AC GT4 @ Laguna Seca - Wednesday 10 April 2019

[Miguel Batista]

Well that was a baptism of fire, i was okay in a free track but the other cars were so much quicker
in the corners. I basically have road legal tyres, the straight from the last corner and first first
corner i could almost hold my own. Add to that after two laps the tyres were deep blue.
It was a constant battle getting into the corner and then trying to get it out.
@Miguel Batista i don’t know how you got on, i found it impossible to dial out any of the cars
problems with setup. You looked to be having more problems than me though.
If it had slick tyres , it would have made the car competitive, but not with basically road tyres.

loved every minute of it, one of the best races i’ve had.

Yeah. My front tyres were always cold, Car understeered a lot. My lack of skill doesn't help. I am at a loss on how to improve besides more laps.

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

I had the feeling I was driving a Maserati boat among so many tiny cars... sorry for a couple of late braking adventures!

Had some good fun, it's great to have such a packed grid so thank you everyone for turning up And thank you to the organizers as well who put this up

 

[Kek700]

i would have been happy to give you my setup, it certainly would have helped, i think !
The lotus was not really a good choice of car for this race though.
You would have been much better of in the Porsche. ( i think )
i will try G55 for brands next week, never driven that, certainly seems
a popular front runner.

 

[Miguel Batista]

i would have been happy to give you my setup, it certainly would have helped, i think !
The lotus was not really a good choice of car for this race though.
You would have been much better of in the Porsche. ( i think )
i will try G55 for brands next week, never driven that, certainly seems
a popular front runner.

Yeah... i just love otus as a brand. And since I am terrible at this, it wouldn't matter. I will try the Porsche next week. Didn't really like the maserati last week so will give this one a go. Maybe the exige would've been a better choice.

 

[Medilloni]

Congrats to the podium guys, and many thanks to @Craig Dunkley for putting this on. Looking forward to next week.

 

[Kek700]

Yeah... i just love otus as a brand. And since I am terrible at this, it wouldn't matter. I will try the Porsche next week. Didn't really like the maserati last week so will give this one a go. Maybe the exige would've been a better choice.

I know I am the last person who should give advice,
It never seems to have stopped me in the past though.

Watched you in my replay, you are not slow, you
just make a lot of small but important mistakes
every lap. Yes I know, this lotus is such a difficult
car when racing in this class. If one of the faster cars
pulls along side and breaks your corner approach
it almost a guarantee of running wide on the exit with
little chance of a recovery. Lift off just means you are going to understeer off, so rather than brake, you
hang on and hope. The end result will be the same anyway. ( stone cold front tyres do not help )
I raced this car once before, but in a single class
race where everyone was in the same situation.
This did not seem to apply in the same way as we were all in the same boat. ( so to speak ).
I came from a year racing against AI, this eventually
meant I was able to lap consistently for may 30 or 40 laps, not be under pressure, learning to be consistent,
If nothing else. ( although I did not realise it at the time Ai skill level was turned to low, on reflection , it may not have been a bad thing )
If I had turned up for this race and being my first
race, I would have been 10 seconds of the pace.
You are definitely faster than me, or at least as
quick ( a relative statement ). I noticed when you were
not being aware of your racing, you had no problem
Staying with me.
Then you would start to make mistakes, loose a few
tenth on one corner, a few tenths on another.
You get the picture.
Next time, just ask for my set up, I can assure you
my setups are based, solely on stability, even at the expense of one lap pace.
I hope I have not poked my nose in where it is not
wanted.
At the moment , my opinion is that it is your approach
and psychology that are the main factors in your pace.
Once you have that in place, you can concentrate
on setups and speed. Your main aim is to complete
a race , make hardly any mistakes.
You will find this alone will push you well up the field.
Yes, I know I make a lot of mistakes, but I have moved
beyond my skill limit.

 

[Miguel Batista]

I know I am the last person who should give advice,
It never seems to have stopped me in the past though.

