You don't win this one buddy. In 2013 one year after the TS030 did its fastest lap in warmup. 3:26. Deal with it.
Anyway the Group C cars are all longtails built for just the one track. It would have been nice to get the shorttail versions.
You're only giving me more ammunition. Read closely. The fact that PD are going to try balancing the long-tails, which are suited for
low-downforce Le Mans, to be comparable in performance to the likes of the 2016 Audi R18 e-tron, which appears in
high-downforce configuration, on
high-downforce tracks, outside Le Mans, means the BoP will be completely unrealistic. Even if the Group C's were comparable to the LMP1s, at Le Mans, thanks to them racing in low-downforce/high-speed configuration instead of the high-downforce/lower-speed configuration of the LMP1s, if there was any realism, they would get annihilated on any other track like Maggiore, Brands Hatch or Suzuka, because those tracks require high downforce.
Now let's put the whole lap-time debate to rest, once and for all, with the next part.
I don't like using another game as an example but, because data for other tracks is hard to procure and each data set may have been recorded under different conditions, I'll use lap-times recorded, by AI, in Assetto Corsa, regarded as a proper simulation, in which conditions can be controlled and consistently replicated. This data comes from a thread, here on the GTPlanet forums. You can find it
here to check for yourself. Assetto Corsa contains, lucky for us, both Group C cars and modern LMP1s.
The track used was Road America, not as fast a track as Le Mans, but still considered a speed circuit, reducing the disadvantage of the Group C cars. Remember: AI laps, no variations caused by a human driving. Cars driving on identical conditions, on identical tires (modern soft slicks), with the AI set to an identical skill level and no other BoP. The cars are raw. Now, let's look at the numbers:
Fastest LMP1 lap (by the 2016 Porsche 919 Hybrid): 1:47.4
Fastest Group C lap (by the Porsche 962C Long Tail): 1:59.0
Group C, identical everything, 11.6 seconds off the pace. I don't care how much you love your Group C, the fact is they are not a match for modern LMP1 around your average circuit and, in order to correct such an imbalance, the only, non-artificial, way would be to create a new class entirely. Deal with it.
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