La Sarthe and Spa ,weather report and other " stuff "

[05XR8]

If anything, with official SRO GT3 cars finally confirmed for Le Mans 24H 2024, there should be a WTC800.
I detuned a few of them, like the RC F '17, GT-R '18, AMG GT3 ‘16. The wider tyres and downforce make them effortless in braking and cornering.

 

[smoothbore12]

Here is a today video on hard difficulty with the 908 at a full dry race.
Hard difficulty keeps your hands " warm " but also gives penalties 😂
This time, i had the fastest lap and improve it on 7th lap .
.

 

[jrbabbitt]

Peugeot 908 HDi FAP '10
Set up as i saw in the post above.
IM tyres and FM6
Lap 1 Sunny with clear skies.
Lap 2 Started to cloud over, light blue rain creeping in radar. IM tyres are beginning to show red (was not certain that IM tyres would last in dry laps as they did)
Lap 3 Passed P1 at the beginning of the Mulsanne straight. Rains started as i turned the Mulsanne corner and got to stage 1 full by end of lap. Tyres still ok.
Lap 4 Rains got heavy to the point of full stage 2 and started driving conservatively not sure of the weather and track conditions but the IM tyres handled beautifully.
Lap 5 rains started tapering off as it disappears off the radar and track is still wet in mid stage 2.
Lap 6 No Rain and looking at the FM i see i have enough fuel for the full race.
Lap 7 Still doing fine as i Lap the tail end cars and time runs out on race just as the majority of the AI reached the pits at the end of their lap 6, which it shows that i had lapped them all as they finished behind me on their lap 6.

Judging from your lap times @jrbabbitt you face rain or you was conservative ?

I did face rain and when i do in the grinds i tend to drive conservative so as not to spin/hydroplane off the track and incur those horrid penalties when it rains.

As for my car selections i had gone through most of the Gr.4/3/2/1 cars and probably repeat but currently going up through the years and finding road cars i think could do the grind with tuning (minor or major).

 

[smoothbore12]

You have to admit @jrbabbitt that wasn't difficult, also tyres was a pleasant surprise.
Also it's another " feeling" not worry for rain and pitstops.

 

[jrbabbitt]

You have to admit @jrbabbitt that wasn't difficult, also tyres was a pleasant surprise.
Also it's another " feeling" not worry for rain and pitstops.

Oh my yes, it was not hard at all and I was very surprised at the tyres lasting as long as they did...

 

[sirjim73]

Here is my weather report...
It's been 30C in the UK all week! We're getting sand from the Sahara in the air.
Crazy for September!
So no GT7 grinding for now.

 

[jrbabbitt]

EDITED: Additional information

@smoothbore12 here is my rain driving video...


As you watch these few laps you will note that i lift up off accelerator very early, coast a bit and then start braking early but not heavy/slamming down on brake, i don't want any lock up at all in rain regardless of tyres. I will drive conservatively and slower in rains when i am ahead of everyone, if i am behind the lead i will drive faster but conservatively because i know that the AI will muff it up and i will pass them easily.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Please Delete

 

[smoothbore12]

Excellent " sample " @jrbabbitt .
Also you get no penalty at the two exits.
I didn't change my settings and is still at auto back on track , i don't know if it plays some different role when penalties apply and in the rain usually are huge.

Billionaire, i never try this on la sarthe but ill give it a go.
Definitely he can easy run and 7 laps in other FM mode .
Ill try it when ill get back home late at noon cause i have a trip to do today which need about 10 hours to go and come back.

 

[bigmull]

One of the best handling cars in the wet is the Mazda Rotary,you can get away with RM/RH with a really wet track,where as most cars will be spinning out or driving at a snail’s pace.

 

[smoothbore12]

One of the best handling cars in the wet is the Mazda Rotary,you can get away with RM/RH with a really wet track,where as most cars will be spinning out or driving at a snail’s pace.

It will be very helpful if you post your settings and any other information you think that needed to " help " us try it .

 

[bigmull]

It will be very helpful if you post your settings and any other information you think that needed to " help " us try it .

