Race pace

[smirn0ff82]

Hi all,

I can't seem to figure out how to manage my race pace. Even if I go with identical strategy as my nearest competitor, somewhere around half distance my opponents seem to speed up considerably (while the tyre wear is less of a problem for them) and I lose time.

For instance:
Mclaren save, Lando and Daniel are the two drivers. I qualify in 5th and 9th in Imola, already had some upgrades to underfloor, front wing and side pods, so my car is about equal with Alpine. Alonso is 6th and Ocon is 8th in qualy.

We all start on hard tyres and the strategy is hard first then medium for second stint. Alonso and Lando got into a DRS train with Verstappen so they pulled ahead of the rest of the field, while Ricciardo made a quick pass on Ocon in the early stages and was running his own race for up until half way. Managed to lose Ocon by about 12 seconds.

I was using a mix of Standard and Attack (keeping my tyres in the optimal strategy window) and managed to save some fuel on standard which allowed me to push for 10+ laps later on the race. In clean air Lando was lapping 0.2 seconds faster than Alonso but due to DRS train this meant nothing, but gave me an idea of the car's pace.

Then Alonso pitted at lap 32, Lando's tyres were still good for another 5-6 laps, but I did not want to be undercut so pitted the next lap. We were both on mediums from lap 33 onwards and this is where I lost the race. Alonso was lapping 0.3-0.5 seconds faster than Lando on standard/standard. So I switched to attack/standard, Alonso was still faster 0.3 seconds. He was ahead of me in clean air, I was in clean air behind him. I went for attack/push, Alonso was still faster 0.3 seconds per lap! Nothing I have changed made me any faster, but my tyres started to look much worse than Alonso (about 2% per lap more degradation than Alonso).

Ricciardo was not much better. I undercut Ocon by one lap, yet the 12 seconds lead I had disappeared in less than 15 laps and he overtook me like Ricciardo was driving a schoolbus in rush hour.

Any ideas why at roughly half distance the AI becomes insanely fast? I thought the first few races might be down to my inferior car, but after updates it is on par with or better than Alpine and still losing big time.

I have been in the top 5 for 50-60% of the race (seemingly on merit), only to finish 11th as everyone behind me just unleashes the beast and I cannot keep up even on similar tyre startegy.

[Saandrig]

Most likely your engine wore off past the power loss threshold during the race. You pushed the fuel, so that would have contributed.

Possibly you also had more fuel than the Alpines, which made your car heavier. The Renault engine consumes the least fuel and the car gets lighter and thus faster as the race goes on.

If your tyres wore off faster, that would add extra time loss with each percentage less.

[Blackfyre]

Power point threshold of the engine shouldn't matter too much in a DRS situation. By the Qualifying position it sounds as if the car is cornering well. The McLaren does.
What it doesn't have is Top Speed, DRS Speed and Accel. Build a shiny new Rear Wing. Go hard on DRS (it's the only place to upgrade it) and Drag reduction and hey Presto...
Your car is now approx 0.3km/h faster and much faster in DRS too.

Easier overtaking and easier to keep up/pull away in non DRS zones.
Combined with good cornering, you are going to have high starting positions in the race, but you need the Top Speed to stay there.