dukestah’s gtr blog

ok, let’s go for the next stints. the next 8 laps were quite boring, no passes and the car was acting like a clockwork. the track is cooling down heading towards the night. the next stop was done in about 30 seconds, just fuel, some small repair and that’s all. the opponents are acting a little bit strange. i went to position 16 (of about 38 cars) then they started to pass me even my lap times aren’t so bad (8:50-9:00). with the dusk, the time for pitstop 4 was ready. on position 21 i decided to go for soft slicks all around due the colder track. even if the track is a little bit too hot for soft slicks i forced the car for better lap times to get closer to the cars in front of me. with 6 laps of about 8:42-8:46 i managed to pass 2 cars again. tire temperature was sometimes a little bit critical (95 on front, 115 on rears) but the grip was superior. after finishing lap 40 i went for the next stop to get fuel. front tire wear was at 11/10 and rear tire wear at 4/4. this fullfilled my expectation but pushing the car any further will drive me into troubles with my front tires. so i have to slow down a little bit, moving brake bias more to the rears to keep the front tires well for another 8 laps. 18:30 hours to go, but not today.

i did a test with the exige on a dry nordschleife (27 degree track, 20 degree air) to test tire wear and fuel consumption. the 60 litre limit is quite strange. with a consumption of about 10 litre per lap i can stay out for 6 laps only. to force the tire wear a little bit i was pushing the car quite hard, with some powersteers and black lines out of the bends, but the tire temp was never above 80 degree on the rears and almost completly below 70 for the front tires. so the car feels quite slippery and sliding around will not improve the durability of the tires. after 6 laps, i went for the box to check the wear and the front tires were 7 and the rear tires were at 15. unfortunately, the car was quite hard to handle the last 2 turns, so wearing the tires down to 30 will definitely increase lap times. my best lap was 7:56, my last 4 laps were above 8 minutes. so using an average of 8 minutes per lap, i can stay out for just 48 minutes. changing rear tires plus refuel plus in/out will take approximatly 1:30 which gives me a 6 lap time of about 50-52 minutes (passing etc) this will lead to a mininum of 26 pitstops! this is insane. even if some gt cars pits every 45-60 minutes in real life, they just get some fuel, a short checkup and that’s all, they change tires after 3 or 4 stints, driver changes after a mininum of 2 stints, often up to 6 stints in a row. (stuck was driving over 4 hours at night at le mans 2002 if i remember correct)

due my strange experience with the 24 h race on the rainy nordschleife i decided to do some more tests. first, i tested the add-on car exige with 400 hp (based on the elise, same 3d model, same cockpit but more power, 6 adjustable forward gears) this is really an elise on steroids. after a couple of laps i touched the 8 minute barrier and this with a slighty modified version of my elise setup and on a wet track. lowside, the tank only holds 60 litre and due the low weight of the vehicle the car is quite hard to handle. i am not sure if i go for this car or if i stay on original cars.
to get an impression if the exige add-on car is something like real i tested other cars, like the bmw z3 and some other ngt cars. with a 8 minute lap time, the exige is at the end of the gt field! so i think, this is too fast for a ngt car. the horsepower is quite similar to the other ngt cars but the exige comes with about 300 kg less in weight! since the elise/exige are the only cars which are close to my personal preference (roadster) i am really struggeling which car i will use for further tests.