I have spent the last few hours looking at the race results and the pitstops and here are my observations so far.
Some of you quite rightly questioned the length of some of the stop times. This was after all a "test" race to check the calculations.
As I have said before all stop times are calculated back from either the current WR times or from the fastest laps that I can find that have been recorded for a particular chassis. The intention is to make the fast drivers work harder through the races and not relax after half distance. This system is not intended to handicap the driver, just to equalise the performance of the cars so that if 2 drivers of equal ability take a Porsche and a 2F they should arrive at the chequered flag together provided that they both extract the maximum from their cars throughout the race.
So, It is worth bearing in mind that the results should still show the fastest driver on the top step of the podium regardless of which car he drove.
Looking at some of the top finishers and their races in detail ................
Mark Barresi chose the Mk1 Ford and did not have to make a stop. This car is generally the slowest car at many circuits, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it is because it has largely been ignored by many drivers in favour of more exotic machinery. So the laptimes shown as WR may not true indicators of this car's relative pace.
In the Rouen race Mark was "averaging" WR pace, so on some laps he must have dipped below the current WR somewhere I suspect. Mark also had an incident free race and came home with a very comfortable margin.
Sergio in 2nd spot had the Porsche and was about 21 secs behind, but his average lap time ( excluding the pitstop) was about 1.5 secs of WR pace so he would have lost approx 25 seconds to Mark through the race.
Tommie chose the 2D Chapp and his average lap time ( again excluding the stop lap) was approx 2.5 secs off WR pace, plus it appears from the replay that he had a slow lap towards the end of the race where he lost an extra 3-4 secs, so in theory he should be about 45 seconds behind Mark. Which he was.
Before you all jump on me and point out that it is not reasonable to expect drivers to lap at World Record pace....I agree.
The thing that upset these results was the current benchmark for the Mk1 Ford and Mark B's ability to run a whole race at that current WR pace. Everyone else was some 1.5 secs + off WR pace.
Now, either Mark is a true alien with tentacles and green skin or, the WR record time for the Ford GT Mk1 at Rouen needs correcting.
The other issue is how easy is it to drive a Porsche at close to WR pace for a whole race compared to say the Ford GT Mk4?? and I might "fine tune" the spreadsheet to allow for this.
To be fair to Mark, he is very quick and I would expect him to be challenging for podium positions in any race. His performance actually proves the calculations in the spreadsheet to be somewhere near correct with the data that was used.
If I update the spreadsheet with an estimate of a more accurate WR record time at Rouen for the Mk1 Ford to around 2m 2.5 secs it makes a significant difference to all the other cars stop times, effectively reducing Mark's winning margin by some 17-20 seconds. If a WR is posted at around 2m 02secs then he would lose another 8.5 secs advantage.
Tommie was 45 secs behind at the finish in his 2D, so if we take away the 5 second mistake + 28 secs for a revised Mk1 WR he might have been only around 10 seconds behind at the finish.
If you make a mistake, or get held up behind a competitor, somewhere in the race it will cost you time and that will really make a difference at the end, just like true endurance racing. Ask those guys at Le Mans this weekend?
I fully appreciate that when you look at the pitstops for any race you might decide that some cars are too heavily penalised and decide to opt for a more attractive package, other drivers might see it differently.... that is why there is a free choice
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Season 23 GT Team races will be using Rouen, but expect the pit times to be slightly different when that race is announced.
