AC Le Mans 64 @ Cirque de La Sarthe - Sunday 12th June 2022

[H_Belane]

Was a good interesting race.

Next time I'll have to find out how it works with the KERS.
It's always been automatic for me. I couldn't save any of it.

 

[AW939]

Well, I knew I would bottle it at some point, but I didn't think that much. After 4th in quali it could only go backwards for me in the race. Everyone ahead was well clear of me.

Then at the start wrong ERS mode and forgot to manually boost, so lost 2 places immediately, then missed the brake point and cut the first chicane already, losing even more ground. Then lost it again next round in Tertre Rouge, went to last of LMP1. Fought back 1 place a lap later and was behind Paul. He went into Indianapolis slower than I thought, I think he had a little moment there as well (?) and I was on my best way to push him over the barriers, so panic mode engaged and instantly ported back to pits.

So within 3 laps I made every mistake one could make, and from there I was already 2 minutes behind the last LMP1 and even 45s behind the last GT3. So some hotlapping afterwards, obviously didn't had to fight the GT3s to overtake. Few more visits to the beach and barrier taps later didn't let me catch Casper. So I was only seeing lapped cars everywhere, either Joel or Enzo or the GT3s.
Oh and had 0.5 laps of fuel to little in the tank (miscalculated, started with a full tank, thinking I need to add 15l later, but then noticed that it's way less, so did not refuel and then it was too little, with some fuel saving maybe a race of that length would be possible with the Toyota). So last lap was coasting down every straight and short shifting the hell out of that car. But with a 3:50 that lap I made it, with 0.3l left in the tank.

Sadly I always get some CPU limitation stutters with such a large grid. So CPU is at 30%, FPS > 60, but since AC only uses two cores, those are at max. These stutters definitely messed with my feeling of speed the first few laps, couldn't get one brake point right. In the Mazda it's not such a big deal, but here it easily causes a spin...

Still congrats to the podiums in each class, really great pace!

 

[Alfred Wayne]

My race was fun, then messy, then fun again. First few laps I was actually able to hang around the front a little, but eventually settled into my pace a bit behind.

Then had a few visits with the walls (1 from a stutter/freeze). Sorry @Nico™ for that close overtake then spin. Got caught in no mans land between being able to brake as you rejoined and maybe making it by you and holding the turn. Tried the latter, didn't work . Found myself on the other end some laps later. Hope I didn't mess up anyones line too bad. Not much I could do other that sit and wait

After all that, ended the race with a good battle with Richard which unfortunately ended a few corners before the end under "yellow flags", but that's last lap racing at LeMans

Fun treat taking these LMP1 cars out. Thanks for giving us our own LeMans experience and thank you GT3 drivers for putting up with us

 

[Interslice]

This is one race I always do a bit of prep for. Setup, fuel and tyres sorted and plenty of laps done. It a punishing track and it always throws up something.
Similar to real life it gives you technical problems. FPS issue i sorted by turning mirrors off. It's just a crappy tiny screen in the toyota. Got rid of some apps. So into qualy with no warmup and now the driver position is hoping about inside the car, in the corners when i move my head. There was a steam vr update when i logged in. Luckily got a ok qualy done. Restarted the computer and all was well from there on.

I got a slow start to save the battery but some cars jumped ahead of me in through dunlop and then spun in the chicane. Early carnage in front!

Had some great battles with most of the midfield. Everyone had their troubles in the race. Lucky most of mine came in qualy. Wasn't going to have been racing joel or enzo so third was the best outcome really. Would have been a more exciting finish had everyone had kept going, but that's Le man

Sorry to pat for the piggy back. Didn't see the crash up ahead and no yellow flags as he was still on track! Or maybe i missed them.. Took a bit of getting used to the speed difference. A certain points of the lap it's huge closing speed.

 

[Goldtop]

Wonderful event last night, thank you for putting this on and to all that took part.

Did a lot of testing and thought I had a decent strategy for this. I went for mediums and a full load of fuel with just a splash/dash late race which saved a lot of time over changing tyres in the pitstop. Unfortunately my fuel app (or maybe me ) miscalculated and I soon realised I wouldn't make it to the end without some drastic fuel saving. Even then I had to pull over and slow down after the final chicane to allow the leader to finish so that I didn't have to run another lap. I eventually ran out of fuel a few metres short and managed to just about roll over the line to finish..... but by then I'd also lost another three places

Had some great battles throughout made even more enjoyable by the LMP1s who all drove impeccably from where I was sitting. Adds such a lot to the racing Would have been nice to have proper GTE/GTLM cars for Le Mans but at least the GT3s offer a wide choice of makes and seemed well matched.

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Would have been nice to have proper GTE/GTLM cars for Le Mans but at least the GT3s offer a wide choice of makes and seemed well matched.

We've got the Ferrari 458 GT2/E, the Vette C7 and the Porsche 911RSR (and I guess the BMW M3 GT2 as well) but their standard BOP is quite bad.

 

[JoelK]

We've got the Ferrari 458 GT2/E, the Vette C7 and the Porsche 911RSR (and I guess the BMW M3 GT2 as well) but their standard BOP is quite bad.

