Project CARS 2 Endurance Racing

[Mr Grumpy]

One of my first races I did was a 32 car race at Le Mans with 4 classes (group c, gr6, gr5, gr4) and weather was heavy cloud, overcast, storm and thunderstorm.


As soon as the rain hit 4 cars had retired for some reason and I forgot it was about to rain so when i remembered I was leading with a few drops splashing on the track. I went to pit but a notification came up saying “pit box currently occupied “ and so I had to do 1 extra lap of la Sarthe in the rain on slicks


I was already second for having to waste time driving at the pit speed limit and on that lap I spun twice
And got suspension damage. I was down to sixth after repairs with 10 minutes to go so I unlapped myself and fought up till fourth.

In the last 2 Laps while trying to pass 3rd for a podium I spun hard into a barrier and got heavy suspension damage.

I didn’t want to quit so I fought the Sauber through the pouring rain to a 4th place finish. 2 more cars had retired by the end of the race. I was sweating all over after that one

It's always good to request pit stop 1st so that your team mate dont nick your space & it don't happen.

 

[twitcher]

I kind of posted this in another thread, but I’ll post again here with some more detail.

After the Le Mans update, I sunk my teeth into running a 2.4hrs of Le Mans with the Vintage Prototype A cars, myself in a 917k. Also ran with the Vintage Prototype B cars, and Vintage GTA.

My goal was to set up a race in the premier category between the Porsche and Ferrari “streamliners”, as I call them, which I pretended were the “factory efforts”. The rest of the field, be normal 917k and normal Ferraris, we were the “privateer efforts”. I wanted to start near the back of the grid, and just see how far forward I could work myself with consistency and strategy, with the ideal goal of an “upset” by getting my privateer entry on the overal podium.

As I said in my other post, just getting the grid that I wanted was a chore on its own. 2-3 hours total were spend quitting and reloading new races to get the desired grid.

***The next instalment of pcars MUST have custom grids as a feature, down to being able to select individual liveries. What’s the point in having the full GTE grid in the game if it’s nearly impossible to actually load a full, proper GTE grid?***

Not only did I have major issues trying to get the desired grid, I soon realized the game was loading the cars in basically the same grid order every time...meaning the Porsches were always at the front, the Ferraris always st the back. I tried getting into a few races like this, but discovered the same script would always play out...the Porsche streamliners would run away at the front, while the Ferraris would usually crash trying to get through traffic, which kind of killed the “factory battle” I wanted to see.

So, agonizingly, I quit that race, added a 15 minute quali session, and went I back to reloading races to try to get my proper grid again. Got there eventually, ran the quali, which resulted in the Porsche and Ferrari “factory” cars at the front, which is what I wanted.


My other issue with the grid, or more specifically with particular cars in the catagories I was using....was several of the cars have no headlights!!! The Porsche in VPB, and the Camaro, Mustang, and Nissan in VGTA all have no headlights. I was able to look past this, but at the very least, those are cars which are useless for endurance racing. If we had custom grids, it wouldn’t be a massive issue, but as things are, it’s quite immersion killing.



Comments on the AI. I had to do some test runs first. Eventually I settled on 83 for skill, and 45 for aggression.

Overall, the AI behaved well enough, but were definitely some issues. The first was the race start. Because I was starting last in class, the game would always give me control midway through the Ford Chicane, on the grass. It was basically a 50/50 chance of whether or not there would be a 3-4 car pile-up before the race even started. For future races, I’ve learned to put “manual rolling start” on to avoid this problem.

The next major issue I had was braking into Mulsanne Corner. The AI was absolutely monsterous on the brakes when it wanted to be. If they were ahead or beside me, they would outbrake me into this corner by a massive margin every time. In doing so, many times, they would change lanes in front of me, causing an unavoidable collision. If they were beside me in the braking zone (meaning they were coming from at least 10 lengths back before the braking zone), there was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to hold a straight line, and we would make side to side contact in the braking zone. I reviewed several replays of this, and each time, it was the AI changing lanes causing the contact, not something I was doing. However, if the AI was behind me going into the braking zone, there was basically a 50/50 chance I would get run over from behind....so much for their super brakes.

