El Capitan 200 miles

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flyingkiwi

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The Grid: 200 A-spec pts
Pagani Zonda C12 (413hp, 1250kg)
Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R (371hp, 1628kg)
Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport (C4) (335hp, 1496hp)
Dodge Viper GTS (479hp, 1569kg)
Lotus Motorsports Elise (215hp, 700kg)
Mazda RX-7 Type RS-R (266hp, 1480kg) (200kg ballast)

Rules
Each set of tyre (Sports Hard, Sports Medium, and Sports Soft) must be used for at least 25% of the race (17 laps)

Laps 1-10
Beautiful day here at El Capitan and a very competitive field for this 200 mile race. In my opinion, it will be between the Zonda, Viper, Elise, and myself as to who will go home with the spoils.

I start on the hard tyres. I am left for dead on the start line but soon catch up to the group and dive past three cars at turn 6. That leaves me just behind the Zonda and the Elise. The Lotus makes a pass for the lead at turn 11 and pulls away immediately. I also pass the Zonda but by the end of the lap, I am already 2.8s down on the Elise and the Zonda is right on my bumper bar.

I soon pull away from the Zonda but the Elise in turn pulls away from me. By lap 5, he is 9s up the road. The Zonda is about 15s behind me, so I am having a lonely race thus far.

By the end of lap 9, the Elise's lead has grown to 25s, enough to make a pitstop and still rejoin in the lead. I am not too worried yet, since I have yet to use the medium and soft tyres. I hope to do my entire 17-lap obligation on hard tyres in one stint.

Laps 11-20
The Lotus, after a magnificient opening stint, pits from a 41s lead at the end of lap 13. My right-rear tyre is already losing grip but I decide to solider on to lap 17, no matter what. I lose a mountain of time in the final 2 laps and also lose 2nd place to the Zonda. By the time I emerge from the pits with medium tyres, I am a massive 1:26s behind the Lotus. My fastest lap on hard tyres was 2:00.535.

Laps 21-30
The Zonda finally pits on lap 23 and hands me back 2nd place (I pass him as he exits the second corner on his outlap). The medium tyres yield 1:59-1:58s lap times, which still is not enough to make an impression on the Elise, who is in the 1:56s. He pits again on lap 26, which reduces his lead over me to just over a minute. I pit on lap 29 and change to soft tyres. The Elise has lapped every one apart from me and the Zonda.

Laps 31-40
My soft tyres last until lap 37. During that stint, the gap to the Elise remained around 1:15s. The Elise then pits on lap 39.

Laps 41-50
I cut into the Elise's lead. I can see on the circuit map that he is being held-up by the Zonda. I reduce his lead to under a minute on lap 43. By the time I pit on lap 45, it is down to 45s! No blue flags in this game! I rejoin 1:08s down. I have one more stop to make. The Elise has two (laps 52 and 65). Can this be done??

Laps 51-66
The Elise pits on lap 52 and by lap 54, the gap is 29s. I pit for the final time on lap 54 and change back to medium tyres. I rejoin 56s down. That is cut to 49s by the end of the next lap as the Elise is once again stuck in lapped traffic! Two laps later it is 40s!! Then 37s!!! If it gets under 30s, then I have a chance of jumping him when he comes out of the pits on the final lap.

Alas, the Elise finally breaks free of the traffic on lap 60, and extends his lead to 47s before his final pitstop. I just cannot match him on medium tyres. Nevertheless, I never give up and ulimately finish 25.4s behind.

It was a good race, but in the end the extra laps on the hard tyres killed me off. But, I would argue that if I put on another set of hard tyres (I had to do at least 17 laps on them), then I also probably wouldn't have won. In conclusion, the loss can be put down to the tire wear on the RX-7. I will be back soon!

Result
Lotus Motorsports Elise 2:14:20
Mazda RX-7 Type RS-R +25.4s
Pagani Zonda C12 +1 lap
Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport +2 laps
Dodge Viper GTS +2 laps
Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R +3 laps

Race Fastest Laps
Lotus Motorsports Elise 1:55.776
Mazda RX-7 Type RS-R 1:56.182
Pagani Zonda C12 2:01.174
Dodge Viper GTS 2:02.756
Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport 2:02.946
Ford Mustang SVT Cobra R 2:05.732
 
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flyingkiwi
In conclusion, the loss can be put down to the tire wear on the RX-7.
Click to expand...

Interesting observation, flyingkiwi.

I've put a lot of study into what affects tire wear in GT4 endurance races, and how it can be tuned.

For instance, if your tire destroying car is carrying ballast, you can move the ballast away from the end of the car with the most tire wear, and get the other end of the car to share the load more equally.

There are other tricks, too.

Respectfully,
Steve
 
2nd Attempt

This is my favorite track on the whole game, and thus this is probably my favorite endurance race. I have bought a blue Honda NSX and added 100kg to it in order to give myself more of a chance of getting 200 a-spec points. A good grid as well, so here we go!👍

The Grid: 200 a-spec points
Shelby Series 1 SC (341hp, 1202kg)
TVR Cerbera Speed 6 (354hp, 1130kg)
Mercedes SL 65 AMG (644hp, 2028kg)
Lotus Motorsports Elise (215hp, 700kg)
TVR T350C (372hp, 1187kg)
Honda NSX 2001 (281hp, 1540kg) (Stock with 200kg ballast)

Each set of sports tyres (Hard, Medium, and Soft) must be used for at least 25% (17 laps) of the race.

