Assetto Corsa Competizione: The Porsche 911 GT3 R Blog

Paul Jeffrey

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ACC Porsche 911 GT3 R Blog.jpg

Aris has been away from the internet for a while but fear not, he's back - and he's posting blogs about cool cars in Assetto Corsa Competizione once again!


Assetto Corsa Competizione has been out at V1 release status for a little while now, and if you've not yet had the change to try the Porsche 911 GT3 R in game yet, I highly recommend you do.

Seemingly @Aristotelis likes the car too, as he publishes another one of his very interesting and insightful developer blogs about this awesome GT3 machine..

The Porsche 911 has always been a top competitor through the years. The unorthodox architecture with the engine hanging at the rear giving heavy rear weight distribution combined with the short wheelbase, has always been judged as extremely unstable for street use. Yet, in the hands of an experienced professional driver, the extremely fast turn in, the agility in changing direction and the best in class traction, always delivered top performance. Sure everybody would complain of instability at turn in and terminal power on understeer at corner exit. Still professional drivers knew how to deal with such characteristics and adjust their driving style to make good use of the advantages. In a class where the cars were heavy and grip was generally lacking, being able to put the power down and change direction quickly was always an important advantage.

The choice of the word “was” is not casual though. Modern GT racing have brought to the grid cars with big aerodynamic improvements, electronic systems for traction control and ABS are adjusting traction and grip circles and modern tyres provide more grip. Speaking of which, because GT3 racing is “client racing”, in order to keep costs low, the tyres are identical for all cars with tiny dimension changes.

The end result is that the Porsche ended up without being able to make a difference with its architectural advantages, while it become even more unbalanced from the tyre dimension availability that often keeps the front tyres out of the operation range.

Aerodynamic advancements are also limited by the architecture. Much of the aerodynamic downforce gains are made from a big rear diffuser that has to be wide and deep enough. Unfortunately for the Porsche, that’s exactly where the engine sits, so the actual diffuser is very shallow and short. That means the engineers have to work a lot on the front splitter and the rear wing. They manage to create substantial downforce, but it is still not enough. It also generates a lot of drag as it needs the rear wing to work in high angles and most importantly, the resulting aero platform has a very narrow window of operation and a very non linear downforce production that creates unpredictable results. In the paddock, you can often hear the drivers complain that the car works strangely whatever the try to do and the engineers complain that they can make the car “work” in a given circuit or condition. As if things couldn’t get worse, most of the cars have their fuel tank near to their Centre of Gravity, so that the fuel load only affects the weight of the car but not the overall balance and handling. Not the Porsche; 120 litres of fuel hanging under the front bonnet. Which means that even if you manage to make the car work with a good setup, the whole balance is going to change when the fuel load will change. The car needs quite different setups for race and qualifying sessions. Often teams will add more fuel during qualifying, to help the drivers with a more predictable handling. During the race, the car will change handling characteristics and the drivers must be ready for it. It’s not uncommon to see the car being competitive during one part of a stint, and then get slower for the rest of the same stint as the fuel load changes, or vice versa, depending on the setup compromise the team opted for.

Another limiting factor is the engine. This amazing powertrain screams up to 9000 rpm and it is one of the most praised engines in the road car. So how this can be a problem?

Even though the BoP is not very restrictive, it still has to limit the power to around 500bhp, similar value to the other small frontal area cars. Incidentally this is the same outcome of the street engine. Surely race engines could go higher, but when you start analysing the engine capacity, you realise that there’s not much margin available. The flat 6 engine is normally aspirated and has “only” 4 litres capacity. The smallest engine of the grid is the one of the Honda NSX, 3.5lt but twin turbo. All the other normal aspirated engines vary from 5.2lt V10 of the Lamborghini and Audi, up to the massive 6.0lt V12 of the Aston Martin and the gargantuan 6.2lt V8 Mercedes. Which means that those cars can generate similar amount of power but also massive torque from very low revs. The Porsche engine has to climb up to 9000rpm to achieve the same power and obviously the power band is more peaky. Surely the gearbox ratios can cover the problem, but then again the GT3 series demands a single gearbox ratios homologation that then is used on all the circuits. Some serious compromises must be taken.

