once immediately after which cost me some time, but fortunately other traffic wasn't coming and I got going again without compounding the issue.

I think this is going to be a fun series from a strategy perspective, it seems like there are going to be multiple options that end up being about the same overall pace, which should make things interesting.

In reply to e30Matt :

Well, running a simlar pace as you but taking, not one, but two additional pit stops provided a predictable result.

I was really surprised that I could've easily done a 1 stopper on reds if it wasn't for my fuel. In the 30 min practice race I did, I struggled a lot more with tire wear and had nothing left of the front left by lap 17. I'll have to be more prepared for Road America and hopefully give you a better run for your money.

I had no practice so I was slow just trying to figure out which way the track went. I think I qualified around 10th or so. Carnage in the first turn moved me up. 6th was the best I ever saw. 

I was planning a simple one stop on blacks. Obviously I didn't set my pit strategy correctly because it didn't change tires. Two stops later it still didn't change tires so I put in an AI who seemed to be able to run 1:10s on completely bald tires. Wound up 12th.

I would be looking forward to the familiar Laguna Seca track except that I now have a scheduled meeting and may miss next week.

T.J. said:

In reply to dean1484 :

So, spinning into the pits is now "decided to take a phone call"?

That was a challenging track that punished mistakes. Other than one collision with an AI that Brad witnessed where I plowed into a slow AI backmarker going into the fountain, I could've made the race with damage on and been ok other than that. Not sure if I could pull that off again.

I was happy to get into the 1:06.2's for qualifying. That was my fastest lap ever there, so I'm glad that I could get it when it counted.

I spun in to the entrance backwards so I just drove back out on to the Ft strait.  That happened after I got back in the car I think.  

Argo1 said:

I had no practice so I was slow just trying to figure out which way the track went. 

Says the one who suggested the track. 

In reply to dean1484 :

Ok. I just remembered you saying you spun into the pits at some point, but wasn't sure when that was. That track required a good bit of focus.

Road America will be fun in these cars. Not too upset about missing Laguna Seca. Not one of my favorite tracks. 
 

EDIT: I still can't figure out how to drive the black tires without overheating them. I can do a lap or two at RA before the rears are Yellow-orange then they lose a lot of grip. I may be stuck again using the reds. 

In reply to T.J. :

Try increasing the pressures by about 2 pounds all around. You'll lose some peak grip but it should help with the overheating. 

In reply to e30Matt :

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

I should be around for Wednesday.  I had to miss last week because I was rather ill.

Going to try and get some laps in tonight

Fell asleep on the sofa last night. 

I did a few laps last night, the AI is pretty slow here. I think they're trying not to overheat the tires and just take it easy in some corners, but I was 2+ seconds faster than them on my first flying lap on hards and full fuel. Not sure on strategy yet, still need to try some stuff. 

Last night was fun and miserable at the same time. I've been trying to get back in shape and this week has kicked my ass. My whole body hurts. My shoulders were screaming the whole race. But I made it through. 

I had a good qualifying run, getting pretty close to 3rd. I was actually 6th but the difference was 0.04 seconds to 3rd. I think I'm pretty good in these cars if I can just get a bit of practice and not throw it away. 

Speaking of throwing it away, that's exactly what I did at the start of the race. As we launched I got a jump on the car in front of me, it went to the left so I stayed right to try and get a run going in to T1. Well the road goes left and when it did I was spinning tires on dirt and then looped it. Went from 6th to last before the first corner. Nice. I was about 20 seconds back by the time I got righted, but because of everyone being bunched up on the first lap, I was able to cut that gap down a good bit by the end of the lap. I got up on trigun and tried to make a clean move but couldn't find the space, he was slow in the wrong spots for me to get a run. I tried a couple times and ended up in panic braking trying to not hit him. After the left hander going up the hill to the corkscrew he went wide and I shot inside. I thought I was clear and by him but then my car jerked right and off into the dirt. I saw trigun spinning behind. I stopped and waited for him to recover and take the spot back. I spent another couple laps trying to get cleanly by without success when he had an off I was released. 

The next bit of drama came on my first scheduled pitstop. I was coming down the hill with my pit request having been acknowledged and got a message "Pit stall occupied". So I had to abort and run another lap on bad tires. I'm sure that cost me 4-5 seconds. I think Dean was right, I should have just pitted anyway. 

By this point in the race my only potential position was a fuel conserving Dean. He made his stop just after the 30 minute mark. I over took him while he was in the pits, so I tried the F1 "overcut" strategy and ran the hell out of my tires for a lap and a half to try and build a gap for my final pitstop. It was an on the fly strategy change that didn't work out. After my pit stop I was able to close the gap down to like 12-15 seconds, but then I ran out of tire and started falling back. 