I have BOP settings stored for 'em somewhere. IIRC they were then pretty much balanced

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

As for the race; I had a terrible start, so I had to use quite a lot of boost to stay alongside Joel in T1. We went a bit back and forth up to tertre rouge and he passed me with a lot of boost coming out of tertre rouge, fortunately my Audi was significantly faster on the straights, so I repassed him before the first Mulsanne chicane. After that I was just able to extend the gap.

As for the driving itself, I had the car in 'Charging' all the time and was just manually pressing the button. Like Joel said, it's suboptimal because it is an on/off switch. However, with how little boost you have with the Audi, I just wanted to make sure I was using it in the right places.

I recorded my fastest lap last night from the replay (3:27.8xx), but unfortunately the replay doesn't show when you're on the boost or how much you have remaining for the lap etc.

 

[HF2000]

It was a nice race for me. Qually 4th but Stefan disappeared on the start line in front of me. Despite that I had a very bad start as Patrick moved in front of me and slowed down. So a lot of GT3's profited from that. Then there was the Dunlop carnage in which I could avoid all cars in that. After overtake some GT3 I found myself 2nd behind Thomas. When he spun in Tertre Rouge I was even class leader but Fulvio and Patrick were faster. Had a nice battle with Fulvia in his BMW as he was not able to overtake the mighty Nissan on the straights. Not even with a slipstream. But he could brake later and was much faster in the turns. We switched positions a few times but these battles cost time and Patrick caught up. On Mulsanne both had a slipstream from me and we went three cars wide to the 2nd chicane, me in the middle. As both drivers were so much faster I didn't want to take the risk and chickened out. The rest of the race was uneventful apart from two mistakes in Indianapolis by loss of concentration.

When we were already on the starting grid I got afraid that 16 laps would not be enough so I quickly add some fuel. Good choice as Patrick had to make a 2nd pitstop which gave me 2nd place.

Congrats to the podiums and thanks for organizing Brian.

 

[JoelK]

GT2/E BoP:

• BMW nothing
• Corvette 20 kg / 35% Restrictor
• Ferrari 0 kg / 15% Restrictor
• Porsche 20 kg / 30% Restrictor

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

GT2/E BoP:

• BMW nothing
• Corvette 20 kg / 35% Restrictor
• Ferrari 0 kg / 15% Restrictor
• Porsche 20 kg / 30% Restrictor

Ahh right, that one. Never really agreed with that. I personally think the Corvette should have roughly the same BOP as the Ferrari.

 

[HF2000]

We've got the Ferrari 458 GT2/E, the Vette C7 and the Porsche 911RSR (and I guess the BMW M3 GT2 as well) but their standard BOP is quite bad.

At the moment we can't use our own BOP settings on S.GP, unfortunately.

 

[640er]

If you are using Fanatec CSL pedals with LC and upgrade you rig from desk to a proper one, don't forget to change the rubber buffer things. Two of them snapped yesterday during the race :/ Now I'm running the hardest compound

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

@JoelK Just tried 2 laps with the Toyota on min rear wing and a quick and dirty 'click some buttons' setup and got to 323km/h and a 3:30.0xx.
With a bit more effort practice and setup work, I reckon I should be able to do at least low 29s, maybe a high 28. But I doubt I will get sectors for a 3:26.8 like I had with the Audi.

Big thing I noticed though is that the Toyota is much nicer on the brakes and in the Ford chicanes, so they'll probably be a lot closer on the shorter tracks. (+ the Toyota should have a slightly shorter pitstop)

 

[JoelK]

@JoelK Just tried 2 laps with the Toyota on min rear wing and a quick and dirty 'click some buttons' setup and got to 323km/h and a 3:30.0xx.
With a bit more effort practice and setup work, I reckon I should be able to do at least low 29s, maybe a high 28. But I doubt I will get sectors for a 3:26.8 like I had with the Audi.

Big thing I noticed though is that the Toyota is much nicer on the brakes and in the Ford chicanes, so they'll probably be a lot closer on the shorter tracks. (+ the Toyota should have a slightly shorter pitstop)

Seems about the same pace that I was getting out of it. In quali, had a delta for 28.8, but then I went put in the wall at the double-left of the Porsche curves.

But good to know that the reason why I was so far of your pace wasn't just my driving(which would've been totally possible.)

Should've been just more aggresive on the wing settings, maybe then I would've inched maybe a couple of tenths. My setup originally was for 2-6 wings, so I just went half to get the heave settings working roughly the same.

 

[Partick Eaton]

That was a fun race! I screwed up my qualifying laps and ended at the back.

I managed to gain a couple of spots at the start.

Later just before the pit stop I had a good battle with Thomas, he was driving the McLaren and just didn't have the power to pass me on the straights. I ended up spinning off and he got passed me.

It was pretty lonely for the balance with many fast LMP 1 drivers making clean passes. Late in the race Tudor came out of the pits and I ended up on his tail. We stayed close for a few laps and I finally made a clean pass. Great racing Tudor and Thomas!

I was surprised to see that I ended up 4th in the GT class, woohoo. I know I added extra fuel to cover any extra laps and it paid off.

Thanks for hosting and well done to the winners.

 

[Interslice]

Thanks to every one who raced on Sunday. Congrats to the podiums and Enzo/ Fulvio for the win.

Next week we are heading to Road Atlanta. See you there!

https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/rss-gt-road-atlanta-sunday-19th-june-2022.237679/