Watched you in my replay, you are not slow, you
just make a lot of small but important mistakes
every lap. Yes I know, this lotus is such a difficult
car when racing in this class. If one of the faster cars
pulls along side and breaks your corner approach
it almost a guarantee of running wide on the exit with
little chance of a recovery. Lift off just means you are going to understeer off, so rather than brake, you
hang on and hope. The end result will be the same anyway. ( stone cold front tyres do not help )
I raced this car once before, but in a single class
race where everyone was in the same situation.
This did not seem to apply in the same way as we were all in the same boat. ( so to speak ).
I came from a year racing against AI, this eventually
meant I was able to lap consistently for may 30 or 40 laps, not be under pressure, learning to be consistent,
If nothing else. ( although I did not realise it at the time Ai skill level was turned to low, on reflection , it may not have been a bad thing )
If I had turned up for this race and being my first
race, I would have been 10 seconds of the pace.
You are definitely faster than me, or at least as
quick ( a relative statement ). I noticed when you were
not being aware of your racing, you had no problem
Staying with me.
Then you would start to make mistakes, loose a few
tenth on one corner, a few tenths on another.
You get the picture.
Next time, just ask for my set up, I can assure you
my setups are based, solely on stability, even at the expense of one lap pace.
I hope I have not poked my nose in where it is not
wanted.
At the moment , my opinion is that it is your approach
and psychology that are the main factors in your pace.
Once you have that in place, you can concentrate
on setups and speed. Your main aim is to complete
a race , make hardly any mistakes.
You will find this alone will push you well up the field.
Yes, I know I make a lot of mistakes, but I have moved
beyond my skill limit.

Cheers man. Your advice is very helpfully. No need t apologise. You gave me food for thought. What I noticed with he front tyres is that as the race went on and they were colder and colder (after the race tried to lower the pressure and at about 18 psi and max camber they are not so blue anymore.) I would understeer more and more. So lines I could take for instance in turn 3 and 4 would cause me to run really wide. And I never could get the hang of that second to last corner. I had never driven this car. Just the regular 2-11 and 3-11. I must say, those feel a lot better. I must admit, this is probably one of the worst car to drive in Assetto Corsa. I would say as annoying as the Formula c in project cars 2.

 

[RainhamIron]

Cheers man. Your advice is very helpfully. No need t apologise. You gave me food for thought. What I noticed with he front tyres is that as the race went on and they were colder and colder (after the race tried to lower the pressure and at about 18 psi and max camber they are not so blue anymore.) I would understeer more and more. So lines I could take for instance in turn 3 and 4 would cause me to run really wide. And I never could get the hang of that second to last corner. I had never driven this car. Just the regular 2-11 and 3-11. I must say, those feel a lot better. I must admit, this is probably one of the worst car to drive in Assetto Corsa. I would say as annoying as the Formula c in project cars 2.

Someone else might want to jump in here, but my understanding of how AC works is that tyre pressure influences handling more than temperature. With this in mind, I use the sidekick app to display the pressure delta from optimal. Normally the closer this is to ideal (+/- 0 on the delta readout), the better the grip.

 

[Miguel Batista]

Someone else might want to jump in here, but my understanding of how AC works is that tyre pressure influences handling more than temperature. With this in mind, I use the sidekick app to display the pressure delta from optimal. Normally the closer this is to ideal (+/- 0 on the delta readout), the better the grip.

Pressure is derived from temperature. PV = nRT is likely to be the equation the use. Temperature is likely obtained through track temperature and energy transfer q = mCT and energy obtained through the attrition force or rolling resistance of the tyre and road.

 

[Kek700]

Absolutely right about the tyres, you need to keep the pressures at the front to 29 psi across the start / finish line. ( there is some counter argument to this but for this article it will do )
lowering the pressures with a lot of camber is a big backward step in this instance.
i used 1.4 deg front camber, 24 psi static pressure all around. ( not perfect, but because of our performance loss in this race, i hardly think i needed to fuss too much ).

third corner + as you said 2nd to last , i too have never been able to get those right in any car.
Why, haven’t a clue.


warning***** i am definitely not an expert on these subjects, just my opinion.

Trying to get temperatures into the tyre by excessive adjustments, as far as i have seen, always
causes a counter productive effect. Someone may have a valid counter to this, but i have not found it.

