LaFerrari vs P1 vs 918

Mapping the control to the wheel is the only real way, in this car its only 1 button too. For the SF15t I need 4 buttons so pretty much need to re-config the wheel just to drive that car.

I found no real reason to push the kers button, in hotlap mode it gives you more power then you already need. Possibly in the sport mode you could use the Kers button if it actually works, but its still easier just to use hotlap mode and get as much power as it wants to give you.

I only just read about the 918 RSR and kers button in that is a different thing, it has a huge flywheel kers system in the passenger seat storing about 8 seconds of electrical power that you use on demand. The regular 918 is using a battery system for its Kers and the car can do around 16 miles on battery power alone so having the car manage kers deployment seems easier. On some tracks where you struggle to regen and doing a longer run then a manual kers (if available) using the sport mode would likely be the best option.

 

I need to test this again, i think it might be in sport mode as default. I will be very shocked if it wasnt doing anything (i didnt know about the MGU modes when i did my test so i was in whatever it defaults to.) I'm sure I can see when i pressed it by watching the speedo in my vid.

 

Just tested manual kers does work and default mode is Race Hybrid. If youbpress kers when standing still the engine actually revs up.

 

thank goodness for that!

 

Did a bit more testing and using the in game gears app you can easily see how much electrical power is being used. In hotlap mode using Kers wont make much difference exiting corners as it gives max electric power on exit anyway, in hybrid race its not quite full power so using kers will give a small boost, in hybrid sport it uses a fair bit less electric boost and so kers in this mode will show the largest gains.

I may need to try Nords again and see how it goes battery wise there for a full lap, I only assume it has enough charge to run a full lap there in hotlap mode but didnt have the gears app or any other charge indicator visible when running laps there.

 

Some more testing and even in hotlap mode this can give a reasonable gain using kers, it over rides the torque vectoring and also gives full electric power out of corners if your sliding. At Imola there are 4 or 5 exits you can gain with kers pressed. The last turn and down the main straight is the biggest gain where I can gain .3 into t1 with manual kers, the battery drain is also much larger where not using Kers in hotlap mode you could easily run laps without worrying about battery draining as regen seems to cover all power used during a lap. Manual Kers however you can keep gaining all the way down the straights but its also much trickier to drive as its going to have wheels spinning on exit. But all the slower corners where the car tends to be loose on exit have big gains if you press kers and full throttle as long as you manage to keep it on the road. No torque vectoring means its much more likely to understeer with full power to the front and rear wheels which to avoid understeer in general the car gives less front axle power.

I tried a few laps to improve my PB at Imola but was over doing it and couldnt quite get a lap in, I think mid 42 would be fairly doable there on the trofeo tyres and especially in a race the kers button could be very handy getting those quicker exits in the 918.

 

Going to be doing my own 918 vs P1 vs LaFerrari comparison. Redbull Ring is my favorite track, has a great a great mix of straights, sweepers and relatively low speed corners so almost any high power car should feel at home here. The 918 is the newest car for me to drive here, and its quite a challenge to get just right. I think its equally as hard to get 10/10ths performance out of this car as it is the other ones. All of this is of course based on street tires ONLY. No trofeos.

I recently managed a 1:45.157 in the Porsche Panamera around the track, and it was probably the experience that most prepared me for this car. I can definitely break into the 1:44's with some more practice and nailing all sectors. Even though it was AWD, the Panamera needs to be driven with complete precision. It has great power and acceleration, but its heavy and doesn't have high cornering speeds. Any tire squeal at all mid corner means you are losing LOTS of precious time. So I had to very carefully and gingerly almost glide the car through corners, braking properly and nailing every apex, accelerating as hard as possible out of the corner with the wheel turned as little as possible so that the tires provide the most minimal resistance. Surprisingly the Panamera has amazing brakes. You can brake fairly late, it actually takes some getting used to, and if you were doing hotlaps in the Panamera and right away switched to the 918, you would need to do quite the adjustment. If anyone here is having trouble mastering the 918, I suggest first get good-great at tossing the Panamera through curves.

