AC's Group C cars .... Why such poor Mechanical Grip ?

[JayMonkey]

Hi Guys,

I'm confused and a bit frustrated with the Grip Level of AC Group C's cars ...

I'm working with a real life professional driver who will be driving a Group C car at Le Mans soon.
He tested in the real car a few weeks ago at Silverstone GP and although it was the first time he'd driven it he was able to achieve lap times below 1:53:00 after getting used to the car.

Last week he wanted to do some practice in a Group C car on AC ....

We tried all of the Kunos Group C cars and some 3rd Party ones but all of them seem to suffer from very low mechanical grip and would loose traction very easily in low - mid speed corners.

No matter what we did with the setup we were unable to get anywhere near a real life lap time. Even with the Mercedes C9 (which seemed to be the best of the bunch we tested) he was at least 10 seconds short of a competitive lap time.

We don't have this issue with GT3 cars (he drove one in the British GT Silverstone 500 last week) ... with a good setup his lap times were bang on what he could do in real life.

So on to my question ... is there some trick to setting up AC's Group C cars that we are missing ? Does anyone else think that the Group C cars have low mechanical grip ?

In real life these cars have huge fat sticky slick tyres .. they should have more mechanical grip than any other car in AC ... but they feel like driving a boat on a wet track ... indeed the pro driver i was working with said that the real life car was far easer to drive than the simulated one in AC ... So what gives .... any tips, setup or suggestions would be most welcome .....

I should point out that we are running AC on a custom motion simulator with OSW wheel, professional pedal set with load cell brake pedal with real life stiffness ... as good as it gets in terms of sim equipment so i don't think its anything to do with the rig itself.

Appreciate any advice on this ...
Cheers
Jay

 

[Viperion]

I feel obligated to point out that the "shortened circuit" that everyone loves to point out is simply the Nordschleife track as it is today, just without the GP portion of the circuit. That is to say, the 6:11 laptime is on the same track as the "Nordschleife" in Assetto Corsa, as opposed to the "Nordschleife Endurance" that includes the GP track and is the only configuration currently raced on by official series.

So, when you're ripping around the Nordschleife and get under 6:11, you have broken Bellof's record on the correct circuit. The only reason that hasn't been officially bested in real life is because no real life series races on only the Nordschleife.

Carry on

 

[Trezoitao38]

Still, impressive for a 1983 prototype car. AC have better and newer Group C cars.

 

[JayMonkey]

Guys,

I always thought that Beloffs record included the GP circuit ?? which is what makes it so out standing !

Jay

 

[Tberg]

I feel obligated to point out that the "shortened circuit" that everyone loves to point out is simply the Nordschleife track as it is today, just without the GP portion of the circuit. That is to say, the 6:11 laptime is on the same track as the "Nordschleife" in Assetto Corsa, as opposed to the "Nordschleife Endurance" that includes the GP track and is the only configuration currently raced on by official series.

So, when you're ripping around the Nordschleife and get under 6:11, you have broken Bellof's record on the correct circuit. The only reason that hasn't been officially bested in real life is because no real life series races on only the Nordschleife.

Carry on

Same result I got on the last page. Missing info in the discussion, as stated

 

[mclarenf1papa]

Guys,

I always thought that Beloffs record included the GP circuit ?? which is what makes it so out standing !

Jay

Nope, just the Nordschleife. The only reason the record's stood for so long is that no series with fast cars races on the circuit without the GP addition nowadays.

 

[Glaurung]

I feel obligated to point out that the "shortened circuit" that everyone loves to point out is simply the Nordschleife track as it is today, just without the GP portion of the circuit. That is to say, the 6:11 laptime is on the same track as the "Nordschleife" in Assetto Corsa, as opposed to the "Nordschleife Endurance" that includes the GP track and is the only configuration currently raced on by official series.

So, when you're ripping around the Nordschleife and get under 6:11, you have broken Bellof's record on the correct circuit. The only reason that hasn't been officially bested in real life is because no real life series races on only the Nordschleife.

Carry on

It was not "only the Nordschleife".
Until early eighty the GP track did not exist, so the only track was the Nordschleife but not the same as we know nowadays.
It included some parts of the old Südschleife (the two parallel straights) connected by the Süd-kehre.

http://www.nuerburgring.de/en/fans-info/race-tracks/nordschleife/history.html
The track was longer than the current Nordschleife.
In this video you can see the same layout:

 

[Glaurung]

I was wrong in the post above.
This is the layout of 1983 WSC race:

And yes, it's only the current Nordschleife.

 

[Epistolarius]

The GP circuit was under construction during 1983 and finished 1984, that's why they raced and Bellof's lap was on just the Nordschleife without the main straight/then upcoming GP circuit that year. The layout of the Nordschleife itself didn't change since, the circuit itself has become faster now though (repaving, flattening some jumps, extended kerbs).

Also something of note; as that's how the timing is done today it's likely that Porsche will only time the shortened lap used by press/manufacturer for record laps, without the short straight.

 

[Ghoults]

e: I just noticed I went massively offtopic...

It would be pretty crazy bad for porsche if they could not super easily bash that old bellof's record considering the 956 was built to the tech regulations used for group c and I think the 956 even had to do a race in the same spec as well. With the new 919 evo porsche are literally not following any rules at all making it as quick as possible. Modern lmp1 base with totally open rules should super easily beat a 1983 group c spec race car. It is great they are doing it but at the same time it should be a total slamdunk to beat that time with the evo. Anything less than 30 seconds faster would be just shameful imho.