My tune for it is in “The Doc’s Classic Car Tunes Emporium” in the tuning sub forum,the tune was updated a couple of days ago. In fact a lot of the older cars are pretty good in the wet even if they have no aerodynamic package.IMHO the Ferrari 500 Mondial Pininfarina is one of the best handling cars in the game.It can out brake and corner faster than most 700pp modern cars although you do need to watch it when the track is around 70% wet as the rear can step out at an alarming rate,but that’s what makes it so much fun to drive.

 

[smoothbore12]

My tune for it is in “The Doc’s Classic Car Tunes Emporium” in the tuning sub forum,the tune was updated a couple of days ago. In fact a lot of the older cars are pretty good in the wet even if they have no aerodynamic package.IMHO the Ferrari 500 Mondial Pininfarina is one of the best handling cars in the game.It can out brake and corner faster than most 700pp modern cars although you do need to watch it when the track is around 70% wet as the rear can step out at an alarming rate,but that’s what makes it so much fun to drive.

Thanks mate ,ill try it tomorrow.
As about " older cars " since i only have one copy of them i don't wanna do any permanent upgrades as long i have one of them.
But from the mazda i have 3 so isn't a problem.
More tomorrow 😊

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Please Delete

 

[smoothbore12]

I personally don't like using cars that cant do 3 full laps on fuel just cause then it means I have to see that ugly red message on my screen 2 times instead of 1.

Me too, i think is a bit of ridiculous visiting the pits every second lap .
By the way i just try your tune Exactly.
Is fast but heavy front maximize the tyre wear at front end and its a bit understeer .
So i put less weight in other position,put racing gear box and use FM6.
Tyres can last for 7 laps

The picture os from start of 6th lap while a small cloud of rain made the track wet and from my experience definitely can handle 7 laps full fry race.
Here is the changes i made

Also for the same hp i made another set up which adds more front grip and faster times but suffers in tyre wear ( front end always ) .

If i find the " golden ratio " ill be back.
Definitely is a car that worth to deal with.

Tomorrow ill check @bigmull mazda and ill report my impressions .
Of course after ...... my Sunday morning fishing.😂

 

[jrbabbitt]

Nissan night at LeMans
Race 1
Nissan Fairlady Z version S (Z33) RH tyres.
This was in garage and had its engine swapped long ago, just added tyres and aero.
Absolutely no weather considerations in this run, track clouded over from lap 3 to 4 then cleared, there were clouds in the radar but no rain.
Pitted for fuel only at end of lap 3 & 6.
Ran all 7 laps.

Race 2
Nissan Fairlady (Z34) modified for race. RH tyres.
There was rain in this race but was light and accumulation did not exceed half of stage 1.
Rains started halfway in lap 3 and was gone by my exit of pit lane in beginning of lap 4, only topped off fuel, no tyres.
Sun came out in lap 5 and stayed for the duration until the win at lap 7.
Pitted at laps 3/6.

Race 3
Nissan GT-R NISMO (R32) RH tyres, race modified.
Significant rain this time...
Lap 1/2 no weather on track or radar.
Lap 3 rain clouds in radar early in lap and by Mulsanne corner it's at stage 2 and heavy rains in radar coming. Enter pits for wets and fuel.
Lap 4 heavy rains to stage 3 in Mulsanne straight, driving slower. Stage 3 accumulation.
Lap 5 still raining...still driving slow...
Lap 6 stopped raining and accumulation is at stage 2.
Lap 7 track drying out but still at stage 1 when finished.

Race 4
Nissan Skyline Hardtop 2000GT-R
Fully modified RH tyres
Lap 1 sunny (as always)
Lap 2 starts clouding over and light rains started at end of lap.
Lap 3 light rains on track and radar at first half of lap but past the Mulsanne corner it gets heavier in radar, heading to pit road for wets and fuel.
Lap 4 heavy rains with accumulation up to mid stage 2. Rains stop at end of lap.
Lap 5 track drying out .
Lap 6 track dries out and drop into pits for fuel and RH tyres.
Ran lap 7 dry and normal, claimed victory.