Next issue with the AI was lap traffic on the Mulsanne Straight. For the most part, the AI was pretty well behaved, sticking to the left lane when the P1 cars were overtaking. That said, several times, I came upon lap traffic in the middle of the road, and it was like the AI was stuck making up its mind which way to go. The car would be in the middle of the road, twitching back and forth from one lane to the other. If the AI P1 cars would come upon this, they would slam on their brakes and putt down the Mulsanne behind the twitching lapper.

The other minor issue with the lap cars is that if I overtook them on corner entry, most of the time, they would try to fight for position through the corner, and compromise both our exits. Kind of minor and not a big deal once I figured out I basically needed to block pass the AI, but still, another thing that caused more than a couple restarts, and some loss of immersion.


Last issue I had was the pit strategy of the AI. Before the race, I did some quick math, figured in 2.4 hours I’d do roughly 45 laps. I started with 110L in the tank, planned to put 90L in at the stops, and make 2 stops total.

Some of the AI cars would pit as early as lap 3 or 4, and every AI car ended up needing to make 3 stops, even though the tank is easily big enough to do just 2 stops.

I was enjoying the race quite a lot, until it came time to make my 2nd stop, and I began to realize that I’d pulled a blinder on the whole field. I pressed on, and watching my fuel numbers, quickly realized I would be about a lap or two short, as the pace of the race had been slightly higher than anticipated. I gave myself two options, either pit again and push like hell, or try to conserve to the finish. For whatever reason, I went with the conserve route....lifting and coasting into each big brake zone, and short shifting at 7000rpm.

I ended up completing 47 laps, crossed the line in 1st place with the leading Porsche “factory” car under 3 seconds behind (he closed nearly a 30s gap in the final stint, because of my fuel saving).

One of the Ferrari factory cars had a horrible race, finished over a lap down to the leader. The rest though, finished in a pretty predictable running order. Same with the lower catagories, the finishing order was basically pre determined by the BoP in the various catagories. The only car I saw finish “out of place” was a Porsche 911 RSR in GTA who seemed to be able to jump up to P5 in class in the very closing stages, I’m assuming by doing 1 less stop (it had been at the back of the class almost all race).


Overall, a very enjoyable experience. Flying through the dark, lapping traffic, while racing for position having insane slip stream battles was very fun.

The downside was that, to do a 2.4hr race with the level of, I dunno, detail I guess, that I was looking for....well, let’s just say that for a 2.4 hour race, I spend a good 3 or more hours trying to set the whole thing up.

The further downside to spending 3 hours testing and setting up, is that was 3 hours studying how the AI would behave...making everything they did very predictable. It’s almost like to set up a good, “random” race, you have to peak behind the curtain to get in all lined up....and once you’ve peaked behind the curtain, you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned.


The only other major issue I had was not being able to save the race midway through. I put my ps4 in rest mode while in the pits, but I was basically locked into finishing that race before I could play any other game, or do any other activity in the game. A feature that let you pause and save an endurance race would be greatly welcomed.

 

[Sentry87]

I kind of posted this in another thread, but I’ll post again here with some more detail.

After the Le Mans update, I sunk my teeth into running a 2.4hrs of Le Mans with the Vintage Prototype A cars, myself in a 917k. Also ran with the Vintage Prototype B cars, and Vintage GTA.

My goal was to set up a race in the premier category between the Porsche and Ferrari “streamliners”, as I call them, which I pretended were the “factory efforts”. The rest of the field, be normal 917k and normal Ferraris, we were the “privateer efforts”. I wanted to start near the back of the grid, and just see how far forward I could work myself with consistency and strategy, with the ideal goal of an “upset” by getting my privateer entry on the overal podium.

As I said in my other post, just getting the grid that I wanted was a chore on its own. 2-3 hours total were spend quitting and reloading new races to get the desired grid.

***The next instalment of pcars MUST have custom grids as a feature, down to being able to select individual liveries. What’s the point in having the full GTE grid in the game if it’s nearly impossible to actually load a full, proper GTE grid?***

Not only did I have major issues trying to get the desired grid, I soon realized the game was loading the cars in basically the same grid order every time...meaning the Porsches were always at the front, the Ferraris always st the back. I tried getting into a few races like this, but discovered the same script would always play out...the Porsche streamliners would run away at the front, while the Ferraris would usually crash trying to get through traffic, which kind of killed the “factory battle” I wanted to see.

So, agonizingly, I quit that race, added a 15 minute quali session, and went I back to reloading races to try to get my proper grid again. Got there eventually, ran the quali, which resulted in the Porsche and Ferrari “factory” cars at the front, which is what I wanted.


