UKAC Season 2 - GT2 Series Challenge Cup - VIR - Sep 21

[Linus27]

Sorry for missing the race tonight. I was at a track day (Castle Combe) but got a phone call to say my daughter who broke her arm a few weeks back needed an operation as it had set at an angle. So ended up spending the evening at hospital Hope you all had a good race.

Mark J, got to go out in my friends Porsche 996. What a brutal car. So much fun

[Jeffrey]

Was struggling to get the laps in during qually, but in the end, wouldn't have been able to beat Maikel's time

Heading into T1 at the start of the race, I braked a bit later than Maikel, almost outbraking myself. Then I got a punt in the side, which gave me severe aero damage. It was a tap that would have meant nothing in real life, but with these high damage settings, it meant my car lost a lot of aero. I lost 0,2 second on each straight, and the car was hard to turn right. Because of that, the tyres were even colder and under pressurized, which made the car a second per lap slower than normal  . So from turn 1 onwards, it became a frustrating race.
Tried to make a pass on Maikel a corner later, but with cold mediums, was too cautious to make it stick. After that he was able to drove off, as I didn't have any pace anymore.

In lap 7 I decided to do something I normally never do during a race, and try to push to the limit every lap, and see if I would be able to keep up that way...lap later Maikel fell off the track . I should do or die more often, was quite effective  .
But I was surprised at how little he lost, and he was only 3 seconds behind, so I knew I woulnd't be safe till the end.

Laps later, he was right behind me and tried a move down the back straight. Because I lost a lot of top speed, I was a sitting duck there. But he favoured grass over 1st place, so I had a 3 seconds gap again  .

Last few laps I was struggling even more, tyres were yellow and stone cold, so had a few wobbly corners. That put him right on my tail again on the back straight. Had to brake a lot later after the straight than I normally dare there. Saw Maikel went for the cut back and was just able to steer it in on time.
The last right hander was a nightmare for my setup, which was very soft and made the car bottom out there. That made my exit to the finish worst than Maikel and it was a dash to the finish. Didin't think I would have been able to hold it. Made sure I took the inside line and make him go the long way around. Just made it in the end, with only 0,021s.

Frustrating race, with a great last lap 

[Simon Gymer]

Last few laps I was struggling even more, tyres were yellow and stone cold, so had a few wobbly corners.

Yellow? I couldn't get the damn things out of blue, they were awful. I was weaving half the time to try and get some heat in to them (which of course didn't work). I ended up trying to turn half the corners full lock to scrub the tyres and intentionally lock up to get some heat into them. I blame the tree, if it had been there the grip would have too. Oooooh. Mysterious. Ooooh.

Softs wouldn't have lasted though I don't think?

[Jeffrey]

Yellow? I couldn't get the damn things out of blue, they were awful. I was weaving half the time to try and get some heat in to them (which of course didn't work). I ended up trying to turn half the corners full lock to scrub the tyres and intentionally lock up to get some heat into them. I blame the tree, if it had been there the grip would have too. Oooooh. Mysterious. Ooooh.

Softs wouldn't have lasted though I don't think?

Yellow was the tyre wear, temps rarely got out of blue and pressures were always 1 psi too low.
I based my tyre choice on Maikel''s feedback, so I didn't dare to take softs. Tyres were a lot worst during race than practice.

[Mark J]

Re tyres, that's why I asked last night if anything has changed from the practise server as I never suffered hot red fronts at all in an hours practise the Eve before yet last night I couldn't do 3 laps without them cooking 

Regarding damage, though I'm loathe to remove it too much to deter contact it would seem we need to decrease the damage inflicted from light contacts as it punishes too much for race pace. Any ideas what the ideal setting should be? We can then use it for future races but I don't want to remove it completely.

[Simon Gymer]

Don't do anything with the damage, it will just result in more careless driving and contact. The game isn't perfect. Oh well. :-)

[Maikel K.]

With damage it's just really the damage model of the game. Even a little bit of damage results in a pretty big loss of speed, which doesn't really make sense with these cars.

