all was going fine until lap 15 (of 20).
the car suddenly had a load of oversteer en cornered and braked like an Oil tanker
When you drive powerful rear wheel drive cars (like GT1 cars) in endurance races tire wear is really apparent. You must tune your car so that it is less punishing on the tires and also you must drive more conservatively - no rapid/violent acceleration and sliding at the exit of turns!
You must tune the car using the physics hud in the live tuning mode. Your goal must be to achieve uniform tire temperature in the rear tires which are the ones that get punished the most in RWD cars. Don't forget, you will need 3 to 4 laps to get accurate temperature readouts.
Usually, Shift's 2 default car setups have too much negative camber which while it can be helpful in short races makes the endurance races impossible because it makes the inside part of the rear tire extremely hot (since your are only using half the tire surface) thus increasing rear tire wear. Therefore you must make the tire more vertical to achieve uniform tire temperature. Also you may need to decrease tire pressure a bit and maybe make the suspension a little softer to make the car easier to drive and less slide-y. For good results you must make small adjustments and you could also try to achieve better temperatures (green) in the front tires which usually remain too cold with the default setups. Also, adjust your driving style!
It's an endurance race, sheer speed is not the most important thing. Consistency, correct setup that preserves the tires and conservative driving are necessary for the win, and Shift 2 makes a good job simulating this! 👍
I had the same problems when I tackled the 20lap Road America race in a GT1 car. After the tuning adjustments I described the car was much more forgiving and planted and I won easily. I felt again the grip reduction in the last laps but it was much less pronounced. It was easily one of my most memorable and satisfying moments in any driving game and increased even more my respect for Shift 2 and the extremely advanced and realistic physical simulation engine it features!
:tup:
If you are not interested in tuning cars you could try with slower AI or slower cars. Though if you are interested in racing you can have great fun trying to shave-off seconds and making the car more forgiving with less tire wear using only the tuning options. In my opinion it provides a great insight into the difficulties and the tuning practices that are used in real racing. Also the same tips that are used in real life tuning apply to Shift 2 (therefore satisfying the sim characteristic that real-life practices should apply to the simulation and vice-versa) and will make you respect more the job that all the real mechanics and engineers do in a real race (like Le Mans or F1). Sometimes they make the difference between a win and a DNF!
EDIT: Real-life
tuning tips, that apply to Shift 2, on adjusting camber, tire pressure and general car setup. It may be a long read but very interesting if you are into that short of thing. Also, use google!
great stuff... AI really seems to react to you depending on certain situations, for example i could see for 17 laps where AI was slower / faster yet went i over took him he suddenly picked up his pace! thats imersive as it gets...
