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- Curitiba
The Project CARS Le Mans guide (patch 2.0)
There is some things you guys should know before comit to something as long as Le Mans:
- Event structure. There is a nice one hour long practice session and a ridiculously short qualifying (15 minutes in a 13 km course with 30 cars on track at the same time. 4Racers By Racers. Riiiiiiiiiight).
Be aware to the fact that these sessions are held in day time. Set some practice laps on your own at night conditions. Some curves are really hard to find at night at the first couple of laps, mainly Porsche Curves entry (stepping out of the plublic roads bit) and the first left hander in the La Chappel. They are really blind. You have sort of throw the car around, hoping that the turns are there.
- Penalty system. It doesn't work. There are corners where you can pretty much drive with four wheels off and gain time without a short cut warning (Ford Chicanes and the inside bit of Tertre Rouge). There are others where you can't put two wheels over the curb without being told to not do it again, even if you are losing time, or dodging AI nuts.
I did run Le Mans with penalties on only because I didn't let the B-Spec Bob take over. The AI driver WILL get you off the race. Pay attention to this: he WILL get you off the race by short cuts. If you plan to use it, don't set the penalties on. The same goes if you'll get tired at some point and make some mistakes, simply turn it off. I wish I did.
- Damage. Turn it off completely. The reason is simple: if you get a crash and lose the front bodywork, with your lights, that's it. Even if you tell your crew to repair it, they won't and you will wind up without lights to do the whole race.
- Red hot tyres issue. If you're lucky, it won't happen to you. But if you are like me, well, it'll. It's a known issue: when you get yourself to the pits to change tyres, no matter what you do in your strategy, as soon as you get out, the new set will get red hot.
But don't dispair. You'll be able to run two stints easily, without any lost of grip and bad handling. On my third stint with the hot tyres, I noticed a lot of vibration. I'm thinking that, for some reason, my tyres got squared, but I didn't locked up the wheels that much. Anyway, the last stint will be slower, but it's doable and if you are a regular driver, you'll be competitive. At night, it'll get a bit scary though.
- Medium tyres. Tired of the red hot issue on softs I decided to give the medium compound a go in the last 5 hours. What a difference! On my setup, It worked better than the soft ones. I could run 3min28 laps without a hitch. Plus, the three stints became really easy Try it =) (I could even do four, but I was so ahead of the AI that I couldn't be bother)
- Difficulty level. I'm used to play the career with the AI at 80% (sometimes 90%, 85% would be ideal, but...). On Le Mans I chickened out and set it to 80%. Apart from the first few laps, the bots weren't really competitive and this happens simply because they can't handle traffic as fast as you can do. So, in order to get a nice race, you should up the AI a bit. Believe me, as soon as you reach traffic, they'll lose a lot of time.
The AI seems to get strategy really wrong too. In my case, there was five LMP1 cars, including me. I was able to do 12 laps stints (13 if I wanted to). But the AI cars were doing 10 to 11 laps runs. I don't know why.
- Pit stop fuel. Make sure you have a strategy made to the race which has the maximum fuel set. The reason is if you drive to the pits without one, and try to do it manually, sometimes (frequently, really) your crew won't put the max fuel that you can carry.
UPDATE:
- Le Mans Pit Stop bug. The 2.0 patch came with notes saying it had corrected the issue where, after changing the control with the AI driver, the player's car would hit an invisible object and got disqualified from the race.
There are reports on the official forums stating that this issue is not corrected at all. So, I'd strongly suggest to not use the AI driver in the Le Mans 24 Hours.
