Great racing guys! Didn't have the pace to really fight for the top as I never cracked past mid 41s offline. My race setup was trash, once I got the tyres up to temp they would last about 4 laps and fall off hard And this damn Macca needs more powa, everything just pulling away from me on the straight, tow or no tow... Kristow good battles for as long as they lasted, I stalled in the pits! lol Andrew good fighting, I thought you were going to steal that 4th util you hit the pits, what happened?
I'm cr*p at saving fuel is what happened When you passed, I was touch and go if I would make the end, but the rain started and I expected it to get heavy as per the widget with 10 minutes still left, so I stopped saving (when I re-passed you) but the heavy rain didn't come so was a lap of fuel short Good fun though
Well that sucks man, I ended up with 6 laps worth so that's not good either I really need to get better at getting the right setup for the race in terms of tyres and fuel.
That was a cracking race - I've finally found how to unlock pace in the Aston properly (although I was unlucky and messed up my qualifying runs, I was capable of 3rd/4th based on sector splits but kept hitting that ****** kurb on the penultimate corner!). I'd already done my maths and setup based on another no-stopper using a slower setup though so ran with that, I was a good 0.5 to a second down in pace but of course I had the advantage of not needing to stop so was still happy with my pace. I was was jumped in lap 1 by Matteo (Good to see you again bud - I'm starting a series that should interest you next week ) who got inside me around half a lap in - I didn't make much of a fight over it as my goal was obviously to put in decent steady lap times and to stay out of trouble. What I didn't expect was to find myself catching the train of 3 Ferrari's after the first 7 or 8 laps, oddly I seemed to have genuine pace even with fuel saving as they didn't seem to be holding each other much. This led to a great deal of very enjoyable driving with me closely shadowing 1st Matteo, then Davide, and then finaly Michael until he pitted just as I decided I had enough fuel now to step up my pace a bit. From that point on it was fairly quiet aside from back markers until the rain was announced. This was a bonus if anything for me as I now knew I could switch to pushing hard and not worrying about fuel. Either the rain would be light enough that I can stay on slicks but lap slower (saving loads of fuel), or it'll be so bad I'll have to pit for wets and can also top-up for free and be ahead of everyone but Jeffrey as I was the only one not to have pitted yet I was very impressed with the way the game portrayed the lazy shower that hit us, instead of the light drizzle I've had sometimes on other tracks we had very light but big rain drops which cleared from the windscreen fast enough to not need the wiper until things started getting heavier some 10 or 15 minutes into the rain. Well Done to Jeffrey on his pace up front, I actually didn't think he'd pitted as he was so far ahead! Big thanks to the Ferrari team for providing a tow for over half the race - my calculator said I'd have 1.6 litres in the fuel tank when I finished. With all the drafting and the rain I had about 3laps of fuel left!
Great race guys! I’m prepping for an exam at the moment so it’s just arrive and drive on Saturdays. Epic tactics from Tim and a well deserved podium, I was really wondering how you did the whole 90mins without a stop.
I think ACC might be doing a very good job of simulating tire wear. I start slowly as I'm driving to a number and not scrambing for places, I think this protects the tire a bit - as I then found myself catching you and the rest of the Ferrari train after a while without any real change to my own pace. It became clear that in some of the tighter corners I had a lot more grip than you guys, this was so evident just before you pitted that I had actually decided I was going to go for an overtake as I felt I was now faster. You pulled in though before I could do it! It could also be the setup itself - the faster setup I used in qualifying and at the end of practice had MUCH more aggresive geometry than my race setup, so that probably also helped look after the tires to increase my pace Vs yours in the mid/late stint? Whatever the reason my tires felt fine right up until it rained - then they were as sketchy as everyone else I guess
Brilliant drive. As the race went on, I found myself looking at the mirrors more and more, had about 5 litres of fuel left over when I dived into the pits and don’t think I could have kept you behind any longer. Not sure if the Ferrari is as economical in terms of tyre wear as the Aston? I tend to go for the aggressive set and adjust pressures to suit and do find that following another car for an amount of time (as you did) results in severe graining - which could be tearing due to loss of downforce maybe? I’m not too hot with setups but hope to spend more time figuring out things like this.
An aggressive setup should have more camber/caster & toe to increase turn. Springs and shocks would be moved to the stiffer end of the scale too (I haven't actually looked to see if the files are individual per track or just generic). The downside to this is that the inside edges of tires will get hotter and wear much faster than the rest of the tire. An endurance setup would use far less camber etc in order to preserve tire life by increasing the wear patch whiles still trying to keep the contact patch during cornering as high as possible through increased roll (softer everything!). I guess using the Aggressive set as a base could encourage heavy wear to tires when drafting as there'll be even less down force to push the cars' nose down onto the tires - of course this is shear conjecture as I don't know how well ACC matches up to real world physics and aero! My non-stop setup had considerably reduced camber Vs even the safe setup I think - I normally start from the Aggressive one and work to my preference, I tried going from the safe setup at Kyalami and am very pleased with the results. One other thing to bear in mind is that while fuel saving I'm driving to a number - annoyingly the Aston doesn't have a tab showing me a live fuel burn per lap like some cars (The Audi and Lambo have this) so I actually have to memorize a driving rythem in practice, and then apply it through the race based on my best guess of my fuel situation. This obviously encourages conservative driving and excessive coasting, so I actually brake from lower speeds than the cars around me because I get out of the throttle so much sooner. At 200+kph even a 20kph drop is a massive energy transaction in heat/energy terms, I'm probably skipping that on every hard braking point on every lap bar the 1st one where I don't want to be rear ended! If the simulation is good enough then it will all add up to a chunk of tire life I still need a silver bullet to even get near to Jeffrey though!
