Dear managers,
I raced in Brazil tonight and the weather was changing all day. This lead me to test a few things in order to understand the mechanisms behind the gameplay, a.k.a. learn and improve. As a result of this, I am confused and would like some advice. Additionally, this thread might benefit lesser experienced managers (come pick my brain!).
During the day, I checked the weather on the home page (https://igpmanager.com/app/p=home ; little icon in the "Next race" box) and it went from rain to sun/overcast to rain again several times. I did my practice laps on dry conditions and left some runs for before the race to refine the strategy.
The race was at 19:30 and I logged at 19:00. From 19:00 to 19:10, the weather was rain. At 19:10, the weather switched to overcast. At 19:12, I decided to use my last runs. I ran one lap in SS, one in I and one in W. The W tyres were the fastest ones (1:14) while the other two sets were much slower (something like 1:22). The drivers were happy with a dry setup (ride height: 8; wing level: 10), even with W tyres. Other managers confirmed these findings at 19:15.
I set up the following strategy for my drivers:
-Driver 1: wet tyres for the race, dry set up, put I when 1mm, H after some dry laps
-Driver 2: dry tyres for the race, dry set up, put I when 1mm, H after some dry laps
The qualifications were done with H for Driver 1 and S for driver 2 (his starting tyres). I assume this is because there was less than 1mm of water on the track at the time of their lap. Their laps were very slow (1:21 vs 1:12 normally) and not fast enough compared to the opposition (the pole was set in SS in 1:18). The race unfolded on a dry track and my strategy ended up winning. My drivers finished 3rd and 4th while the two winning drivers adopted a similar strategy (and were much stronger).
I am at a loss in trying to rationalise what happened, even if I came out as a victor:
-My practice laps minutes before the qualifications indicated that the best strategy was wet tyres with a dry setup, the weather indicator indicated dry and throughout qualifications and the race, the best tyres ended up being the dry ones.
-The best tyres in qualifications were SS but they clocked much slower times than usually (how is that possible if there is less than 1mm of water on the track?)
-The fact I was so slow compared with the competition in qualifications seems to indicate that a wet set up with dry tyres would have been more appropriate, yet, a dry setup was preferred by my drivers a few minutes before!
In addition to the above misunderstandings, some questions arise from tonight's experience:
-Is the weather decided in different ways for free practice, qualifications and the race?
-When does the best setup switch between dry and wet? Is this different from when the tyre switch occurs?
-Since my 19:12 track experience misled me whereas the weather icon was "right", should the choice of strategy be solely based on the weather icon and not on the on track experience?
-How often is the weather updated?
Food for thoughts, but don't forget to sleep ;)
F.
