Round 1 Algarve Race Reports & Screens

Firstly, apologies for the contact between myself and a few of the drivers, not my style at all but with no practice and a non-functioning wheel I was struggling during this race.

I haven't driven the GT3's on PC2 at all so I was hoping to get maybe an hour in beforehand but that didn't happen.

As some of you may have seen on the other page Windows 10 replaced my Fanatec drivers with what looks like it's own.

I spent an hour and a half trying to convince it to use the Fanatec ones but with no luck.

Removed the standard drivers via Device Manager, disconnected the PC from the internet, installed the Fanatec ones but still the Windows "2006" drivers still show as installed.

It's showing a standard windows game controller screen with XYZ and the buttons and that's it. So no degrees of rotation, FFB settings, etc.

Got the game to recognise the wheel was connected in the end but I had no weight in the wheel and no FFB so it was tough to drive properly, I need to sit down with a drink and work on it over a few hours to see what's happening. Two 14 hour shifts at work didn't help with my patience either.

Anyway, I had an ok race, I got involved in some clashes and really sorry about that. Picked up a lot of front end damage and although I was up to third I had horrendous understeer, the car wouldn't turn into the last turn at all. So I had to pit to repair it. The car was much better afterwards and I was keeping pace with the top two for the most part but lost a lot of time.

That was it really, just drive to the end, pretty lonely race.

With regards to pit stops, I recommend two things, one; make sure you assign the MFD to your steering wheel so you can select the right strategy when you pit, otherwise the team will decide what's best (which is usually, repair damage, fill it up and send you on your way) and secondly, do a quick maybe ten lap race and just stop every lap, get used to the way the menu works. It's a similar type of deal to the F1 games. On RaceDepartment the number of us that lost laps during pit stops was becoming the big talking point! lol

Well done to those that turned up, my worry now is this will go the way of the other GT3 league and we will only get two or three people turning up for each race, but hopefully not.

 

sorry guys was too much with the setup so I was too late
Johan hendriks

 

What GT3 league was this Andrew? Unfortunately I don't have PC2 so I can not be with you. But if you decide to put a rF2 or AC series (same day, same time) I will be there for sure.

 

Great picture of the start Rob and it's a shame you couldn't get your Fanatec kit working right for the race Andrew, hopefully you can get it sorted for next race, I'll send you a PM with links to the Fanatec drivers and FanaLEDS along with recommended wheel settings for the V2.5 as well in case it helps out. For anyone else reading if you are using using a single belt or gear driven wheel (Logitech, Thurstmaster and Fanatec V1 base) then you are best staying away from the "Raw" Force feedback profile and sticking to the "Informative" or "Immersive" profile other wise you might get quite a bit of clipping possibly losing a bit of detail in your FFB.

With regards to pit strategies and the ICM menu there is a great video from Yorkie (one of the developers at SMS) explaining everything you should need to know in case anyone is having difficulty with it - link to video here. There's also a lot more info in his playlist with regards to optimum brake temps, tyre pressures and all the different diff types if anyone is interested or needs help with the systems or set ups in pCARS2. Jussi also has a suspension tuning calculator available on the official forum if anyone needs help with their suspension and bump/damper settings. To summarize - With the GT cars you're aiming for the brakes not to be much hotter than 700deg C under heavy braking otherwise you will wear the steel brakes much quicker and lose stopping performance (especially for longer races). You should be aiming the tyre pressures to be between 25 - 27psi hot but try to keep them under 30psi or above <23 otherwise the contact patch between your tyre and the road will not be great. The soft tyres operate best when the ambient temp is between 0 - 25deg C, the crossover temp between softs and hards is between 25 - 27deg C and 25 - 50 deg C is where the Hard tyres operate best.

Now on to the race! First race of the season and it was a bit rough the first few laps but I still had a lot of fun and it was a great challenge trying to fight back through the grid again, kept it interesting for the entire 90mins for me . Norman the Bruce... Thank you for a great race and I apologise if i slowed you down in the first half of the race, I lost my front aero and trying to keep the front end from understeering was near impossible lol. Andrew i felt your pain through that final corner (Galp) with no front end aero! Real shame your pit crew screwed you over otherwise I suspect you would've had a much better final standing. Your pit crew weren't the only ones screwing up, my pit crew had a stern talking to after the race because they lost the damn wheel nut during my pit stop lol. Rob, thank you for being a gentleman and letting me through, don't expect that kindness to be returned though . To the winner whom's name I can't pronounce (Korosztos), massive congratulations!

I forgot to save the replay (oops) but I hope the few incidents I was involved in weren't my fault, I suspect most of the incidents I got in to where racing incidents but i can only judge from my perspective during the race lol (in other words, not the best position to judge from). I'll put a post up on /r/pcars on reddit and try and get some more people involved also for the next round onwards, fingers crossed we can keep the grid pretty full and it doesn't end up with only 5 us racing!

 

Enjoyed a lot yesterday. Starting to get the feeling to pc2. I have some previous commitment so I was not sure if I was able to race. Finnaly could make it.
My final pos really was a surprised seeing lap times on qualy. On race had a problem on t12 and lose my rear, hit someone and ended in the grass. No major damage to my car at least. Had to put my best and managed to recover positions, and was lucky also from some problems in front. Decided to pit earlier than planned as Dario ( 1 lap dpwn atm) was really quicker and also there was a driver in front with also a lap down. Somehow gain a position with Kevin, who seemed ureachable first half of the race.
Delighted at the end, specially with my consistency.
Really sorry Johan, you missed a god one...

Lets see if we can get more drivers for the next one!

 

If the rest of the races are anything like the first one then I will do my best not to miss any.
Once I got my tyres up to temp I just tried to keep up with the guys in front, no panic it's a 90 minute race.
I had a steady pace but as usual I had 1 or 2 slips or spins , missed brake points, all little errors that add up.
Near the end of the race I was catching @Kevin Elmes who was as I later found out was having tyre problems. As I was getting closer to Kevin I had the R8 of @Dario Walker on my tail, ready to move on my next mistake.
At T1 I was pressuring Kevin by taking the inside line but he did not budge, as I was on the inside I had to go wide after T1 and Dario slipped past ( just what he was waiting for) Kevin had a spin shortly after that and dropped back but a couple of little errors meant that Dario got away from me, though I don't think I would have got past him. I was happy with 4th place, congratulations to the podium, see you at Brands.

 

Ok, I see my name is problematic. My real name is Körösztös György. Really. Accented characters in hungary language are common. This name in english it means: George Crusader. If that helps, I use that.

Race:
I had two incidents right at the beginning, but I think that was so acceptable in the overheating of the first seconds of the first race. I apologize for Dario, I had a contact with him (or another Audi driver) at the beginning, but I think it was a racing accident. I did not see how you came and when I noticed it was too late.

Anyway it was a good race. I was surprised because I did not practice for this event. But despite the initial difficulties it ended very well for me.

The next race will be interesting and I hope that more people will join us.

 

It's all cool Gyorgy I was worried I was at fault and hoping it was just a racing incident, from the replay it looks like we're both hard on the brakes and i tried to widen my entry slightly and I think you where just starting to approach your turn in point, body work touched basically side by side and from there we where glued together and took ourselves out in a racing incident lol. At least neither of our races were ruined which is the important thing and congrats on the win!

I think if you even just use "Korosztos Gyorgy" without the accents the same as it is here on the forum you should be all good but I'll let Rob verify that as he knows the system much better than I do. Software and accents rarely get along lol.

 

Amazing pics Rob !!