Paul Jeffrey
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Aristotelis Vasilakos compares fuel consumption figures between Assetto Corsa and a real motorsports team as Kunos look to address misaligned values in their Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.
Aristotelis Vasilakos of Kunos Simulazioni has recently published a very interesting post on his personal Facebook page and over at the Kunos forums explaining the level of collaboration between Kunos and Porsche in building the 911 GT3 Cup car, as well as dispelling some myths with regards to some of the values used within the virtual racer found in Assetto Corsa.
Admittedly I wasn't aware of this specific complaint as it appears that some of the sim racing community have become concerned at what they deemed to be unrealistic fuel consumption and camber figures in the Assetto Corsa 911's, prompting Kunos physics expert Aristotelis Vasilakos to write a detailed post explaining how Kunos have come to reach these figures, and why they match up to their real life counterpart.
I'm always fascinated to understand the level of collaboration between manufacturer and game maker in respect to bringing different racing cars into our simulators, and Aris has done a very good job of sharing with the community details on just how similar the car in Assetto Corsa is to a real world racing team, namely the Antonelli Motorsport operation that runs in the Italian Porsche Supercup and the main Supercup series.
Antonelli Motorsport have provided telemetry from Imola, Mugello and Monza to show the average fuel consumption from each track, in direct response to an early issue that occurred post launch of the AC 911, where Vasilakos readily admits he overlooked the fuel consumption figures when building the physics for the cars:
"Sorry about the fuel consumption error, although I thought I got it right, I admit I was more focused on getting our car and tyres work properly with the absurd amounts of negative camber the real car has. I left the fuel consumption as a last thing to do and it slipped out... I forgot.
Our car does around 54+Litres/100km, while it seems the other sims do around 82+L/100km. I'll double check the telemetry and make sure to get a correct value" said Vasilakos
So on average the real life Cup car from Antonelli Motorsport runs at around 47 to 50 litres per 100km, in comparison to the current 54 + litres per 100km as is currently simulated in Assetto Corsa. According to one user on the Assetto Corsa forum this figure can be compared to the 84 litres per 100km currently simulated by the iRacing equivalent car, some 34 litres more than the real life version!Our car does around 54+Litres/100km, while it seems the other sims do around 82+L/100km. I'll double check the telemetry and make sure to get a correct value" said Vasilakos
It has not been made clear in the thread if Assetto Corsa will be looking to address the fuel consumption figures in a future update, however with the reputation of Kunos' desire to simulate their cars to the highest degree possible, and an amendment to the figures seemingly a straight forward exercise, one would imagine the next build will look to address the current mismatch between real and virtual.
For those with an interest in finding out more you can read the full post from Assetto Corsa physics expert Aristotelis Vasilakos below:
"Does Assetto Corsa Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car has an unrealistically low fuel consumption? Sergio Negroni and his race engineer, share their data and telemetry and I explain all the fuss...
As you know, KUNOS has a great collaboration with Porsche, providing software for their simulators. The collaboration is bi-directional, as Porsche makes sure to give us as much data as possible in order to simulate the...ir cars in the best possible way for our Assetto Corsa users. Obviously such data are highly confidential and we can't show them. Still, KUNOS main force has always been our deep link with motorsport drivers and engineers. We try to "stay in contact" with as many motorsport teams, drivers and engineers as possible, in order to get first hand information from people who run the cars.
It is the case of Enrico Fulgenzi who greatly helped us with data and feedback on the capability of the 911 GT3 Cup car to stay very stable over kerbs, as well as running "absurd" amounts of negative camber (like -5°front and over -5°rear!). All of that has been translated in our AC 911 GT3 Cup simulation.
This time I ask the kind help of Sergio Negroni and his team Antonelli Motorsport. Sergio not only runs in Italian Porsche Cup, but also Porsche Supercup and he has participated in... 9 (nine!) 24hours of Nurburgring! He and his race engineer, kindly shared with me their telemetry data directly on the tracks we care so that we could verify the Cup car fuel consumption.
So, as you all know, we might not have drivers on a pay roll, but we have great collaboration with the car manufacturers and in specific an exclusive collaboration with Porsche for its own simulators. Furthermore, we have many connections in the motorsport world, many professional drivers and teams, trust our work and trust us with their data so that we can simulate their cars as good as possible and they can use our sim to train and practice.
It's the case of Enrico Fulgenzi that greatly helped with the development and fine tuning of the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup tyres and the absurd amount of negative camber that those cars run in real life, as well as in Assetto Corsa (-5°front, over -5°rear!).
For the consumption issue I contacted Sergio Negroni and his team Antonelli Motorsport. Sergio not only runs in Italian Porsche Cup, but also Porsche Supercup and he has participated in... 9 (nine!) 24hours of Nurburgring! He and his race engineer, kindly shared with me their telemetry data directly on the tracks we care.
Average consumption results:
- Imola 2.42Litre / Lap
- Mugello 2.47Litres / Lap
- Monza 2.9Litres / Lap
As you can see from this telemetry screenshot, the average value is the white highlighted box at the middle right of the image. (disregard the track map at the bottom, it's the default one opened by their engineer). Obviously the consumption varies depending on ambient conditions, driver style, setup and race or qualifying situation, but as the engineer said, those are micro variations, not big enough to completely change setup or strategy.
Now obviously this is from the 2016 car. The 2017 car has 15bhp more, but also has direct injection which, if nothing else, should even further lower the consumption and generally is on par with the data we received from Porsche.
I hope that clarifies the matter, hopefully other sims will upgrade their cars too, offering to their users a great Porsche experience".
Assetto Corsa is a multi platform racing simulation by Kunos Simulazioni, available now for purchase on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. Additional DLC packages containing a number of additional cars and tracks can be purchased via the respective platform stores.
Check out the Assetto Corsa sub forum here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions. Join in with our community, download a mod or two and even better, have a race in one of our epic club and league racing events!
Did you enjoy the detailed explanation of the correlation between the real life and virtual Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars from Aris above? Have you enjoyed the Porsche DLC for Assetto Corsa? Let us know in the comments section below!
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