So I am running a long race weekend and treating my engines very carefully. What I do for P1 is just practice with the corner line on until I am comfortable and then restart the session (so I havent wasted a fresh engine). Once restarted I do the R&D objective first and after 2 laps I come back to the pits and switch to a weaker engine so I can save the good one for quali and race. In P2 I practice with my weak engine and do another R&D lap for the same upgrade as P1, practice some more and then go on to P3. In P3 I do another R&D lap for the same upgrade and when I am happy I switch back to a good engine for quali. My problem is that my R&D never actually gives me the upgrade! I am at instanbul now and I am still trying to get the "reduce rear tyre drag 5%" upgrade. What am I doing wrong??
You are doing nothing wrong glight after you do research it takes at least one race weekend for aero upgrades to be fitted to your car, throttle map's are usually added by qualy if not the race of the same weekend. It is strange at first but think about it, once they research it they then have to make it, couple of weekend's at worst !
OK guys, I am now at Valencia and I am still confused with what is going on with my R&D. As stated before I have adopted the following strategy concerning practice: (to save engines) P1: Do the R&D objective in 1-2 laps and then switch to engine#2 (weakest/practice engine) P2: Practice as usual, do the R&D lap P3: Practice as usual, do the R&D lap, Switch to a fresh engine before the end (so I am set for Q and R) I completed the R&D in race 7 for "Reduced Rear Tyre Drag", did not have R&D in race 8, now on race 9 I am still tasked with the same R&D objective. Can someone explain????
Thats wierd, I dont think I have ever not received an upgrade after completing the R&D in practice...
I decided to do a little experiment with the last set of Practice sessions I completed. This time I used P1 to practice as much as I needed, if I ran out of time I just restarted the session. Once I was comfortable with the track and ready to go on to quali and race I restarted again. This way I am not causing any undue engine ware. So I was still in P1 and this time after doing the R&D lap I did not switch engines just skipped to P2 to do the next R&D lap then skipped to P3 and did the final R&D lap. I did not switch engines at the end of P3 and guess what, my upgrade was granted! AND it was applied right away for the Race. So apparently if you have an R&D lap in your practice session you CANNOT switch engines or it will invalidate the R&D. Pretty nasty bug if you ask me since it wrecks practice mode and forces me to "cheat" by doing a bunch of restarts. Also, it means I can't manage my engines so I have to stick to the game's erratic engine selection.
