Assetto Corsa Porsche Cayman GT4 Round 6 Nurburgring

Average race for me based on the position(s), but it left me with happy feelings .

In the first race @Matteo Santini had an unfortunate collision with me that left us both tattered.
Guess you will not miss qualifying next time .
In the back, I had a fun three-way battle with @Ken Jagger and @Charlie Triboté, at least from my point of view.

The second race was more consistent. A collision in the front in the last chicane resulted in a battle against teammate @Mitchell Kakotsky.
Under pressure, I did break a bit too early in T10 for the taste of @Mitchell Kakotsky which left him spinning, and lost him 2 places from which he did not recover .
Guess, I owe him some ice cream.

All in all, I am very happy with the performance of our team. @Philipp Pichler seems to perform the most consistent of us 3.
Excited to see what Silverstone will bring.

 

Sorry again @Franz Herbert Mann
Surely the fact I had no laps before the race didn't help me in race 1, but that was a very unfortunate episode caused by me . I was battling with Ken (if I'm not wrong) and took the inside at T1. I wasn't long at that braking, but I did less road than you being on the inside, and my slight touch with that angle was enough to cause your spin I waited you and I hope that this will be enough for you to show my disappoint and as an excuse for my manouvre.
The rest of race 1 was focused on a comeback n°2 after that episode, but my race was already compromised to do better than 8th position. I hope to be earlier on server as Franz suggested , but it's the first time in my life I race at this early hours and this was a last minute call to join race 1.

About race 2, after Ilya stole my pole on his last timed lap, I just tried to follow him as near as I could, putting some pressure on him. Luckily that worked a bit after 7 laps, when Ilya went slightly on the grass at Blt Kurve (T12), so I could get alongside him before the last chicane braking making an "easy" pass. Ilya didn't give up until the checkered flag as ever, but I managed to stay in front resisting to his pressure until the end. Very funny races with those 2 chaps as ever. Intense and clean at the same time
Is always a pleasure to race with you, apart when I do my bullxxts agains the poor and innocent Franz

See you for the next!

 

I cannot believe how many mistakes I made in Race 2, especially in T1. The car is great, but abs thing is too severe, even on low settings. I actually still don't fully understand how does one brake before T1. No matter how hard I tried I still triggered abs too much. It turns out for me it's actually easier to brake in a non-abs car.

Still great racing up until last corner)

 

Again, no worries

 

Two decent races for me again last night, finishing 4th in both races.
Qualified quite well in the first race in 4th place. Got a good start and was thinking i will be battling Lorenzo for the whole race for 3rd, but someone took a bite out of me in T2 which i just about held onto, but it gave Lorenzo a free 2 second gap to escape down the road I chased him the entire race closing a little but without him making an error there was no way i was going to be able to pressure him with us both on the same lap pace. With a lap to go, i had the strange mirage of seeing Tim recovering from a spin i really thought 'thats it, 3rd in the bag for me' as i have good enough pace in these cars and hadnt put a wheel wrong all race. 'However' the weird voodoo effect that alien drivers like Matteo or Tim have on me when in close proximity affect my own mindset and i start thinking about where they are going to attack me rather than just focusing on my own race and it usually results in me doing some stupid error to give them an easy pass....exactly what happened in the Final corner! I had it all under control until i tried to turn in and realised the pdk shift hadnt gone down to 2nd and i understeered wide enough to allow Tim a run on me to the flag I hadnt done that the entire race!! grrrr

Race 2 i had a really messy qually, the car or me just wasnt gripping up in the corners and i dropped to 6th for the grid. But got a good start as usual and really had to defend hard against a determined attack from Dimitri? for many corners whilst also pressuring Lorenzo in front of me. it was very intense for the first few laps until i could build a small gap back to him. Then Lorenzo and Phil were having a battle royale just in front of me heading upto the chicane. It looked like there was going to be an incident so i braked hard and stayed hard right...almost brilliant tactical nouse as they got together or got clattered by someone on my left and i was able to tip toe around the spinners without any contact!
Now with Phil ahead i started to pressure him. He was getting a bit wild and then ran wide at the hairpin and i was upto 4th, built a gap getting into the 2:06's, and where i stayed until the flag

 

Race1: qualified in 3rd position, after the start i chased Tim but couldn't get close enough, his pace was a bit faster than mine. Mark was behind and we had more or less similar pace, at the end Tim made a mistake and spun, so i get the better of him and arrived 2nd.

Race2: qualify was not good, so i started behind Brown, i tried to pass him twice, but at the second attempt i was hit by Jos who missed the brake at the last chicane.
Recovered from the spin i made a couples of good passes, at the end i was quite close to Mark and Phil, but my tires were suffering and couldn't gain any other position.

