11-15-2020, 02:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-30-2020, 08:42 PM by Donnchadh MacGarry.)
Edit: The settings for this series have been changed to use 100% fuel usage and 100% tyre wear, so please keep that in mind when reading what I have written below as that is now out of date. Perhaps lap times will be closer to the standings from the 2018 series than the 2019 series if doing a strategy on softs that involve more than one pitstop. Races could involve more laps than the 2019 results if these new strategies are much better, perhaps one and possibly two more laps but I'm not really sure on that. Fuel usage in a lap/stint will definitely need to be recalculated (just divide my values by 2) but I think the refuelling rate will be the same.
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The upcoming Mazda 787b 1-hour daily race series is one that I want to give a go this season, as long as I can make time for it. I know this car has been used in previous seasons, so I did some research and found some information which I think will be very useful in preparing for this upcoming one. Here is what I found.
2019 1-hour Daily Series
A similar 1-hour daily series for the Mazda 787B was run from 8th April to 19th May 2019. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=5607
It used the same rules as this 2020 Mazda 787b 1-hour daily series, meaning the race length, pit window, fuel usage and tyre wear are all the same.
Just as reminder these rules are:
I had a look through the historic standings from that 2019 series to get an idea on what to expect regarding best lap times, total times/laps and pit strategy.
Euro https://www.simracingsystem.com/myracess...d=m7Svr8qh
Races at Nordschleife have much more variation in lap time over the stint due to the long lap length. Even at the top of the race standings there are noticeably more slow laps and large time losses due to crashes, so I would recommend driving extra safe rather than pushing to stay within some delta of you time. Incident points can be very high there with possible disqualification, as pointed out in many threads for other series that used that track. I haven't done an SRS race there yet, so hopefully I'll listen to my own advice when I do that race.
The America series races were pretty empty with only a handful of drivers in a race and in some events no one finished the race. I only included the time from Road America as that wasn't used in Euro or Asia, and the time I took was from a stint that had a relatively consistent pace so it should be a useful estimate.
It seemed for all the tracks the vast majority did 1 stop at the halfway point in the race, so that's probably the best strategy. For one of the races in Imola (Asia series) the winner did 2 stops, but only had to do 34 laps not 35 like in other races. I'm not sure which tyre compound was used, as I didn't participate in that series and haven't yet done a whole load of testing myself. In my little testing it seemed to be hard for both stints as I think the mediums won't last, but I can't say for definite.
Update: I just read the comments on the News page for this season before sending this post and James Leeder said for 200% fuel, 170% tyre wear it’s a one stop race with hards on both stints, so that's useful to know.
2018 20-minute Daily Series
There was also a daily race series that used these cars from 30th July to 9th September in 2018. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=3894
Just note that these races were only 20 minutes long.
Spa, Monza, Mugello, Laguna Seca, Imola and Silverstone GP were used.
Historic standings are here: https://www.simracingsystem.com/myracess...=krC3p86k#
Lap times here are quicker than the 2019 series (and thus quicker than what I would expect for the 2020 series). Less fuel was needed because the stint length was shorter and fuel usage wasn't at 200%, and as I'm sure you know less fuel means a lighter and faster car. It's also possibly different tyre compounds were used since tyre wear was less (only 100% not 170%) and so they most likely could use softer tyres, which would also account for better lap times, but I don't know for certain if this was the case.
Setups:
Here's an old thread with some setups for the races in 2018. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthre...light=787b
It includes ones by Patrick Brown who was the overall series leader in the final standings, so those are definitely ones to try. I had a quick test of his one for Imola and it is very stable, which is important since the race is an hour.
At the very minimum, changes will need to be made for fuel and pit strategy. Most likely the tyre compound needs to be changed to hards and thus possible tweeks need to be made to pressures as well (I tend to increase the psi by 1-2 when going from softs to mediums or hards for most cars).
I don't think anyone put up setups for the 2019 series in a different thread, I couldn't find anything in the forums. I reckon some people would have used setups from the 2018 thread, made some tweeks and adjusted the fuel and strategy. It’s certainly my initial plan for this series.
