Allright, i attached some replays. All marked respectively with their added mass value. THese were far from perfect laps, but i think it displays the differences in time quite nicely anyway..

Also, i did all these with r3's, as it was no possibility to have enough tyres at the end with any mass added with r2's. I guess i could improve most of these laps with 0.2-4 secs somewhere (especially the one with only 20kg added), didn't have too much time to test it properly today.. Might try some more tomorrow

We will be doing another GT2 test session this sunday (20:30gmt), race length will be something like 30 laps (<90mins). Password will again be the current MOE pw.

Maybe some of you fellow gt2 driver want to pop around

I think it's brakes, I can hold good corner speed in the XRR in comparison to the FZR and still only get 39.4 or 6 on a decent lap, I had some goes in the FZR and the brakes are just so much better, and it seems to be something that was completely overlooked for the balencing by the devs.

The FZR wasted the XRR under braking even with its 80kg ballast (All beit the XRR had 30) but now that it's lost that 80Kg it's back to being 100x better rather than just quite alot better.

I don't know what could be done really to fix it, because before the patch the 80Kg helped it's awesom braking, but you can't add 80kg now as it's being slowed down by other things like the gearbox.

The only way I would see it being done properly was variable handicaps for each round but I wouldn't be comfortable with it and i'm sure that the FZR teams wouldn't either.

Quote from three_jump :

We will be doing another GT2 test session this sunday (20:30gmt), race length will be something like 30 laps (<90mins). Password will again be the current MOE pw.

Maybe some of you fellow gt2 driver want to pop around

AppiePils has invited my team to participate in the testing so we might be evaluated (and we'd like to help the league if there's a chance we could race in it), so is there any chance someone could PM me that password so we can join in on Sunday?

Quote from Bawbag :

I think it's brakes, I can hold good corner speed in the XRR in comparison to the FZR and still only get 39.4 or 6 on a decent lap, I had some goes in the FZR and the brakes are just so much better, and it seems to be something that was completely overlooked for the balencing by the devs.

The FZR wasted the XRR under braking even with its 80kg ballast (All beit the XRR had 30) but now that it's lost that 80Kg it's back to being 100x better rather than just quite alot better.

I don't know what could be done really to fix it, because before the patch the 80Kg helped it's awesom braking, but you can't add 80kg now as it's being slowed down by other things like the gearbox.

The only way I would see it being done properly was variable handicaps for each round but I wouldn't be comfortable with it and i'm sure that the FZR teams wouldn't either.

Thats a important point indeed, though thats just an advantage the fzr allways has had with all the weight it has on the rear, even with 80kg added Cornering speeds seems quite ok with xrr, it's even easier through some corners to hold higher speed than with the fzr, still it's difficult to get those good splits for some reason : P

However, these two cars are so different in all fields now (turbolag, brakes, downforce values, tyre profiles etc etc, totally different from each other in these two cars) and i think it's going to be quite difficult to even them out. We've still not tried them directly against each other in a real long race, thinking about the xrr's ability to go 8 more laps than a fzr on an endurance run (No idea how much of an advantage this is, i believe no one does yet). Based on pure speed, the fzr seems slightly quicker, but i don't know yet in a race over several hours.

Tweak, we've still not received any indication as to whether this Jan 5th (Today) session is still going ahead, and if so, at what time etc
Im hoping to make it, and im sure i can drag a couple others along too (GT1 & GT2), just to make up some of the GT2 'backmarker' crowd for the GT1 aspect too. Start time could end up being a problem if its 17-19UTC (just an early excuse) for 3 of us (all GT2), but hopefully if its before/after we should be there with a decent turnout.

Chris:
I've spent a couple of hours with Jonesy tonight going over roughly how our stints would compare to that of a FZR and the first thing that hits you is that on *current* speed, it seems that the FZR at a respectable pace can do a stint, pit and be right with the XRR car by the time it needs to pit in. If the XRR never needed to pit in, it looks pretty even, but obviously thats not the case and it basically puts it 45-50sec down. It wont have to do as many stops over 24hrs in comparison to the FZR but if they're on level pegging without having done a pitstop its pretty clear how big a gap they are. It is an advantage, but unfortunately almost a drop in the ocean on the scale of things.


