We could do mid 38's with no added weight. With added weight, it is bloody hard to even get close to 38's.
I looked at the chart Appie. Seems that the FZR and XRR would now be perfectly balanced if the stints were to be the same length. However, the XRR can do 4 more laps, without really going much over 2:40, which is obviously an advantage.
At a push, we can do 29 laps, but it's so risky with the tyres being so cold that we only do 28, which is only 3 laps.
And Dave, mid 38s is fantastic pace if you ask me (Without weight) and when you consider that the wr was only 1.5 seconds faster with the 80Kg last patch, and that you guys now only use 1/4 of that, that's only about 4 tenths. Yes you guys do have to use the R3s though which will add a couple of tenths, but speed differnce in R2s to R3s in this patch will be much less as the tyres heat up far easier now.
I know this is pretty inconclusive evidence as to what is acheivable, but atm your trying to say that you lose a second with 20kg of weight? When only 1.5 was lost in the last patch qith quadruple that amount?
I would like to see you guys test the 10 or 15Kg tbh as I know the FZR should have an advantage on this track with it's shorter stints, but atm it doesn't seem like many of the top teams care. We've done our bit in the XRR and at the end of the day if you stay quiet on purpose you might end up with an unfair weight penalty which could have been avoided with a litte input.
Well what you don't get is that you can't compare apples with oranges (well you can but it makes no sense).
Race incidents happen, true. But what if an FXR gets pushed out instead of an XRR and maybe mis-shift and damages the engine. Do they also get a "suitable compensation on a Shift+P " or people like my Team who always have disconnects in every race. Isn't that unfair?
When things like that happen or another car is involved then it's bad luck /or bad driving. I could think about another 20 situations that are not "fair" but it doesn't really have to do with racing/balancing the cars or improving the classes which this thread is all about (not balancing the situations that can maybe happen with others cars or to one or another driver and especially to the Mercury GT2 car.)
And btw if you would have done a better research then you would have seen that the last thing the most vocal member of T7R has said in this thread was:
As an XRR driver, let me just say that I have no qualms with the car's inability to get out of the sand. It's just one of the things you factor in when you choose to drive it.
That said, I do like Paul's idea to give XRR drivers a 30sec penalty or whatever for shift-p after getting stuck, rather than a 1 lap penalty. It would certainly add to the admin workload, but it'd be a bit fairer and a nice gift to the XRR teams.
Possible situation:
An XRR driver blows the tire in the end of his stint right on t1 ang gets stuck... he shift+p and is back on his journey with a 30 sec penalty, but is on track again with a new car, refilled and on new tires....
yeah, really fair...
EDIT: A whole pitsstop is about 35secs (with entry and exit)...
EDIT2: Whatever the final decision is... would be nice to have it out tonight... I want to make the set final...
I did a little test session last night over a 15 lap stint. The set wasn't optimized in any way though, and i'm a bit out of practise after a weeks brake. The car felt quite good, and actually slightly easier to drive than without the 20kg's. During the first laps i usually had 45.0 - 1 in the first split, 52.9 - 53.5 in the 2nd and 40 high/low 41 as my laptime. I had no better time than 39.7 something in the end, but that's because of the offtime lately (i hope :razz. Gonna drive a stint tonight as well, and i excpect my times to drop at least half a second.
As i said, i just put my old set on without altering anything, which needs to be done in order to get some more out of the weight penalty. It was quite weird to see how much the kg's affected the car speed - wise. I constantly lost around 1 - 1.5 km/h on the mainstraight, which i believe is quite much time on such a long track as this. On the other side, it looks like the added kg's makes it easier to keep the heat into the tyres, i did keep up the heat at least a lap longer now with some quite high tyre pressures.
Also, i guess most of us is at work again.. Could be a reason for why the tests ain't going as frequently as it did in the christmas vacation? I do want ballanced classes, but it ain't easy to combine lfs with work/other things atm, at least for me.
For right now, all of you should expect +20kg on the FZR. It is not 100% final yet, but we still have to see conclusive arguments for why it should be less (or more, for that matter).
i totally have to agree vykos and andreas. i have to vote against any additional weights or ristrictions.
the xrr found its speed, they can do some more laps what means less stops. thats just like scavier wanted the balancing in that class when i remind some posts sooner. and i dont see the xrr that slower now that u have to slow down the fzr
i cant find any speed with added weight, it totally suxx to be honest.
the graph and lap charts ... have to agree andreas there, too
with all that crap of finding a balancing which isnt really needed u take the fun of an event which should be one of the greatest in the whole lfs scene in a year.
Rather wrong assumption based on one graph and another wrong assumption about the 7 laps more as it is already invalidated in this thread. It's actually 3 laps more.
The chart merely used to visualize the differences with the FZR, FZR+20kg and the XRR which is for one stint as Jay wanted to see. Who says this is the overall chart on which we base the our conclusions? Did we say that, or did you make the assumption, that we would just base our decision just on this chart alone?
I can ensure you we try to include each aspect (stint times, stint length, engine damage (which is btw for both cars the same), clutch overheating the best way possible to determine a fair balance.
The 'not complete' part of your statement is already invalidated by my respond to Andreas, the 'too late' part is already being discussed in this forum and if you're talking about insufficient information perhaps you should have had (more of) your team members help out a bit more so more significant information could be given. It still can be put to use frankly.
