GT Times

I haven't yet worked out what to do about the left rear. It's the most beat up tire here. I was contemplating not using the TCS at all, because there are really only about 3 to 5 places on the track where it's actually usefull, so it's mainly and assistance to the differential setting to minimise tirewear. I've been thinking of increasing the diff settings and reducing the TCS to 1. I'll let you know what I come up with.


The suspension settings are tuned for aggressive curb use, and the stabilizer settings are to allow the cars suspension to be more independant while not allowing too much body roll. I always try to use as little camber as I can get away with because a lot of camber leads to slower braking and more tirewear. Without any real telemetry in this game it's something of a black art to finding a really good setup. Most of my setup work revolves around feel. My initial setups usually result from past experience, giving me a place to start from. This works for me more often then not, but sometimes it does help to start from the cars stock settings.



The most interesting thing about the Nurburgring is it's deceptive nature. This is something most people arent aware of, but at The Ring, it's mostly about top speed and acceleration, and far less about handling and grip. I've been meaning to dig up some data on this, but if you simply count the number of turns for this and every other GT track, then factor then against the length of the track, you'll find that the Nurburgring hasd far less turns per mile than nearly every other track in the game. The easiest example of this is in reference to the real life track, and Porsche's rather deceptive boast that the Cayenne is such and awesome maching to be able to lap the Ring faster then a Nissan Skyline. The answer to that riddle, Horsepower, nothing more, nothing less. A Nissan Skyline wieghs around 3400 pounds with only about 330 or so horsepower, while the Cayenne weighs maybe 500 pounds more, perhaps more, but has about 110 horsepower more. And at the Ring, you spend the majority of your time accelerating toward top speed. So while the Nurburgring seems like a handling track, because of the sheer number of turns, it's actually much more of a power track, then even many of the worlds so called power tracks.


There's a great video of a Lotus Elise being chased by a Corvette around the Ring on a typical open day, and it illustrates perfectly the difference between power and handling, and how the handler always loses to the powermeister every time. If I had this video I'd find a way to link it, but alas I don't, so someone else is going to have to do that for me.

Sorry to poke into your log, M31, but it's related to the discussion.

That may be true. At the 1967 German GP it wasn't, nor at the the 1935 one. But I'm sure you'll find a way to prove that the tiny Brabham of 1967 was so much superior to the Ferrari and Lotus, when they had so much more power and power-to-weight than it had... For the Lotus you can blame reliability, but for the Ferrari you can't reallly.

Hell, going with your line of thinking the BRM should have won at the Nurburgring with it's 432 HP from an H16! It even had six gears when all the others only used five at fast circuits. It was a TANK though.

Then again, Denny Hulme the race winner DID become World Champion at the end of the year... Maybe it's a driver ability thing? After all, even though the Nurburgring may have fewer turns per mile than other tracks, it still has an insane number of turns per lap. A good number of oppertunities for a driver to outperform others, not necessarily in the race itself, but in individual laps. Top speed is useless on the long straight at the Nurburgring if you're three seconds down already by the end of the lap. Handling is still your best bargaining chip, unless you go to Le Mans, of course. But you still need your car to handle at least well enough to utilize your speed on straights there.

I think in the video you saw with the Corvette and Elise, it's possible that the Corvette driver was more determined to beat a pompous Brit in an Elise and was driving better because of it.

I wouldn't say that the powermeister wins EVERYtime. Chapman must be rolling in his grave. Look at the Lotus 79 and it's more powerful turbocharged competitors in 1978 to see what I mean.

No please, don't even say that GP, your opinion is always welcome in my log.

In fact I am enjoying this controversy.

Do you have something to comment about this Mark ?

I raced for one hour yesterday and I had a terrible first stint, I had 4 tremendous accidents, one in each one of the first four laps and on lap 5 my tires where in such a bad shape that I was having severe problems to keep the car between the two white lines which made me go very slow.

Being that that stint was wasted I decided to continue to see if with a light load the behavior of the car improved a little ……. and it did ….. I had a dream stint …. I did not have a single close call.

Most importantly my tires reached the pit box in optimum conditions, even the left rear had a little life to spear.

I have to admit that I only pushed for one lap in my second stint which gave me my best lap and the other four laps where nice and fast but far from the limit.

51 liters of fuel consumed against the 44 that the AMG used to consume

my best lap 6:44.847 …. Mark best lap is a 6:38.061 ….. there is my usual 6 seconds difference.

I reached the one hour point two curves after the Karussell at the left hand sweeper before the little uphill that leads to T7 ……. If it wasn’t for the terrible first stint I could have reached this point further down the road.

