CARS The Audi R8 LMS GT3

aggressive setups are way too aggressive for me either. first step for me always is to set the aero balance a bit backwards and try to reduce rotation. higher wing can help a lot, and also try to play with front/rear bumpstop ranges and diff preload...

 

If you still want to tame the Audi, the main advice I'd give you is to be extremely smooth with your inputs. From all the cars I've tried its probably the trickiest on that front, as it punishes harsh driving pretty badly.

A good example is at Kyalami at turn 13 (Crocodiles). While trying to brake as late as possible and carry as much speed into the slow semi-hairpin, its really easy to come in too hot and loose the rear end, even at relatively slow speeds. The thing I had to do to prevent this is be really progressive when releasing the brakes and applying throttle back. Releasing brakes like an on/off switch and putting lots of steering lock real quick will probably result in a spin.

Another example is the nurburgring last chicane, where in most cars it's pretty simple affair. When moving to the Audi from the McLaren it was really obvious that the Audi is very tricky here. The key for me was again inputs smoothness but also applying a little bit of throttle as you completely release the brakes. In the last braking phase, applying a tiny bit of throttle helped me to settle the car before launching it on those monster curbs. It's still no Bentley there but helped a ton.

As for setup, if its still too twitchy then yes dropping the rear ride height (or adding height to the front if you look for a higher ride height) will help stabilise the car. Adding front ARB or reducing rear ARB will have a similar effect. At spa, I had to up the rear wing one click to avoid spinning at eau rouge... But then again, input smoothness helped a ton there too as you can give lots of steering input at eau rouge (under compression) but then you need to be real delicate at radillon when the car is offloading.

Hope that helps! (sorry for the wall of text!) As you can probably tell, the Audi is my favorite car of all. Not always the fastest and definitely not the easiest but its very good at most tracks and the most rewarding car to drive for me.

 

TBH after some hours of practice I learnt how to drive the Audi pretty well. Did a 44.2 at the Nurburgring before 1.8. Now I need to learn it all over again because ACC 1.8 is a completely different game and I haven't got the hang of it yet. So far it's been pretty frustrating.

 

Well 54.2 (I assume thats what you meant) is really good actually (pre 1.8), especially from someone who considered himself "crap" (from your thread in the global section)

After the 1.8 update it is a complete different story I agree... Did a quick race yesterday on the nurb and my god, its not only slower but also much much trickier... Even after dialing in the tyre temps and pressures it was still a mess. Feels like it needs a complete different setup now, it feels kind of broken. I dont know if its just me so used to that combo or if the 1.7 setup is now just bad. Seeing the M4s jump over every curbs like they werent even there while just looking at them in the Audi almost disintegrates the car was a bit frustrating...

 

Yeah, and regarding the Audi, it's my favourite car right now. I've always dealt better with front engine cars, they're usually safer and I like the understeer better.
But for some reason I always like to do things the difficult way and drive mid engine cars: in AC1 I insisted in driving the McLaren (went to try again the other day and came to the conclusion it's probably one of the worst GT3 cars on AC1).
On ACC I like the Ferrari, but it always feels like the steering is too on or off, like there's to narrow of a gap where the steering feels heavy before you understeer. The 720S feels way too vague to me, too soft, very little feedback, I dunno, and the way the Lambo looks has never been my cup of tea, not to mention the huge A pillar taking away all visibility.
So the Audi feels the best to me, and also I like driving a car that's always been so successful in real life (it shouldn't be a reason to choose it, but yeah).

Now I just need to learn to drive in 1.8 when I get the time.

 

I'm in the same boat The Audi is my "only-car" to go. After the 1.8 update it is understeering as hell in fast corners like Eau Rouge, Blanchimont and Double Gauge.
It behaves like a heavy front engine car now and I've no clue how to fix it.

 

I don't know if it got slower or the default setups just don't work as well anymore. I practiced for quite some time with the Audi, then jumped into the Ferrari and the Aston V8 and was immediately faster with both. I thought it might be because the Audi uses a lot of camber and they say ACC 1.8 doesn't like camber as much, but the tyre wear looked pretty even. So it's gonna take someone better than me to figure this out.

 

Aris said the cars should be slower in general but the car feels "broken" at the moment. The default setups do not work at all for me. If I try my own 1.7 setups it seems the entire characteristics of the car has changed. Like I said the Audi behaves like a heavy front engine car.
Also the trailing at some of the curbs is strange. Sometimes it reminds me at the 1 point tire model.
The precision of the car and the confidence in it are gone. Even after hours of trying.

 

I'm with you on that one, can't seem to get my mojo back with the Audi since 1.8. It's still twitchy as it always was on curbs and quick change of direction at medium/low speeds but the understeer in the high speed stuff is new and is killing me. At Silverstone its just so bad pretty much everywhere, Stowe and Copse are horrible. The M4s are gaining about 0.3s there, they carry so much speed and are able to take a much more acute line than me, struggling to avoid the off track warnings...

I havent done much setup explorations yet though, aside from opening the ducts to dial in the tyre temps and moving the brake bias rearwards a little bit. It feels like it needs more rotation from either suspension and aero tweaks, or even diff but I'm afraid it will be undrivable in slower corners then. I'll try some tweaks later today and will report back.

Oh, do you guys find the new ABS weird too? Its always pushing wide at first but then behaves more like it used to in the second phase. I find myself having to modulate the brakes way earlier than before to avoid plowing wide at every heady braking zones.

 

Would be really nice

You're right on that. I've noticed too.
But I've less problems to adapt my driving in that regards. Maybe it's the advantage of using a load cell brake.

 

Wow,great read and gave me some insight.

 

So I've managed somehow to get more pace out of the R8 evo after 1.8, mostly by running a bit more aggressive aero balance. No setup expert here so no doubt some were able to make more gain than I was (judging by the very few fast people I saw doing 17s at spa for example), but it sure seemed like it was not the most competitive car anymore.

Tried the EVO 2 yesterday for a little while, car seems so much more planted than the EVO. Much better on curbs and the addition of the TC2 helps so much getting out of corner. All in all much better, even though I was a bit slower than with the EVO, setup work is needed though as the aggressive preset is quite safe in comparison. Hopefully the R8 is back in a somewhat competitive shape!

 

I think you can tell from real life the EVO model wasn't as successful as the 2016 model, so it would make sense for it not to be too great on ACC. It's also likely the reason they came out with the EVO2 relatively soon.