AC GT3 @ Road Atlanta, Sunday 21st March 2021

[640er]

Gotta try sandbagging the quali one day to start from the back and see how that unfolds. Can't be worse than public servers

Started from pits last Wednesday. Yes there where chaotic scenes and a bit of mayhem but only due to close racing and not bad behaviour or unsportsmanlike conducts. Back of the grid is a tough place where it's all about survival No comparison to the relatively predictable racing at the front. It's not been long that I startet from back there and since I'm a regular around P3-5, the races changed in essence.

 

[JamKart22]

As expected, someone else's setup didn't make me any quicker it's all about practice practice practice and finding gains on every corner.

Sorry to anyone I might of held up while passing under blue. I did try to stay out of the way but you guys can suddenly make up a hell of a lot of distance in a few corners.

I've been experiencing with settings to try and solve the jumping people have been seeing with me in the last few races. Did anyone notice any issues while passing/racing.

 

[RobertR1]

While putting this to bed, I want to say sorry to everyone involved for going for that "block".
I knew it was legal to do but I underestimated the speed differences.
Nearly cost 4 people the race. Luckily only 1 in the end.

As I wrote earlier about simracing:
It's not about going full extend about what is allowed. It's also taking into consideration the limitations and everything else in simracing.

Moving over to the left, blocking the inside line wasn't a wise move in hindsight of what I said.

Good night guys

What you did is exactly what would be expected from an experienced driver. If others fell for it, that’s hopefully a lesson learned for them but these type of situations are critical to building race craft and experience. At the end of the day it’s racing, not a track day.

 

[HF2000]

How did the reverse grid testing end up?

Not well. First event took too long so the 2nd race event was already started but the server closed down due to the lack of drivers. I will set up a new test with better time calculations.

 

[davlight]

I am reading the forum now, it must have been an eventful race! I'm sorry I missed it! I'll race again next time (not this Sunday tho, the next one )

 

[HF2000]

There're no race results on SGP. Only P and Q sessions. Something probably got broken when they rolled out an update mid-week

I have reported this to the s.gp guys. I'm missing the race results of my last three races. That sounds like a bug, not a hickup.

 

[HF2000]

As expected, someone else's setup didn't make me any quicker it's all about practice practice practice and finding gains on every corner.

Sorry to anyone I might of held up while passing under blue. I did try to stay out of the way but you guys can suddenly make up a hell of a lot of distance in a few corners.

I've been experiencing with settings to try and solve the jumping people have been seeing with me in the last few races. Did anyone notice any issues while passing/racing.

It was fine by me

 

[HF2000]

As expected, someone else's setup didn't make me any quicker it's all about practice practice practice and finding gains on every corner.

Sorry to anyone I might of held up while passing under blue. I did try to stay out of the way but you guys can suddenly make up a hell of a lot of distance in a few corners.

I've been experiencing with settings to try and solve the jumping people have been seeing with me in the last few races. Did anyone notice any issues while passing/racing.

Setup wise @Kek700 has waffled a lot of sensible things on that. Quite recently my performance seems to has improved. If so, I think that's due to make my setup so that I have confidence in it. When I started simracing here I alway chose the 911 because I did my fastest laps with it. But I was scared to death when driving it in a race. In the 488 I feel more confident and that really helps a lot during a race.
In the MX5 it's quite easy to feel confident and that's why I love that car. So now I use my experience with the Wednesday's event to tweak my setup for the 488, focusing on confidence.

T1 on Road Atlanta is a perfect example. It's a turn that needs a lot of confidence to take it fast. I didn't understand it so there I lost a lot of time on the frontrunners. But in the last MX5 event I finally got it and I managed to tweak my 488 setup and practice it to build up confidence. The result was approximately 0.7 gain per lap! Since I focused the last three GT3 races on confidence rather than pure speed, my results are significant better, even in qualify. Seeing my lap times from last night's event, another podium finish (3rd) was certainly possible if I didn't have bumped into @640er (my fault) and was forced to the whole field pass.

 

[maxilogan]

I have reported this to the s.gp guys. I'm missing the race results of my last three races. That sounds like a bug, not a hickup.

Yeah, I thought that the Mini missing results were due to the server crash we experienced, but it actually seems that the issue is replicating over and over.

