I would like to add my findings to Famine's excellent thread about the La Sarthe Seasonal:
I've now run this race with quite a number of cars. I've won the race with the following cars:
Audi R8 Race Car '01
Audi R8 Playstation '05
Bentley Speed 8
BMW V12 LMR
Pescarolo C60 Hybride '05
Pescarolo Courage C60 '03
Pescarolo Courage Judd '04
Chaparral 2J
I've lost the race with just about everything else:
Toyota GT-ONE
Nissan R89C
Nissan R92CP
Mazda 787B
Peugeot 908 FAP
Sauber C9 Mercedes
During all of these races, I was experimenting with quite a variety of tire strategies. So no two races were identical, really.
Running all these races has stuffed my pockets full of cash! The $20 million limit is quite a thorn in my side!
In an effort to add to our knowledge base about this race, last night I decided to try a little pit-stop strategy testing.
So I took out my trusty Audi R8 '01 Race Car and cycled thru the La Sarthe lineups until lineup # 6 which has the following cars:
Peugeot 905
Pescarolo C60 Hybride '05
Bentley Speed 8
Mazda 787B
Pescarolo Courage C60 '03
Pescarolo Courage Judd '04
BMW V12 LMR
Toyota GT-ONE
Nissan R390
Mercedes CLK-LM
Audi R10 TDI
I used the same two B-spec drivers for every race, and they started as 38/37 level drivers. At the end of the testing they were both level 38 drivers.
For my first race, I pitted on lap # 4 for inter's and then ran to the end of the race without pitting.
For my second race, I pitted on lap # 3 for inter's and then again on lap # 9 for RH's
These 1st two races were run against the exact same grid of cars, since I did not leave the race screen once the 1st race was won.
After my first two races in my Audi, I went back to the main GT screen and changed the Audi's oil since my Audi now had 340 miles on it.
I then saved and re-started GT5 so I could get the same lineup # 6 as before.
For my third race, I pitted on lap # 2 for inter's and then again on lap # 7 for inter's, and then ran to the end of the race.
For my forth race, I pitted on lap # 3 for inter's and then again on lap # 8 for inter's, and then ran to the end of the race.
The following grid shows my lap times and race winning times:
Code:
La Sarthe B-spec Seasonal
GTsails Pit Stop testing with Audi R8 01 Race Car
Against lineup # 6
Pit Stop Strategy
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lap Lap 4 only Laps 3/9 Laps 2/7 Laps 3/8
------- ------------ ----------- ---------- ----------
# 1 3m45.2 3m47.2 3m44.2 3m44.5
# 2 3m46.6 3m48.3 3m50.2 3m44.8
# 3 4m01.4 4m07.0 4m19.2 4m05.4
# 4 4m25.6 4m30.1 3m55.7 4m29.3
# 5 4m43.4 4m10.2 4m05.1 4m14.5
# 6 4m05.2 4m06.9 4m08.9 4m09.1
# 7 3m59.9 3m58.3 4m03.2 3m59.6
# 8 3m49.8 3m48.4 4m17.5 3m54.2
# 9 3m51.1 3m52.4 3m45.9 4m16.4
#10 3m59.9 4m18.9 3m50.4 3m47.7
------- ------- ------- -------
Secs 2428.1 2427.7 2400.3 2425.6
Mins 40m28.1s 40m27.7s 40m00.3s 40m25.6s
During the races I would keep my B-spec drivers just about at 50% when they were alone, but allow them to go into the red for passing purposes. I would always slow them down just before the Mulsanne corner to stay out of the sand. The main AI competition is almost always the Pescarolo C60 Hybride. However, for the first two races I had strong competition from an unusually strong Mazda 787B for at least half of each race. For the 4th race, there was a strong BMW V12 LMR that stayed with us and finished the race in 3rd.
So even though every race was run against the same # 6 lineup, the AI in the races behaved somewhat differently as the races un-folded.
As you can see from my results, three of the races had very near identical times, while race # 3 was waaaay above the norm, and I just spanked the field. I actually could have pitted again if necessary! I'm not really sure of the explanation, but I would say that the 2/7 pit strategy is the best if you drive the Audi R8. My Audi spent quite a bit of time with no track company since it was off sequence to many of the AI cars, so this just worked out for the best. I intend to try this again with a different car and see if the 2/7 pit strategy is best for other cars as well, or was this was just something un-usual about this particular race.
Enjoy the virtual racing!
GTsail
I've tried with the 787b, GT One and the 908 and it didn't go well.
Sadly it's taking fifteen times longer than I thought, but I hope it'll be done in time to help people with this event a bit more.
I forgot to cancel the lap 9 pit, but even then, I still won by about 20 secs. I think my best time so far is 40:01.xxx, and more time can definitely be found.
I was leading by quite a bit putting in 3 min 53 sec laps with inters. I was finishing the 9th lap too! Is that a known bug? What is the remedy? I guess I could have told him to hold it steady instead of to try and put a slight bit more of a gap...*sigh*...gonna go do some studying and then later on before I hit the bed give it another shot and hopefully win this one!