My other issue with the grid, or more specifically with particular cars in the catagories I was using....was several of the cars have no headlights!!! The Porsche in VPB, and the Camaro, Mustang, and Nissan in VGTA all have no headlights. I was able to look past this, but at the very least, those are cars which are useless for endurance racing. If we had custom grids, it wouldn’t be a massive issue, but as things are, it’s quite immersion killing.



Comments on the AI. I had to do some test runs first. Eventually I settled on 83 for skill, and 45 for aggression.

Overall, the AI behaved well enough, but were definitely some issues. The first was the race start. Because I was starting last in class, the game would always give me control midway through the Ford Chicane, on the grass. It was basically a 50/50 chance of whether or not there would be a 3-4 car pile-up before the race even started. For future races, I’ve learned to put “manual rolling start” on to avoid this problem.

The next major issue I had was braking into Mulsanne Corner. The AI was absolutely monsterous on the brakes when it wanted to be. If they were ahead or beside me, they would outbrake me into this corner by a massive margin every time. In doing so, many times, they would change lanes in front of me, causing an unavoidable collision. If they were beside me in the braking zone (meaning they were coming from at least 10 lengths back before the braking zone), there was a good chance they wouldn’t be able to hold a straight line, and we would make side to side contact in the braking zone. I reviewed several replays of this, and each time, it was the AI changing lanes causing the contact, not something I was doing. However, if the AI was behind me going into the braking zone, there was basically a 50/50 chance I would get run over from behind....so much for their super brakes.

Next issue with the AI was lap traffic on the Mulsanne Straight. For the most part, the AI was pretty well behaved, sticking to the left lane when the P1 cars were overtaking. That said, several times, I came upon lap traffic in the middle of the road, and it was like the AI was stuck making up its mind which way to go. The car would be in the middle of the road, twitching back and forth from one lane to the other. If the AI P1 cars would come upon this, they would slam on their brakes and putt down the Mulsanne behind the twitching lapper.

The other minor issue with the lap cars is that if I overtook them on corner entry, most of the time, they would try to fight for position through the corner, and compromise both our exits. Kind of minor and not a big deal once I figured out I basically needed to block pass the AI, but still, another thing that caused more than a couple restarts, and some loss of immersion.


Last issue I had was the pit strategy of the AI. Before the race, I did some quick math, figured in 2.4 hours I’d do roughly 45 laps. I started with 110L in the tank, planned to put 90L in at the stops, and make 2 stops total.

Some of the AI cars would pit as early as lap 3 or 4, and every AI car ended up needing to make 3 stops, even though the tank is easily big enough to do just 2 stops.

I was enjoying the race quite a lot, until it came time to make my 2nd stop, and I began to realize that I’d pulled a blinder on the whole field. I pressed on, and watching my fuel numbers, quickly realized I would be about a lap or two short, as the pace of the race had been slightly higher than anticipated. I gave myself two options, either pit again and push like hell, or try to conserve to the finish. For whatever reason, I went with the conserve route....lifting and coasting into each big brake zone, and short shifting at 7000rpm.

I ended up completing 47 laps, crossed the line in 1st place with the leading Porsche “factory” car under 3 seconds behind (he closed nearly a 30s gap in the final stint, because of my fuel saving).

One of the Ferrari factory cars had a horrible race, finished over a lap down to the leader. The rest though, finished in a pretty predictable running order. Same with the lower catagories, the finishing order was basically pre determined by the BoP in the various catagories. The only car I saw finish “out of place” was a Porsche 911 RSR in GTA who seemed to be able to jump up to P5 in class in the very closing stages, I’m assuming by doing 1 less stop (it had been at the back of the class almost all race).


Overall, a very enjoyable experience. Flying through the dark, lapping traffic, while racing for position having insane slip stream battles was very fun.

The downside was that, to do a 2.4hr race with the level of, I dunno, detail I guess, that I was looking for....well, let’s just say that for a 2.4 hour race, I spend a good 3 or more hours trying to set the whole thing up.

The further downside to spending 3 hours testing and setting up, is that was 3 hours studying how the AI would behave...making everything they did very predictable. It’s almost like to set up a good, “random” race, you have to peak behind the curtain to get in all lined up....and once you’ve peaked behind the curtain, you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned.


