Stock 787B Le Mans 24h car set-up?

[YuRiPa]

Hi all,

I wanna do the Le Mans 24h race with my Mazda 787B. The only problem is that my lap times are not good enough and tyres don't last long enough. Before anyone says I should look up some set-ups from this site, I've done that already. The one I'm happy with gets me lap times of around 3m32 with RH tyres. These tyres last 4 laps, maybe 5, but that's it. Normal and Soft tyres only last 3 laps, so I'd prefer being 5-6 seconds slower (can do 3m27 laps with both RS and RM tyres) but be able to do one or two more laps per stint.

I'm playing with the DS3, all aids off except ABS on 1 and TCS on 5 (with TCS at 0, which I normally do, these LMP and Group C's are nearly impossible to control, let alone get good lap times) and the car is completely stock, no turbo upgrades or whatsoever. The R8 in the race does laps of around 3m30 I think and I have no idea what his pit stop strategy is (my hunch is that he pits every 8-10 laps or so, but I'm not sure). It would be great if I could shave off 2-3 more seconds from my lap time to be competitive in the race, with hopefully a very close finish.

Since most if not all posted tunes and set ups for this popular car have the maximum turbo upgrade they don't really fit my 787B, since I just refuse to install any turbo on my car. I want to race the 24h race with the stock 787B, which should be possible.

If anyone can help with good strategies, tips or car set-ups, thanks so much.

 

[dragos]

Hey YuRiPa

I'm not gonna be any help with your tune but I do have a little bit of advice as far as the pit strategy/lap times are concerned. Running the same race with the same car.


Long story short is if you can do 3:30 laps, get 4 laps out of your tires and can do this comfortably then you got the race won.

I'm running RS, get 4 laps between pits and everytime I pit I add on 30 liters of fuel (keep the fuel between 1/4 and 1/2). The laps I don't pit are anywhere between 3:25 (my best) to 3:35 with the ocasional going off the track and recovering. However the more important thing is being able to get those times consistently and without pushing yourself/car 100%. Leave a little room for error.

Early on in my race went off the track a couple times, got caught on the track with worn out tires (lap 5 with RS) and pretty soon I was 1 1/2 laps behind the leader (Speed 8 I believe). I decided to stick with it anyways. 3 hours later I unlapped myself. 8 hours on during the night finally caught up with the leader. Was gaining/loosing 1st place during the pits. Now 12 hours on I have a 3 minute lead and waiting for the sunrise. No rain yet, but from what I hear AI does really poorly in rain.

Thats with the stock 787B, stock aero, RS, no aids. Just go in there and stick with it. See what works best for you during the race and plan accordingly. You'll have plenty of time to learn from your mistakes, correct them and eventually take the lead. Won't be easy but it's sure is fun and challenging.

BTW the leaders seemed to pit every 4 laps also.


Hope it helped some.
D


One more thing, do everything you can to conserve your tires. Absolutely no wheel spin, locking tires or going sideways around a corner (in this case RS may be better than RH). When you come out of a slow corner try the 3rd gear instead of 2nd.

 

[Will27]

One more thing, do everything you can to conserve your tires. Absolutely no wheel spin, locking tires or going sideways around a corner (in this case RS may be better than RH). When you come out of a slow corner try the 3rd gear instead of 2nd.

👍
Can’t stress this enough. It will either give you an extra lap on your tyres, or make your last lap of each stint much quicker and reduce mistakes.

 

[YuRiPa]

@ dragos: thanks so much! I'll try to squeeze out one more lap out of my RS (or RM) tyres. Then I can do 4 laps on these too, until now I manage to do 2.5 laps on both of them. I won't switch off the TC with a DS3, then it will be a complete disaster, certainly if there will be rain, then I'll go into all directions except the correct one, haha. I have no idea how the AI is in the rain, but if they do the same lap times as in the Le Mans B-spec seasonal of January I really gotta improve my driving in the rain.

Are you using a DS3 or a wheel? What are your suspension settings? If you can remember them, hehe.

Trick to conserving tyres is then, also as stressed by Will27, to shift up early and do shortshifting. Maybe then I can also switch off TCS entirely.