 

[RasmusP]

Results and full replay for those interested.

https://simresults.net/210322-3uH

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qJPEYXhpuDtJx_E9y4pivT0E82XRJoAi/view?usp=sharing

The early blackout for this event and the sudden server loss of the Wednesday race are making me think these issues are SGP related. I'm sure the wrinkles will be ironed out, just wanted to bring it to the attention of those that can address it.

Thanks man!

Fun fact about having another replay although my own replay is fine (just no results):

You don't see yourself on helicorsa.
So if you want to check some situations with helicorsa from the other driver displaying yourself, you need a second replay!

 

[Kek700]

Suffering from that terrible of terrible diseases,Waffling, I will have to carry on.
A setup is something that you have to develop your self, all cars have strengths and weakness, the Z4 as already mentioned here is strong on the brakes, optimise that, the Nissan is strong on straight line speed, terrible on slow corner traction, try and sort that, McLaren has the best down force, not very quick, compensate by getting as much mid corner grip as you can and low wing to try and compensate for speed.
Chris summed it up last week with his conversation about the Nissan and Aksu
The lad is quick, so with Aksu driving it, he can hustle it through the bends almost as quick as Chris, but then use the Nissans speed to its best advantage, I am sure he has the Nissan setup to maximise that.

What you would do for the Mercedes AMG, now that one does baffle me.

Really struggled with Brian and the Lamborghini, just could not catch it on the long straight, I was running high wing, that did not help, so I had eventually commit to getting as fast of an entry, exit, to the corner and be right on his tail, which I am poor at, so I took a risk and for a couple of laps and risked that.
Eventually got it right, and managed to get past.
I had guessed he was on Mediums, I was on softs, if the Lamborghini was on softs, it is very doubtful if I could have pulled it off, or kept up come to think of it.

PS, just looked at the replay, it was a Brian mistake, I stood no chance of an overtake, funny how your memory plays tricks.

 

[RobertR1]

@RasmusP Car radar works when in another drivers car but from your own replay. I use that over heli corsa. Less "flashing" in your eyes which in VR is distracting.

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP Car radar works when in another drivers car but from your own replay. I use that over heli corsa. Less" flashing" in your eyes which in VR is distracting.

That's great to know! Will install that one too!

 

[RobertR1]

Speaking of setups, a few things to consider when trying someone's setup;
- who's setup is it and what is their general pace?
- are the conditions clearly communicated? temps, wear rates, bop being the main ones
- did they share a replay of the lap in those conditions?

You want a fast but importantly, a consistent driver and being able to see their inputs will better give you an idea of what they focused on maximizing to get the time.

The pace is important as well. A setup that feels good being 1second+ off the ultimate pace might feel terrible when pushed harder and in reverse, the fast setup driven by a slower driver might feel bad when not driven at that pace.

Having said all that, a faster and more experienced driver will simply understand car dynamics better so their 'baseline' will be just be better as a starting point than what you can do yourself, especially if you're not a consistent driver (keeping lap to lap variance within .5 or below).

If you get a fast setup from someone and lets say you're 1 second off their pace, here's a few things you can do to make the setup more drivable for you:

- reduce camber 1-2 clicks all the way around as you won't be loading up the car as much as them
- Add rear wing by 1 click for better stability if you don't have confidence in mid to high speed turns
- Reduce power diff if you feel the rear comes around too much under power in slow speed turns especially. Reduce by 10% at a time until comfortable
- Increase coast diff if you feel the rear is too loose off throttle or under brakes. Go up by 10% at a time until comfortable
- Adjust brake bias forward until you have confidence in the car not getting sideways under brakes (do diff coast first though). Only go up 1% at a time max

BUT! before you do any of that, match the conditions they drove in and drive the car for atleast an hour without touching a single thing. Try to learn the car and its behavior as presented. Make mental or even written notes of what is and isn't working. Then use the mini guide above to make one adjustment at a time. Go drive for 10mins and concentrate on feeling that change you made and if it was right change. Rinse and repeat.

Now you have a baseline that works for YOU. You can take it to any track, adjust gearing, pressures and wing and you'll feel comfortable much faster. Importantly, it should make you a consistent driver who's now reducing that all important lap to lap variance.

Shoutout to @Kek700 for the rant inspiration

 

[HF2000]

Guys,

I've set up a another test for the 2x 25min format with reverse grid. I could use drivers to help testing this. It can be found as a Championship at s.gp for Thursday .

It's also on the Calendar with a link.

