GRM Project Cars 2 - Series 7: Enduring someone else's car choice

I am not sure on a strategy. I am not sure I can make it on fuel.  So that then leads me to wonder if I can get 30min on softs.   Or run hard tires and see if I can get an hour out of them and squeak out the fuel millage. 

I’m planning on working on setup and strategy this evening. I haven’t ran enough yet to know about tire wear and fuel. 

To start with, I’ve been running hards with full fuel load to get a basic setup sorted and just work on braking and turn in points. 

Just doing some rough math, I can carry 95L of fuel and it looks like I use around 3.45 L/lap worse case, so that should get me 27 laps. I suspect the race will be 26 (or 27 laps at the most). Probably end up being less laps unless someone can go an hour without a wreck or a pit stop.

So, it looks like it just may be possible to make it without a pit stop. I also suspect the only way to go the whole hour is on hards.

I'm going to open up a room in a few to work on my setup and hopefully if I can get the car to behave, then do a long stint or two to get the data to decide.

With my car getting significantly worse fuel millage than the computer usually estimates I am going to have to run some testing. 

If I am going to run softs I am going to have to re tune the car. My current tune is slower on softs. 

I confirmed I can go 1 hour without needing to add fuel. Made it 26 laps and had around 8 L leftover, so could’ve made another lap on fuel. Tires got slippery with 15 mins to go. I may try to tune out some oversteer, to make the last laps less risky.

The AI in P2 pitted around half way when I was about 3 seconds behind him. After that I had 20-30 sec lead. 

In reply to dean1484 :

I’m having trouble using softs for qualli. I can get about 3/4 of a lap and be a second or more up, then I spin. Going to work on that to see if I can come to grips with them. 

Did some testing last night with Sauce. If I end up trying for a no stopper, I think cranking up the traction control for the last quarter of the race may be my best bet to control wheel spin as the tires lose grip. I turned it up a bit to start with and I hope that will preserve my tires longer.

I am also trying a setup with a little less rear spring and associated damper changes to see if that will reduce some of the oversteer on the worn tires. I have been running with the front bar at max and the rear bar at min, so I'll see if a change in springs may work.

EDIT: I think the setup tweaks are better. One click softer on rear springs, one click off max for front bar and revised damper settings for the rear. I did manage a magical lap last night that I hope to be able to repeat for qualli. It was a good 3 tenths faster than my previous best lap and I had a lot of fuel onboard.

In reply to T.J. :

The real question is how much time do you lose the second half of the race?  Would running less fuel and two sets of tires end up being faster than eeking out a no stopper?

In reply to BradLTL :

Not sure yet. Does the pit crew do tires and fuel concurrently or one after the other? I'll test it out here in an hour or so.

In reply to T.J. :

Depends on the series I believe

In reply to BradLTL :

Not concurrent for these cars, so adding any amount of fuel just adds to pit time. Looks like a tires only stop is about 47 seconds. 

Also, some cars (Dean) cannot carry enough fuel to make the full hour. That is worth checking for the Ford and Vette before the race. 

The Ferrari only has 85l capacity. I will need about 100-105 l to finish so I have to pit. I will be on in a bit. I need to do more testing of my car on softs and try and get the ware more even front to rear on my car. If I can do that I think can run softs and that is good for two seconds a lap better than my times running hards. This race is turning out to be a real strategy race. Really like this!!!  The problem is I will probably have a full minute or more in the pits to get the fuel plus the tires.

In my testing so far I don’t think I could run hards for a full hour. Also hards really got greasy after ten laps or so. 

Dean, I'm going to try softer rear springs and see how that feels. Also going to try less downforce and see how that goes (have been running 2/9 f/r). I should be on in a bit as well.

I think I've figured out the Aston, it feels pretty good right now and though I haven't done a full length test think I can keep pace with TJ.  If you guys get on tonight send an invite.

Tj send an invite when u get on. Watching bruins at the moment. 

