12-16-2020, 12:25 PM
I'm using Patrick Brown's setup for Spa that I linked to in the first post of the thread, he has one specifically for Spa. Its really nice, stable and fast. Fuel usage averages at about 3.4L per lap with that setup, the race is 27 laps long so that's 92L, so maybe use 95L just to be safe. You can add 16-17L in the time it takes to change tyres (10 seconds), so if you are definitely changing tyres you can start with 95L-17L=78L of fuel. However I recommend starting with the 95L, as it gives the option of not changing tyres when starting on hards and only adding 1L of fuel in the pitstop, which means you are stationary for 9 seconds less and can make a big undercut. So depending on how the race is going, you can decide to either switch from hard to softs, or not change tyres at all. See my post earlier about Imola where I go through strategy 1a and 1b, its the exact same here.
I made a huge mistake in last nights race, where I forgot to listen to past me about starting with the 95L to keep the strategy options flexible. Last week in Paul Ricard I couldn't make hards last the full race, they were awful for the last 10 minutes and I lost so much time while also struggling to not lock up and go wide off track. So at that track changing tyres in the pitstop was absolutely worth it in my opinion. I didn't have time to test making hards last for an hour at Spa, so I just (foolishy) assumed it would be the same as Pual Ricard, start on hards and switch to softs. Since I was thinking I would be changing tyres, I decided to start with 78L of fuel in the race last night. During that race, I was in a three way battle with Austin and Hugo for the lead. Hugo pitted early at the 35 minute mark and changed tyres. Before he pitted he was in first 2-3 seconds ahead of me where I was 3rd, with Austin in between us in 2nd. Austin pitted the next lap and didn't change tyres but I think he accidently added more than 1L of fuel which cost him some time, but he still undercut Hugo. I stayed out until the 45 minute mark keeping an eye on lap times. I noticed Hugo wasn't running much quicker than me and thought I could undercut by not changing tyres and adding 1L of fuel. I did that completely forgetting that this would leave me roughly 17L short on fuel. The undercut got me about 1-2 seconds ahead of Austin and 4-5 seconds ahead of Hugo I think. I was going well over the next two laps, I was managing the tyres without losing much time and felt I could keep it up to the end and hold onto first. Then I realised my mistake when I had less than two laps worth of fuel left with over 10 minutes to go, so I had to pit again for fuel which knocked me out of the opportunity for the win. In that second pitstop I changed to softs since there was no point staying on old hards and managed to set a lap 0.4 seconds quicker than my qualy lap. Austin ended up holding on for the win, beating Hugo by roughly 0.3 seconds, so that was a nail biter between those two and showed that not changing tyres is a possible strategy here.
I made a huge mistake in last nights race, where I forgot to listen to past me about starting with the 95L to keep the strategy options flexible. Last week in Paul Ricard I couldn't make hards last the full race, they were awful for the last 10 minutes and I lost so much time while also struggling to not lock up and go wide off track. So at that track changing tyres in the pitstop was absolutely worth it in my opinion. I didn't have time to test making hards last for an hour at Spa, so I just (foolishy) assumed it would be the same as Pual Ricard, start on hards and switch to softs. Since I was thinking I would be changing tyres, I decided to start with 78L of fuel in the race last night. During that race, I was in a three way battle with Austin and Hugo for the lead. Hugo pitted early at the 35 minute mark and changed tyres. Before he pitted he was in first 2-3 seconds ahead of me where I was 3rd, with Austin in between us in 2nd. Austin pitted the next lap and didn't change tyres but I think he accidently added more than 1L of fuel which cost him some time, but he still undercut Hugo. I stayed out until the 45 minute mark keeping an eye on lap times. I noticed Hugo wasn't running much quicker than me and thought I could undercut by not changing tyres and adding 1L of fuel. I did that completely forgetting that this would leave me roughly 17L short on fuel. The undercut got me about 1-2 seconds ahead of Austin and 4-5 seconds ahead of Hugo I think. I was going well over the next two laps, I was managing the tyres without losing much time and felt I could keep it up to the end and hold onto first. Then I realised my mistake when I had less than two laps worth of fuel left with over 10 minutes to go, so I had to pit again for fuel which knocked me out of the opportunity for the win. In that second pitstop I changed to softs since there was no point staying on old hards and managed to set a lap 0.4 seconds quicker than my qualy lap. Austin ended up holding on for the win, beating Hugo by roughly 0.3 seconds, so that was a nail biter between those two and showed that not changing tyres is a possible strategy here.