[Edit 30/11/20: Just in case some people are reading this months or years later if this car is used again, Tadej Župevc put up a setup that he and Matic Bezjak used and both won with at the Nordschleife for this 2020 Euro series, so I thought that I should add a link to it here. I haven't tried it yet myself, but others seem to like it so it should be good. Link is: https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=9890]
One thing I didn't mention in my post is on something I noticed when testing fuel and refueling. I don't have time to go into full details of my calculations, but basically the refueling rate of this car is very slow especially compared to the tyre change rate. It takes 0.6s to add 1L. Since it takes 10s to change tyres, you can only add 16.67L of fuel in that time. For Imola my quick estimate for fuel was somewhere in the region of 165L (I need to double check that), which can do 35 laps. Because of the slow refuel rate, if hard tyres only last half the race meaning the ideal pitstop time is definitely on the 30 minute mark, then I think you are much better off starting on 100L and then adding the 65L, rather than splitting the fuel evenly 83L/82L for each stint. You would have to average 0.44s/lap - 0.64s/lap quicker over the first stint if using roughly 83L compared to someone on a 100L in order to make up the time loss from the longer pitstop as you need to add more fuel (adding roughly 83L is about 8-11s longer than adding 65L). I don't think 15L-20L less fuel in this car would make that difference in lap pace, but this is just me thinking out loud, I haven't tested that scenario.
There are other scenarios to consider which I would like to test, but I'm not sure if I have the time. Suppose the hards are still good after 30 minutes and can go longer to 40 minutes with no drop off. My quick test on Imola said 100L of fuel could last 37:21 (or 21.1 laps), which means if the hard tyres can last roughly 40 minutes then you can extend a stint to 21 laps at latest (21 is really risky, perhaps lap 20). This is useful if you want to extend the stint if running in free air.
This could also mean that you can pit a small bit early, maybe just after 25:00 and do an undercut. I wouldn't risk going earlier as a race isn't an hour exactly and you need to finish the last lap and 25:00 + 37:21 = 1:02:21. It depends on the track, I wouldn't do this for Nordschleife as that could be in the 1:04:00 and above. In 25 minutes (on Imola) you'll have used roughly 70L of the 100L of fuel, which means you have room to add 65L and go to the end of the race.
I wrote this a bit quickly, so if I made a glaring mistake feel free to correct me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The upcoming Mazda 787b 1-hour daily race series is one that I want to give a go this season, as long as I can make time for it. I know this car has been used in previous seasons, so I did some research and found some information which I think will be very useful in preparing for this upcoming one. Here is what I found.
2019 1-hour Daily Series
A similar 1-hour daily series for the Mazda 787B was run from 8th April to 19th May 2019. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=5607
It used the same rules as this 2020 Mazda 787b 1-hour daily series, meaning the race length, pit window, fuel usage and tyre wear are all the same.
Just as reminder these rules are:
- 20-minute qualifying
- 1-hour race
- Pit window 00:10 - 00:50
- Fuel consumption = 200%
- Tyre wear = 170%
I had a look through the historic standings from that 2019 series to get an idea on what to expect regarding best lap times, total times/laps and pit strategy.
Euro https://www.simracingsystem.com/myracess...d=m7Svr8qh
- Watkins Glen International Boot 1:42.7 34 laps (1:00:10)
- MoSport 1:13.3 48 laps (1:00:45)
- Nordschleife Endurance-Cup 7:36.3 8 laps (1:02:36) (Best driver here was over 10s quicker than others and some of those others are very quick, but 8 laps still expected anyway)
- Monza 1:42.9 34 laps (1:00:39)
- Le Grand Circuit 1967 3:00.6 19 laps (1:00:01) (Most races are 19, but in the one case here it could easily have been 20 laps as winner did last lap 20 seconds slower than usual)
- Spa 2:13.4 17 laps (1:02:02)
- Road Atlanta
- Spa
- Le Grand Circuit 1967
- Road America 2:02.3 28 laps (1:00:03) (Could have done 29 laps as winner did last lap over 25s slower than usual. Maybe 30 possible, but there is a large lack of data due to low attendence so its hard to tell)
- Nordschleife Endurance-Cup
- Laguna Seca
- Nordschleife Endurance-Cup 7:52.2 8 laps (1:04:46)
- Laguna Seca 1:21.9 43 laps (1:00:52)
- Okayama GP 1:28.7 39 laps (1:00:04) (Winner lost 3 seconds in one lap, so 40 laps might be possible with a pretty flawless run)
- Road Atlanta 1:17.5 45 laps (1:00:54)
- MoSport 1:14.2 47 laps (1:00:32)
- Imola 1:39.9 35 laps (1:00:21)
Races at Nordschleife have much more variation in lap time over the stint due to the long lap length. Even at the top of the race standings there are noticeably more slow laps and large time losses due to crashes, so I would recommend driving extra safe rather than pushing to stay within some delta of you time. Incident points can be very high there with possible disqualification, as pointed out in many threads for other series that used that track. I haven't done an SRS race there yet, so hopefully I'll listen to my own advice when I do that race.