IMO theres 2 ways of trying to check the cars are balanced evenly, finding points in the race where the 2 cars would cross paths despite being on different strategies, or the quickest way is finding the cars average laptime taking into account its pit-stop.

If the FZR goes 25 laps and the XRR goes 33 laps then almost perfectly they fall into a 4:3 ratio, every 100th lap the 2 cars would need to pit, getting them equal requires them pitting at near identical times and then once again going their own seperate ways till the next 100th lap when they cross paths again. Currently they're way out due to laptimes, and i think the XRR only manages 31 laps, but its very close.
The average lap method just needs a simple formula:
(Total stint time + pitstop*) / stint length
ie 59min + 1min pit / 20 laps = 3min average
I have FZR = 02:41.080, XRR = 02:42.652 on current guestimations.
(*incl all aspects of time lost due to pitting)
IMO if we can get the true average lap for the 2 cars over a stint pretty close then it should slot together nicely, this makes stint lengths irrelevent, whether you pit every 10 laps or 20, if the average including that stop is equal, they'll race as equals, the only thing you may want to factor in is ease to drive, possiblity of blowing up clutches and ability to go flying in and out of gravel traps without a care in the world, and similar adjustments

Also just want to say thanks to everyone putting in the time & effort to try and make these damn things balanced again since the (1 step forward, 3 steps back) Y patch came and 'balanced' things.

If anyone is interested in reading my calculations for the FZR vs XRR, go ahead, everyone else might as well skip to the next post
I ran some calculations for 24hrs, i certainly wont claim they're perfect, i cant vouch for their accuracy in terms of exact laptimes, but the calculation itself is correct at least and im using what we currently think is what the XRR & FZR would run with.
Assuming:
FZR average = 02:39.3, pitting on L25 for 45sec
That sees the FZR finish at 24h 01.40 on lap 537.

For the XRR to match that, pitting on L31 for 45sec, it needs to do an average lap of 2:39.6 which would see it cross the line at 24h 01.25 on lap 537.

The XRR would do 17 stops + 10 laps, the FZR would do 21 stops + 12 laps, the 0.3 average difference over 537 laps = 2:41.1 and 4x 45sec (pitstop) = 3m:00, giving you a 19sec difference (i guess all the milliseconds x 537 added the extra 4sec)
2:39.628 would give perfect results, so .6 is suitably accurate.
I never clarified with Jonesy if the 45sec included time lost over a flying lap or not, i suspect its entry to exit time, so there may be a little inaccuracy there which modifies things on the extra 4 stops the FZR does, but even if its 10sec its still fairly minor.
- edit - Jonesy says its correct, 2 lap race, one inc pitstop from 5% filling to 100%, the other a straight race, so replicating the in-out process fairly. - /edit -

By my calculations, on our current pace and with everything running faultlessly for everyone, we'd finish 5 laps behind a FZR, or it'd take us a further 15m04 to match the FZR. We're losing ground in the region of 35-40sec every hour that passes, something that certainly wouldnt have been the case a month ago.


We (Jonesy, Baggy & myself) know for a fact we cant even begin to hope for those sort of times, considering we currently suspect the XRR to be around a low-mid 2:41 average, thats one hell of a penalty that would need putting onto the FZR in order for them to run level.
Back in patch X, i think the cars would have been pretty even, lap for lap there was a gap but on strats they'd be pretty close, but certainly not 1.5-2.0 sec difference! Now it seems the FZR must be made slower so the XRR can keep up, and then you still have an unbalanced FXR to deal with, and all of this is still completely up in the air 2 weeks from the biggest race of the season, and 8 days before the first qualifying session.


Anyone notice my new tactic? split 1 post in 2 so it doesnt look like i write so much.
Maybe i should have made it 3-4 posts

Quote from PaulC2K :

Back in patch X, i think the cars would have been pretty even, lap for lap there was a gap but on strats they'd be pretty close, but certainly not 1.5-2.0 sec difference! Now it seems the FZR must be made slower so the XRR can keep up, and then you still have an unbalanced FXR to deal with, and all of this is still completely up in the air 2 weeks from the biggest race of the season, and 8 days before the first qualifying session.