Need to say i'm not happy about some defense tactics, if someone could share the replay it'd be usefull for me to understand if my complaints are correct.

Regards

Lorenzo

 

You can find the replays of both races here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j9slj589nrnqzs1/AADj1Z_at9XUcrMK_V4HRzR8a?dl=0
Let me know if something isn't right.

 

That was Dimitry and Phil ahead of you Lorenzo, i was a long way up the road at that point But expect your comment is aimed at the orange car in race 2 who appeared to be blocking by going from side to side of the track?

 

You're right Mark, my attention is towards the car you mentioned

 

Thanks Franz!

 

Despite the silly mistake in race 1 I'm considering last night a success due to the fact it was my first with the new wheel.
My off in race 1 was solely down to the difference between my old G25 and the new TS-XW, I automatically corrected the slide I got into as I was so far into the race I wasn't consciously thinking about these things, but my arms only moved far enough to correct with the old wheel
Otherwise I'd been happy with my pace considering just how fast and consistent Ilya had been - I don' think I'd have done better (against him at least) with the G25 if I'm honest.

Race 2 was much better - although I still couldn't find any pace in qually - as I was with Matteo and Ilya for the entire race. I dropped back a little around half way when I discovered the quick release had come slightly loose for the wheel (you see a pattern forming...) and took a lap or so of frantic fiddling and feeling around blindly to figure out if I'd damage anything through continuing. After concluding I'd be fine if I was careful I pressed on again and rapidly found myself gaining on leaders courtesy of a pair of cracking laps, and them getting into a proper scrap
I made another error on the final lap but this time it was solely on me and not my equipment - I put a rear wheel on the dirt entering Turn 5 and went on safari over the sand for my sins.

I'm not hoping for much next week as I hate modern Silverstone and will likely doze off partway through.. I should be firing on all cylinders ready for Zolder though!

 

My races yesterday were mixed.
The second one was a total disaster and, as I have already clarified with him individually, I reiterate my apologies here to Lorenzo for the accident I caused.
Race 1 was different. I had quite an intense battle with @Phil Brown for P6 but without an edge this time to overtake... The final few laps were intense and feeling the pressure from @Matteo Santini, but we managed to hold... Just about.
The Porsche Cayman GT4 is a total mystery to me. With or without ABS I fail to understand fully how it is likely to react. I've unregistered from the series and won't be doing Silverstone nor Zolder. I have too many other races in other series and little time to practise... So, good luck all with the rest of the series.
Here, the last video on this series from me: Race 1 at Nurburgring:

 

i ran 5 on the ABS this time, lowest i have run it all season. For race 2 qually i upped it to 6 but it was worse for braking for T1 so put it back to 5 again. I wanted to try some other ABS settings as T1 is the perfect test for it at this track but didnt have enough time.

 

I'm usually using ABS 4 on this car.

 

I can't remember where I made the comment, but somewhere I stated that it's still critical to manually manage your braking when turning in.
I ran the ABS on 3 again last night (I tried 4 and felt no real advantage). I don't always just mash the pedal, I modulate brake pressure so that I stay above the ABS threshold the same as I would in a real car.
You can't rely on the ABS to do ALL the work as it's effectiveness is limited to the road itself, and the grip left in the tires - If you brake half a meter (sideways) from your normal point you can get different brake performance simply because the road is bumpier/smoother, your exact turn-in point will affect the performance also for the same reasons.

The slower you are going the more you need to avoid letting the ABS do your work in my experience (real and sim racing)

 

To be honest I struggle with AC more than with any other sim and I suppose that is down to the braking. This seems also mod dependent because the Porsches are not that bad, I had way more problems with the Audi TT. In hindsight, I think the ABS was the reason why I experienced inconsistent braking behavior. Consistency is not a major issue for me here, but my two teammates and I have to brake earlier than the frontrunners. So we assume that this is the area where we lose the majority of the time.
We all have different driving styles, use different set-ups (e.g. high, medium, low ABS settings) but the gap stays the same. Although I noticed that with a higher number it is easier to force a lock-up than with a lower number, except for some anomalies the braking point stays the same. As the frontrunners seem to use different settings there is no pattern and as Tim describes it, their ability to brake later comes from a different pedal modulation.

We will try again next week and the week after, but I fear that we will not find the secret to be more competitive.

 

You also have the entirety of your suspension setup, diff settings, tire pressures and brake bias. These have a huge effect - I always run a lot of rear bias and pretty tight diffs so can generally brake very late without fear of locking my front wheels.
Matteo will tell you I don't drive normally though