I have to agree, too. There are just too much factors that can slow down the FZR in addition. And I still dont understand why we try to fit the cars on this special track... last race xrr was way faster, and now we try to equate the cars because the fzr is a bit faster?
I find it quite interesting how FZR drivers now get vocal about the harder to drive stuff after XRR drivers had to put up with the slower, harder to drive car for two seasons.
Besides, we've been discussing this topic for more than 2 weeks now, stating it's too late in a one-liner (or two one-liners) when nothing has been said before is a bit a weak argument.
all those complaints of the harder to drive car dont count. xrr can stuck in the sandbox with a puncture bla bla, u can read f9. clutch of the fzr is getting to hot, just lift ur pedal a bit more. its just a bit unlucky for the the cars when u can damage the engine with one mistake in 24h hours...anyway
right.we agreed of extra weights when the speed of the xrr wont improve. now we can see the lap chart that it is needed to have a close 24h race and no more additional weight is necessary.
i really dont get it, do u want to force a xrr-win?
The point is: (a felt) imbalance seems to be okay to a number of FZR drivers as long as it is not to their disadvantage. I am not saying they should be "punished" because they had the better car in the past. I am saying they should live with the small issues they have.
However, I am also saying that the differences in the speed that are definitely there without measures by us outweigh the negative effects brought up by patch Y.
Maybe you should have participated in the tests then, shouldn't you?
The values of the XRR are from the team that has proven to be fastest in the car with work on their setup. The values of the FZR are not. They are not even a full stint. The fastest boys chose not to participate in the test (with the exception of Chriskart who did some work for the first testing session).
We are not trying to force a XRR-win. If we did so, we'd simply have put back on the weights of Patch X. However, we are trying to use the given data and also imply the improvement in setup and practice that will be there with the development. As I said before, the number is not 100% final, but we have yet to see conclusive evidence that our assumption is wrong. Why don't you guys go out, develop a set and show us a couple of stints that prove we are wrong? Your testing of a couple of days ago, Jay, was based on 5 lap runs. Andy has simply whined about how hard it is to drive the car, has not shown any values yet, though. Vykos has not said anything but "too late". What are we supposed to work with? You guys know us admins arent the folks that should be doing the driving for evaluating since we don't have your talent. So get in the car and show us we are wrong, then we are more than happy to change things.
hoellsen, my testing a couple of days before was with 30 kg and just 5 laps, yes. do u think i start writing here something without doing any more tests or speccing some other drivers?
testraces, yeah. dreaf is as just a fast driver as i am and niki isnt that slow. i dont know who else was driving there. even when they didnt finish stints u can see their laptimes, cant you?
we can do another testrace within the next days, np. but i think it is more fair balanced with no added weight then with 20kg.
No, we can't cause we cannot judge laptimes just before the tank is empty. We all know that this can be a decisive phase in a stint due to tire behaviour. If you have done some testing and/or speccing, provide us some numbers. That is something we can take a look at, saying it's not fair is not.
It's pretty ridiculous to assume/imply that the admins are attempting to force a win for a certain model of car. It should be fairly obvious that we are attempting, to the best of our knowledge/research/skills, to find a balance that will produce good racing--not just for this race, but for the remaining races in the season as well.
If you want to debate the 20kg addition, as Appie and Philip have said you need to do it with figures and well-reasoned arguments rather than accusations that we're trying to "force an XRR win."
Jays set is now much better than the one i drove at the last testrace. But even Jay, who is one of the best FZR drivers, can NOT do some 38s.
IMO XRR and FZR are on the same level. But i think thats crap for us right now. There are some reasons why the FZR should be some tenths faster than the XRR.
The XRR needs only 3% petrol, so you can do 30 laps. (FZR only 25 laps) So the FZRs will lose because of the higher number of pitstops a lot of time. And we have to win that time on the track. And IMO we can not win any secs against the XRRs on the track.
With 20kg extraweight it will be quite sure, that the XRR has a clear advantage.
With +20kg we will have no chance IMO !!!
10kg extraweight is the suggestion of n!faculty.racing.
If we just suddenly took off this weight and made NO EFFORT to make sure these cars are balanced, then we'd be ruining the most important race of MoE's season, and we don't want that. Even though the other races are as equally as important (and BLGP FZR will surely win, even with +20kg). We can't just throw this all away... especially when we have NOT seen very good support from many other FZR teams in this balancing project of ours since Patch Y release. And for Vykos to have the nerve and finally come in here and say it is not good when his team hasn't even said a single word this entire time... ???. Whether or not you guys like to keep your mouths shut for 2 weeks of secrecy or just don't want to help at all, that's your problem to come in with a week to go and complain. We have enough evidence that the cars can be equal for a long endurance race, unless proven otherwise in the next day or two until a decision is made final.
@Jay & Dreaf: The XRR cannot do 30 lap stints at fast pace, 28 lap stints are its safest bet with mid to high 2:39's average -- if pushing hard, a blowout on 28 laps is possible for them. The one-odd 2:38 for an XRR is very rare -- and a few low 2:39's. Jay's 2:39 laps are very low ones, and he starts to get them after the 1/4 mark in his stint... and for the rest of the stint mostly. Give us more records of stints with +20kg, and we'll be more than happy to look at them.
