iRacing GT3 Balance of Performance 2021 Season 1

Hello Ladies and Gentleman and welcome to the video so many of you have been asking for… Well, the wait is over, and it’s finally here. 7 Manufacturers. 1 Class of car. 5 Different Tests were run with numerous factors put into consideration. Outright Straight Line Speed. Acceleration. Laptime. Fuel Consumption; and by popular demand, Tyre Wear as well. In each of these five tests, the cars will be given points to determine a result, but of course, these end-scores are not to be looked into too heavily.

00:40 - They are to give you a rough idea of the form guide in the circumstances I have put the cars through, and other factors may influence whether a car is competitive or not. Without further ado, though, let’s dig into what we’ve got. Test One and we’re putting the car on the high-banks of iRacing Superspeedway to see just how fast these cars will go. This test is an extreme example and only really influences circuits like Le Mans and the Nurburgring Nordschleife where the straight-line speed of the car plays a significant role in the outright laptime. Amazingly, six of the cars found themselves within 1.9km/h at their Peak Speed around the lap.

01:19 - The outright slowest car in a straight line was sadly the Mercedes AMG GT3 though at a lonely 284km/h. The Mercedes has always been known for its good stability in particular on low-downforce settings, but in the current Balance of Performance, the speed isn’t there this time around. The Mclaren would also be down the order in sixth place, although much closer to the mark set by the Top 5. The new for Season 1 BMW M4 GT3 would kickstart this test with a 4th placed finish at 287km/h, narrowly behind the 3rd placed Lamborghini Huracan and Ford GT GT3. As is often the case though, when you give it a wide-open road to stretch its legs, the Ferrari 488 GT3 is the car you want.

02:06 - For a while when the Virtual Racing School GT Sprint Series has gone to Le Mans, you see a flock of Ferrari’s, and I don’t think this will be changing anytime soon as it ends up almost a full km/h faster than it’s nearest competitor. But, just how fast is the Ferrari able to get to that speed? We put the cars in the back of a truck and hauled them down to Sonoma Raceway in California to see how the cars faired on the drag-strip. Using our usual approach, we sent the cars down the drag-strip one by one and recorded the time it took them from the 70km/h Pit Speed Limit, to reach 120kph, 200kp/h and also to make their way to the end of the straight entirely and face plant the wall. Starting with our Italian Stallion that took out the Opening Test, we get our benchmark results. However, they didn’t stack up very well, in fact, the very next car we tested which was Second Fastest at iRacing Superspeedway, the Ford GT GT3, beat the Ferrari in all three segments.

03:06 - But it got much, much worse for the Ferrari; in fact, at the end of all seven cars, these two would end up as the slowest in all three segments by some margin compared to the remaining five cars. The fastest car this time around would still be Italian though, the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO getting an almost perfect score, with the fastest times to 120kp/h and the End of the Straight, and the second-fastest time in the race to 200kp/h. It likely only lost out in the 2nd of these three tests simply due to the gearbox of the car, and when it needed to upshift, otherwise I could have seen it taking out all three tests. The car that did beat it in the race to 200kp/h though was the other new kid on the street, the BMW M4 GT3 which performed very well indeed. The BMW would take out Second Place in this test overall ahead of the Mclaren MP4-12c which came back from a disappointing Straight-Line Speed test.

04:03 - To round out the seven cars, The Audi R8 LMS would beat out the Mercedes AMG to finish fourth place in this particular test. Sadly after two rounds though, a fifth-place would not keep the Mercedes off the bottom of the leaderboard, whilst the newcomers Lamborghini and BMW currently sit 1st and 2nd respectively. But, next up was the actual test for these cars—the laptime challenge. We took the cars to the land of the Rising Sun, to Twin Ring Motegi to get an idea of just how quick the cars could go through the twisty bits as well. This is one of our only tests that features the cars cornering ability, so, therefore, this round will be everyone’s favourite, double points because Laptimes are at the end of the day, what Balance of Performance is all dedicated too.