Never in my time playing Assetto Corsa has the lesson I learned back in Gran Turismo 3 days about the string tied to the brakes, gas and steering wheel been applied so well. The string can only respond so much, it can't stretch indefinitely Push the car too hard, its so heavy it will understeer despite its power, and you will lose a ton of valuable time. Because the car is so heavy too, the car needs momentum. Just like driving really slow cars, maintaining as much momentum as possible is key. Watching at which point you accelerate and brake is crucial to a fast time in the Panamera. Even getting on the gas early so the turbos can pre-spool is important when trying to get that extra few tenths. When I first played the Panamera, I drove it like every other car, manhandling it around the track, which can work fairly well in a lightweight car. But this required true finesse from me, and I improved my initial laptimes from high 1:49's at best to now a 1:45.2, and there is still more in the car. If you are good in the Panamera you'll be good in the 918.

The 918 has all the same handling traits as the Panamera I feel. Its lighter so, not quite to the same extent, but very noticeable compared to the P1 and the LaFerrari. In the Hotlap setting, the car requires very careful inputs, because the moment the car starts to slip, the electric engines power is cut, and you go from 887bhp AWD to 608bhp RWD. Managing your line even more so than the others I feel is necessary to be on par with the the other 2, especially the Mclaren. Sometimes I'll do what I feel is a pretty sloppy lap in the P1, but it will still be an incredible time. Because the other 2 are so light, if you make a tiny mistake you can usually make it up by being a tad faster in the other sectors. But one little mistake in the 918 means a huge power cut, and because its heavier, and has a weaker engine, that power cut takes a much bigger toll on the laptime.

The biggest letdown for the 918 is its braking. On the Redbull Ring you need to brake close to the 200m mark the first 2 straights, and on the straight leading to the 3rd corner where you are traveling downhill, you NEED to brake at the 200m mark in order to set up properly. Compare this to the other 2 and its a huge difference. It also has sub-par corner entry especially compared to the P1. Braking sometimes even a tiny bit early so you can set up the perfect line to nail the gas out of the corner is important.

Although the 918 is the easiest car to get started in, I feel its the toughest to extract that last 5% performance out of it. One little mistake on corner entry where you slide the car for even a half second is enough to ruin a lap, because you just lost over 200hp for that half second.

My best lap in the 918 around the redbull ring so far, completely stock settings except starting with 11L of fuel, and ZERO manual KERS use, is 1:32.068. Obviously, using the KERS manually cancels out the power loss when the tires slip, but as the guy doing the test at Imola said, it can be difficult not to overdo it. Once I feel I can personally get no faster without manual KERS use, I will begin practicing with it.

I'd love to get some comparison times from some of the people here, if you wouldn't mind trying the Redbull Ring. All of this is done on completely stock settings, no TC of course, fuel consumption and tire wear on, and the track is set to 26c with the best conditions. Once I master the 918 I'll get to doing the laptimes of the P1 and LaFerrari. Initial impressions are that I feel the LaF will be the slowest and possibly if I can get a perfect lap with manual KERS 918 will be on par with the P1.

 

Interesting stuff. Seems like how you manage the mods and/or manual use could be fairly track-dependent.

"no TC of course"

Well I'm eager to do some more comparisons today, but I'll be using TC. Not sure why it's 'of course' that you wouldn't use it. By all means, if you like to feel more manly not having that on, go for it, but there's no shame in using what the car is built with.

 

the MGU/KERS button might explain why the 918 is slow on the straights in some peoples tests. with the extra traction 4wd provides and KERS held down the 918 top speed was just a tiny bit slower than the LaF for me at Silverstone.

Edit: 918 is actually fastest for me I had only checked speed by pausing at certain points but RSR shows it beat the LaF by 1Kph.

 

Keeping an eye on the regeneration and battery levels will give you a good idea on which modes to use and how much kers to use also, In hotlap mode it does a fairly good job and at Imola it would likely run all day in this mode if not using manual kers. The kers can give maybe .5 boost if used properly there but then will drain the battery much quicker, in hotlaps it wont make any difference but if anyone is doing longer races in the car then it would add to some nice strategy.

Tracks like Monza are the trickiest as they use lots of power but not much time to regen under brakes, here managing battery level over a race will be quite an art but in a hotlap just give it as much as you dare.

Regarding TC I dont use it but no issues if others do, I wonder if kers will still give power even if tc is cutting it. Seeing how kers cuts out in a slide and at Imola this can be .5 by over riding that and going full power on exits. I suspect TC will likely do a similar thing and cost more time but one day I will give TC a test to see if it actually could be used as an advantage in these types of cars if its simply cutting power and unsettling balance that costs time while it may improve consistency and tyre life over a longer run which is the only reason id use it in gt3 for a longer race if allowed.