 

[RasmusP]

About pressures and temps in AC:
The equations are a bit flawed there. Not such a big deal, it's easier for us.
If you'd draw some nice graphs (I can't do that, sorry) for the grip levels across pressures and temps, you would see that if you drop the pressures for better temps, you'd lose grip in the end!

So you have a calculated "grip level" for each PSI value and also a calculated "grip level" for the temperatures.
The problem now is that the grip level for the PSI values is far more sensitive than the curve for the temps.
Which leads to one conclusion:
Ignore the temps completely apart from "oh it's going orange I'm gonna lose grip in 3..2...1..." and "okay they went blue on the long straight (fronts at the Nordschleife final straight), I'm gonna have to be careful entering the next corner!".

And just always aim for optimum pressures! I'm using sidekick which tells you "what to change" directly in numbers.
So yesterday with the Ginetta I did 3 laps and sidekick told me:
+2 -2
+2 +1

Changed the PSI to these values and was done with caring about the tyres

Now if you'd jump into ACC or pcars... That would change completely!

BTW: scrubbing the fronts does work in AC though. So over-turning the front at the last corner and through T1 might be a good plan in the Lotus.

 

[pfleety]

I'll be honest was not happy with the race, cleanly got out of the first corner to be shunted off the track and no one stopped or even apologised if anyone has the replay to send me I would be grateful. Tried to save it myself but it seemed to have only captured 2 mins or so and not the actual start.

Thanks

Pete

 

[Miguel Batista]

About pressures and temps in AC:
The equations are a bit flawed there. Not such a big deal, it's easier for us.
If you'd draw some nice graphs (I can't do that, sorry) for the grip levels across pressures and temps, you would see that if you drop the pressures for better temps, you'd lose grip in the end!

So you have a calculated "grip level" for each PSI value and also a calculated "grip level" for the temperatures.
The problem now is that the grip level for the PSI values is far more sensitive than the curve for the temps.
Which leads to one conclusion:
Ignore the temps completely apart from "oh it's going orange I'm gonna lose grip in 3..2...1..." and "okay they went blue on the long straight (fronts at the Nordschleife final straight), I'm gonna have to be careful entering the next corner!".

And just always aim for optimum pressures! I'm using sidekick which tells you "what to change" directly in numbers.
So yesterday with the Ginetta I did 3 laps and sidekick told me:
+2 -2
+2 +1

Changed the PSI to these values and was done with caring about the tyres

Now if you'd jump into ACC or pcars... That would change completely!

BTW: scrubbing the fronts does work in AC though. So over-turning the front at the last corner and through T1 might be a good plan in the Lotus.

The equations are not flawed. A.C. might use different equations but these are absolutely right

Interesting that lowering tyre pressure doesn't work. To me it seemed like it increased front temps a little bit. Will retest but it makes sense since you get more rolling resistance therefore more energy into the tyres.
Will try it out again.

 

[RasmusP]

The equations are not flawed. A.C. might use different equations but these are absolutely right

Interesting that lowering tyre pressure doesn't work. To me it seemed like it increased front temps a little bit. Will retest but it makes sense since you get more rolling resistance therefore more energy into the tyres.
Will try it out again.

We misunderstood:
"About pressures and temps in AC: The equations are a bit flawed there".
The equations AC uses are a bit flawed, not yours
Or well, the raw laws oh physics are correct but the algorithm that tries to simulate the real tyres while simplifying things for our PC levels lacks a bit of realism regarding the influence of tyre pressures to the temperatures.

You can get more heat into the tyres by using lower pressures and you will gain grip from the temperature -> grip equation but you will lose grip from the "optimum pressure" -> grip equation.
And the loss will be higher than the gain so you will go from 80% with blue tyres to 95% with green tyres but at the same time will go from 100% with optimum pressures down to 80% with the low pressures.
So you'll have 80% + 100% vs 95% + 80%.

 

[Miguel Batista]

We misunderstood:
"About pressures and temps in AC: The equations are a bit flawed there".
The equations AC uses are a bit flawed, not yours
Or well, the raw laws oh physics are correct but the algorithm that tries to simulate the real tyres while simplifying things for our PC levels lacks a bit of realism regarding the influence of tyre pressures to the temperatures.

