Welcome to the Porsche 992 GT3R release notes blog. In this page you will find the detailed notes compiled by the team after each session when creating the fast and safe variants of the new CDA4 Porsche 992 GT3R setups. Please carry on reading below to see what our team found:
Brands Hatch
- The car behaviour/balance is influenced by both the front and rear of the car in combination so changing one end will affect the other end, particularly with the bumpstops, where the front bumpstop range has a big effect on car handling and general rotation.
- The rear camber can be good for slow speed balance tuning whereas the ride height, diff and arbs are predominately used to balance high speed.
Misano
- The safe set runs a click softer on the rear wheel rate with more preload. This ensures that the car has better traction, whilst still getting good late exit rotation along with more braking stability.
- If you feel too much understeer on exit of turns lower TC2 to 5, if you prefer an even more stable car use TC2 to 7.
Nurburgring
- Very low bars and negative toe-in work well on this track, if you’re struggling with the car on turn entry you can lower the toe-in/raise the brake bias.
- If you feel understeer instead raise the front bumpstops.
Paul Ricard
- A very soft wheel rate configuration has been used to keep the car as low as possible to maximise straight line speed. This also helps with more precise pitch control, in conjunction with the stiffer dampers.
Silverstone
- Increase the brake bias if you feel too much oversteer under braking, you can try something around 53/54%, in turn 11 try not to brake as much as possible, just lift the throttle, otherwise you might destabilise the car.
Spa Francorchamps
- The top priority for Spa is to ensure that the vehicle does not clip the ground at Radilion at the top of the hill through sector 1. Hence wheel rates and bumpstop ranges have been adjusted to suit this specific requirement.
- In order to optimise response having focussed on mechanical grip, the anti roll bar stiffness has also been adjusted. This provides more aero stability through the 2nd and 3rd sectors of the track.
- If the Q set is too on edge, going less negative/more positive on the toe will add some stability back into the setup.
Suzuka
- Both the fast and qualifying setups runs stiffer ARB combinations to give the car more agility and response through the first sector, thereby giving them more potential. However this naturally makes the working window for tyre saturation much smaller so it requires more precision to use, albeit being faster.
- The safer variant on the other hand is more forgiving under direction changes and this is an optimal starting point while first getting used to the track and car combination.
- The preload has also been set quite high to work with the current high speed balance, but can still work well with a few clicks on the lower side, if you require more off throttle rotation.
Zandvoort
- The rear bump damping has been decreased to increase stability when braking, the differential preload has also been raised to give more stability when entering turns and to have a good rotation when accelerating out of fast corners.
For the safe setup the rear height and toe-in was lowered to reduce oversteer.
For qualifying the camber was put all negative to maximise lateral grip in turns, the toe-in was also put very negative for the same reason, but the front bumpstops were lowered so as not to compromise the car’s stability in turn
Zolder
- To keep the car most stable over kerbs you need to keep at least a bit of throttle input while going over them. With no throttle the front will be more prone to scraping and the unloaded rear can bounce and lose traction. This is most important for the second and last chicane.
- Turn 1 can be pretty aggressive with the Q setup so you may need to use a bit of throttle to keep the rear from pitching too much
Barcelona
- The Barcelona fast setup was created to be used as a reference baseline for multiple other high downforce tracks similar to other cars. A relatively lower ARB configuration works well for the car, since stiffer roll stiffness combinations causes excessive grip loss.
- Stiffer damper values are also being used as this particular suspension compromise works well with the Porsche currently. Running a relatively softer wheel rate configuration along with much stiffer damper values to control pitch, helps the car get into the aero window in a quick and controlled manner. This is more important when the ARBs are being run as low as they are in the current setups.
- The car is set up quite aggressively so it is important to modulate throttle on exits and be smooth with initial inputs on corner exits.
Donington Park
- If you struggle with grip on corner exit you can try to increase the rear toe. Lowering the diff can also help, but keep in mind this will increase the rotation on corner entry.
- If you struggle with entry oversteer in the high speed sections you can always try to reduce the rear ride height or front bumpstop range.
- If you want to improve the direction in the chicane you can stiffen the arbs overall. Bare in mind this can have a negative impact on kerb compliance.
Laguna Seca
- If you struggle with traction issues you can increase the rear toe.
- Entry oversteer can be reduced by decreasing the front bumpstop range or rear ride height.
- Be careful with the downshift in turn 3. If you do it too late the car can snap.
- Enter turn 4 rather already in 4th gear to prevent the overation from the upshift.
Kyalami
- If you have trouble with traction you can increase the rear toe.
- If you struggle with entry oversteer in the high speed you can try reducing the front bumstop range or rear ride height.
- It is important that you are careful when you lift the throttle to rotate the car, because it will immediately rotate quite heavily. Because of that you don’t want to overdo it, you need to be precise
- In the quick chicane (sector 2) don’t cut too much of the first kerb as this can lead to heavy oscillations
Hungaroring
- Soft spring used to have good traction, the car was raised a few clicks at the front so it could absorb the bumps better.
- In turn 1 you can decrease the TC by 1 click for better traction.
Monza
- Using Paul Ricard as a baseline due to the long straight and slow chicanes, we noticed a very big gain of performance increasing the roll stiffness of the car. ARB at the maximum is highly advisable to be quick here.
- At the same time, we found an optimal wing at 2, but we set 3 in the safe setup to make it more stable. However, the loss is not important. The optimal ride height was 59mm, low for this car but the efficiency gained in the straights was worth it.
