Practice - Andernach

SETUP Update Matrix Z36 Tires

Last weekend I was in Andernach in preparation for the upcoming ETS race in almost 1 weeks time. I started out testing the steel and aluminum chassis to compare them back to back in similar conditions.

I noticed pretty quickly that the steel chassis was performing way above my expectations. On new tires the drop-off was extremely small which made it a lot easier to hit the corners consistently throughout the run. Additionally, On used tires I was reallyysurprised on how much grip the car was still able to build up and I went further than 5 batteries with a very good performance.

The alu chassis on the contrary was a little more challenging as it didn’t quite work as well as the steel chassis. It was more edgy to drive in general and wasn’t as performative as the steel chassis. It did show great performance right after the track dried up on Sunday morning, which leads me to conclude that it can definitely be competitive just with a much smaller setup window.

I proceeded to only run the steel chassis and try a few different changes on the car to find some further improvements.

Changing the shock oil to 550 seems to be a very good change in hot conditions, which we already found out at the euros and now once again confirmed even on the matrix tire. This makes the car more aggressive, therefore also wears the tire more, but as the tire wear in Andernach is already minimal I feel like this was a very good change and is very profitable.

Next I tried lowering the upper bulkhead roll center to try and gain more traction and camber gain. I was especially surprised by this change and how it worked out so well. I felt like this made the car more grippy on used tires and didn’t affect new tire runs at all. The car was more precise to drive through the fast chicanes and made it more consistent to drive as well.

The one piece top-deck was also another game changer this weekend. Especially when the sun was out mid-day I noticed that the my car was losing front traction more and more. The one piece was the perfect solution as it shift the flex pivot point more rearwards with one screw and therefore provided more front traction. This made the lap times towards the end of a run a lot more consistent, further decreasing drop-off. Definitely recommend everyone to try this!

Last but not least I played around with upstop a bit more. On a smooth and technical track like Andernach there is not really a need for low unstop values. I ended up with a 6mm screw + 1mm shim. This is something I will further follow next weekend when I’m back in Andernach and play around with a bit more.

I’ll also give the carbon chassis a try next weekend as I didn’t quite get to it and wanted to focus on the steel car first of all. I must say though that the first time running the car out of the box with the kit setup was very promising and overgrew my expectations. It was a huge difference to the last time I was at the track with the SP1 on this track, which motivates me a lot!