With these new post-January build setups I'm definitely getting a lot of my feel for the IndyCar back. Tried Brian's setup yesterday but it had some wierd behaviour in the fast corners, as if the tub was rubbing or the suspenstion was
just touching the bump stops.
Went back to my own setup and just added one click of preload to the diff.
It would have been good enough for 4th on the grid, but my clever qually strategy - an outlap, two bankers, an inlap, 3 gallons of fuel, and one more run on the same tyres - fell apart when Firefox decided to inform me of the 3.6.2 update as I headed out on the second outlap.
At least I had the banker laps, good enough for 6th on the grid, just behind Darren and Shark, who looked to be my direct rivals on pace.
Purds was taking it easy at the start which let me protect the inside, and soon I was attached to the back of the battle between Darren and Shark, both of whom were clearly running less downforce than my superglue setup. I should really have trusted in my fuel calculations and stopped at exactly half distance, I think I could've jumped both of them, but I stuck to my plan a little to rigidly, and pitted a lap after half distance, getting me past Darren but leaving me stuck frustratingly behind Shark.
I knew a big mistake was unlikely so all I could do was press hard where I had the advantage, in the corners, and whilst I was clearly causing Shark's attention to be diverted somewhat, I was unable to find any safe way through.
With a couple of laps to go, I decided to back off a bit, especially as my front tyres felt like they were struggling a bit, and settle for 3rd. As it turned out my original fuel calculations were correct and I could've taken 1.4g less than I actually did - don't think that would've been enough to get me out of the pits ahead of Shark though.
I steadily closed the gap dropping it down to under 2 seconds.. But in my rush to get closer I stupidly became right foot heavy coming out of T5. This sent me into a semi spin narrowly avoiding the wall; losing me 7 seconds..
I saw the start of it in my mirrors and thought you'd just run in too deep, was quite surprised - not to mention relieved! - to see the gap suddenly shoot up.
I'm useless at pit stops, I had no practise and the Gymers are pit stop masters....
This proved to be the case as Simon gained 4 seconds and Dave 7 seconds.
I did a bunch of 'touch and go' runs in practice to make sure I had the entry and exit down to a fine art. What I lack in pace I do try and make up for in preparation.