Seems like the Porsche has serious disadvantages and predictably the performance of the car was not adequate of the name in 2018, with the occasional spark under wet conditions where the traction can make a difference and the top speed is not so important. Porsche focused its efforts on the WEC GTE 991 RSR car which was highly modified with the engine rotated by 180° and practically transformed in a mid engine architecture. The car performed much better and surely the engineers learned a lot from that experience. The 2019 Porsche GT3 R car already won the Monza race and is looking good for the rest of the season. So if you want to win with the Porsche, you need to be a bit patient until we release the 2019 version of the car.

Still, all said and done, when you get to drive the Porsche, the shortest wheelbase of the grid, the scream of the flat 6 at over 9000rpm, the amazing turn in, while the rear starts to rotate, the fast and constant workout needed with the steering wheel to keep the car from over-rotating and the sublime lightness of the front end when you put all the power down and the front raises up, makes you forget the shortcomings in performance. The car keeps you alive and alerted at any moment. Brings back memories of vintage racing cars when the driver could make all the difference. When finally you manage to drive it properly the level of self reward reaches new heights.

Forget about top speed, you know you’ll be the slowest anyway. Add rear wing to get downforce, stiffen the rear end to make it rotate, play with the brake bias that can be set way to the rear and start working that steering wheel. The Porsche won’t forgive lazy drivers, it won’t make it easy for you. It demands your total dedication, yes even if you have to race it for 24 hours and doesn’t care if you’re tired. Show the respect it asks for, and you’ll get a different kind of reward that only special cars can give; and if it rains… you might even have a chance for something special.


Full post can be found HERE.

Screenshot from Kunos forum user Tino66


For more from the world of ACC, why not head over to our Assetto Corsa Competizione sub forum and get yourself into the thick of the action? We have a great and knowledgeable community, plus some pretty epic League and Club Racing events, if I do say so myself. Go on, treat yourself!

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IMO the Porsche is a bit too underpowered and skittish in ACC and performs and handles better in real life like the last 24h Nürburgring and the one before. Audi only won last weekend because of a 5:32 min penalty of the P2 Porsche. The older version that won last year's race seems still similar in performance and finished this race in P5 with drivers I never heard of. I saw a lot of accidents like every year, but usually not many 911 cars involved unlike Caymans and lots of BMW crashes. Certainly the Porsche should perform similar with Lambo and Ferrari and deliver better traction.
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Nothing against about these blog's from kunos forum, but they need to fix the bugs, implement triples, optimize VR and implement other simple things like the pit animations, no more EA, no more excuses
Well, I'm sure they're working on it. Aristotelis had stated the workload around the release as the reason he hasn't been able to post many more of these blog posts.
This car is fun to drive, until it rains. No TC, go figure...
Different car. This is about the 911 GT3 R (which has TC), not the GT3 Cup (which doesn't).

IMO the Porsche is a bit too underpowered and skittish in ACC and performs and handles better in real life like the last 24h Nürburgring
Entirely different series and BoP (and car). Also, the last gen 911 GT3 R racing in the N24 has just 480 hp which I'd assume is less than in Blancpain GT considering the anger over the VLN/N24 BoP among teams and drivers.
https://24h-information.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/LOG_B_32_BoP_Rev_3_21-06-2019.pdf
 
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Nothing against about these blog's from Kunos forum, but they need to fix the bugs, implement triples, optimize VR and implement other simple things like the pit animations, no more EA, no more excuses
They are fixing the bugs. Haven't you noticed the four or five updates since launch just a couple of weeks ago? Your post makes it seem like you're oblivious to the work they are doing at this very moment.

Triples aren't supported by the Unreal Engine. So Epic has to implement that, there is not much Kunos can do. I don't think the compromise looks that bad. I would prefer native triple support but I'm pretty satisfied with the way it looks on my three screens.

As far as excuses, I haven't heard Kunos offer any, have you?
 
