RACE 5 - WTC700 at AUTOPOLIS
Less than Radical Results
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STRATEGY
I went in with a newly swapped Radical SR3. Racing Medium tires, 1 stop strategy, FM3 with short shifting.
I added 199kg of ballast near the rear to combat the annoying power-oversteer that I remembered the car for. The oversteer was fixed, but the radical just didn’t have the grip. And the tire wear was the standard atrocious for this race. Fuel consumption was good though; I could have gone FM1 in the second stint after filling up.
Kokubun in the Mazda, along with the other three leaders tried to stay out forever and failed utterly. They had to pit twice – at the end of lap 7 for fuel, and again at the end of lap 9 for the tires that they all had forgotten to change. Watch out for Kevelham in the Toyota 86. He had the most sensible pit strategy [read: he had just enough tire life to make the dumb pit strategy work] and had a fastest lap in the 1:55s.
I finished with a ~22 second lead. I always get a bone dry race on my first run. But whenever I return to do fastest runs, PD says,
NO. Learn to drive in the wet
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Verdict:
- The AI is kinda fast, but has a dumb pit strategy
- Find the car with the best tire wear (racecars / modern road cars with super wide tires)
- All the respect to the Time Trial Gods who got the modern road-going NSX to wallow around these mid-speed corners at similar speeds with double the weight and Sports Medium tires
- As always, if you’re having trouble, call the @smoothbore12 Police / release the Turbo Hamster [Escudo]
With the longest race done, I'm free to take my Hydropneumatic Hero on his first trip around Goodwood...
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