Assetto Corsa Challenge - New round - GTR GT3 on Road America!

you’re really running 2:52 with no suspension setup? whew

Yeah I just turned down the rear pressures a bit so they didn’t expand too much after several laps and cause loss of traction and more friction. The handling’s a bit vague as a result but not like the suspension isn’t jello anyway :joy:

here’s my result with 45L of fuel. 15 laps. 2 foul laps. and ran out of fuel about 35% through the 16th lap. and since the rest is downhill, i could actually coast from up there down to the pitlane with the engine off :joy:

although i dunno why, i tend to be more towards 2:54.7 rather than 2:55.0

boy the tire wear was more than 50%, more like about 60% on the rear and 55% on the front. i was seriously having trouble keeping anything under control really.

at about 20% you start to feel that engine braking starts to want to kick the rear end out.

about 30% it’s almost guaranteed to kick the rear end out. so much so that in places where you go down to 2nd is just too hard to control in 2nd now

at 40% is ANY braking is unstable

at 50% NOTHING IS STABLE :joy:

at 60% welllll… let’s just say that the wall is your friend at this point.

but really at high tire wear you do really learn what small actions actually puts a lot of pressure on the tire and wears it out quick.

also. 2:52 is just not feasible for over than 5 laps for me. even trying once instantly overheated my tyres. (that one 2:52.75 lap)

You did it on lap nine, I mean, I could turn that in after 8 laps of 2:58 but…

Also are you back to keyboard or mouse? This track does benefit from smooth steering inputs… The back end corners are notoriously because many of them are over crests and have subtle tightening and loosening on them and any of them are liable to make the car unstable. Because I haven’t used FFB for a long time and in real life my steering is electric (not the good kind), I got used to visually syncing my steering lock with the car behaviour so I know when it’s over or understanding. Useful for tyre preservation.

lol yeah. it’s was somewhat stupid, suddenly decided to just gun it for one lap. on lap 9. where the tire wear is already bad. and the tires instantly overheated after like 5 turns. (OPEN DIFF FTW).

also… am using mouse steering. it’s (almost )impossible to preserve my tires using keyboard. i may be quick for hotlap using keyboard, but i’m pushing it ridicolously fast and rough. plus i moved home and my desk is clean now. i can comfortably use mouse :slight_smile: it was still awkward at first trying to find a good setup too

Hm. Are we just doing Tyre Wear x1? I made a fist of using 90s streets and having a full tank and just going at it and this is what happened:

The first lap was like: oh, let’s just try to see what 2:52 is like and I was a bit too conservative. Then I was a bit too aggressive making up for it. The third lap, I didn’t even know you could go wide leading up to the kink at the end of Conrod straight (I don’t think this is a thing in real life). After that I thought hang it, I’m going to see if I can make 2:50 instead. After lap 7 or so I decided I’d shoot for 2:49 instead. That’s when I realised it was possible to get into the 2:48s and the tyres were still feeling pretty ok. The grip and predictability really dropped off around lap 15, where I started bumping the barriers at Frog Hollow (note: the barriers actually tighten at the exit of the corner, which has been the culprit of fatal smashes before). Yet despite the loss of predictability, it was still possible to get into the 2:48 with a good deal of bravery and commitment, particularly through McPhillarmy (the faster corner before Skyline… you gotta really hug the barriers on the left and go for it and pray you don’t run wide coz if you do hit the sand it’s game over). Then I got a bit cocky and decided I’d try to brake ultra late into Skyline coz I was on a hot lap in 19, and that’s when the tyres let me know their extreme displeasure, and my tail end dipped off the course before I veered across and bumped (lightly) the tyre barriers, hence the 2:49.9. Lap 20, I decided to take everything bravely but also sensibly and as you can see, it’s still possible to get a 2:49 even with the tyres wearing the hell out, if you know how to counterbalance the minimal amount of necessary lock with judicious application of throttle (which, in this car’s case, is generally full throttle, most of the time, so a mouse will do just fine).

Final lap was me coasting the back half of the course back to pits as I ran out of fuel :joy:

I think my middle laps were faster because the car lost a bit of weight as I was burning through fuel, but the grip was still all there. I kind of expected it to drop off sooner, but it didn’t.

I guess the trick to preserving the tyres is that I cared a lot about the fronts. I did a lot of braking in a straight line, and easing off the brakes when turning, because I don’t want to introduce a lateral load to the front tyres when I’m already loading them, as that will shear the tread. Then I made sure to not use more lock than was necessary. Sometimes it’s fastest to do a Senna and pull the wheel a bit tighter to draw the nose in even when you’re hugging the inside (an observer might think you will crash but you won’t), that’s how to get the fastest line through Frog Hollow and McPhillarmy after all. But for the most part if accelerating out of a corner and FR will nose in if you apply the gas post apex, so you can ease off the steering, oftentimes, if you get the balance right, returning it to neutral. Then the next step is to chain the momentum of the corners, so picking the best line for the first corner will involve seeing what the best entry point is for the next corner, for example, it’s not that simple to just cut the inside at the end of Reid Park as you don’t have much room before needing to be right on the outside before Frog Hollow, but also there’s a massive dip there and the loading on the suspension at the top of the dip will cause lateral shear, so you’ll get pushed to the outside, but this means you should pick the speed such that your suspension has finished unloading (and so has the damping), so that you have decent traction so you don’t smash into the barriers on the exit of Frog Hollow, as that’s over a crest and if you run on the kerb on the inside, which is almost necessary, you will lose a bit of inside traction. Therefore, if you’re doing about 140km/h, you should possibly dip the nose preemptively by touching the brakes (EDIT: fuck that noise, just go all in but make sure you’re on the inside and turning smoothly) at the first crest or you’ll go deep and have to brake at the bottom of the dip instead which will scrub off excessive speed for the incline bit and then you’ll carry less speed going towards the faster McPhillarmy, Suleman before Skyline. Going through that bit crappily as opposed to perfectly could cost you up to a whole second. Same with The Esses and the Big Dippa, if you brake too late and go too deep then you’ll be forced to go deep on every corner and you’ll lose heaps of time so brake early so you can thread the car through the eye of the needle and hug the apex of every corner and maximise your exit as there’s a good period of downhill speed to be gained before Forest Elbow, and not to mention braking early before Forest Elbow really helps because if you can hug the inside there you can get on the gas early for Conrod, and that’s a long straight so every bit of exit speed counts.

