I completely forgot about that new rule in the truck series. It’s not in the premier series, though.
Right, but since the tires would lead to faster lap times, one could just tune their car with a less aggressive camber setup to conserve tire wear. So you could still extend your tread life while keeping comparable lap times. It all comes down to design choices within the rule set.
That’s their choice. I know I don’t invest nearly as much time and I don’t expect to do as well. I still enjoy the races.
sooooooooo I just want to say, I only spent about 1 or 2 days total building my car for this season. I was originally going to use the car I built for the 1000km enduro race that happened, but after seeing the times being put down by others I built a new car from scratch after all of the pre-season runs were over. I effectively went into this season on a shoe-string time budget and blind.
Videos are being planned still. Between college and my business unexpectedly growing to about 4 almost 5 times its size since the summer… yea. Time. Oh sweet time, how quickly you flee.
The videos may not be done until December after this semester ends.
In the meantime you might be able to find me under a pile of college books, late homework assignments, and building insurance reports. Oh yea, and under the pile of crap from a abandoned property clean out with spiders eating me alive or something. Or standing next to a UHaul truck stuck in a newly discovered sand deposit… that was a fun day.
Just watching the practice for event 6 and there’s gonna be some decent contenders in the mid-field who are, at least, going to make the top 15 or so if they play their strategy right.
Trollercoaster is going to need 7 pitstops to finish, but he’s also 5 seconds quicker than anyone else, which will mean nothing in the long run.
Further down the field, pHanta, 8bs and WoarLord can all make race distance on a single tank of fuel and if there’s a safety car zone, then Prylix might even be able to get 15 laps and that’s factoring tire wear in as well (mind you, they’ll be racing on the steel belts and canvas at that point).
Running midfield without a stop until the expected rain at the end would hopefully save a little bit of time for the drivers and diving in for a quick wet tires only stop around 3-4 laps from the end when everyone else is stopping for their 2nd or 3rd stop with fuel will give some time advantage that is lost upon the track.
I won’t say that any of the cars I mentioned will be right up the front, but I could see 8bs or Prylix tapping on the top 15 throughout the race with a top 25 finish after the leading cars eventually lap the field. I ran a one-stop strategy for Norisring and made 10th place at one point which became a top 25 (most of my results being around that position too) and my 6L V8, 1300kg lead sled isn’t exactly the most economical on tires or fuel, just imagine what those cars could do with a no stopper, you’d still lose to the front pack but there is potential there .
If the front runners have more than one stop then we may see 3 or 4 cars that aren’t the fastest but at the end of the day showing really good pace and hopefully some decent track position.
Also, Squidhead has the stats to pull either a one or two stopper and really shake things up right at the front.
I’m getting murdered by those 100% humidity qualifications it seems. In Hocki it was 3rd in practice 4th in quals, here 2nd in practice 4th in quals.
I think (gasp) all that torque gets to be a bit much in the rain.
Having said that, I’m fricken thrilled at the times my car is pulling. Looks like the close ratios may have been the right choice after all. The top speed may not be great, but it comes fast when you press Turbo Boost.
@Der_Bayer, can you please confirm if you have done something with fuel reserve estimates/emergency stops after the first race? Sorry if it has been mentioned and I missed or forgot about it - I know you increased the reserve, but when the car starts with a full tank and needs to use almost all of it, it can still be a close call. Based on practice my car can two-stop the race, but would only have about 1.1kg in reserve every stint. If I went for that and the car decided it had to come in (early) after every four laps, I could sort of almost account for that with some kind of a loose strategy. Wouldn’t be great but it seems the NAs are going to dominate here no matter what I do. On the other hand if the car wrongly decided it could do the lap and ran out of fuel I would pretty much lose my chance at the championship. I don’t want to put the pressure on you, I’d just appreciate a heads up if you think it is still a possibility.
(For example it seems if the car has done 4 laps at 13.5kg and has 14.5kg left it really shouldn’t be possible to use all of that up on the fifth…? But if it only had, say, 14kg left or 13.8kg, when would the simulation go nuh-uh?)
Any guesses for the winner at SPA? mer_at is ludicrously fast as usual, but AirJordan has some damn steady times. Does not seem like the turbonauts would have very good odds being just a second per lap faster.