- Lower differential and ARB help to control the car with the safe setup
Imola
- Stiffer slow bump damping appears to give less understeer which shows that too much roll on the front end can destabilise the aero easily.
- In addition to this, softening the low speed bump damping too much causes the fast dampers to engage too quickly thereby propping the car up too quickly on the kerbs. Despite appearing counter intuitive, this combination works better both on the kerbs and in high speed corners.
- In turn 14/15 (high variant), make sure you are very precise on entry, you will have to hit both bumps with 15/20% throttle, this will limit the car’s tendency to jump in this turn.
Mount Panorama
- Before you go downhill over the mountain, make sure you don’t brake over the crest itself and brake after but ensure you are not braking with overly aggressive steering application.
- Easy to lock up into Forest Elbow if you carry too much speed/throttle into the braking zone. Need to find the right line for your driving style to prevent the wheels from locking.
- If the car is overly nervous making the downhill section across the mountain a struggle then raising the diff preload can help with this.
- Positive rear toe can be used as a small adjustment for traction and rotation.
Snetterton
- Stiffer rear arb allows a much more agile entry into 90 degree corners but can be a cause of oversteer.
- Staying in 1st gear on exits provides better grip out of the hairpins compared to shortshifting into 2nd.
- Low TC is used for fast exits out of hairpins. To provide enough grip in the rest of the corners very soft rear suspension and dampers are necessary.
- Rotation in the second last corner is limited more by the stiffness of front suspension rather than rake.
Oulton Park
- Stiff spring combination allows for an overall much smoother drive. It also stabilises the car while cutting the kerb in first chicane and also in the very fast Island Bend.
- Lowering front bumpstop range is very effective for controlling oversteer in low speed exits.
- The aggressive Race Fast setup may require mid-corner throttle input to stabilise the rear and keep it from oversteering.
Watkins Glen
- Car is much more stable at high 26psi pressures so remember to let the pressure build up before pushing. Low pressures will cause oversteer into Bus Stop due to excessive diving as well as understeer through T1 as tire sidewall doesn’t provide enough support for the lateral forces.
- The Porsche requires very very tight steering inputs in corners. Pushing the front tires over their grip limit will grain them very quickly and cause a lot of understeer
- Changes to differential preload are very subtle so it can be easily used to adjust on/off throttle behaviour to one’s liking.
- Rear tires are burning on Watkins and it is crucial to monitor the surface temps. Big spread of surface temps causes a big loss of traction. Lowering the rear camber (up to a point) can provide much more grip.
- Keep the car in 4th gear in Outer Loop and 3rd in Chute to get better rotation from entry to apex
COTA
- Being a circuit very similar to Silverstone, that setup was taken as a baseline to start in COTA. However, the car initially suffered from understeer, so the rake was increased. Stiffer ARB also helped to have faster change of direction in the high speed corner.
- For the safe setup, it helped to soften the ARB and decrease the rake, to make it oversteer less.
- In qualifying, higher camber and toe helps to warm up the tires faster and increase the grip in fast corners.
- Slightly higher pressures than usual were used, (around 27.0/1) this was to aid stability in the snake
- For the race if you feel the electronics are too invasive even the TC at 3 works well.
Indianapolis
- If you want to have a more stable direction change you can run a stiffer front arb.
- If you struggle with oversteer on corner entry you can try to reduce the front bumpstop range or decrease the rear ride height.
- Be careful with the downshifts, as they unsettle the car heavily, especially for the entry in turn 3, you want to keep it in 3rd gear to prevent the downshift.
Valencia
- Medium-high rake philosophy
- Reasonably soft springs with stiff dampers.
- Stiff fast dampers better kerb behaviour.
- Max wing as the track is almost all corners.
- Less aggressive toe/damper for race stints.
- Low preload to help rotation.
- Safe setup uses a stiffer front spring, more preload, less bump range front, more bump range rear.
- Quali setup uses increased preload, higher rake, softer springs and toe-out all round.
Team List
Please note sessions without an engineer were solo sessions:
Track | Driver | Engineer |
Barcelona | Hubert Szymanski | Saiduth Ramesh |
Hungaroring | Amedeo Castorino | |
Imola | Amedeo Castorino | Saiduth Ramesh |
Kyalami | Gregor Schill | |
Laguna Seca | Gregor Schill | |
Misano | Amedeo Castorino | Saiduth Ramesh |
Monza | Aidan Walsingham | Miguel Jimenez |
Mount Panorama | Jakob Ostermann | Nick Deeley |
Nurburgring | Amedeo Castorino | |
Paul Ricard | Amedeo Castorino | Saiduth Ramesh |
Spa Francorchamps | Taariq Adam / Amedeo Castorino | Saiduth Ramesh / Nick Deeley |
Suzuka | Amedeo Dekeyser | Saiduth Ramesh |
Zandvoort | Amedeo Castorino | |
Zolder | Hubert Szymanski | Saiduth Ramesh |
Brands Hatch | Jakob Ostermann | Nick Deeley |
Donington | Gregor Schill | |
Oulton Park | Hubert Szymanski | |
Snetterton | Hubert Szymanski | |
Silverstone | Amedeo Castorino | |
Watkins Glen | Hubert Szymanski | |
Indianapolis | Gregor Schill | |
COTA | Amedeo Castorino | Miguel Jimenez |
Valencia | Amedeo Castorino | Rob Taplin |