1.5 - 2 secs !!! I dont think it is so hard for you.
AS GP is a FZR track. Even in Patch X the XRR was there a little bit slower. But on WE1 the XRR was much better than the FZR. It is different track to track.

Where is your problem in longruns? With the FZR it is a 2.38 no problem. Why are you not able to do a 2.39 or faster? We use R3,too. Tell me, why

If you look on the hotlap charts, the XRR and FZR both using R2's for a qualifying like lap, are 0.65 seconds apart.

In the race both cars will use R3's. So why should the gap suddenly jump to around 1.5 seconds a lap?

FZR : 2:37.840
XRR : 2:38.490

I have no problem with balancing but only if it's fair.

Edit: Yes Dreaf, in patch X (where we agree the cars were nicely balanced) Jonesy's fastest race lap in eTM was 2:38.85, and Nils was 2:38.08 in the FZR. That's nearly 0.8 seconds difference.

what time is the balancing race today?

SD.

Quote from DreaF :

1.5 - 2 secs !!! I dont think it is so hard for you.
AS GP is a FZR track. Even in Patch X the XRR was there a little bit slower. But on WE1 the XRR was much better than the FZR. It is different track to track.

Where is your problem in longruns? With the FZR it is a 2.38 no problem. Why are you not able to do a 2.39 or faster? We use R3,too. Tell me, why

i sign that, u r exaggerating and as5 is a track which favours the fzr.

also i dont get it why the gap from hl to longrun should be that huge.

right now is a 12h race on as4r in progress where the xrr seems to be faster and their laptimes in the race are not that far away from the hotlap-wrs they did. http://vr12h.lfs-tracker.de/index.html

anyway, i have no problem with some balancing trys as long as its fair for everybody. but then i want to have added weight for the xrr´s on tracks like westhill too

I don't think the differnce in times is quite 2 seconds, more 1 if not less, but the FZR has allways had the edge at the end of the stint with slightly faster laps, but when Chriskarts done 38.2 on R3s even if it's a qualifying setup, I don't doubt for 1 second that he could equal that if not be faster than it in the race.

Just out of curiosity, what times do the FZRs do on a full tank of fuel? on 95% I could do mid-low 41's but I never got a chance to finish the stint. IIRC in the ETM the FZR could do low 40's and 39's from the start and finish on low 38s, which seems quite similar to the times now.

I don't wanna see any of the ars balanced as it will allways need to be changed for different tracks, although at westhill the XRR dominated, The FZRs showed similar times and length of stints in the ETM.

bawbag, i personally do mid 41's on start of stint, but ppl from n! do mid 40's
and just for the record, XRR should be 0.8 slower on this track!
XRR should be able to start with high 40's and end with low 39's in race... shouldn't it?
btw what time is test race tonight?

I think the fzr speed with full tank will be around 40 mid/low, but it depends a bit on the setup for me at least. I can build one which easily goes 40 low at the start, but won't get that nice progression during the race, usually ended up with 39.2 - 4 with this one.. Right now i'm using a set which is more likely to start on 40 mid/high, though there's still some weeks left of prac.

However, i had some goes with the xrr today which was rather surprising. On my first laps i had 40.6 - 40.8 and 40.7 with full tank and quite hot r3 tyres, gonna see if i have some more progress on it later. Might try the xrr tonight as well

Quote from some pm's i've had with csimpok the latest days:

Quote :

Hi!

Well, actually we had an As Hist XRR race in the Hungarian championship so I had a good set and was already familiar with the part of the track thats common with Historic. All in all I spent about 90 mins hotlapping that combo and my expectation is that the time could be improved by about 0,5 sec with a "close to perfect" lap.

Rgds,
Ákos

Why "should" it be 8 tenths slower?

I guess we'll know alot after the test race, the gap might not even be as big as imagined, but I just spent half an hour on this combo with R2s and barely managed a 38.4.

No idea how the R3s will make it to 38s, but it seems that 38s are needed if the FZrs will be hitting low 38s and maybe even 37s.