I took a third stop for fresh tires to try and get the fast lap bonus and my pit crew decided to completely fill up the gas tank with 70 liters. That didn't help. I had a quick lap going to literally the last corner and got greedy try to get down the front straight and lost it. 

Meh. 

A complete strategy race for me.  I ran the car full lean and was short shifting.  This netted me plenty of fuel that I could then up the performance at the end of a stint when I was sure that I could make it on fuel and tires.  As for tires the answer was "Yes"  LOL  I had primary on the front of the car and the reds on the rear.  This made the car really easy to drive and got rid of all the sliding of the rear of the car due to the car being very loose on the blacks.  On blacks the sliding was causing the rear tires to over heat after 4-5 laps.  I think this is just a driving style and tuning thing. Because my car setup was to loose.  I should have worked on getting the balance better with the blacks.  Probably should have taken some front wing out of it or softened the rear and or done some dif adjustments to get less rear sliding/rotation out of the corners.  With no practice except for the hour leading into the race the mixed tire setup was the easy button.  I was not really sure that I was going to make the fuel to half way.  I set my default strategy pit stop for the one stopper but I had a second pit stop that was for 50l total and all reds in case I got to the 20 minute mark and I was not going to make it on one stop.  Had a weird close encounter with Air.  He must have missed his brake point as he tapped me from behind and I got a warning.  With about 10 minutes to go I knew I was good on both tires and fuel so I decided to change back to full rich and for some reason it was a PITA and I slowed allot between turns one and two letting Air catch up to me.  I probably should not have done that and just ran out the race on the lean setting.

I went with Dean's assessment that it was a very close two stop race.  I ran blacks because I knew I would somehow destroy the reds and the black allowed for a LOT of leeway, driving wise, they were also only a bit slower then AI on reds. I had a pretty good technique going for the blacks, although, they could get a pit loose coming out of corners (especially when used).  Fuel was pretty close at the half way point so I started some fairly aggressive over shifting for the second half.  It was a bit of blind luck I did not run out of fuel since I had 1.3 liters as I crossed the finish line!

I would have done a lot better if I didn't start loosing a bit of focus near the end and made a few screw ups.  I think all where from using too much power coming out of corners.

Not a good start of the race for me I had a baby crying and a wife bitching at me.

In reply to BradLTL :

Partly my fault being a slow driver with almost no experiences with cars 2 and then I was locking up every corner even when i lightly touched the brakes. For some reason Cars 2 I have had a issue. I got tagged a couple times because of my braking. I run a Logitech G29/G920, I have adjusted the brake pressure, controller settings, and even removed the black plastic square where the Spring is, so not sure how to fix it. One of you mentioned Push to pass which I didn't know was available, so I was cycling through the controls towards the end of the race to find it and lost my rearview mirror, so I was cycling again got distracted spun backwards into the pits and was DQ'ed.

In reply to trigun7469 :

We were talking after you got off. We probably need to give you the crash course (pun intended) on PCars2. 

As far as brakes go, I have the G29 and I swapped the brakes to the clutch pedal. I couldn't ever get accurate and consistent inputs on the brake pedal. I assume this is a driver issue. The other thing I do is reduce the brake pressure in the setup. Depending on car I run between 85-88%. This helps with lock ups. 

Also sorry about punting you the second time. It appeared that you stopped before the corkscrew, I'm guessing you locked up again.  It wasn't for position or I would have stopped again. Plus I was chasing Dean, and you know...

My race wasn't terribly exciting except for a couple self-inflicted spins and some shunts from the AI.  I got a great launch and due to people being careful in the first few corners had a 2s lead quite early.  I built that up over the next few laps only to drop a tire and give it all back.  DK and I had a few close laps after that, but it seemed like he was struggling a bit with tire heat/wear on the reds and had to drop back a bit.  After that it was just running until fuel ran out, pit, repeat.  However, on my second stop I got pummeled by the AI leaving the pits and lost a ton of time trying to get back on track.  I also forgot just how slow that AI was through the 2nd to last corner and had multiple issue there.  The entire rest of the lap I would gain slightly, but in this one place they would absolutely park it.  One of the times I was 5+ car lengths behind at corner entry and hit the AI at the apex.  I really don't get how they were taking a corner so slowly, but compared to their pace on the rest of the lap it was very incongruous.  

Happy birthday Brad!

The Mrs. is working tonight, so I should be on for some Road America practice/tuning.