I don’t think I can catch mer_at after this in the overall ranking unless his engine goes kablooie. 8 races with ~94% chance to finish comes out to a 40% chance of DNF over the season… I’d much prefer my car beat yours on the track, but that’s a tall order, you have built a proper monster. To be fair, a bit of that speed has probably come at the cost of the reliability.
I’m still angry at mer_at for pulling this off…I did not have guts to put a 26 reliability (a bit faster) car in and here he is winning with 19… agrh you did well sir, you did well.
I’m really excited for spa. I qualified higher than usual and my times are not that far of turbos (relative to length of the track). I can and will run 10-11 laps or till rain if that’s earlier. Than hopefully right tyres go on and sprint to the end. If nothing goes boom on my end I believe I have a good chance maybe even to win again (long faster tracks are good with my setup) <= I’m loosing around 1.5 sec a lap but there are only 15 sooo… definitely one stop profit compared to you (howler) and mer_at. I see Leo have to 3 stop so in normal conditions he’s out.
Not sure how I feel about forecast… if rain comes early I’m excited… i it comes late and heavy…well fu*k
I have to make 4 stops… If my car was able to use 1kg less per lap I could have done 3 stops. Lets see if a late race tsunami gives me an unexpected position boost again
Yes, I did something about it, and I increased the reserve. You won’t run out of fuel. But 1,1 kg is less than 10% of your fuel consumption per lap. The threshold now was at 20% +2kg if I remember correctly. I could reduce it a little bit on this track, but in case you are drafting behind for example Trollercoaster, your 10% margin is very small. And if you draft for more than a lap before the last lap of your fuel stop, you won’t even have that 10% margin.
So, to sum it up: You can risk going for a stop less and then end up with 1 lap earlier pit stops than planned and an emergency stop a few laps before the end. Or you can run conservatively and run 1 stop more. Remember you might get a bit of time back by shorter refueling times then.
It’s turned out to be a crazy week so I haven’t had a free moment to look closer at the numbers, but since puttering out isn’t going to happen, I am very tempted by the two stop option. I’ll know better how much time I could win (or lose) when I have some time to play around in excel.
I suppose I’ll have to keep in mind that with three planned stops the final can be fuel+tire compound if rain starts. If I do go for two, I’ll have to consider the possibility of one unplanned for fuel and another for tires. That or shutting the pit doors and skittering around on slicks again like last race.
@Der_Bayer, regarding the safety margin for fuel. I think it should be lower than 20% of the lap on these longer tracks, like spa and nordschleife, otherwise it means there will be a lot of fuel not being used on the faster cars. Maybe instead of having it be a percentage, change them to a bigger stable number, so the game can think that “if fuel is less than 1 lap + 2 kg, pit”, or something like that.
Actually, my car consumes a bit too much fuel to make an entire race on a single tank. At least not eveywhere : it happened only on Hockenheim so far and it could have netted me points if I had Inter tyres instead of Wet.
Speaking of strategies, I definitely was advantaged by the restart. I felt like I have been screwed by the safety cars on the aborted race, especially the second one as my car had to stay behind the safety car while cars ahead of me already passed it and could rejoin the pack later. This leads me to a suggestion to @Der_Bayer : what do you think of a “lapped cars may overtake” rule during safety car periods (like in F1)? Could it be feasible in Brobot ?
Edit : I didn’t know BallsMackenzie was talking about the Spa P&Q sessions because I missed it. I can indeed go for a no pit strategy in Spa. I’m kind of afraid my car still pits in the end because of the fuel safety margin but I decided : screw it, I’ll risk it for a biscuit.
…Yeah, no chance in hell I’m going to keep up with mer_at or AirJordan on this one. Going to play it safe with three stops and trust/hope the car to be fast enough to not fall too far down the order.
I know I can’t be the only one, but for the life of me I can’t figure out BRCTool using the updated car files @Der_Bayer sent me.
Any chance of a bit of a guide on it?
Spa will happen… soon.
Unfourtanely i am a bit sick and my voice is quite broken and non existant, so it wont be this sunday at all. (also the others have no time too)