 

So far I tried only the LaFerrari and the 918 at Monza, and lapped with both with nearly the same time (1.47.7/8)... Well I might be one of the few who finds the 918 easier to drive it has incredible traction, just miles better than the Ferrari IMHO, but yeah just like previously pointed out lacks braking stability and some high speed grip. The Ferrari has the potential to be ~1 sec faster I think, but for me exploiting that potential is not easy at all, especially getting it all together in 1 lap: it is way more nervous, at least with the def. setup

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Come now. As has been said many times, the TC in sim is not the TC the real car(s) has. For some cars, the sim TC is too limiting compared to real TC. For some cars, the sim TC is ok and can reduce lap times.

Most have found that using sim TC with the hypercars did not help their lap times.

 

I did below 1.29:00 on trofeos and WITH manual Kers. And it will go faster for sure, belive me.

BTW. I didnt notice any information about manual kers earlier. It is such a shhame cuz it makes a diffrence in all elect. modes, even hotlap. That is a different world now (when to compare to P1 and LaFerrari). I can say that after 2 days of driving, I like 918 very much. Now I have to adjust to this damn 911

 

Yeah I'm taking a break. Usually if I take a break then get back to it after that I'm somehow faster. I'm not sure exactly how much faster I can go on the street tires. It would be awesome to somehow break the 1:30's using manual kers, but I have doubts. I use a 360 controller and I just can't map the kers to a button that doesn't disrupt everything else. Curious, what can you manage with the street tires and no manual kers? I don't have a wheel so i can never be as perfectly smooth as I'd like but I wanna know if my current time is a fast one.

 

I have a server up atm with these at RBR cant remember the sertings. I will make it Hyper road and maybe enable factory tc too and see what people can get there in all 3. I havent ran a lap there yet in any of these at RBR. Seeing we have a silly horse race today and a public holiday I can do some testing.

 

Aren't all the other track surface settings somewhat randomized, here are all the default presets in server config not sure if its the same for SP.




The key value here is randomness, for example Old start value of 89 and randomness of 3 means the grip level can start anywhere between 86 and 92. Doesn't this make it fairly pointless for any direct comparison? Possibly you can edit the ini file to give a constant grip level but really comparing any lap times should be done on an exact and static setting or your not learning much at all.

 

I'm fairly sure that the grip % was the same with every car, maybe that randomness is not there in SP? Not sure, would have to retest to be a 100% sure.

 

Having said that about grip levels most of the real world comparisons were done with each car having its own run on track, this means most would not be getting the same track conditions and I havent seen any real world tests between the 3 where all were on track at the same time. Mostly as each test is done by the same driver it makes it kind of hard to do all 3 cars at once. So in the real world tests would it be better getting 3 drivers familiar with each of the cars or 1 driver at different times of day and likely not many laps in either car. At least in AC we can compare in static conditions with one driver doing as many laps as they want in either car to try get the most out of them.

In a server you can see how others handle particular cars and I find the spread of performance quite large in these cars, also the hypercar road tyres dont give you optimal performance for long so you really need to set a lap on your first flying lap to get the most out of them. With the trofeo's you can run multiple laps and keep the cars pretty much at peak grip.

I did a few laps in the 918 at optimal grip running HR at RBR with and without TC, TC was easier on some exits as it kept it pointed straight more then the more common slide out with tc off, laptimes wise I was still considerably quicker with TC off but I ran most TC laps earlier so would need to retry. At first I though it would be much faster as exits of t1 and t2 especially you could use more curb and floor it avoiding the rear end sliding too much and so getting more power to the ground. But after with TC off if I got a better entry and kept it more stable through the apex I was nearly 2 seconds faster with TC off. 1:31.5 TC off HR and 1:33.2 with TC on but probably less ideal lines being early laps.

 

I dont know the 918 cut the eletric motor as a "traction control".

These things make me hates the modern cars, just prefer to be totally on control of the car.

 

Torque vectoring does limit electric power and as this car has front and rear elctric motors when the systems think its not ideal to give full electric power it will cut it. This is the main reason there is a manual kers button to over ride this and give full electric power I think to both axles when pressed. Pretty much any time your in a reasoanble slide it will limit electric power even in hotlap mode.