The America series races were pretty empty with only a handful of drivers in a race and in some events no one finished the race. I only included the time from Road America as that wasn't used in Euro or Asia, and the time I took was from a stint that had a relatively consistent pace so it should be a useful estimate.
It seemed for all the tracks the vast majority did 1 stop at the halfway point in the race, so that's probably the best strategy. For one of the races in Imola (Asia series) the winner did 2 stops, but only had to do 34 laps not 35 like in other races. I'm not sure which tyre compound was used, as I didn't participate in that series and haven't yet done a whole load of testing myself. In my little testing it seemed to be hard for both stints as I think the mediums won't last, but I can't say for definite.
Update: I just read the comments on the News page for this season before sending this post and James Leeder said for 200% fuel, 170% tyre wear it’s a one stop race with hards on both stints, so that's useful to know.
2018 20-minute Daily Series
There was also a daily race series that used these cars from 30th July to 9th September in 2018. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=3894
Just note that these races were only 20 minutes long.
Spa, Monza, Mugello, Laguna Seca, Imola and Silverstone GP were used.
Historic standings are here: https://www.simracingsystem.com/myracess...=krC3p86k#
Lap times here are quicker than the 2019 series (and thus quicker than what I would expect for the 2020 series). Less fuel was needed because the stint length was shorter and fuel usage wasn't at 200%, and as I'm sure you know less fuel means a lighter and faster car. It's also possibly different tyre compounds were used since tyre wear was less (only 100% not 170%) and so they most likely could use softer tyres, which would also account for better lap times, but I don't know for certain if this was the case.
Setups:
Here's an old thread with some setups for the races in 2018. https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthre...light=787b
It includes ones by Patrick Brown who was the overall series leader in the final standings, so those are definitely ones to try. I had a quick test of his one for Imola and it is very stable, which is important since the race is an hour.
At the very minimum, changes will need to be made for fuel and pit strategy. Most likely the tyre compound needs to be changed to hards and thus possible tweeks need to be made to pressures as well (I tend to increase the psi by 1-2 when going from softs to mediums or hards for most cars).
I don't think anyone put up setups for the 2019 series in a different thread, I couldn't find anything in the forums. I reckon some people would have used setups from the 2018 thread, made some tweeks and adjusted the fuel and strategy. It’s certainly my initial plan for this series.
[Edit 30/11/20: Just in case some people are reading this months or years later if this car is used again, Tadej Župevc put up a setup that he and Matic Bezjak used and both won with at the Nordschleife for this 2020 Euro series, so I thought that I should add a link to it here. I haven't tried it yet myself, but others seem to like it so it should be good. Link is: https://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=9890]
One thing I didn't mention in my post is on something I noticed when testing fuel and refueling. I don't have time to go into full details of my calculations, but basically the refueling rate of this car is very slow especially compared to the tyre change rate. It takes 0.6s to add 1L. Since it takes 10s to change tyres, you can only add 16.67L of fuel in that time. For Imola my quick estimate for fuel was somewhere in the region of 165L (I need to double check that), which can do 35 laps. Because of the slow refuel rate, if hard tyres only last half the race meaning the ideal pitstop time is definitely on the 30 minute mark, then I think you are much better off starting on 100L and then adding the 65L, rather than splitting the fuel evenly 83L/82L for each stint. You would have to average 0.44s/lap - 0.64s/lap quicker over the first stint if using roughly 83L compared to someone on a 100L in order to make up the time loss from the longer pitstop as you need to add more fuel (adding roughly 83L is about 8-11s longer than adding 65L). I don't think 15L-20L less fuel in this car would make that difference in lap pace, but this is just me thinking out loud, I haven't tested that scenario.
There are other scenarios to consider which I would like to test, but I'm not sure if I have the time. Suppose the hards are still good after 30 minutes and can go longer to 40 minutes with no drop off. My quick test on Imola said 100L of fuel could last 37:21 (or 21.1 laps), which means if the hard tyres can last roughly 40 minutes then you can extend a stint to 21 laps at latest (21 is really risky, perhaps lap 20). This is useful if you want to extend the stint if running in free air.
This could also mean that you can pit a small bit early, maybe just after 25:00 and do an undercut. I wouldn't risk going earlier as a race isn't an hour exactly and you need to finish the last lap and 25:00 + 37:21 = 1:02:21. It depends on the track, I wouldn't do this for Nordschleife as that could be in the 1:04:00 and above. In 25 minutes (on Imola) you'll have used roughly 70L of the 100L of fuel, which means you have room to add 65L and go to the end of the race.
I wrote this a bit quickly, so if I made a glaring mistake feel free to correct me.