The track
Aston Grand Prix with 8.8km is the longest track in LFS and it's a mix of really everything.
Sector one consists of a highspeed corner and hairpin with two long straights in between.Sector two is a twisty one. We start it off with a hairpin and a slow corner right after leading to a long straight, which is one of the best places for overtaking against turbo cars. Then you go into the twisty part, entering the stadium complex with a highspeed chicane, followed by a short straight and a mid-speed corner, up the hill to highspeed corner, down the hill and then again up in a long curved straight to the right, followed with a highspeed double left corner with a dip in the middle, down the hill to the fastest corner on track which is taken flatout and only then it comes a straight to relax a bit on start of sector three. It's so complex that I bet you got lost in there reading that.
So, the final sector starts with a straight which goes gently up the hill, followed by hairpin and after a short straight a midspeed chicane which is crucial for laptime as it leads to longest straight of all as we finish the lap.
The cars
First off we had to choose between three different cars.
FXO GTR 490hp, turbocharged 4wd FXR, weighting 1100kg, with 627Nm of torque is always going to be strong around hairpins, but there isn't many of those around here. So with three huge straights this car was just not an option. As it turns out, noone opted for this choice. It's a lot better choice in championships as SuperGT. With races of hour and half this car is actually a favorite on half of the tracks there. Inexperienced teams mostly use it in IGTC as well, which consists of races of four hours in GT1 class.
490hp, turbocharged rwd XRR, weighting 1100kg with 627Nm of torque as well is completely opposite of FXR. Great car for fast corners and straights, but terrible for hairpins. It's very different from any other car in LFS and you need great deal of time to get used to it really. We've done some testing with it, but we just couldn't match the times we were supposed to be having, watching the pace from previous years. This car was favorite for win this year if driven on the limit for 24hours straight.
And finally there is a 483hp, boxer engined rwd FZR weighting 1115kg with 497Nm of torque. Obviously it's a less powerful engine and top speed was destined to be slower than XRR's, but boxer engine puts the power down immediately to the road and this is just great for three hairpins, one mid speed corner and one chicane. Other four highspeed corners were going to be compromised a bit, but we were confidant that ultimately we were going to match XRR teams in those as well.
The strategy
Once we had decided on car choice, next step was tire strategy. LFS has three compounds of tires, from R2 to R4, R2 being the softest. Right away I have to tell you that noone ever uses R4 tires as you just can't put any heat to them. So as the FZR is rear engined car, much like Porsche 911, you're sometimes able to run R2 tires in front. With long straights here they had enough time to cool down a bit. We knew precisely how this strategy would work from SuperGT race done here and over the race distance it was going to be about one minute quicker, but with extra stop or two you were always going to be in traffic and most likely never have a chance to capitalize on this advantage, plus it's a lot more difficult to drive. So we opted for safer choice, R3's all round.
The racers
Then we had to figure out who was going to drive at which part of the race and just as the most teams do we have also opted to put our quickest racer to start the race. Tomek himself proposed to do straight four stints before handing the car over for nightstints. For remaining of the race, we were going to do double stints. Night-stints are just as critical as start of the race, if not more so. It's really where the race is won or lost. It affects the moral of team more than anything. It's horrible to wake up and find out that you're far away from the lead with something like 10 hours to go. So, of course we were always going to thrust this task to most dedicated and most experienced ones, like myself. I had teamed up with Joni, what we can call a rising star to do stints in between and keep the pace up. And ultimately we've left Jarno's stint just for Sunday morning, where the race is mostly decided and with a fresh driver we were always going to have an advantage. Tomek did stints in between with him and Joni was going to wake up and finish it off.
The race
Tomek made a perfect getaway and made a brilliant pass around the outside of T1 to grab the lead from Marc of spdo as the next corner was going to be inside for us. Simon of LLL didn't manage to put enough pressure on Marc to give us a chance to open the gap and soon enough Marc capitalized on XRRs advantage of about 20-30 liters of less fuel at first third of the stint. He pulled an easy pass on lap three on backstraight, even around the outside. Tomek fought back, passing him on the main straight, but Marc would regain the lead again around the outside into the first hairpin this time. As the fight was raging for more than two minutes, Simon was able to close in and sneak by Tomek, heading into the second hairpin.Once the fuel leveled out Simon pulled a move on Marc and took the lead and as Tomek was stuck behind Marc for the rest of the stint, the situation allowed Simon to pull a 7sec lead.
After the first round of pit stops we exited just in front spdo, thanks to them pushing a lap too long and earning a puncture in second to last corner. With tires working a lot better for us against LLL's R2R3 strategy we started closing in the gap and then maintaining it on 5sec before LLL eventually stopped for tires and driver change. With an extra lap, we closed the gap by another second. spdo was the last to make a pitstop and they also changed the racer. With going significantly longer than us this time they managed to squeeze in between LLL and us. It didn't take long for Tomek to get past by Mihu and get back in the chase of Matti who was driving for LLL now. |
At the end of 3rd stint Tomek closed in enough to to pull a stunning move on Matti around the outside into the first hairpin, allowing himself inside line for next hairpin and take the lead. At the same time our GT2 car, took the lead also. But, spdo leapfrogged us once again, however retaking the lead was not a problem at all as we had warm tires on their outlap and Tomek made an easy pass on mid-sector straight without any resistance from Mihu.Fourth round of pitstops saw a driver change for all of the top three teams.Reno, who qualified spdo on pole, was taking over for spdo. Alen, the slowest of LLL's lineup for LLL and myself for 3id. The gap to spdo was three seconds after we all completed 4th round of pit stops. The gap to LLL increased to 4sec. It didn't take long before I cought up with spdo, but Reno proved to be a though nut to overtake with highly aggressive defensive driving. Perhaps spdo knew how risky he is in close racing and opted to hand the car over to him 4hours into the race in hope that he will be running in clean air. I myself had hoped for clean air stint as well and build some more gap to LLL, especially after I found out that they're handing the car over to their slowest driver. But the real task was to get passed by spdo first and only then build a 50sec gap as soon as possible to prevent them leapfrogging us.