Quote from DaveWS :

Edit: Yes Dreaf, in patch X (where we agree the cars were nicely balanced) Jonesy's fastest race lap in eTM was 2:38.85, and Nils was 2:38.08 in the FZR. That's nearly 0.8 seconds difference.

That's not really a fair comparison. Other top FZR drivers only managed the following lap times in that eTM race:

von Eye - 2:38.620
Scheuerle - 2:38.870
Engels - 2:38.820
Reinkort - 2:38.990
Purhonen - 2:38.690
Krognes - 2:38.560
Hum - 2:39.750
Schade - 2:38.670
Staal - 2:39.400

So basically you are assuming that as the only front-runner in an XRR, Laurila got 100% out of the car, while only Naujoks and Mooney were close to 100% in the FZR out of all those great drivers.

Anyway, me and Jonesy did some calculations last night and I believe that for both cars to be even over 24 hours, the FZR needs to be slowed down by 0.8 seconds per lap. It would still be a few tenths faster on a single lap but would have to pit more times.

This is only a guess, but I believe that the XRR is more effected by R3s than the FZR because of it's wider front tyres. I think that most of the braking is done through the front tyres, and therefore with less grippy tyres the XRR loses more grip than the FZR does under braking. This is probably total bollocks but it's the first thing that comes to mind. It does seem to contradict what people say about the FZR generally being better under braking too.

Quote from Bawbag :

Why "should" it be 8 tenths slower?

Because it was the same way before Y and it was really balanced, maybe not on this track, but overall.
You also hear there that XRR is faster on some other tracks (as4 and as4r), so you basically try to slow down FZR now to have same speed on this track, but do you think about other tracks too? And another thing why XRR should be slower, not only here, but overall is that it uses less fuel!

So the XRR on 1 single lap should be 8 tenths slower than the FZR just because it's carrying 0.5% less fuel?

I do agree, the XRR was slower in the older patch, but even Jonesy will agree that in the ETM he didn't get near what was possible in the XRR. Although in saying that, I reckon the FZR had a 37.9 in it atleast.

FZR after 5 laps 2:39.720
XRR after 5 laps 2:39.880

These laps were from me and Jonesy in the ETM, throughout the race our times were prettye much equal untill the end of my stint.

The XRR used to equal the pace of the FZRs for the first 2/3s of the stint, then the FZR seems to have some advantage and can pull a few faster laps than the XRR. Now though, the gap is allready there from the start of the stint and no doubt the gap gets even bigger by the end.

Hopefully the test race gives more reliable results though, but if the FZR has to be slowed down here, it will undoubtfully have to change for the next races as people said, the XRR is good on Historic Reversed.

Quote from Bawbag :

The XRR used to equal the pace of the FZRs for the first 2/3s of the stint, then the FZR seems to have some advantage and can pull a few faster laps than the XRR. Now though, the gap is allready there from the start of the stint and no doubt the gap gets even bigger by the end.

From what I've found so far the R3's are really crap at the end of the stint (cold), and it's a bit of a struggle (FZR).

Quote from DaveWS :

From what I've found so far the R3's are really crap at the end of the stint (cold), and it's a bit of a struggle (FZR).

http://www.lfsworld.net/?win=r ... oggy88&raceId=2362550

Quote from Bawbag :

Hopefully the test race gives more reliable results though, but if the FZR has to be slowed down here, it will undoubtfully have to change for the next races as people said, the XRR is good on Historic Reversed.

Doesn't what you're saying here exactly point out the reasons why people were able to pick a car at the beginning of the season. The last round we could see that the XRR has a major advantage over the FZR on WE, and everyone accepted it as it was. Frankly if we sum up the races held in this season, taking into mind the GTR class balancing:

• KY3 cars were pretty much equal,
  
• SO4 small overhand for the FZR,
  
• WE1 major overhand for the XRR.
  
• This round the FZR seems to have a major overhand on teh XRR
  
• Next round the XRR seems to have a small overhand on the FZR
  
• KY2 not sure.

