[Special Event] 2020 iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans

[Nejtun]

As if it wasn't confusing enough registering through the web client lol, not to mention that using the BETA client in VR is extremely difficult!
I will have to give it a go today, I am a little concerned though that iRacing are going to use their possibly biggest event so far to test out their BETA (experimental) client for registration....... fingers crossed!

 

[Nejtun]

So this afternoon I gave the Beta UI a little tester, It has certainly come a long way since it was first released. I cannot use it in VR at all but that wont matter to most of us, I switched off the moving background images to save some performance and the UI also minimizes once the game actually launches.
There is a bit of clicking around in new places compared to the webpage but fairly easy to get used to, I am going to have to wait until iracing comes back up after this afternoons patch to check out how the team controls work but hopefully they are as easy as using the rest of the UI.

 

[Brainling]

Everyone should definitely try it before Saturday morning. Especially you and I will need to know it Nejt, as we're going to have the early stints and will need it figured out earlier.

I did two races in iLMS last night. One with the "punchy" gears and one with the "longer" gears that Marc originally had on the setup. While I was right about the punchy gears helping you get around GTE's, they made it so HPD's were driving away from me in their draft. The longer gears made it a touch harder to get around GTE's, but it was massively outweighed by being able to draft correctly and keep up with our actual class. I'll make a "final" setup and post it this afternoon so everyone is on exactly the same page.

The other thing I learned from the races yesterday: Practice your off line driving. Even as someone with probably close to 500 laps in anger at Le Mans, I found myself in some sketchy as hell situations yesterday.

 

[Nejtun]

Just for clarity I have only driven the set that Marc posted on the Forum a few posts up that ends in MZGears.
I found 1st and Second to be exactly right for the short corners, bearing in mind you can rev the hell out of the HPD.

It Does 145kph in 1st which is great for punch out of the 1st and second chicanes, as you a re apexing them at around 110 kph. 3rd and 4th feel a little short but the only places that I noticed that was in the Porsche curves and then exiting out onto the Corvette Curves but again the high revs were not a problem.

I did try one click longer (more top end for clarity) in 3rd and 4th but even just one click made the Porsche Curves more sketchy lower down in the rev range in 4th gear and exiting out onto the Corvette Curves a bit more understeery in 3rd (I have the TC down at 5) where the car was lower down in the powerband.

I did a race yesterday and the car held its own down the straights no problem, the cars with more downforce were easily rundown in draft and the car still didn't rev out in 6th gear.

I had no concerns getting past any of the GTE cars.

 

[Brainling]

This is that exact setup with slightly tweaked gears. Or more accurately going back to the original gearing before we fiddled.

There is no question with the MZGears set I was getting pulled away from, in draft, by other HPD's. It wasn't massive, but it was consistent. In the second race, with the gears back to original, it was no longer an issue. I was able to draft right up and even slingshot past other HPD's. The second race was in top split and I started 3rd, so it wasn't just slouch drivers getting bad exits. It was a pretty noticeable effect. It's not a sixth gear issue, it's in the middle gears. The MZGears set isn't getting up to the speed bands quickly enough. They are spooling up through the lower gear bands quicker, so by the time draft fully kicks in, they've pulled far enough away early in the run out that you can't catch back up before the braking zone.

You can ask Ogami. I was stress complaining for a good ten minutes about the draft issues in the first race.

 

[Nejtun]

I will take your word for it, and I will give it a try, it just needs to be faster than the posted one right?.......


Where is it ?

 

[Brainling]

When I get over to my main tower I'll post it. Been busy at work this morning.

 

[Brainling]

Here's the setup. Some shift points are definitely different, so keep that in mind.

 

[Nejtun]

Driving it now @Brainling , any chance you can hop on TS for a bit?

 

[Brainling]

I can for like ten minutes, then I have a meeting for an hour.

 

[Brainling]

Talked to Nejt real quick in TS. I'm going to do some optimal sector time on both sets before tomorrow night. The sets are exactly the same outside of gearing, so continue to practice away. We'll finalize gearing before practice tomorrow.

 

[Brainling]

After testing and additional conversations with Nejt, we're going to go with the longer gears. I've attached the etup with full fuel. This is our final setup, we won't be changing it again at this point.

Only the gears will be different from what everyone has practiced. A couple of tips to get up to speed:

• Some shift points will be different. In most cases you'll find yourself in lower gears, for longer.
• Tetrarouge and the two chicanes, this should pull slightly quicker and draft better.
• Mulsanne corner (hairpin at the end of the straight) and Arnage corner (hairpin after Indianapolis) are a bit trickier. The car can bog down if you don't carry RPM's in to the corner, but it's not catastrophic.
• You want to hold 5th for quite a while. A couple blinks, or >9500 RPM.

I'll get our schedule done before tomorrow. Probably won't happen until after practice tonight.

 

[Deb]

After testing and additional conversations with Nejt, we're going to go with the longer gears. I've attached the etup with full fuel. This is our final setup, we won't be changing it again at this point.

Only the gears will be different from what everyone has practiced. A couple of tips to get up to speed:

• Some shift points will be different. In most cases you'll find yourself in lower gears, for longer.
• Tetrarouge and the two chicanes, this should pull slightly quicker and draft better.
• Mulsanne corner (hairpin at the end of the straight) and Arnage corner (hairpin after Indianapolis) are a bit trickier. The car can bog down if you don't carry RPM's in to the corner, but it's not catastrophic.
• You want to hold 5th for quite a while. A couple blinks, or >9500 RPM.

I'll get our schedule done before tomorrow. Probably won't happen until after practice tonight.

I'm back home now and will give this a try tonight.

 

[Brainling]

There is really no way to split this scheduled as fairly as Nejt would like. At our average lap time, there are going to be 31 stints. With Deb and Ogami's red zones, and Nejt's request for a contiguous break of > 6 or 7 hours, that means Deb and Ogami have to do a big chunk of the night driving. Full night will start around the 10th stint and end around the 22nd. There's just no where else to put their stints without asking people to start doing uncomfortable stint lengths, like Nejt and I tripling, or Deb and Ogami having to double at night.

I'm doing my best, but there is just no way to make this schedule work perfectly unfortunately. I'll have something up soon.

 

[Brainling]

Schedule is as good as I could get it.

Schedule

Blue background rows are the night driving. I've added 30 minutes to the start of the real world times to account for qualifying. This was calculated at an average lap of ~3:40, for 47 minutes per stint, so 31 stints. Obviously this can be dynamic as the race unfolds.

 

[Deb]

Also @Kenadian said he would be on tonight to add the names but one of us will have to load it as he let his iracing subscription lapse

 

[Nejtun]

It is still Ken's team so he has to install the paints , but doesn't need an active subscription for that as it only needs to be uploaded to trading paints!

 

[Noodleguitar]

Sorry for not responding earlier. I perhaps would have been interested in the LMP1 but from the looks of it at the start there wasn't that much interest in 24H Le Mans at all. Nice to see you guys still managed to get a HPD team together, and good luck in the race!

I'm happy I didn't commit to anything since I was working a lot this week and would not have had much time to practice.

 

[ShadniX]

Sorry for the late reply - but same thing here. I got buried in work again.

Good luck in the race!

 

[Nejtun]

Congrats all for going all the way through to the end despite our exploded engine Top 15! (shush) cheers @Brainling for organising all the background stuff and grats for the fastest lap! well done also @Deb and congrats @Ogami Itto for getting through your debut Band of others endurance race!!