On the tyres, I wasn't noticing anything amiss with the softs, though I haven't tried them for alot of laps last night. Unfortanely I had to guess the pressure for the mediums so they were slightly off during the race and they kept stone cold for the first part. Untill I was playing catch up with Jeff, they started to get out of the blue until the straight and they froze again.
And then the tyres wore out, which caused me too slide for half the corners, which in turn heated the tyres up too almost green throughout the lap and I got my fastest lap on L18 

Still, I think softs were doable, it's just that driving around 6 laps with red tyre wear is too risky. My pace with yellow tyre wear Softs was around the same as fresh Mediums. Though battling another car with tyres like that doesn't sound too great 

[Simon Gymer]

Do you raise the pressures to raise the temps or lower them to raise the temps? I swear I have to relearn all this stuff as I think half the settings in AC are backwards compared to other games. 

[picnic]

Does AC run different sessions at different times of day? Thus will track / air temp be different for different sessions. I'm afraid I've never checked.

I grabbed a setup from TheSetupMarket and ran that. It had softs by default which I didn't think would last anywhere near 24 laps with the number of times I locked the brakes so I changed to mediums. Went faster with them too but I suspect that was just down to learning the track. Most of the time the tyres were blue.

I'm of the opinion that damage should remain as is. I was shocked to see your late braking manouver at T2 on the opening lap MJ. You were behind me, ok out brake one car, good move, but from in car it looked to me like you locked the brakes, got sideways and used Gary as your brake. Attempting to out brake 2 cars from so far back is optimistic in my book. Watching the replay it didn't look half that bad although I did have tyre smoke as you locked up. As a result you didn't give Gary any room on the outside, barely making the corner yourself. If damage helps to control the race starts a bit I'm all for that. The number of times people made mistakes last night proves you don't need to win in the first corner or two.

[Simon Gymer]

Wish we could do warm up laps and use the clutch on starts. I thought they added that a while back? Not to multiplayer?

[spanner]

Had only run mediums in all practise so far but with the tyres still blue only just remember to try the softs last thing in qually. Felt awefull for a few laps until they warmed up but seemed to gain so much more time through the last few corners. Coming out of the pits they were worse than the mediums so went back to them for the race.

Was just trying to not hit Jeff in the first few corners, and then saw Eck go into the side of him and then overly bounce off a bit too much to the back of the field so found myself in a rather strange position, 3rd chasing Jeff

With a battle going on behind and the two ahead disappear I relaxed way too much and my times felt slow but my race was with the track as I felt I was unlikely to get to the end having barely stayed on during any practise. Eck seemingly in a different class came steaming through from the back and I fell off twice at the end of the lap letting him through. Was just watching the dicing going on behind and trying to stay ahead for the rest of it.

Only tyre related issues I had was they seemed to be a lot lower mid race than I had seen previously and about 5deg less temps.

[spanner]

I've had it plenty where damage affects your performance in the GT3's. Happens to MJ once and we now change the rules.....

[Simon Gymer]

Happens to MJ once and we now change the rules.....

The perks of being the boss.  

[Eck Simpson]

Do you raise the pressures to raise the temps or lower them to raise the temps? I swear I have to relearn all this stuff as I think half the settings in AC are backwards compared to other games. 

In previous gen games it has been raise the pressure, raise the temp. Got no idea, for AC or anything else modern, for that matter. I've just gone with a middling number for fronts and a couple of digits less on the rears. Incidentally, I ran softs last night.

If the game is anywhere near reality, softs are double stinted at le Mans (protos more). Super softs, because there are no qualifying tyres, have been used for the same length of time, during the night.

In the real world, dropping pressure creates more movement, thus temps are reached quicker and possibly, exceeded. Just half a pound (psi) either way, can make a big difference. Ofcourse, more temp, means more wear.

I've had it plenty where damage affects your performance in the GT3's. Happens to MJ once and we now change the rules.....

I was knocked off track at turn one (from third place), rejoined last and still got into the 47's I'd been doing in practice, qualifying. If damage was that much of a problem, could I have been quicker?.

Now, to whom it may concern. The server for the next round, is running  . Unfortunately, its in booking mode n won't let me in...

[picnic]

Now, to whom it may concern. The server for the next round, is running  . Unfortunately, its in booking mode n won't let me in...

Doh - what fool did that  Hopefully all sorted now.