 

[jackdyson31]

But you braked way past that shadow. I can check previous laps and I'm sure your braking point would be much earlier than that. Maybe not as early as Rasmus braked on that lap, but clearly not at the dotted line. And that's while going on the normal line, when you take the extreme inside line you have to brake much earlier than usual.

As for focusing on Rasmus, I get that and I'm not saying that I would not have made the same mistake, yet it is unfair to blame the guy for what happened. I thought he did something outrageous when I read your post, but watching the replay I didn't see it that way. There was time for you to see him and make the correct decision which would be brake earlier and slot in behind Rasmus who already passed you at that point. Maybe you hoped to squeeze in between him and the Lambo, but there was not enough space and it didn't work out. It's racing, **** happens

2021-03-21 19-43-51

Watch "2021-03-21 19-43-51" on Streamable.

streamable.com

Edit: Agreeing with Dmitry here ...

Raz wouldn't make anyone's life knowingly difficult on track - no way. He is one of the most consciencious racers here. Mistakes happen though. I would never race others unfairly but sometimes mistakes happen, apps fail and stuff of that sort. We strive to be the best we can (and I don't mean the ram artists who often take me off - join the Greek Navy if you are into that) on track but it us impossible to be perfect.

 

[jackdyson31]

No, you weren't. More like at 180:
View attachment 457221

BTW, I don't know what those units are. They are too big to be feet and too small to be yards. There seems to be about 50 meters between 100 and 200 signs and the distance from 100 to the turn is twice as big as between 100 and 200. Some drunken crew installed them, apparently

probably meters - yes if that shot is from the race I was being safe because I am loaded with fuel (look how crappy my line is - my hands were shaking because I had a massive toothache and I couldn't safely keep the car at the edge with that much fuel), I guarantee you you can brake at 150 of said units though - not easy but if a guy was chasing I was doing that. Problem is tyres - in the race its detrimental to brake so late. In practice, 150 is early for a great laptime (at least at my current level). There are so many unexpected worries when in a race its amazing.

Edit: PS I am in general agreement with your analysis, he missed the braking point under race conditions.

 

[RasmusP]

Just had a look at some of my latest braking points from the race.
Thought I'd throw them in, for whatever use, not getting involved into the discussion of them

Put FOV to 30 to not cause too much distortion.
As you can see I'm not completely off-throttle in them. It's really the start of the braking point.

The first screenshot if from when I dived deep, trying to get past Ernie. So pretty late on the brakes...

The second is probably the lastest point I braked all race. It's 1 car length later than the first. Barely a car length past the 200m marker but I wanted to include the look to the entry kerb for better judgement.

 

[Kek700]

I just guess the braking points on a circuit for the vast majority of corners, can never find anything on the track for a reference.

PS..
The Ford Transit van ( WED 24th March ) on the Nordschleife - Endurance 108 is SOOOOO slow, I am really struggling to get under 10 minutes.

 

[Interslice]

Suffering from that terrible of terrible diseases,Waffling, I will have to carry on.
A setup is something that you have to develop your self, all cars have strengths and weakness, the Z4 as already mentioned here is strong on the brakes, optimise that, the Nissan is strong on straight line speed, terrible on slow corner traction, try and sort that, McLaren has the best down force, not very quick, compensate by getting as much mid corner grip as you can and low wing to try and compensate for speed.
Chris summed it up last week with his conversation about the Nissan and Aksu
The lad is quick, so with Aksu driving it, he can hustle it through the bends almost as quick as Chris, but then use the Nissans speed to its best advantage, I am sure he has the Nissan setup to maximise that.

What you would do for the Mercedes AMG, now that one does baffle me.

Really struggled with Brian and the Lamborghini, just could not catch it on the long straight, I was running high wing, that did not help, so I had eventually commit to getting as fast of an entry, exit, to the corner and be right on his tail, which I am poor at, so I took a risk and for a couple of laps and risked that.
Eventually got it right, and managed to get past.
I had guessed he was on Mediums, I was on softs, if the Lamborghini was on softs, it is very doubtful if I could have pulled it off, or kept up come to think of it.

PS, just looked at the replay, it was a Brian mistake, I stood no chance of an overtake, funny how your memory plays tricks.

Pressure forced the mistake ernie. I thought you would be quicker down the straight than you were. I probably had more time than i thought. Struggled on the brakes there for the whole first half hour. Brain was telling my left foot t brake earlier. Left foot was having none of it!