You can get more heat into the tyres by using lower pressures and you will gain grip from the temperature -> grip equation but you will lose grip from the "optimum pressure" -> grip equation.
And the loss will be higher than the gain so you will go from 80% with blue tyres to 95% with green tyres but at the same time will go from 100% with optimum pressures down to 80% with the low pressures.
So you'll have 80% + 100% vs 95% + 80%.

Got it nicely explained. Basically I was trying to get to higher temps and pressures by using an initial lower pressure but the game doesn't work that way. So instead I should'veincreased tyre pressure to optimum and just deal with the cold tyres. Interesting.

 

[RasmusP]

Got it nicely explained. Basically I was trying to get to higher temps and pressures by using an initial lower pressure but the game doesn't work that way. So instead I should'veincreased tyre pressure to optimum and just deal with the cold tyres. Interesting.

Exactly!
And yeah, it's a bit "interesting" for sure...

 

[RainhamIron]

Pressure is derived from temperature. PV = nRT is likely to be the equation the use. Temperature is likely obtained through track temperature and energy transfer q = mCT and energy obtained through the attrition force or rolling resistance of the tyre and road.

Yes I did physics at college too, but thank you anyway for the refresher
However I was referring more to the way AC appears to work as opposed to say...rf2. Basically in rf2 the general rule is just to whack the pressures to as low a value as possible, however kooky that might sound. In AC though you aim where possible for what's considered to be the optimal pressure for maximum grip. This may well in turn decrease the temps below what you would consider ideal, but that seems to be the way to go, and sidekick is rather handy in that respect.

 

[Kek700]

I'll be honest was not happy with the race, cleanly got out of the first corner to be shunted off the track and no one stopped or even apologised if anyone has the replay to send me I would be grateful. Tried to save it myself but it seemed to have only captured 2 mins or so and not the actual start.

Thanks

Pete

just checked , i only have the replay for second race, but if remember correctly the first race was was quite full on, got knocked off quite a few times. ( probably the car i was driving did not help ) second was not as bad, i would just accept the bad luck,
these races are very good usually, some one is gona get it, next time it will be somebody else.

 

[Kek700]

Rasmus , i think the problem we both had, was that the front right tyre was dropping below 52 deg C
and the right tyre was 56 deg C, Which goes someway in explaining the difficulties with the
right hand bends , that we mentioned earlier. I am not sure how this works with SM tyres, if the ( i’ll call it the coefficient of friction is lower than a full slick, like the hard’s you were on, i do know the hard slicks were running about 10 degrees higher ( not absolutely sure about that ) did do a few practice laps in the Porsche, not sure what the track temp was though ).
We had 1 good lap, the first, then a ok lap, then a not so good lap, the third, then a down hill struggle every consecutive lap after that. track temperature was at 27 deg C if i remember correctly.
Rears were okayish.
Not really sure about the relevance of all this, but you never know.

 

[RasmusP]

Rasmus , i think the problem we both had, was that the front right tyre was dropping below 52 deg C
and the right tyre was 56 deg C, Which goes someway in explaining the difficulties with the
right hand bends , that we mentioned earlier. I am not sure how this works with SM tyres, if the ( i’ll call it the coefficient of friction is lower than a full slick, like the hard’s you were on, i do know the hard slicks were running about 10 degrees higher ( not absolutely sure about that ) did do a few practice laps in the Porsche, not sure what the track temp was though ).
We had 1 good lap, the first, then a ok lap, then a not so good lap, the third, then a down hill struggle every consecutive lap after that. track temperature was at 27 deg C if i remember correctly.
Rears were okayish.
Not really sure about the relevance of all this, but you never know.

Yeah the is definitely there but I think it's just how the lotus gt4 is... Nothing to be done there.
My front right was cooked a few times so the track temp was about right for hard slicks. Sadly not for the lotus semi slicks...

I have to say I absolutely hate that car, oops! Just drives like a weird piece of a tuned lotus.
I like the base version of it a lot more!