Race 5
Nissan Fairlady 240ZG (HS30)
Fully race modified. Side note here, I realized that in modifying these cars, I am spending a lot more credits than I expected. For example I had spent over 300,000 to get this 240ZG to compete in this race. So that being said I will probably not be modifying cars much until I get a considerable bigger bankroll.
Lap 1 sunny
Lap 2 cloudy and light rain showing in radar.
Lap 3 rains now on track and big blue spots of heavy rain in radar showing, accumulation at top of stage 1. Enter pits for fuel and wet tyres.
Lap 4 heavy rain and accumulation now up to high stage 2. Driving slower.
Lap 5 rains stop and radar clears, as track dries slow and I drive slow.
Lap 6 & 7 weather clears and track dries. Victory .
P.s. it takes almost as long to write this up as I did to run the race

 

[jrbabbitt]

Just completed a race I did not believe I could win.
Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.8
RM tyres and not much else I could have upgraded.
Was not an easy race, I started in FM1 and was having issues trying to pass others, looked at my fuel consumption and saw I could barely make two laps at FM1 so I dropped to 6 and made the best of it.
Lap 1 good start in the sun and by the end I was in P8.
Lap 2 saw light blue in distance on radar and got close to P5 and entered pits for fuel only.
Lap 3 light rain on track at the end of the Mulsanne straight and as everyone else went in to the pits I passed all but the top three, they had come out of pit road just in front of me.
Lap 4 track still wet (half stage 1) as I slowly caught up to the lead and passed, still on FM6.
Lap 5 stayed in lead until I had to put in for fuel and fresh tyres, had only two laps left I took on full tank and RM tyres.
Lap 6 exiting pit road had me back to P7 and raised FM to 1 to catch up, everyone in front of me went to the pits at their end of lap 6 and I passed them all as I started lap 7 and stayed P1 until the win.

 

[Ryan81]

I find that by lap 3 is almost always when the clouds arrive, with or without rain. I find that it's mostly with. Strange that that pattern is almost always identical. Very rarely on La Sarthe do I get 7 laps of dry driving.

 

[smoothbore12]

I find that by lap 3 is almost always when the clouds arrive, with or without rain. I find that it's mostly with. Strange that that pattern is almost always identical. Very rarely on La Sarthe do I get 7 laps of dry driving.

Am exactly on the other side , my last races have dry weather or light rain that dry out and 7th lap needed.

 

[suomi1]

I've compiled data from 31 races a few months ago (was boooored..). The radar was zoomed out to the max, driving with the interior view to see the windshield wipers. It's in french but quite self explanatory.

Top table = raw data
Bottom table = same data expressed in percentages

columns = laps
line 1 = radar shows rain
line 2 = it's raining on the track
line 3 = the track is wet
line 4 = nothing to report (both radar and track)

We can see that there are two rainfall peaks and that the first two laps are pretty safe.
Most of the time, it's not raining during the last two laps while the track stays wet in some way.

 

[Ryan81]

Just doesn't seem particularly random..There must be cloudless or near cloudless days in Le Mans over the course of 365 days.

 

[Coiler]

Here is some random useless knowledge after 580h doing mostly lemans:
It never rains before lap 3,
It never rains past lap 5,
every car that does 250kmh on map 6 will win you the race ( ambulance is sadly too slow),
the only way you loose clean race bonus is overtaking under yellow,
fastest race lap of your opponents will be round 4.36,
one time I did an 8 lap race.

 

[smoothbore12]

Today used @bigmull mazda at la sarthe following his tune .
Has some extreme ( short of ) settings on the Lsd but one way or another couldn't get it right on track.
I was loosing control braking from high speeds and the car seems unbalanced under braking.
Don't know if using a wheel things are different but on my controller i couldn't manage a decent lap.
I span few times and took me very long to get back at the pits when rain caught me out.

After that i run mazda lm 55 trying to find a golden ratio between performance and tyre wear for a non stop mod using FM6 for four laps and FM5 for the last 3 .
I will report my impressions later .

@Ryan81 from what i remember was very few times sunny weather.
What is rare also , is the rain that starts at 6th lap after a dry or " almost" dry weather till then.
Lately am facing races on the dry side or with a short period of rain which unfortunately need tyre change or better skills than what i have in order to skip forced pitstop for tyres.

That's all from today running.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Please Delete

 

[jrbabbitt]

I find that by lap 3 is almost always when the clouds arrive, with or without rain. I find that it's mostly with. Strange that that pattern is almost always identical. Very rarely on La Sarthe do I get 7 laps of dry driving.

Am exactly on the other side , my last races have dry weather or light rain that dry out and 7th lap needed.

Just doesn't seem particularly random..There must be cloudless or near cloudless days in Le Mans over the course of 365 days.

