Congrats Tristan and Axel! For a little while, I thought Axel and Tim might take some points from Tristan. I thought Tristan, Tim and maybe Kinghiro would be faster. I guess it helps that I'm most interested in this mod. This has to be one mod that I've spent a lot more time with than Tristan.
It looks like I was well prepared. You want to read something scary? I was driving better last week.
It's taken me 6 years to get somewhat comfortable with the big Fords. Lately, that's about all I've been driving. I've included a few laps with the Mirage and Chap 2F. With the Mk4, I'm no longer just hanging on and hoping to survive. I'm actually driving the car very hard at times. At the moment, I'm probably driving it as well as I've driven any car in GPL.
Thanks for letting me pass in qualifying, Doni. As I was catching you, I said aloud, "Please don't screw up this lap Doni!" I had plenty of time to try again but I wanted to get a 3:19 so I could try for 3:18 later. I think I crashed both times, I tried to get a 3:18.
That wasn't a very good start. Tristan often starts much better than I do. I think I slid into the wall at the esses. Lap 2 or 3 I hit the wall at the esses again. I locked my RF wheel which sent me straight into the wall. That had me worried. Once I completed 3 laps, I had no worries. The car drove very good after the first 3 laps.
You could say it was a lonely race but time passed very quickly. I was so focused on my braking points and apexes, that it was lap 7 before I paid any attention to what lap we were running.
I really do not know what I was thinking about when I chose the Porker for this race.
I don't either. I was very surprised when I looked at the grid near the end of qualifying and saw that you had a Porsche. The Mk1 is a much better car for this track and it's crappy compared to the other cars. I was surprised Doni didn't take one of the big block Fords too.
I know this is a question of setups but I really couldn't understand how Greg could be much quicker than me on the Hunaudieres when he overtook me
and I was on his slipstream (only for a few seconds !)
Maybe this is also a question of weight as I loaded the MKIV for 15 laps and made a reset on last laps.
By the way, I still see 15 laps on the top of this topic... Why there were only 14 ?
The weight plays a big part. Final drive ratio and tire heat are a factor too. I qualified using 2.30:1 for 4th gear (very dangerous to the engine) and 2:27:1 for the race. I had intended to use 2.22:1 for 4th gear (a very good gear for slipstreaming) but when I saw I could easily lead if I could break away, I used 2.27:1 to keep my lap times as low as possible while leading. I used one click higher on the tire pressures for qualifying too. I did a 3:18.67 on my qualifying setup last week but the best I could manage with my race setup was 3:19.58. I tested a lot of different gear sets.
On the registration page with the schedule, it reads 14 laps. I didn't notice the difference on the race page. I'm not sure if I even looked at the lap total while in GPL. I did know I could easily finish with 8 liters per lap.
My maximum Speed was 354 kph without tow and ~ 365 kph in tow.
I think the main thing is to not use too high revs! 354 kph was with 6450min, as the engine has lots of torque
I was only seeing about 352 kph without a tow. I never really used the tow during the event. 2.22:1 would allow me to hit 354kph but I was losing time under acceleration and two other points on the track. I have been working on some AI for Lemans and I've seen as high as 375 kph in the tow. That's rare but 368 kph is rather common in the Mk4. I think I could keep up with the fastest drivers now. I did a 3:17.22 using my AIs tow and I think I could get into the 3:16s if I kept trying.
I found something interesting last week. The Ferrari won't go as fast in the tow as the Mk4 will without one. I can't get the Ferrari to go faster than 348 kph with a good tow. I once thought I could use the Ferrari and the tow to keep up with Mark and Urban in the Mk4s. No wonder they left me behind after 2 or 3 laps.
Thanks guys. It's nice to get a good solid win occasionally. I'm looking forward to the 71s 50th anniversary. I'd like to refine those setups like I'm presently doing with the heavy GTs.