The only other major issue I had was not being able to save the race midway through. I put my ps4 in rest mode while in the pits, but I was basically locked into finishing that race before I could play any other game, or do any other activity in the game. A feature that let you pause and save an endurance race would be greatly welcomed.

Moral of the story, custom grids please sms

 

[Morgoth_666]

Nice post and a good story, some good info. At least it wasn't a terrible experience, just a bit rough around the edges. Too bad the cars couldn't mix it up a bit more. I wonder whether that's more down to different fuel/pit strategies separating the makes, or the big straights making it easier for the better straight-line-handling cars to get by.

Custom grids absolutely should be a thing, for many reasons.

Lights on all the cars, or at least all the ones that could conceivably run in such a race(and any cars in the same class) should also be a thing.

Bots that brake the same way we can absolutely need to be a thing. This is a race-killer in so many ways. They can be too fast or too slow in spots, we'll adjust their difficulty and our driving as needed. But they at least have to live on the same planet we do -- never more so than when hard on the brakes.

Bots also need to be able to hold a line and avoid the traffic jam situations described(I still remember so much similar problems with GT5). Perfection isn't really needed, but they can't get stuck like that for ages and especially with long straights. I've seen it myself in the bit of PC2 I've run. Sometimes stuff happens and a pass doesn't work or there are multiple cars complicating things... but a much faster car has to be persistent enough to take the obvious way past once things clear(instead of following a slowpoke all the way down a straight and trying a last-second dive under braking that doesn't even work half the time). They don't need to jump out of the way of the faster cars and/or slow down, that's just a black hole of problems waiting to happen. But they should be able to tell if it's a blue-flag situation and not weave and block et cetera. It sounds like the issues with this are more to do with the overtaking cars this time though. I'm not sure if trying to teach them to subtly back off mid-corner so everybody gets a clean exit is worth the headaches it could cause. I suppose aggression can help with this somewhat, but it seems it still needs a bit of work.

Avoiding completely oddball pit strategies would be a nice touch as well. They tended to be a bit too random in PC1, sounds like they still are. Variety is good, but you'd like to avoid things like having some cars stop 2-3 times in the first hour, then going 70 minutes at a time for the rest of the race.

Being able to customize the BoP somewhat yourself to avoid uneven classes would be a cool bonus feature if possible. If it gets set up to work online, there shouldn't be a particular reason it couldn't be implemented for offline races as well(yeah yeah I know people could use it to "cheat" if that makes them happy, good for them).



Get these things right(no easy task apparently) and endurance racing can be a lot of fun for those so inclined. After running a long time with the bots on a track you do get to know how they work a little too well, but I guess that's just sort of how it goes. The better you know them, the easier it is to run close with them and avoid the most dangerous mismatches between your driving styles. If they can handle lapping each other, it tends to come down to your ability to adapt on the fly vs their pace and consistency. If they can't, it becomes all about your pace in traffic vs their consistent pace on clear laps.

I've got some new go-fast bits in my computer now, so I expect to be getting back into the swing of this game again. Soon enough I'll be complaining about all the ways you can ruin an endurance race. I'm still hoping they taught Bob how to pit every single time he needs fuel without fail this time around, I haven't heard too much one way or the other and haven't tried to use him at all myself yet. You have to be able to put him in the car and just walk away for a while. That's a big help for doing REALLY long enduros of 4+ hours.

 

[twitcher]

Nice post and a good story, some good info. At least it wasn't a terrible experience, just a bit rough around the edges. Too bad the cars couldn't mix it up a bit more. I wonder whether that's more down to different fuel/pit strategies separating the makes, or the big straights making it easier for the better straight-line-handling cars to get by.

Custom grids absolutely should be a thing, for many reasons.

Lights on all the cars, or at least all the ones that could conceivably run in such a race(and any cars in the same class) should also be a thing.

Bots that brake the same way we can absolutely need to be a thing. This is a race-killer in so many ways. They can be too fast or too slow in spots, we'll adjust their difficulty and our driving as needed. But they at least have to live on the same planet we do -- never more so than when hard on the brakes.