Entirely different series and BoP (and car). Also, the last gen 911 GT3 R racing in the N24 has just 480 hp which I'd assume is less than in Blancpain GT considering the anger over the VLN/N24 BoP among teams and drivers.
https://24h-information.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/LOG_B_32_BoP_Rev_3_21-06-2019.pdf
All GT3 cars got an equal 5% performance cut for this race, there are different rear wings used and free tyre choice, so Michelin in different compounds. But the Porsche is fast and reliable in other series as well like GT Masters with similar BoP and Pirelli tyres. The ACC version doesn't do the car justice and I prefer the rF2 car, because it's more predictable and not that slow on the straights either. Maybe that's why the GT3 R won the last 12h Bathurst and was just 2 tenth behind the Superpole winner. So I don't buy this skittish handling and the lousy top speed in ACC.
 
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They are fixing the bugs. Haven't you noticed the four or five updates since launch just a couple of weeks ago? Your post makes it seem like you're oblivious to the work they are doing at this very moment.

Triples aren't supported by the Unreal Engine. So Epic has to implement that, there is not much Kunos can do. I don't think the compromise looks that bad. I would prefer native triple support but I'm pretty satisfied with the way it looks on my three screens.

As far as excuses, I haven't heard Kunos offer any, have you?
Triples are supported now on Unreal 4.22 (Now Used in ACC) and i'm on the forum the patches are for estability and fix crashs on most part, ACC has bugs on every areas, i trust in kunos to solve them, but what time to do that? Face the facts ACC has lauched rushed
 
Despite the speed deficit compared to the other cars the Porsche GT3 R is my go-to car. It took a bit to get used to the skittish handling but once I did it became a beast. Yes, sometimes I do find myself regretting a turn-in and every lap can be an adventure, but if one keeps in mind: "Slow in, Fast out" the car is a great drive.

I guess I could drive another car for more speed and better balance but I consistently podium or win in this car so why change?
 
Nothing against about these blog's from kunos forum, but they need to fix the bugs, implement triples, optimize VR and implement other simple things like the pit animations, no more EA, no more excuses
Says the few people with triple screens. God, those of us who've followed Kunos since 2014 know how religiously and quickly they update their projects...complaining against such a team is sheer idiocy and selfishness.

Ah, this modern, impatient world we live in!
 
Triples are supported now on Unreal 4.22 (Now Used in ACC) and i'm on the forum the patches are for estability and fix crashs on most part, ACC has bugs on every areas, i trust in kunos to solve them, but what time to do that? Face the facts ACC has lauched rushed
Kunos has always taken the approach of getting content out to the eager fans. There's only two approaches to content release, and they chose sooner rather than later. This is always how they've behaved...so why is it people are still complaining? Or would you have them become ProjectCARS to satiate your sensibilities? lol! :laugh:
 
All GT3 cars got an equal 5% performance cut for this race, there are different rear wings used and free tyre choice, so Michelin in different compounds. But the Porsche is fast and reliable in other series as well like GT Masters with similar BoP and Pirelli tyres. The ACC version doesn't do the car justice and I prefer the rF2 car, because it's more predictable and not that slow on the straights either. Maybe that's why the GT3 R won the last 12h Bathurst and was just 2 tenth behind the Superpole winner. So I don't buy this skittish handling and the lousy top speed in ACC.
And of course, you're forgetting that Kunos is modeling the BLANCPAIN GT ENDURANCE SERIES...last time I checked, the GT3 cars face very different BoP regulations and other factors not present/different in other GT3 series! Geez, what people forget/fail to recognize...comparing the Porsche's competitiveness in one series vs. its lack thereof in another is sheer IDIOCY.

Yet it keeps cropping up. Maybe the fans should have made ACC...:sneaky::ninja:
 
Nothing against about these blog's from kunos forum, but they need to fix the bugs, implement triples, optimize VR and implement other simple things like the pit animations, no more EA, no more excuses
They are doing just that. People who actually follow ACC since EA and actively have reported bugs, transmitted logs, tested and reported issues do see immense improvements.
Kunos has also been very active prioritizing and fixing bugs.

