Mohammad Yuzbashi medal 5000 6 years 234 days ago
Hi all,
I am trying to design an aggressive strategy for my next race but unfortunately the number of laps for each stint is determined by the amount of fuel that I add to the car. I am still new to the game so I am not sure how the team would behave if i don't attend this specific race: Will the team call the driver to pit in when the tire wear gets to a certain level, or would the team leave the driver out until they are almost out of fuel, or would a different mechanism be put in place?
Based on my observation I can't "order" the team to pit the car after (X) number of laps with excessive fuel still in the tank (usually after pushing hard and wearing out the tire quicker than the average), instead I am requested to enter the volume of fuel to be used in each stint and the number of laps will be decided based on the fuel levels.
My suggestion would be to separate the number of laps and the volume of fuel to fill the car with for each stint (or to at least make this separation optional/possible). in this manner it would be possible for the manager to over-fuel the car and keep pushing for longer periods of the race. Please let me know how do you think about this idea.
Best Regards,
MSY
Frank Thomas medal 4987 Moderator 6 years 234 days ago (edited 6 years 234 days ago)
The problem is that this option, while looking like a help, doesn't make much sense. The thing is that more fuel means more weight means a slower car. Especially if it's fuel for an entire extra lap and more there's no way that higher push levels can make up the lost time due to that extra weight. Especially taking into account that you should plan for the highest push level the set tyres can take anyway and thus any more push would be only for a very limited amount of time at most.
So in essence, this option would just allow managers to prepare for the event of a strategy planning error by introducing a way to setup a, possibly even larger, race managing error by default.
To answer the question: The game keeps the cars out until the tank is empty, although with a quite large safety margin so it sometimes auto-pits even though there's enough fuel for another lap. The game takes no account of the state of the tyres, so it keeps the cars going no matter if they loose already seconds per lap due to tyre wear up to the extreme of a retiring car due to tyre puncture.
Mohammad Yuzbashi medal 5000 6 years 234 days ago
Actually Frank in my very humble experience (that consists of one race only, ahem ahem) I could have used some extra fuel to push hard for the podium. I finished the race without any fuel left for the last couple of turns and with Tire wear of around 62%. So I guess i'll disagree with you a bit here and put my theory to test in tomorrow's race :)
Thanks for answering my question Frank. Cheers!!
Frank Thomas medal 4987 Moderator 6 years 234 days ago
It's just a matter of experience. Later you'll calculate your fuel and don't pay much attention to what the game says in strategy about how far you get with it. Mostly you'll even put in less than the game says you need. The range given in the race viewer is much more accurate, though.
Additionally during the first races the fuel efficiency of the car is horrible. For example with FE1 in Bahrain I needed ~3.34l/lap on average on hards, the last race with FE50 it was 2.42l/lap. The difference between average on hard and soft stints changed from 0.06l to 0.01-0.02l per lap although on other tracks that one is much closer. So a little amount of fuel gets you further and on the whole I found calculating the fuel get more reliable and easier.
On the other hand there's room to make it more complicated again. Some top managers like Joey, who wrote the guides in the help forum, go all the way and even calculate the best fuel efficiency progression through the season so they finish their (last) stint with 0.1-0.2l rather than the like of 0.6-0.9l of fuel remaining, it's shaving a few hundreths from every lap after all.
