My worst offline race experience yet

[Tekku]

Just wanted to write this down as a warning to anyone attempting the later endurance race challenges as I've come to learn that they have very harsh difficulty spikes with some strange balancing. And I didn't play on easy so there wasn't that factor to take into concideration.

I was attempting the Red Bull Ring one with Gr. 3 cars. Several of the portrait dudes told me it was a good idea to run a 1 stop strategy. I never do this because I find it too unpredictable and I don't like looking at the leaderboard with more and more distance being added between me and the leader. But alas, I tried it this time and to put it shortly it turned into a complete disaster. I ran fuel mode 6 and pushed it as hard as I could. My pace was roughly 5 seconds behind the leader, per lap. So when we were half way into the race I started getting blue flags to let the leader pass. I was like, ok, maybe a miracle will happen and this will sort itself out when he makes a couple of pitstops. This never really happened though as he only made I think 3 pitstops in total that took about 30 seconds each. I only ever got the benefit of one of those pitstops because I had to do two myself as the car really couldn't make it to the end with one stop. I also realised that the rain that came in the last third of the race hit very hard very fast; so when i switched to inters they were totally obsolete right away. At the end I also got into the usual farse of AI cars hitting me and due to my wet tires I had no chance of a comeback. I ended up being hit 4 times both on straights and in corners and on one occasion I spun the car around 720 degrees.

I wanted to go to the end though just to see exactly how it would end and I also thought to myself that it would be a small comfort to get some prize money at least. But then I suddenly remembered that you can only get the money once on the endurance races so it didn't matter at all, it would've saved me more trouble to just restart it asap.

I usually watch a lot of videos and do some time trials and calculations before I finally get into these races but this time I got sloppy and skipped all that hassle. Don't do my mistake and come unprepared expecting miracles. With these races it will most likely not happen.

 

[JaVaeBe]

What do you mean you only get prize money once? So if you finished 10th on your first try, and 1st on your second your don't get the payout? That would be weird, no?

 

[JC_Dude]

You get each prize once, so if you finish 2nd you get the silver+bronze awards, then if you win you get the gold award, not sure what OP is on about.

 

[Tekku]

You get each prize once, so if you finish 2nd you get the silver+bronze awards, then if you win you get the gold award, not sure what OP is on about.

That’s what I meant. So if I do the race again the payouts for my previous results will be subtracted, hence it becomes pointless to continue if I can’t score first place.

 

[SrGS]

This was my strategy, from another post about this specific race:

I used the Corvette Gr.3, started on hard tires and fuel mixture 6. The AI driver in P1 was faster than I was, increasing the time between us, nothing to worry about at the beginning of the race. Most of the AI drivers (except the one leading the race) went to the pits around minute 15, they started the race on medium tires. I gained a few positions and it started raining close to the middle of the race, so I went to the pits for the first time (I believe the AI in P1 did the same), changed to heavy rain tires and filled the tank to it's maximum capacity.

Then it was a piece of cake, the AI took a lot of time to realize the weather conditions, a few of the drivers went to the pits twice to change between intermediate and heavy rain tires. I used fuel mixture 4, went a few positions up the grid, and it stopped raining. As soon as the rain meter gauge was below 1/3 of the way, I went to the pits for the second time, filled up the tank, and changed to medium tires. The AI was sliding all over the place as the racetrack was drying up, they eventually figured it out and changed back to slick tires.

I was alternating between fuel mixtures 2 and 4, got to first place around minutes 40-50, when the race leader went to change back to slick tires (on his second, and I believe last pit stop). From this moment to the end of the race was just managing the race line, keeping on the dry sections of the track as much as possible and avoiding the kerbs. I lapped most of the AI and won the race 20+ seconds ahead of second place. It was a good race, not very hard though.

Making it short, I started with hard tires, fuel mixture 6. First pit stop around 30 minutes (just after it started raining), Heavy wet tires, fuel mixture 4. Second pit stop as soon as the track was drying up (rain meter gauge was below 1/3 of the way), medium tires, alternating fuel mixture 2 at the straights and 4 at the slower corners.

The last stint I think now it could be done without alternating between fuel mixtures, keeping it at 3 or even 4 wouldn't make much difference.

If you try it again, I hope this helps!