Bots also need to be able to hold a line and avoid the traffic jam situations described(I still remember so much similar problems with GT5). Perfection isn't really needed, but they can't get stuck like that for ages and especially with long straights. I've seen it myself in the bit of PC2 I've run. Sometimes stuff happens and a pass doesn't work or there are multiple cars complicating things... but a much faster car has to be persistent enough to take the obvious way past once things clear(instead of following a slowpoke all the way down a straight and trying a last-second dive under braking that doesn't even work half the time). They don't need to jump out of the way of the faster cars and/or slow down, that's just a black hole of problems waiting to happen. But they should be able to tell if it's a blue-flag situation and not weave and block et cetera. It sounds like the issues with this are more to do with the overtaking cars this time though. I'm not sure if trying to teach them to subtly back off mid-corner so everybody gets a clean exit is worth the headaches it could cause. I suppose aggression can help with this somewhat, but it seems it still needs a bit of work.

Avoiding completely oddball pit strategies would be a nice touch as well. They tended to be a bit too random in PC1, sounds like they still are. Variety is good, but you'd like to avoid things like having some cars stop 2-3 times in the first hour, then going 70 minutes at a time for the rest of the race.

Being able to customize the BoP somewhat yourself to avoid uneven classes would be a cool bonus feature if possible. If it gets set up to work online, there shouldn't be a particular reason it couldn't be implemented for offline races as well(yeah yeah I know people could use it to "cheat" if that makes them happy, good for them).



Get these things right(no easy task apparently) and endurance racing can be a lot of fun for those so inclined. After running a long time with the bots on a track you do get to know how they work a little too well, but I guess that's just sort of how it goes. The better you know them, the easier it is to run close with them and avoid the most dangerous mismatches between your driving styles. If they can handle lapping each other, it tends to come down to your ability to adapt on the fly vs their pace and consistency. If they can't, it becomes all about your pace in traffic vs their consistent pace on clear laps.

I've got some new go-fast bits in my computer now, so I expect to be getting back into the swing of this game again. Soon enough I'll be complaining about all the ways you can ruin an endurance race. I'm still hoping they taught Bob how to pit every single time he needs fuel without fail this time around, I haven't heard too much one way or the other and haven't tried to use him at all myself yet. You have to be able to put him in the car and just walk away for a while. That's a big help for doing REALLY long enduros of 4+ hours.

Just to add some more info, the difference in pace between the various cars in the P1 category was not as bad as I perhaps made it seem.

After the quali session, the “factory” cars were all up front. One of the Porsche and one of the Ferrari factory cars got slowed through the Forest Esses, so dropped behind two of the 917Ks. Then, going through the “Mulsanne Kink” (proper name??) for the first time, one of the 917K and one of the factory Porsches had a pretty massive crash, which ends up causing the 917K to retire. The factory Porsche pitted for damage at the end of lap one, and spent the rest of the race fighting back, eventually finishing 7th (of 12).

I never really saw what happened with the 2nd factory Ferrari, it dropped to the back on the lead lap, never recovered.

The lead trio of 2 Porsches and a Ferrari took off at the front, which was exactly what I was going for. Both seemed fairly evenly matched, with the Fezza a bit faster on the straights, but slower through high speed corners. Keeping an eye on the running order through the race, I saw these 3 cars swap positions many times, both in pit stops and on track overtaking. I did end up beating these three, but did one less stop than them. Pace wise, they were a bit faster than me, significantly so on the Mulsanne, which was good and too be expected. I could close on them through Indy into Arnage, and through the esses into the Ford Chicane. The Porsche seemed the more balanced of the two, with the Ferrari having more peaks and valleys across the lap, in terms of pace.

I did end up finishing ahead of them, but that was because of the pit stops, and I’m quite sure I was significantly faster through most traffic. If I would have done that extra stop, I would have come out behind them, and probably not been able to catch them, which would have put me 4th at best....which is kind of what I was going for from the very start. So all things considered, minus the somewhat bogus pit strategy they used, things worked quite well.

For most of the race, I was having pretty fantastic battles with 3 of the other 917Ks. Back and forth, depending how we caught traffic in the pit stop cycles, 2 and 3 car slipstream battles down the Mulsanne...it was very enjoyable. These cars seemed to have good pace, but seemed really strong in the draft. Sometimes I think the AI was tripping a bit, as in our slipstream battles, sometimes even the leading AI car would be doing speeds that I could only possibly do in the draft. The 917’s strength seemed to be corner exit, having tons of low to mid range torque. Fastest car in the group up to about 260km/h. Above that, the streamliners start to pull away really hard, unless you time your corner exit at Tete Rouge absolutely perfect so that you get absolute maximum effect from the slipstream.

