Cafe Menu 43

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Mazda 787B tune, and it worked out for me under Hard difficulty.


Strategy guide for each race:
- Big Willow - Easy flat out (no fuel saving needed). Be patient with the throttle on lower speed corners, and don't build sandcastles. Lap times: 1:07 - 1:08

- Red Bull Ring - Easy flat out (no fuel saving needed). Zero stop unless it rains enough to require Inters/Wets. Keep an eye on the weather, and be patient with the throttle on low speed corners and/or wet conditions. Bonus points if the AI Escudo holds up the AI XJR-9 and R92CP, as they go for the 0 stop and have decent pace... Double points if they spin out at some point. Lap times: 1:23 - 1:24 (dry) ... 1:44 - 1:46 (wet)

- Fuji - Zero stop unless it rains enough to require Inters/Wets. Minor fuel saving required. Use all revs on main straight. Everywhere else, shift just as the bar is about to fill up. Keep an eye on the weather, and be patient with the throttle on low speed corners and/or wet conditions. Be especially patient with the throttle on sector 3 (all conditions). Lap times: 1:34 - 1:36 (dry) ... 1:53 - 1:57 (wet)


Results:
- Big Willow


Tune on the Mazda did it for me, txs Consistent 1:09's flat with leader in Jaguar got blocked on last corner.
 
Thank you to one who suggested going with a high downforce config for Big Willow. Did it for me, 2nd place and 1 sec behind the 1st place. Quite hard of a challenge but made it
 
Picked up the Sauber and using Priaino's 800PP tune, I banged out Cafe 43.

As a beginner, I've been running on Easy.

I tried Willow Springs first and was so amazed with the car, I wasn't paying attention and ran out of gas on the last lap. Ran it again and won it. I almost got caught passing on a yellow when a Jaguar backed out of the sand into the middle of the track. I couldn't stop, and wound up T-boning him. No penalty.

Fuji next. Took me four tries. I miscalculated the rain, overdrove the track, didn't know the track. Typical rookie mistakes. Won it on the fourth try after settling down.

Red Bull in one try. No stops.

Thanks for all the input, Gentlemen. I can't even imagine running on the Hard setting. You are all miles ahead of me in skill.

Good luck!
 
Raced at Willows with the Sauber C9 using Priano's tune. It took a few tries to win. Priano's tune made the Sauber car so well balanced & stick to the track especially around the long uphill right hander. It felt surreal. I had to drop the power & engine performance in order to play & had to choose the best top speed with custom transmission: racing.

But what really made a good deal about the win was the RM tires. I didn't pit stop for the tires or fuel as I kept adjusting the fuel flow gauge to get maximum performance & also save fuel wherever I could.
 
I've managed 2nd at Fuji with the TS030 + the F1 car. If there is A. Wilk in the lead catching him isn't easy. Fuji also is like a lottery because of the changeable weather. It usually starts to rain on lap 6 or just a bit earlier.

In one instance, it just rained for half a lap. It's the unpredictabily tat makes it fun. The Sauber C9 no way will win you at Fuji. My best best is TS030 as I don't have the 787B or R92CP cars.
 
I'm playing with hard difficulty. Today after many tries, I won at Fuji with the TS030. It didn't rain during the race & there wasn't A. Wilk in the LM55.

Edit: Wrong mention.......

I've to still win Fuji & RB ring. Sad thing is don't have any capable cars of winning these 2 races. The Sauber C( is only good for Willow Springs.
 
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Won the race at Big Willow with the C9 today. I ended up using praiano63's PP 900 setup for this car at Spa (rather than the PP 800 setup for Sardegna) but of course detuned to below PP 800 for this challenge. I preferred the higher downforce from this setup albeit at the cost of straight line speed and acceleration. To compensate for that, I installed nitro on the car.

I didn’t change the wing or the suspension settings, but I really wanted to run with RM tires, so I had to reduce the ECU and the Power Restrictor all the way down to the minimum as well as adding 143 kg of ballast. I also had the Medium RPM turbocharger fitted. I adjusted the top speed down to 290 km/h and didn't customize the gear ratios.

I pitted once at the end of lap 6 for tires and fuel (didn’t think the RM tires would last the entire distance).



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What difficulty are you guys beating these races on? On hard, I have been trying different LM cars with different tunes on Red Bull Ring, and the best I got was 6th. The AI seem to be driving derestricted LM cars, because they are lapping 5 seconds faster than me which I think is not possible when restricted to 800PP.

I set the difficulty on Medium and beat the race on my first try, but it was way too easy. I don't get the crazy spike in difficulty form medium to hard.
 
What difficulty are you guys beating these races on? On hard, I have been trying different LM cars with different tunes on Red Bull Ring, and the best I got was 6th. The AI seem to be driving derestricted LM cars, because they are lapping 5 seconds faster than me which I think is not possible when restricted to 800PP.

