Had 2 fun races.
Race 1 started with a miss shift right after the start, which gave me a yellow gearbox and a drop of position to FMG. He kindly returned the favour later on by going wide before the back straight. Had no nurture the car to the finish as my gearbox was getting quite orange and I didn't want to break it in the last corner of the last lap, like I did with the 962 at the Ostereichring.
As for the races I really enjoyed them, in race one I finished going slightly quicker than Jeff as he was trying hard to nurse his gearbox, although I also think I may have had a tiny bit of tire life over him as I could catch mid corner a bit towards the end.
You were always quicker in the first sector, I think you were using a shorter gearing. I didn't like that one, as it resulted in too many unnecessary shifts. Tyre wear wasn't an issue, only the Schumacher Esses were a bit harder, but rest seemed pretty fine. Laptimes were a bit slower, but balance of the car didn't really change. What really slowed me down at the end was the management of the gearbox. I sometimes left it in gear just to save a shift
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At the start of race 2 I noticed my BMW setup had a very long first gear, and I bogged down at the start. Bob made a good move at turn 1 which dropped me to 3rd. He defended well so I had to overtake at an unexpected spot, so I set up the car at the hairpin for a good exit towards the Esses and was able to get by through there.
Had to chase FMG who was on equal pace but some oversteering moments from him made me close the gap. Had our usual epic side by side action, which looks great in the replay. The Beamer's gearbox seemed stronger than the Alfa's, which sounds historically very accurate
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I agree 100% with the Alfa needing more ballast.
But am not so sure about changing the Ford. If you look at Jeffreys times you'll see he had half a second over his times in the German contingent.
You also went half a second faster in the Ford Vs the beemer during the races.
Alfa and Ford seem balanced so I wouldn't change the weight too much between them. Maybe add 10 to the Alfa and 5 to Ford, or 10 to both. The Ford is better on the tyres and doesn't simulate gearbox damage, which is a HUGE benefit for the likes of me
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The BMW and Merc also seemed equal to each other, but slightly slower than the other 2, hence the added weight. Maybe the Merc can lose 5kg, but I haven't tested that one enough.
i would still like to test them again with air restrictors rather than ballast. Maybe the way to do it is give a weeks notice to a race and steadily increase or decrease the air restrictor each day and note the difference to laptimes. Otherwise if someone has some spare day or night time can they test the cars in an offline championship trying the same car each time with more or less air restrictor. Could be a xmas break job!
Whem time comes I can try that, but I have no idea how restrictor influences the laptime. With weight, 100kg is around 1 second loss every minute, so at Nurburging, it's a bit over 2 seconds loss with so much weight. From there you can guestimate what you roughly need. I don't know if the air restrictor is also quite linear, if so, I can test without it and with maximum and then extrapolate what you might need.
The Alfa is still a bit too strong. Nobody got within 2 seconds of you two in laptimes in race 1.
Agree the Alfa is a bit too strong, but comparing times between different drivers is, IMO, irrelevant. During race 2 I was only 0,4s slower in the BMW and that was because I was still trying to adept to that car, having not driven it for a few days. By the time I got used to it, the tyres were too far gone, but often I was 0,3s faster during the first sector. So they are already quite close.
To be fair i was only using cobbled together on the night setups so might be able to improve laptimes with more seat time in each car but was too busy trying them all prior.
And here I am uploading ready to go setups for diddly-squat
What I liked about these cars over the TCR, is that they are more prone to errors, so it's really not over yet until the flag drops.