The non streamline Ferraris, these were the duds of the group. They did well enough if they could keep hold of the draft, but as soon as they lost the draft, they were goners. The only place these cars seemed fast was after the kink on the Mulsanne, and on the brakes into Mulsanne.

 

[twitcher]

I found this excellent review of sportscar racing in the 70s, tons of great ideas for different races. NASCAR at Le Mans??? Wtf lol.

 

[Brad24]

I am going to tackle the 24 Hours of Daytona and start the race at 3pm local time. I will begin the battle tonight.

 

[DesertPenguin]

I am going to tackle the 24 Hours of Daytona and start the race at 3pm local time. I will begin the battle tonight.

An actual 24 hours of real time?

 

[Brad24]

I am going to tackle the 24 Hours of Daytona and start the race at 3pm local time. I will begin the battle tonight.

It will be heavy cloud, overcast, heavy fog, clear

 

[cjr3559]

Did a half simulation of the 1000km of Spa circa 1970.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_1000km_of_Spa-Francorchamps

Total time 2 hours 5 minutes (the real race was 4 hours 10)

Time progression x2, start of race 1300 hours.

Four weather slots synced to race. First slot medium cloud, the last three random.

Car classes PTVA, PTVB, VGTA; fullest possible grid of 20

20 minute qualifying round set to 1000 hours with medium clouds.

Qualified 7th with the Porsche 917k out of the 8 VGTA class, 3 seconds behind pole.

I took 5th place relatively early in the first pit sequence. Weather stayed partly cloudy to mostly cloudy.

Shortly after first pit light rain began to fall and increased in strength until the next pit stop. During this run I managed to take the lead and built up a comfortable 20 second gap over P2.

Then right after leaving the pits the second time, I was given fog for the remainder of the race. Yuck. Couldn’t keep up the pace and wound up finishing 2nd.

All in all a fun event except for the fog. There were no race incidents or crashes.

I will say the weather didn’t seem terribly sim-like with heavy dense fog mid to late afternoon but it was worth seeing how the random weather modes would evolve. Also it was odd how the weather changed immediately after leaving the pit each time.

Looking forward to trying another event soon.

Here’s a short video of the real thing. Didn’t think to take my own photos or save a replay. Next time!

 

[speedy10]

Did a half simulation of the 1000km of Spa circa 1970.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_1000km_of_Spa-Francorchamps

Total time 2 hours 5 minutes (the real race was 4 hours 10)

Time progression x2, start of race 1300 hours.

Four weather slots synced to race. First slot medium cloud, the last three random.

Car classes PTVA, PTVB, VGTA; fullest possible grid of 20

20 minute qualifying round set to 1000 hours with medium clouds.

Qualified 7th with the Porsche 917k out of the 8 VGTA class, 3 seconds behind pole.

I took 5th place relatively early in the first pit sequence. Weather stayed partly cloudy to mostly cloudy.

Shortly after first pit light rain began to fall and increased in strength until the next pit stop. During this run I managed to take the lead and built up a comfortable 20 second gap over P2.

Then right after leaving the pits the second time, I was given fog for the remainder of the race. Yuck. Couldn’t keep up the pace and wound up finishing 2nd.

All in all a fun event except for the fog. There were no race incidents or crashes.

I will say the weather didn’t seem terribly sim-like with heavy dense fog mid to late afternoon but it was worth seeing how the random weather modes would evolve. Also it was odd how the weather changed immediately after leaving the pit each time.

Looking forward to trying another event soon.

Here’s a short video of the real thing. Didn’t think to take my own photos or save a replay. Next time!

Nice event!! Hope to see your personal video or photos, maybe on Nords??? who knows..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_German_Grand_Prix -> would be nice to repeat.

 

[cjr3559]

Nice event!! Hope to see your personal video or photos, maybe on Nords??? who knows..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_German_Grand_Prix -> would be nice to repeat.

What’s awesome about this game is you can just about simulate the entire 1970 WSC season with the tracks and cars in game. It’s not perfect, but it’s amazingly close (7 out of 10 events). Somehow I don’t think they’ll ever make Targa Florio but we can only hope.

Today I ran a 1970 version of the 1000km of Nürburgring. The real race didn’t run on the current 24 hour layout, but I used it anyway. The actual race in 1970 took 6 hours, so I did it in 3 hrs at x2 time progression. Total distance worked out to be 18 laps or 456kms.