I set the difficulty on Medium and beat the race on my first try, but it was way too easy. I don't get the crazy spike in difficulty form medium to hard.
I'm on hard level as well. I've only managed to win at Willows with a Sauber. But the Sauber ain't good enough for Fuji. I tried the McLaren F1 car but had to detune it as well. I'm stuck on this menu 43 race set as don't have a decent car to win with. Which is why am waiting for the legendary garage to refresh.
 
Finished book 43 today, using a McLaren F1 GTR BMW. Got rain on the Red Bull Ring twice, but managed to win by a few tenths.

Willow ate my RS tires, so restarted it on RH. On FM6 I was able to go without stops in the same McLaren and won 3rd try.

Fuji and me aren't good friends. Had to complete it with the McLaren again, since it's the only car I have which I can use for this book.
Went off a few times, got time penalties, but hate this track so much that I took second place after 4 tries gladly and finished off this Menu Book.
 
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Finished book 43 today, using a McLaren F1 GTR BMW. Got rain on the Red Bull Ring twice, but managed to win by a few tenths.

Willow ate my RS tires, so restarted it on RH. On FM6 I was able to go without stops in the same McLaren and won 3rd try.

Fuji and me aren't good friends. Had to complete it with the McLaren again, since it's the only car I have which I can use for this book.
Went off a few times, got time penalties, but hate this track so much that I took second place after 4 tries gladly and finished off this Menu Book.
That's cool. Kindly share some tips regarding the FM strategy (as this drinks a lot of fuel) & setup. I'm stuck in this menu chapter since weeks. I had to detune my McLaren which made it less competitive.
 
That's cool. Kindly share some tips regarding the FM strategy (as this drinks a lot of fuel) & setup. I'm stuck in this menu chapter since weeks. I had to detune my McLaren which made it less competitive.
I used Praiano's setup and set a little extra negative camber and a notch less anti roll on both front and rear. Also set brake balance to +2, instead of his -2.

As far as FM strategy, I stick behind the frontrunner longer than normal and use the slipstream to ease on the throttle and save fuel. Finished the race with 0.4 laps of fuel left.

Mind you, I play on Nornal.
 
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I'm on hard level as well. I've only managed to win at Willows with a Sauber. But the Sauber ain't good enough for Fuji. I tried the McLaren F1 car but had to detune it as well. I'm stuck on this menu 43 race set as don't have a decent car to win with. Which is why am waiting for the legendary garage to refresh.
Do you mean the McLaren F1 GTR? I don't own the car, only the non longtail version, which I tried, but it drinks too much fuel. I remember trying the Sauber at Willow when menu 43 came out, and I also had a hard time getting in the top 6.

I feel like switching to medium to beat these races is like cheating, they become too easy :(
 
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Do you mean the McLaren F1 GTR? I don't own the car, only the non longtail version, which I tried, but it drinks too much fuel. I remember trying the Sauber at Willow when menu 43 came out, and I also had a hard time getting in the top 6.

I feel like switching to medium to beat these races is like cheating, they become too easy :(
Use Priano's tune on the Sauber for Willows. It provides amazing grip & feel through the long turns. Go for RM tires which imo are the best tires in GT7.
 
Finally won the Fuji race on hard difficulty with the C9 and CRB. I tried to pick a dry race to finish (i.e., if it rained, I’d start over), because it wasn’t much fun driving in the wet on a track that I loathe…. :)

I did my own setup this time, as I was not able to find any suitable setup online. As I explained in the description of my YT video, I had the choice to run with RH tire and full power or RM tires with less power. Eventually my preference was to run with RM tires and less power, because that made the car much easier to handle, so I didn’t have to drive on the ragged edge all the time and allowed me to drive a bit more conservatively. I did have to pit once at the end of lap 6 for fuel and fresh tires.

Finally, the CRB for this race was difficult to get as the slightest touch with the AI cars will cause you to lose it.



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Finally after trying so many times, managed a podium (3rd place) at RBR with the MP4/4. This time it started to rain heavy on lap 3 & remained raining throughout till lap 10. As always the AI keep pitting here & there so got lucky this time. Now only Fuji remains.

I also minimized the front downforce to get some space with PP. Was on RM & increased the HP just enough.
 
Won the RBR race today on hard difficulty in the C9 along with the CRB. As with the Fuji race before, I tried to go for a dry race.

I think this race was the hardest of the 3 for me, mainly because the top AI cars have really good pace, and some of them could run the entire race without pitting. What made it even worse was that I had to use fuel map 4 and short shift throughout the race to save fuel in order not to pit, so that made it very difficult to pass the top AI cars on the straights. It was also more likely to rain than the Fuji race.

However, I did manage to find online very nice suspension and differential settings for the C9, and they turned out to be very good at RBR (details in my YT video/description). I of course had to tweak the aero and the ballast to meet the PP requirement, but I was able to run on RH tires with full power.

As for the race itself, it threatened to rain in the latter part of the race, but luckily the rain stayed away from the track in the end. I was able to hunt down all the top AI cars except Grady in the XJR-9, but luckily he pitted at the end of lap 9, and after having to do fuel saving for pretty much the whole race, I used my nitro power on the last lap to snatch the fastest lap from Grady to cap off the race 😊



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