The above provides me with the following overview:
FZR: equal, small, major
XRR: equal, major, small

Ergo: balanced (not taken into account KY2).

IMO if we're getting to the point that we need to make changes for each round regarding ballast, we're doing something wrong. Each choice of cars comes with some advantages and disadvantages. Since the start of MoE there has been some kind of balancing, first using the master server and now incorporated in the patches, on which the choice of cars has been made. The FZR always had the upperhand on the Aston tracks, as the XRR has the upperhand on the WE1 tracks. That knowledge was known before the start when teams picked their cars.

So far my personal opinion.

Now for the test race, as it seems I am the only one around, I suggest to start at 2030 UTC on the Masters of endurance server. (I'd like to eat my lunch first).

It "seemed" although the XRR was in a class of it's own at Westhill, but then in the ETM the FZR was just as fast as the XRR for most of the race.

When practicing with the FZR on westhill I hit late 30s in my first couple of laps untill the tyres heated up, just like I did with the XRR. When the tyres heated up however the XRR was slightly faster and by the end managed 29.8, and in the ETM Rambo hit a 29.7x with the FZR.

The problem wasn't with the cars being un ballanced, the problem was strategys.

The same goes for South City Long too, when practicing for the MoE we thought that the FZR was much faster than the XRR, however when it came to the ETM race Jonesy was more than capable of keeping up with the top 4 in that race. (XRR)

On KY3, me vs nils at the start is a good comparison as to how it used to work, we were both very even on times all the way untill the last few laps where the FZR could pull out mid 10s where the XRR was still stuck in the low 11's.

It was the same with the laptimes I showed above, XRR and FZR even on pace untill the last few laps, but now, the XRR is allways going to be that 5 tenths behind from the beginning, not to mention the FZR getting even faster by the end.

I just tried 10 laps on full fuel and my best in the first 3 laps was 40.9 and after 10 laps it was only 40.3. From what's been posted the FZR does 40.3 from the get go.

Chris, post the replay of you doing mid 40s in the XRR while heavy please.

Quote from AppiePils :

• KY3 cars were pretty much equal,
  
• SO4 small overhand for the FZR,
  
• WE1 major overhand for the XRR.
  
• This round the FZR seems to have a major overhand on teh XRR
  
• Next round the XRR seems to have a small overhand on the FZR
  
• KY2 not sure.

The above provides me with the following overview:
FZR: equal, small, major
XRR: equal, major, small

You know that we drove KY3, SO4 and WE1 with the old Patch (X) with the weight restrictions...
So dont say on KY3/SO4/WE1 the powerlevel stayed the same.

*Sorry for my bad English*

Quote from AppiePils :

• KY3 cars were pretty much equal,
  
• SO4 small overhand for the FZR,
  
• WE1 major overhand for the XRR.
  
• This round the FZR seems to have a major overhand on teh XRR
  
• Next round the XRR seems to have a small overhand on the FZR
  
• KY2 not sure.

The above provides me with the following overview:
FZR: equal, small, major
XRR: equal, major, small

The XRR and FZR were fine in terms of speed at WE1, as they were both capable of doing the same times, its just the XRR handled the tyres better under stress because it only had 30KG on board. Check the eTM times and you will see the FZR was as fast if not faster, it just had trouble with tyres at the time for long races. But now that we are all on R3s the XRR's tyre advantage sort of disappears.

The XRR will do low 41's and maybe some high 40's for the first 10 laps if you start with 60/70% fuel, but anymore and you're not going to be seeing many 41's and you'll probably not see 40's for a while either. We are basically back to how it used to be with the FZR dominating but this time we're on all R3's with different shifting types.

Chris; Can you send me your setup you were using that got you 40.6X on your first laps with 90% fuel, because my set obviously sucks major ass

Here is a replay, in single player so you can see that the fuel pin is on max. I used an old escc racesetup for this, only changed it to r3 tyres and modded som air pressures. They heat up to around 118-119 before they start to cool down. I attached the set as well further down the post

I'm a bit busy tonight, i should have done more than only 2 laps, but thats the only thing i could pull off now. Also, none of these are perfect laps so i believe people could get down to low 40's with more practise.