Very interesting.
So what do we have here?
Besson, you guys may have noticed, is the fastest of the present crop of LM drivers - it also shows that the C60 Hybride is the fastest of the AI cars in this event.
This helps us engineer the 'perfect' race.
Practically speaking - if one had a car/skills combo that would give them a maximum lap time of 4:10.000 this would bring them closer to a 'dead heat' race; in effect racing at break-neck speed right through the race because you and the major opponent(s) are equally matched.
The race could be raced over and over - no doubt the chances of losing are as equal to winning and therefore the lure of suspense or unpredictability will remain until the Player gets better.
At this point again a reduction in the performance of the Player's car will be required as a handicap to their improved skills at the same event against the same opponents.
This proves that every race in Career mode has the potential to be race-engineered to fit the Player's optimum - it only remains to the Player to learn how to play the game as it is designed so as to get the best race experience (factoring car/skills equation) from it.
'Matched opponents' is always at the core of engineering a perfect race - whether to race in, or watch.
You guys deserve your name up in lights for taking the time to grind out this data.
How do we engineer the perfect race using these stats?
Besson's fastest time is 4:09:053.
As we have leaned to a degree, the Rabbits have an expansion/contraction window - this is usually about 30 secs for the lead Rabbit.
If we let Besson run on his own and we play back-marker his time would be around 4:40:00.
If we had a car/skills combo that could give us a max lap time of 4:10:00, and pushed it to the limit, then we were sure to have, all things being equal, a fight to the finish with Besson, other cars also linked by the central brain, to react to us and spoil our chances.
Unless Besson backed off.
I've never seen him do that, though.
I've engineered hundreds of races with this crowd - they've given me breathless loads of fun.
Let's take a look at these diagrams:
The different colors are cars, and their lap times around a course (think Pocono!
)
The orange car has a 10 sec lead over the purple car, the teal car a 10 sec handicap to the purple car.
In a 1 lap race they will all finish up at the line at around the same time.
Where would the player put themselves in this race for a 'good' race?
Let's add more cars:
There are two cars here that, from their starting positions, will get to the finish in 55 secs.
If a Player was starting at the starting point of the Pink car, one needs a 55 sec lap to win the race against the Green car (little green dots that end in 55 secs)
Having the cars staggered like this because of the differing lap times of the different cars leads to some interesting encounters as cars are being overtaken - sector by time sector there will be incidents that are unpredictable but in a predictable time-slot.
The race in motion:
What if
Gasparini was the Green car? well, then, we have to be the Pink car. the other cars will be only coming in at 60 secs, and the last at 70 secs.
Obviously if you take a car in there that does it in 40 secs, you'll be no better off than with a car that does it in 70 secs. It would be a boring race.
The 55 sec car is the 'matched' car.
This brings us to what I'm going to refer to as the
'Rabbitline'
The Rabbitline is clearly marked and is quite visible - in fact if you
never drive on the Rabbitline you will never find yourself trading paint with the AI.
The Rabbits only leave the Rabbitline to attack you - and even that only certain Rabbits are programmed to do, and again that only within a certain proximity.
They will also attack each other when faced with the same position/velocity equation.
I will provide photos presently to demonstrate all this.
Happy Racing! Give 'em hell!
The war is obviously on. 
There goes even my faintest hope to snag the 'Speed Demon' Award.