The battle with Reno was nervcracking, you can check action onboard in highlights video from my stints on bottom of the post. After I overtook him, he made a huge dive into where clearly wasn't enough room for two cars and damaged his own car in process. Thankfully my car was undamaged and I would make a dive myself later that lap in all frustrating to retake the lead.
All this allowed Alen to close in dramatically and he passed Reno relatively easy just corners later as Reno was suffering quite a bit on pace now. With loads of GT2 cars in my way I was just unable to build any gap, because I'd mostly catching them just before the corner whilst Alen was having more luck with passing them on following straights. Eventually I got so fed up with traffic that I made a mistake that could have cost us a race, but thankfully it didn't, it just cost us lead, briefly. I'd retake the lead later that lap and start building the gap now as we were having a lot less traffic. This would frustrate Alen so much that he'd make a critical error and make a huge setback for his team, dropping them to 7th. He would crash out Raptor Gaming, our main opponent in GT2 class, mainly because Marius was having a guest race for them. Raptor GT2 vs. LLL GT1 Crash 24h MoE
Within half an hour our race looked better than ever.
spdo decided to take the pitstop earlier this time, at the same time as we did this time and fix the damage, giving up on the extra laps. This would give us a 48second lead. Reno also would hand the car over to Marc and wouldn't race any more for the remaining of the event. But in 12 stints by running 2 laps longer, they were going to save a pitstop and we needed to keep the gap on about 50sec. I completely forgot about that they'll save a stop whilst in the car and just kept it as safe as possible. Marc pulled a stunning stint and cut our lead down by 22seconds as I was taking it easy, perhaps too easy. Only in final stages of the stint I was told to push. Marc was the only racer on the grid which had a matching pace of FZR's in closing stages of the stint with XRR and you gotta give him credit for that. Plus XRR was just having a shorter stop.At the 6h30m mark, Joni was in for his first double stint. Fresh as ever he was able to push, but he was up against Marc who was doing his final stint of the day. Marc would cut our lead by another 15sec down to 11sec only.
For the rest of the night Rik and Egon would drive for spdo against Joni and myself. The fight would rage on all thru the night. Joni had a close call with traffic in closing laps of his second stint, when VRT driver suddenly lifted in a very unexpected place. Contact would result with poor Rodrigez in the wall.
Once again I was in the lead, with 5sec gap and determined to build on it in next two hours. After the pits gap remained the same. Only thing that was changed was spdo driver, it was Egon for the first time. Just before spdo's pitstop we saw Robendo suffer a disconnect from the server for LLL. Luckily for them it happened in sector 1, so they didn't loose more than a minute. It seams like the night just took a bit of beating on everyone there. 
It's morning. 9 hours to go, and it's matter of building the gap once again, as we had to make up for another, this time unplanned, extra stop as it will prove later. Fresh Jarno against Egon who was racing all night long saw us increase the gap to 17sec after 15th pitstop for us and 14th pitstop for spdo.
Jarno was back in the car for his last two stints with a 20sec lead. This was only due to the fact that we pitted unplanned. It also means that we will now have to make another pitstop more than spdo, but it wasn't a problem... as we see we pitted earlier and were still back in the lead comfortably.
For last stint spdo got Mihu back in the car. The gap was over minute and a half and our extra pit stop was more than safe. After the stop it was a 57sec lead and Joni kept it cool till the end of lap 534, even increasing the lead to 1minute and 3seconds without any risks taken to take our first 24hours victory in Masters of Endurance.
After the race, we've heard that Rik had damaged spdo's engine in his final stints... preventing this incredible fight going the wire. Truth be told, it was around time when they had lost their pit-stop advantage as well. But that's endurance racing and mistakes like that cost lot, a lot.Our sister car build a 2 lap lead from 3rd hour when they took back the lead over to spdo GT2 who were lucky to see Raptor's car taken out at 5 hour mark. We also saw Raptor flipping their car on the last lap attempting defending 4th position, so they finished 6th eventually. LLL recovered to take the final step on the podium, only a lap down, in GT1 class respectively. The final step of GT2 podium goes to Synergy, who finished 4 laps down after putting some strong fights in first hours of the race.
Congratulations to podium finishers and everyone else who managed to finish this incredible event.The experience of 24 hours race
It's pretty much the only time when the whole team comes together. There are these endurance events, but it's mostly two racers, unlike 24h race, where you really need four at least. And you can have two cars within the team, raising the involvement of everyone to another level. It's a lot of hard work, but it always pays off, no matter where you're racing, it's just such a joy, because you're doing it for hours and it still seams the race will never end, so all the hard work from practice pays off. You never know what will happen next despite all the planing and often you get surprises. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but surprises non the less. It's the biggest adventure you can find in sim racing and I strongly recommend it to everyone.
The highlights