Funny thing is that after update 1.37 (latest ) I have found that the weather at LeMans has been significantly lighter in average, I've had a few hard heavy rains but mostly light and even no rain races...

 

[smoothbore12]

Funny thing is that after update 1.37 (latest ) I have found that the weather at LeMans has been significantly lighter in average, I've had a few hard heavy rains but mostly light and even no rain races...

Yes that's true, is lighter indeed.

Here is some random useless knowledge after 580h doing mostly lemans:
It never rains before lap 3,
It never rains past lap 5,
every car that does 250kmh on map 6 will win you the race ( ambulance is sadly too slow),
the only way you loose clean race bonus is overtaking under yellow,
fastest race lap of your opponents will be round 4.36,
one time I did an 8 lap race.

My observations are :

Rain can caught you before end of lap 2 , of course that depends the car someone use .
Fast cars that lap times are under 4.00 minutes ,its difficult to face rain at lap 2 but other cars ( slower ones ) isn't rare to hit from rain at the end of lap two.

I face rain starting lap 6 , or rain for 4 laps in a row .
I don't know what happened at lap 7 cause i never try it on a wet track ,
Am just waiting to end the timer.

Its very easy to do 8 laps on a dry race using very fast cars with good fuel consumption, R92CP , Mazda 787 etc.
But who wants to run one more lap ?
Personally i don't and when am tired i " pray " for heavy rain.

As about AI again depends on the level someone choose to race , i prefer the easy mod and i use the hard difficulty for " testing" reasons ,for example if a non stop car can win at hard level etc.
At hard level lap times is 4.15 - 16-17 but am not a fan of that mod anyway.

What is IMPOSSIBLE is to run 8 laps in 30 minutes, don't know if in the past was some glitch car ( like tomahawk at Tokyo) but the few months that i play, is impossible as impossible is to end at 5 lap race.

 

[Ryan81]

Funny thing is that after update 1.37 (latest ) I have found that the weather at LeMans has been significantly lighter in average, I've had a few hard heavy rains but mostly light and even no rain races...

Ah, haven't played it for probably a month plus so perhaps things have changed...

 

[bigmull]

Today used @bigmull mazda at la sarthe following his tune .
Has some extreme ( short of ) settings on the Lsd but one way or another couldn't get it right on track.
I was loosing control braking from high speeds and the car seems unbalanced under braking.
Don't know if using a wheel things are different but on my controller i couldn't manage a decent lap.
I span few times and took me very long to get back at the pits when rain caught me out.

After that i run mazda lm 55 trying to find a golden ratio between performance and tyre wear for a non stop mod using FM6 for four laps and FM5 for the last 3 .
I will report my impressions later .

@Ryan81 from what i remember was very few times sunny weather.
What is rare also , is the rain that starts at 6th lap after a dry or " almost" dry weather till then.
Lately am facing races on the dry side or with a short period of rain which unfortunately need tyre change or better skills than what i have in order to skip forced pitstop for tyres.

That's all from today running.

Very odd,i will post a video of a full race using the car.One issue might be the wheel size,i always use the 15 inch with wide offset and wide other setting.I only use a controller and the autogearbox as my manual dexterity isnt up to having manual gears.I cant understand the braking stability as i get none even from braking hard from over 170 mph.I will also repost the settings just incase i changed stuff with no update.

 

[smoothbore12]

Very odd,i will post a video of a full race using the car.One issue might be the wheel size,i always use the 15 inch with wide offset and wide other setting.I only use a controller and the autogearbox as my manual dexterity isnt up to having manual gears.I cant understand the braking stability as i get none even from braking hard from over 170 mph.I will also repost the settings just incase i changed stuff with no update.

Am not sure what rims was on , ill check it again.

 

[jrbabbitt]

Started a new routine for my grind, since I realized I was spending on average over 300k per car to get it to run / win at the WTC700 I decided to go through all my Gr.4 cars and run them stock. That means removing the turbos, replacing the transmission to Normal, the only thing I will need is a set of wets or IMs
Here were the first three

Of these three I only had to change to Wets with the AMG, during that race it rained from lap 3 to 5 and accumulation was up to stage 3.
The other races were no rain at all and little accumulation (stage 1) on the other race.
Trying to get to 50 mil by end of month.