Laps 1-10
The Elise wastes no time in taking the lead and I quickly follow him through to take 2nd, but the Elise is once again very fast in this race, and already has a 3s lead at the end of the first lap.

I close up to the Elise on lap 2 and make an unsuccessful attempt at passing him around the back of the circuit. I repeat the move on lap 3, and this time it sticks. I build a small gap but we are lapping at very similar speeds, and after 5 laps the margin is only 1.5s. Meanwhile, the Cerbera has broken free of the 4-car battle for 3rd and is now 15s behind me. The rest of the pack are another 5s further back.

The Elise reduces my lead to 0.7s on lap 6 and is right on my tail as we end lap 7. As we go across the start-finish line he takes the lead. I have another go at passing him on the next lap but to no avail, and he begins pulling away. At the end of 10 laps, he is 10s ahead of me. The T350C is 10s behind me, and looks to be lapping slightly faster.

Laps 11-20
The Elise continues to build his lead and by the time he pits on lap 14 (crucially, for him, since he now only has to make 4 stops), he is 21s up the road. I stay out for another lap before the state of my right rear dictates that I have to pit. Only two laps away from the mandatory lap number:grumpy: I change to Medium tyres and rejoin 21s behind.

Before all that activity the T350C pitted on lap 13, which condemns him to a 5-stop race, unless he can pull off a 14-lap stint during the race (which he does).

I begin my charge on the Medium tyres and begin lapping in the 1:58s and 1:59s. This allows me to gain ground on the Elise, who is taking a long time to warm up his tyres. At the end of 20 laps, I have reduced the gap to 6.1s.

Laps 21-30
The Elise gets his tyres warmed up and starts lapping quicker. I try to my best to keep up with him and after 25 laps, the gap is 7.8s. We have both lapped the Cerbera and the Mercedes.

I pit on lap 27 for more Medium tyres and when the Elise pits the next lap, he rejoins 9s in front of me. I quickly reduce that gap to almost nothing in about a lap-and-a-half but a small mistakes lets the Elise off the hook and he is 3.1s ahead after 30 laps. This is going to be a cliffhanger. :nervous: I really need to take the lead in this stint, as I three more stops to do, compared to the Elise's two.

Laps 31-40
I make a pass for the lead on lap 31, but it is shortlived as the Elise gives me a bump on the start-finish straight, which momentarily puts me in the sand on the side of the track. Not to be deterred, I then catch back up to him and pass him at turn 5, just before the tunnel. I pull away from him and after 35 laps, I have a 10s lead. The Elise is not giving up, however, and when his tyres finally warm-up, he reduces the gap back down to 6s before I pit on lap 39 to change to Soft tyres. During that stint, we both lapped the Shelby as he was in the pits. I rejoin the track 22s down on the Elise, which becomes 23s at the end of lap 40.

Laps 41-50
The Elise pits on lap 42 and rejoins 6s behind me. I press on and after 45 laps, my lead has grown to 21s. The Mercedes and Cerbera were both lapped for the second time and the T350C goes down a lap. I continue lapping in the 1:58s (strangely, the same pace as I lapped on the Medium tyres, which I put down to a slight drop in horsepower), and I pit on lap 48 from a 31s lead.

I rejoin with a 2.9s lead over the Elise, both of us needing to make one more stop, but with me having to go back to Hard tyres. Like I wrote earlier, this will go down to the wire. The the end of 50 laps, I have a very slim 1.5s lead.

Laps 51-60
My lead stays at a precarious 1.4s but, crucially, we come up on the two TVRs. I quickly pass them, but the Elise gets held up a bit, which means that I could extend my lead to 4s. The Elise pulls this back to 3 seconds when we both pit for the final time on lap 56. I go back to Hard tyres and rejoin with same 3s margin. Straight away, I feel better about my chances because I can lap in the 1:59s, due to my light fuel load. I take advantage of the Elise having to warm up his tyres, and stretch my lead to 13.9s by the end of lap 60, hoping that when the Elise does finally get a move on, he will have too much to do.

Laps 61-66
I extend my lead to a very comfortably 17s and start to relax a bit. The Elise then finally gets his tyres up to temperature and starts pulling me in, but it is all too little, too late and I cross the line with 5 seconds to spare to record a very memorable victory!:gtpflag:

Result
Honda NSX 2:14:33.081
Lotus Motorsports Elise +5.9s
TVR T350C +1 lap
Shelby Series 1 SC +1 lap
TVR Cerbera Speed 6 + 2 laps
Mercedes SL 65 AMG +3 laps

Fastest Laps
Lotus Motorsports Elise 1:57.090
Honda NSX 1:57.598
TVR T350C 2:00.310
Shelby Series 1 SC 2:02.004
TVR Cerbera Speed 6 2:03.079
Mercedes SL 65 AMG 2:03.773

Analysis
A great race, probably one of my best ever since I didn't make any mistakes, and yet only finished 5s ahead of the 2nd-placed car. Love this circuit!
 
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