My car really likes softs with very little down force. I was at 2/10 on hards and went to 0/3 on softs and I was two seconds a lap faster. At the moment my front tires are waring faster than my rear tires. I need less grip in the rear to have the rear rotate more. I also need to move the bias to 50/50. I was at 60/40 so that I am sure is killing the ft tires as well. I may actually run it at a 45/55 and see how the ware is and adjust the bias as needed to keep the tire ware in line.  Any further back than 45/55 and drivability gets interesting. 

I tried to open a room, but everything was down tonight. Did a race w AI instead. One stopper this time and it was easier, but I ended up seconds slower overall. I did lose around 20-25 seconds on the last three laps from silly errors. 

Dean, I tried less downforce and wasn’t faster. Softer rear springs are a keeper though. 

Edit: looks like lobbies are working again. Getting late, so I’m going to call it a night. 

Ok, so I am still not sure if I am better off with the no stopper or stopping for tires, but it occurred to me that this situation is not really fair to Dean since his car cannot carry enough fuel for the entire race. Not sure about the Aston or the Vette, but I will check them out to see what their fuel capacity is. Since Argo is out this week, I won't look at the Ford.

I think we may want to consider a mandated max fuel load equal to the smallest gas tank of the cars in the race. That would put us all on a more even footing and would be on the honor system for each of us to comply. The other thing we could do is just check the box to make a mandatory pit stop, but I could just do a stop and go and still get a decent time advantage over someone needing to add 20L of fuel, so I like the idea of limiting the max fuel to whatever the minimum amount is of between the Ferrari, Aston and Vette.

If we picked the cars we are running, then I would chalk this up to driver's choice of picking a car with a small tank, but since we were assigned our cars, we had no choice.

Thoughts?

Well, the Aston appears to be thirstier than other cars and by my calculations I will be half a lap short on fuel. Now the question of whether I do some fuel saving during the race or stop for fresh tires and get a splash of fuel while I'm there. Decisions, decisions.... 

No worries about the Fuel and me making a pit stop.  It is all part of the strategy of things. Unless some one runs a perfect race there are so many other variables I am good with you all just running with what you have.  No mandated stop no max fuel limits are needed.  I am going to try and run softs as that gives me a big advantage over the hards.  I may run hards for the first part of the race to get in to the window of the softs to get me to the end of the race.  At the moment I am only short about 2-3 laps on the softs to get half a race on them.  The other thing I noticed about the hards is that they get really greasy about 6-8 laps in to a run where as the softs don't do that and as such my times don't drop off like they do on the hards.  Softs stay really good until they are basically completely gone and with the 2 second a lap benefit I get from softs and low down force I really need to make the softs work.  

FYI, here are the max fuel loads:

Porsche and Aston: 95L

Vette: 89L

Ford: 88L

Ferrari: 84L

I use about 88L for 26 laps. I’m happy to not muck around and add a new rule if that’s Ok with everyone, but since I think I have an advantage, I thought it was only fair to offer. 

Running the car with 0.95 fuel mapping saves fuel but seems to be about a second per lap slower. 

EDIT: Looks like it saves about 0.1L per lap is all, so 2.6L over 26 laps based on a 5 lap test. That may or may not be enough for Brad to stretch it out without refueling depending on how much fuel the vette burns through in a lap.

@Dean: The corvette should've won. Strategy worked. When the leader came out of the pits he was just behind the Vette, but the Vetter failed to keep him there. The red-white-blue Ford won and the yellow Aston also passed the vette and came in 2nd. Don't ask me why I watched the whole thing.

In reply to T.J. :

What was the test? 

In reply to e30Matt :

Dean and I ended up doing qualifying, but not the race. We were shooting the breeze and watching the AIs race. I put my money on a vette that was 5th most of the race because he pitted first. He ended up 3rd but could’ve won if he didn’t let P1 and P2 pass him on track.