Season 14 Race 5 Montreal - Setup Thread

[April Dillon]

Yeah, the downforce packages are a bit deceptive on this car. The low downforce package is probably only useful on a track like Daytona. Most of us raced on high downforce last night, including myself (wing angles 25°/55°). Driving on medium is significantly more difficult, so I'd hate to think what low is like. That would explain it though.

On to Austria next, and that's going to be quite an unambiguous High Downforce Package track I think. Simplifies things a lot.

 

[Peter Decker]

I have to use this thread to discuss the brakes that we all experienced yesterday. I felt before the race that we barely took the risk of failure into much account, more or less relying on just open ducts. Obviously, this track seems to be the toughest for the brakes, but to not have better control if brakes are wearing down or not feels like russian roulette... What insights do you guys have? It felt pretty much as a joke to me yesterday, using less brake pedal force, smoother braking and checking temps all the time. It actually got a bit fun with one front brake and max brake bias on back. Then no front brakes and 2-3x brake distance with ~2000 dgr rear brakes, but still feels like some waste of invested time to race for position...

 

[David Turnbull]

as an example I used 70% brake pressure and open ducts, during braking phase I always brake hard initially and ease off instantly, Canada I felt that using gears to help slow instead of maximum brake each time helped alot, it made me confident my brakes wouldnt fail but made me a bit nervous that my gearbox would lol, youll notice in my hotlap vid how I was banging down the gears rapid, Nicolas even mentioned how I was able to, I played with the diff settings so that I was able to come down quick but also keep stability.

Like Dino says too though this was a hard track on the brakes, I think it just took some practise to get the balance between braking and downshifting right. A good example is the recent Canadian GP where Rosberg was told his brakes were critical from a very early stage.

 

[Dino Paolini]

It wasn't just a hard track for them, it was the hardest.

But regardless, you can do a 60min practice stint beforehand to see if your stuff holds up.
I did a full stint on Monday with 10% closed and 74% pressure and came through immediatly, so I knew open duct with same pressure will be zero risk, unless I stomp way too hard on the brakes before the hairpin multiple times maybe. But why should I do that?^^

Also there are multiple stuff you can do if you are not coming through in your practice stint:

1) Increase brake cooling if possible
2) Try to use more engine-braking if possible / if car-balance allows it
3) Decrease brake pressure either in the setup or in the sensitivity curve of your brake-pedal or tell your foot to decrease the pressure

Also it isn't that bad of an idea to check your brake temperatures sometime during practice. It isn't a 100% indicator, but it gives you an idea. Combine that with hhow much braking your are applying per lap and you have an idea if it is a braking intensive track.

For example:
At Bahrain you are doing a ton of braking in a lap so you have to adjust the settings a little bit like we saw there, even though the temps will not get that super high.
At Canada you are doing a ton of braking, multiple times hard braking and your temps will reach high values 1 or 2 times per lap, so it will be maximum hard on them.
At Red Bull Ring you are not doing that much braking during a lap and even though your temps can reach a high value in the hardest braking zone, they should hold up with no problem with standart values.

Anyways, you can always just do a full practice stint beforehand then you know for sure. The brakes will always start in the same optimal condition, so there is no random factor there, if your driving is somewhat consistant.

 

[Nicolas Delamare]

Your explanation suits to me David: I rather use a progressive downshifting and I apply a constant pressure along the braking zone while turning the wheel (everytime I tried quick downshifting I locked rear wheels.and spun..).
My driving style isn't good for the FR 3.5; and now with a wheel I see how difficult it is to change our way to drive.

Yet I made a 60 minutes stint but when the race comes, it's overtaking, slipstream, lockups, spins and with close walls, temps' never drop.

I remember a race on rF1 with RFT 2012 and I also failed to finish it, but at that moment my brake engine was very low.In general the FR 3.5's engine can handle lot of high revs without any issue, but brakes are critical: low pressure, open duct and right brake engine aren't enough.

 

[Nicolas Delamare]

So to finish with Montreal, I've just done a test on that track with the car I ran with wednesday, in order to check brake temp.
So with my race setup and 47L, front brake reach more than 800°C, often 850 and in just 2-3 laps (always with 56-44, 80kgf, brake engine on 1 and open duct).

Just to have an idea, on Red Bull Ring in quali condition (56.5-43.5, 76kgf, brake engine on 1 and closed duct) front brakes reach 1000°C in the 2nd lap (the real hotlap), and even more than 1100°C at the T3 braking zone, for both left and right.

I would want to know what are your temps' in those conditions ?

 

[Dino Paolini]

Yes Red-Bull Ring reaches even a bit higher temp at 2 places, but as I wrote eralier you are braking less in average during the lap and the brakes cool down more during the last sector.

In our testrace I accidentaly left the cooling at 50% closed and still came through; a couple of days ago again 60mins in RedBull Ring with 30% closed, again with no problems.