Today I instal for the fun gtr2.... then a view laps of ACC with the showroom graphics, but 13 years ago the ffb is superb in gtr2 miles better than 2019 ACC... :confused:
This is complete nonsense. I have no other words to describe this.
How would you possible explain in scientific terms how FFB could possible be in any way more advanced in a sim that used a SEVERELY less complex tire, suspension and aero physics model be as detailed and precise as one in the latest general sim? The comment above clearly shows how very little you must have been using ACC this far.

Why did they make the sound so wrong ?? Where is the iconic transmission whine ?
I am still reserved on the sound - the general interior sound thus far from all current gen racing sims is THE BEST in terms of exhaust note, engine characteristic and especially fidelity.
The sound mix what you are able to hear under your racing helmet is what may or may not be up to debate.

One thing that absolutely has to be taken into account when judging sound recordings is how they are produced.
The majority of audio recordings we have easy access to (youtube) is made by nothing more than a simple GoPro or similar compact device which usually are directly fixed to the roll cage of the car with very, very little means (read: none) of sound insulation.
So what you can hear in the video sounds usually VERY different from what your ears can hear, not to speak of what your ears would hear, wearing ear plug radio, balaclava and a racing helmet.

Usually frequencies are directly transmitted into the audio recording that otherwise would not be as distinct or even dominant (such as transmission noise as the drivetrain is bolted straight to the chassis with very minimal vibration dampening happening).

In terms of sound - I would trust here 1) drivers comments who have actually driven this car on track (I have not heard or seen any such comments unfortunately) 2) Kunos having obtained audio recordings and (presumably) have taken into account both an adequate recording method and comments from drivers and team personnel.

I'd trust a guy who listened to a youtube video as well, but that would be weighted well, well at the bottom of the list (including my own).

IMO the Porsche is a bit too underpowered and skittish in ACC and performs and handles better in real life like the last 24h Nürburgring and the one before. Audi only won last weekend because of a 5:32 min penalty of the P2 Porsche. The older version that won last year's race seems still similar in performance and finished this race in P5 with drivers I never heard of. I saw a lot of accidents like every year, but usually not many 911 cars involved unlike Caymans and lots of BMW crashes. Certainly the Porsche should perform similar with Lambo and Ferrari and deliver better traction.
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The Blancpain and VLN regs and BoP are quite different also you are comparing two different generations of cars AND last minute BoP changes such as have been applied in the last N24 shortly before the race.

When it comes to BoP I'd trust Kunos devs have sufficient data and knowhow to BoP the cars according to what they performed like at the respective races (also be aware that depending on the track you choose in ACC BoP is applied as it was during the respective event in the 2018 Blancpain season - a car might perform fantastic in one race compared to the others and you may struggle with the same car at another (perhaps even similar in character) track to keep up with the other cars.

I quite like that level of detail but it can be confusing for some.

Also be aware that in the 2018 Blancpain season the Porsche did not perform to similarly high levels as it did in other GT3 homologated events (such as the VLN, Bathurst, etc …). One reason clearly are the use of uniform tires for ALL cars, not only limiting in actual tire sizes but preventing any possible advantages individual tire compounds have (especially hard on the only car in the grid that has it's engine hanging off the rear end).

So far the BoP looks spot on. I am really looking forward to the 991 II and being able for the very first time to race this beauty in sim racing ;-)
 
And of course, you're forgetting that Kunos is modeling the BLANCPAIN GT ENDURANCE SERIES...last time I checked, the GT3 cars face very different BoP regulations and other factors not present/different in other GT3 series! Geez, what people forget/fail to recognize...comparing the Porsche's competitiveness in one series vs. its lack thereof in another is sheer IDIOCY.

Yet it keeps cropping up. Maybe the fans should have made ACC...:sneaky::ninja:
SRO made both BoP for the Blancpain and Bathurst 12h and Pirelli is both exclusive tyre-supplier:cautious::O_o:

And Kunos already proved with AC that they can't do a proper GT3 R. This car is a skittish driving joke, especially around Nordschleife. Or to quote GT3 R driver Lucas Luhr after driving the AC-car: "thanks god the real car handles totally different" :laugh:
 

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