I opted for the 908 just as the Gulf team did in 1970. And wouldn’t you know it was a 908 than won the event! I came in 8th overall, 2nd in the VGTB class. It was fun and exhausting at the same time. I think I finished about 5 minutes behind the leader. My fastest lap was around 9 minutes 25 seconds.

Weather was wonky again. Chose the same settings as the Spa race with medium cloud to start and random for the last three slots. It stayed mainly sunny for the first hour (real time) and then you guessed it, fog for the remaining two hours (what’s the deal with fog?). The sun tried to peek through during the last 30 minutes, but the race was pretty much pea soup the entire time. At least it was dry throughout. Not sure about using random weather for future races.

No pictures or video. I’m too tired after running that to take any pictures afterward.

 

[Sentry87]

I usually to stay away from random weather slots for my endurance races, due to fear of unrealistic results (thunderstorm, snow etc). I usually throw in a slot or two of light rain for races such as N24 and Spa 24 because they tend to always have a little rain at least. I don't really think of it as cheating because most teams are able to forecast upcoming weather.

 

[speedy10]

What’s awesome about this game is you can just about simulate the entire 1970 WSC season with the tracks and cars in game. It’s not perfect, but it’s amazingly close (7 out of 10 events). Somehow I don’t think they’ll ever make Targa Florio but we can only hope.

Today I ran a 1970 version of the 1000km of Nürburgring. The real race didn’t run on the current 24 hour layout, but I used it anyway. The actual race in 1970 took 6 hours, so I did it in 3 hrs at x2 time progression. Total distance worked out to be 18 laps or 456kms.

I opted for the 908 just as the Gulf team did in 1970. And wouldn’t you know it was a 908 than won the event! I came in 8th overall, 2nd in the VGTB class. It was fun and exhausting at the same time. I think I finished about 5 minutes behind the leader. My fastest lap was around 9 minutes 25 seconds.

Weather was wonky again. Chose the same settings as the Spa race with medium cloud to start and random for the last three slots. It stayed mainly sunny for the first hour (real time) and then you guessed it, fog for the remaining two hours (what’s the deal with fog?). The sun tried to peek through during the last 30 minutes, but the race was pretty much pea soup the entire time. At least it was dry throughout. Not sure about using random weather for future races.

No pictures or video. I’m too tired after running that to take any pictures afterward.

Great event, just want to ask.. do you run some laps before the endurance on that track? I mean... the learning curve of each car is different on esch track.. so before running 18 laps on nords I assume that you feel comfortable, makes sense?

 

[cjr3559]

Great event, just want to ask.. do you run some laps before the endurance on that track? I mean... the learning curve of each car is different on esch track.. so before running 18 laps on nords I assume that you feel comfortable, makes sense?

One qualifying lap. I’ve run the Nordschleife more time than I should admit, though I don’t run the 24 hour version much so the beginning takes some practice. It’s not too hard managing different cars for an endurance race, generally I don’t run 100% of my ability to conserve energy and the car. It also depends on the car. Can’t imagine trying the Ferrari 512 there, but it would be fun nonetheless.

Eventually I will tackle Brands Hatch, Monza, and Watkins Glen with the 917k but I will have to practice those first. Especially WG. I’ve run Daytona before so it wasn’t too difficult, but I had to practice the classic Spa and Le Mans layouts first.

 

[Lebois]

Hi ! I did the 24 hours of le Mans with real time with two friends with a DIY sim motion rig an the Pimax VR headset.

You can read all about the race on my post on the pimax forum here.

- What went well and what was frustrating or heartbreaking?
On the software side, everything was ok, we just add hardware problems...

- What strategy did you use?
We used hard tires and the full tank. Each tire set was used during three relays.

- How did the AI behave?
Well, we struggled to keep the first place during the first 18 hours. Then with the global warming and the additional grip on the track, we drove quite faster and kept the first place easily.

- Did you use Bob and how did he do?
No

- What were the time of day and weather changes like?
It was in real time. Weather was clear through all the race, even if we choosed "real weather" but this feature doesn't seem to work.

 

[Rage Racer]

A question about the career related to endurance racing:

If I win the “24h Le Mans Experience” event from the DLC, will it count as a “legendary race” for the global goal? Or you must win the Le Mans race in the main career to achieve it?

Also, do you need to win it overall or a class victory (e.g. GTE) will count, too?