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

In reply to T.J. :

Thanks man. I've officially moved into the age where I drive 35mph regardless of where I am and my left turn indicator most be on while the car is in motion. 

I definitely need some work with these cars to hopefully figure them out before the season ends. Raising tire pressures did help with my prime tire overheating problem, but I am still 3-4 sec per lap slower on them. Hopefully I will have some time this weekend to work on things a bit more in terms of setup and driving technique.

There is one key to driving the prime tires and that is they do exactly one thing at a time.  You brake in a straight line, you coast through mid corner, you accelerate when the wheel is mostly straight.  If you overlap your inputs you will overheat them in short order, and they don't come back quickly.  You also have to be MUCH more delicate with your inputs.  The alternates will let you do whatever you want and don't have any ill effects of abrupt inputs other than a bit faster wear.  The prime tires do, especially in accelerating.  Trail braking must be kept to a minimum and you really have to roll throttle to avoid wheel spin/excess heat.  

The biggest thing is that you absolutely CANNOT drive both compounds in the same manner.  It isn't a matter of adjusting your braking/acceleration points, you fundamentally have to drive the car differently. IMO you have to pick a compound and commit to it because if you have a rhythm on one compound you can't just swap to the other and maintain that rhythm.  This is the reason I qualify on the prime tires, the alternates are faster but it isn't worth being out of rhythm at the start of the race.  If qualifying was longer like the last series I would do some laps on alternates at the beginning, set a fast time, then go to primes and be in sync for the race, but that doesn't work in a sprint qualifying format.

Of note, I haven't really deviated from the default setup much except for trying some setups sent to me.  That said, be aware that setups optimized for one compound may have even more adverse effects with a different compound.

Last week ended up being a mess with work. Today/tomorrow I'll be on the road. I guess that leaves me Tuesday to see if I can figure anything out for Road America. I haven't done nearly the practice that was hoping to get in. I doubt I've even ran more than a 5 lap stint so far.

I tried the do one thing at a time on primes and that gets me off the pace by at least 4 seconds a lap, so that does not seem promising. Low downforce setups are faster on the many high speed sections, but end up being slow and killing the tires in the carousel. I think I'll try a medium-high downforce setup and based on how things have gone so far, just run the alternates and pit often and hope to finish the race without quitting from frustration.

I agree down force is going to be the key.  I want to try a low down force setup on the reds and see how that works.  I guess the key would be to keep adding down force until you stop sliding the car.

I ran some laps last night, the AI is fast here but I don't know what tire wear is going to be like. I didn't run any long stints as I was trying to work on setup/gearing, but after all of my fiddling my fastest time on primes had me DFL behind the AI with my fast time being a 1:48 something and pole in the 1:46's.

Based on that I definitely need to reevaluate my setup/tire choice because unless the AI need at least one extra pit stop I'm not sure I can keep up. I haven't played with aero at all yet, but I'll echo what others have said about that likely being the key. 

I did some practice starts with a field of AIs. It wasn't pretty. I don't envision qualifying near the front of the pack. Let's just say that if damage was on, I would have to pit at the end of lap 1.

The AIs kill me in the carousel, so I am thinking I need to add more downforce.  I've been passed around the outside in turns 8 and 12, so I guess I am braking too much and entering the corners too slowly. They tend to pass me on the inside at turn 14. Basically they are faster than me just about everywhere.

I am doubtful I'll be able to stay on the lead lap at this track.

In reply to T.J. :

What kinds of lap times are you running? It may be that the AI is just stupidly fast here but I haven't had a human to compare to. 

My fastest laps are in the 1:47's, but a typical decent lap for me is mid 1:48's. That is pretty much going full tilt, so race pace will be more like 1:50 I suspect, but I still haven't ran more than a few consecutive laps to really know. I guess at this point about the best I can hope for is to take whatever setup I have and just try to learn to be consistent with it, I just think that doing that will put me behind all of the AIs.

In reply to T.J. :

That's about where I am. I'll be on tonight if you (or anyone else) wants to join and compare notes. 

I spent a couple hours in these [canoes] this morning, they're a lot of fun. 

Going to try and be on as well tonight.  

In reply to Arsmartina :

Too bad we aren't racing canoes

I wish I were an Indy Savant like Brad.

Not sure if I'll be on tonight, but I hope so, at least for a bit.  With a medium downforce setup, I get passed by the AIs in the carousel and on the straights, so that's not working out for me so far.

In reply to T.J. :

My savant level is approximately your "forgot to practice" level. And, you're practicing...

Ok, I feel better about tomorrow after tonight's practice. I now have a reasonable expectation of staying on the lead lap. (Lead AI car was about 28 seconds from lapping me at the end of 60 mins.)

Did learn some good pit strategy info and ended up with an improved setup  

Dark and I practiced for another hour and a half and I got my setup dialed in much better. Dark gave me a couple tuning tips that helped with the car hooking up coming out of corners and generally made it stick better. I now need to dial in tire pressures again as the fronts can get up to 27+ psi and they start to loose grip and the car pushes and that adds heat and more pressure. I need to take at least a lb out of the ft and maybe two.  The tires are not overheating so that is good. 

In reply to dean1484 :

I left just after midnight. You guys really burned the midnight oil. So what were the magic tuning tips? I know he said he likes soft springs and bars.

In reply to T.J. :

Would you be willing to share the AI's pit strategy? 

In reply to e30Matt :

The top two each pitted twice. Most of the rest pitted 3 times. The ones at the back of the field pitted 4 times.

It seems they all run the alternate tires and the earliest pitters went in about 15 minutes into the race. I basically ran until I couldn't make another lap, got fuel and tires and then repeated. The second stop I just added fuel to see how a double stint was on the tires and it was fine(although the 3rd stint was maybe 8 laps instead of ~12)(We ended up doing 32 laps total).

One pit is not a viable option because fuel limitations. Dean tried going lean, but couldn't make it a 1 stopper.

In reply to T.J. :

Thanks, I was hoping the AI would all be on the 3-4 stop strategy, but we'll take what we can get. 

In reply to T.J. :

I am not sure what his secrets are but I spent a lot of time undoing my setup. It just kept getting slower leading up to the race.

At Darkes suggestion one of the changes I did make was a big camber changes to the rear of the car.  This helped with the drive out of corners and generally upped the over all grip of the car. Made it much less snappy coming out of the corners. 

BradLTL said:

In reply to T.J. :

My savant level is approximately your "forgot to practice" level. And, you're practicing...

I don't think so. If I did no practice, I would finish DFL. Remember testing at Barcelona where you and Argo were both several seconds a lap faster than me?

Well, last night didn't go as planned. Got destroyed by the AI three different times. To add insult to injury, two times after getting rear ended under braking by AI, I was given a warning for driving standards. It is a sinking feeling to get punted off the track for no reason and then have to sit there while a bunch of cars streams by. I went from P2 down to P8 or P9. From lap 4 to lap 32 it was just driving around for no real reason since I was not ever in contention.

  I did have one self induced issue. Sauce had the inside going into T12 so I left him space and didn't fight it, but then I ended up going off in the last turn I think having to do with being close behind and losing downforce. Didn't spin, but lost a few seconds off in the grass.

The last few laps I should've been able to move up to P4, but everytime I would catch up to the AI, I failed to get by him. In the end, considering, I guess I am happy with P5 as that was about as good as I could've gotten.

EDIT: I did get my first fastest lap bonus point, so I guess there is that.