That’s what’s so remarkable about Mt Panorama: not only is it narrow and awfully dangerous in parts, but either the corners are: 1) standalone but before a big straight so exit speed is king, which is what makes passing on them such a tricky game, 2) part of a massive technical chain where a mistake means crashing or death.

ok, if somebody manages 20 laps of 2:48-2:50, lemme know :stuck_out_tongue:

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and since the track corner indicator thingy doesn’t work for me. i have no clue what you’re talking about :joy:

might try again. maybe. it takes up quite a bit of time

Yeah it’s not working, just refer to this:

tried to do 2:52 you know what you said about the performance delta thing? it actually gives me a hindrance after the 1st lap. the 1st lap is just to set the pace for 2:52, then i just need to forget about it and chase the shadow car.

you see before lap 8 i was looking constantly at the performance delta thingy, and kept on attacking corners way too aggressive, and ended up hitting the wall, sliding way too much and overheats the tires that i need for the next corner, or just end up braking too late and going out of the fast line.

but after lap 8, you can see that i am MUCH more consistent, although still erratic, but much better than before lap 8. because that’s when i said fuck it, just focus on driving fast.

but clearly 2:52 is too much for me. this is my end situation. going too fast out of The Dipper, understeered, and hit the wall too fast, and broke my suspension. could barely achieve 200km/h on the conrod straight. and was totally not able to turn right and 0 grip

I’ll post an on-board lap of my 2:48s sometime, then you can see everything I do!

For me it’s pretty easy to stay consistent because even running at 2:49-50 there was some room to move (not a lot, but enough) and because the car is kind of forgiving it was easier to focus on the corner entry and exit speeds. I can predict what the splits will look like so I know whether to brake later in something or give more corner speed elsewhere or whether to take a gentle line and preserve tyres.

But first I have to work out how to turn on half those widgets lol, I never use performance delta or tyre wear indicators.

edit: had a look at the tyre indicators. Looks like the front left gets really cool because most of the hard corners are left handers. Also, the rear right gets really hot. So if you drop the rear pressures to 31 and 30 for L and R, and increase the front left to 33 you will definitely gain at least a second in lap time! (I just did a 2:47.3 on fresh tyres on 20L fuel).

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I am quite sure there will be subsequent bracket racing rounds on this thread in which consistency is more of a priority than outright single-lap pace…

uhh i dunno. the reception is not that good. i think i’m gonna mix it in the next few rounds instead of going just bracket racing/practice

I’m quite happy to do bracket practice, koolkei picked a pretty easy one to start but say if you had to do this in the RUF CTR Yellowbird…

NO

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Next round!


I wanted to post my practice lap but that films at like fucking 8fps so that’ll be coming later :innocent:

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Under these conditions it’s impossible to keep any kind of heat in the tyres, so if anything after the first tenth of a lap you’ll get heaps of scrub and understeer etc. etc. :joy: The fog doesn’t affect me much because I could pretty much do this track blindfolded (I did almost run off after misjudging the braking line once or twice), so I get 6:54 on default settings (slick mediums, TC set to 3/12, things got a bit sideways here and there). Anything under 7 minutes is already doing pretty darn fast, the corner speeds are unlike anything you’ll ever achieve with a road car on regular tyres.

In perfect conditions I think the GT3 cars are good for 6:45-6:50, so that’s the fog and temperature for you.

EDIT: @koolkei forgot to upload this, from the previous round. This is a pretty much maximum attack lap on perfect tyres.

I fucked up the braking point for The Chase, went about a car length too long so I went a bit deeper than intended, so probably lost a bit of time due to slightly poorer speed down to Murray’s. But it’s quite aggressive. Note that on road tyres they really cool off very fast on the long Mountain straight, so there isn’t much point in tyre blankets.

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wait hold on, which tyre compound are you using?

Slick medium, the usual one assigned. Which one you want us to use?

fuck… 8 mins+

i don’t know the track. never raced on it ever… and only found out that it’s also available in mod form.

also that video. 1) why the quality so bad even with 720p? youtube compression? 2) your shift point are much earlier than mine. i usually like to come close-ish to the redline before shifting. other than that… well. you shift down to 2nd in some places that i kept it in 3rd so it’s easier to control