Mustang Training

I spent my driving time over the last few days putting in a decent number of laps in the Mustang, in preparation for the Grand Touring Cup for 2015 Season 2. I've really enjoyed it. The fun really comes from balancing the weight on corner entry and then carefully feeding the gobs of power through the thin tires on corner exit. It is very satisfying when you get it right and I've found that I'm able to catch the rear end when I get it wrong.

I started tinkering with setups, using the excellent Black Adder set as my baseline. I've made a few adjustments to it and created my own baseline. I started off at Phillip Island and found a few tweaks which helped bring down my lap times. I've also put in a good amount of time at Okayama and Summit Point, again finding a few little changes from the baseline. Since the current GTC series is at Laguna Seca I also did some practice and a race there.

As much as I was enjoying these test sessions and setup tweaking I'm aware that the upcoming changes to the suspension code across the whole service will probably mean I'll need to do it all over again. So I didn't continue working on setups for other tracks. Still, I think it has been good to get an understanding of the effects various changes have.

The main thing I've been focused on when tweaking setups has been finding the right combination of front rebound damping and rear compression strength. These two work in combination to change the rate at which the weight is put onto the rear axle as I'm accelerating out of corners. If it transitions too quickly I have to be very, very careful feeding the power on.