Take in consideration that in the AMG I reached the one hour point some place between T4 and T5 so it is safe to say that the M3 does have an edge against the AMG …….. being that it is the same driver maybe the HP does have something to do with it.

Well, it's like GP said, in the real world there are a lot of factors playing their part in a race, or in a hotlap. My point, was based on both my personal experience with the track in GT4, combined with many observations of the real track through racing, testing, track data, and more. My point was based on all things being relatively equal. Same driver, same skill, familiarity with the two cars being compared. The AMG's slight handling advantage over the M3, and I do mean slight, is more than compensated for by power. Ironically enough, Ferrari is the best example of this. All through the 90's Ferrari had a terribly inferior chassis in terms of grip and handling, when compared with the competition, Mc'laren, Williams, and Benneton. However, at all the power tracks Ferrari's fantastic V12 almost completely masked that problem allowing Ferrari to steal wins here and there from their rivals. While nothing is ever so simple as I have apparantly led GP to believe, all other things being relatively equal, power makes a bigger difference than handling.


On the other hand, Ferrari did have a lot of reliability problems in the early years in Formula One. I've read that their suspensions, and specifically their dampers, were notorious for fading during a race and rather undesireable handling problems developing in the latter half of a race. And we all know what Colin Chapmans Lotus was notorious for. Atleast we all should know if we're to call ourselves Formula One fanatics.

I enjoyed so much mi second stint that last night I decided to take advantage of what I learned and I did a last attempt.

It was a very nice race, I did 10 perfect laps, the car was under my control all the time.

I am completely adapted to the suspension and the gear box settings.

The performance difference between the AMG and the M3 is amazing, you really feel that you are in a different car, The M3 is more robust and powerful.

According to my calculations using this car you can do around 6 km more per hour compared with the AMG ….. in 24 hours it translates to 7 laps more.

Not bad.

At the one hour point :

I reached the GREEN spot with the CSL ….. 172 km

I reached the YELLOW point in my first attempt with the AMG …. 173 km

I reached the BLUE spot in my second attempt with the AMG ..… 175 km (but there is a 5 second advantage)

And last night I reached the RED spot with the M3 …. 179 km



I did this race for the first time around 18 months ago with the B-Driver, my best lap back then in this same car but with 605 hp was a 7:00.921

18 months later with the same car but with 465 hp I have a best lap of 6:44.847 ……. I think I can say that I have improved my driving.

One last thing.

I had to try this with a fresh car.

I went to my garish and I found a beautiful 330i in stock trim ….. I went to buy a set of S3 tires and I went to the Schwarzwald Liga A.

I did 3 laps Trial Mountain, 4 laps in Opera and 4 laps in Autumn Ring, it took me like 40 minutes.

I received a brand new BMW M3 GTR Race Car '01

I bought a set of R1 and R2 tires and I installed the R1s

I applied the settings, changed the oil and washed it.

Now I have 473hp …… I don’t know if it has anything to do with it, but, guess what ….. I had a nice lap 7

A very nice lap indeed. Just a few tenths shy of my best thus far. It looks like you're managing your tires well. Lap 8, having stopped on lap 5(I'm assuming) then you should be good to go till lap 10. It doesn't appear as if you're running TCS, and if this is so, then I'd say you're doing very well on your tires.

Yes Mark, No traction control and not only that, I am also running on 5, 5, 5 in the limited slip menu ……… this is just a test, but I have to say that it provides a pleasant run, I don’t know how to express it but it is more exiting and you still maintain the control over the car.

You have to be careful in your first five laps but there after with the light fuel the tires last the 5 laps with no problem.

I reached lap 8 in 55 minutes but you can get there a lot faster, I pushed really hard in my first five laps trying out the new car and lap five was a mess so I lost a lot of time there but still even with that I was faster than with my old car at this point.

BRAVO!!!

Nice work M-man. :applaus:

Does this mean that you've got ALL 80 GOLDS ? That makes you an honourable member of our GT-times AGclub.

No AC ...... not at all …… that only means that I am not that bad at the ring.

But I am far from belonging to your prestigious GT-times AGclub.

Nevertheless and despite the fact, I do like to think that I am a honorable member of GT-times

Indeed you are. And if you'd dropped by when you were in Belgium, you'd be an honourable platinum member.

I just don't see the appeal of platinum myself. Stopping by an hanging out in Belgium with AC, and a good brew, yes! But the appeal of platinum, no. I'd rather have silver myself, less rare it may be, atleast on this planet, but much more appealing to my eye it is.

What will be next I wonder. Uranium?

In your case ... Strontium. (only Dutch speaking members will get the clue)

And Pieter, congrats on getting those difficult golds!

In memoriam, one year on.

Pieter passed on one year ago today. I'm sure it goes without saying that our thoughts are still with him.