04:57 - Currently bottom of the leaderboard, we sent the Mercedes AMG GT3 out first to get our benchmark times. As always, we will be judging the cars on their Optimal Laptime throughout 5x three-lap runs, but I’ve also included sector times for your viewing pleasure. The Mercedes, as always, is extremely stable and never feel’s in danger of over-rotating. Its traction out of corners was also very strong and I believe will serve it very well at the end of the laptime challenge. At the end of the run, the Mercedes AMG put in a time of 1:50.2.

05:28 - Would this finally be the test that the AMG would get a big score on the board? I sent the Mclaren MP4-12C out second, and there could not be a bigger difference between these two cars in terms of driving feel if you tried. The Mclaren has a very unique driving style required, and trail braking technique is super important, as is getting onto the throttle both hard and quickly to get mid-corner rotation and exit speed. The Mclaren was a surprise package with not just one, but two Purple Sectors out of the seven cars overall. But, despite the flamethrower doing everything it could, it would end up just seven hundredths shy of the AMG’s time. Sector 4 in this car which features long flowing corners, I just wasn’t able to get it onto a similar benchmark to the other cars and as such it was let down here, losing two-tenths compared to the Mercedes here.

06:23 - Next up was the Lamborghini’s german cousin, the Audi R8 LMS. While the Mclaren will understeer if you get your trail braking wrong, this car loves to burst into over-rotation if you get your braking trace even slightly wrong. It’s very nervous at times and requires much more attention to get the most out of. Being mid-engined, it’s traction out of corners, in particular, was very strong compared to the Mercedes. Using this to full effect, the car would take the Purple Sector in Sector 1 out of all the cars, but would it be enough!? After all the cars’ runs had been completed, it couldn’t knock the Mercedes off the top spot, coming up just three-hundredths shy and splitting inbetween the Mclaren.

07:07 - Next up, was the Ford GT GT3, and honestly, I’m just going to put the result up on the screen right away for you guys. This car is very awkward to drive. It’s best days are well behind it, I think everybody can agree on that, but the Force Feedback feel in this car was incredibly weird and very hard to get my head around. When turning into a corner, the first 30 to 40 degree’s of steering lock, the feel is exactly as you would expect, but anything beyond 40 degree’s of lock, which let’s face it, is 99.9% of all corners, you lose all feel over the front tyres. If this car had FFB in-line with the rest of the GT3 cars, I am sure I could have gotten at least another two tenths out of it, but the fact is in the amount of time I had with each car, this was by far the most uncomfortable I was in any of them.

07:54 - Getting back to normality, we went into the Ferrari 488 GT3 to see if the Italian Stallion could bounce back from a flawed second test, and reclaim the top spot in the laptime challenge. Sadly, it’s hopes and dreams were crushed pretty quickly. The car is quick, and it does feel excellent to drive, but sadly I think the strengths of the Ferrari over a lap, just couldn’t be used here at Motegi. It’s a track that did not work in the car’s favour, and sadly it would end up a tenth and a half shy of the Mercedes. If we had tested around a circuit like Spa or even Barcelona, I think we could have seen the Ferrari be further up the order.

08:29 - Our second last car to take to the track was the BMW M4 GT3. This car is incredibly stable to drive, and it puts up almost no fight at all. It’s very comfortable and effortless to push, and it helps that it’s pretty quick as well. A slow start to the lap with the second slowest Sector 1 time, but the car would bounce back in a big way, and going faster than the Mercedes in Sector 2, 4 and 5, along with a Purple Sector Three, the BMW would topple it’s compatriot and take the top spot away by just over a tenth of a second. So far, the Balance of Performance was looking very good.

09:04 - But our current points leader was the last car to hit the track. The Lamborghini Huracan has much of its DNA just like the Audi R8 LMS. It’s very sensitive on the brakes, but once you get it under control, it is super competitive in the high-speed corners in particular with its Mid-Engined layout. Pair this up with the great Acceleration it has, it took Purple Sectors in Sectors’ Four and Five, whilst being faster than the BMW in Sectors One and Two as well. It was a little unstable through the final sequence of corners, and you had to wrestle the car, but when you pulled it off, the Lamborghini would take out yet another challenge with the fastest laptime of all the GT3 cars; beating out the BMW by just two-hundredths of a second.

09:51 - With this result, the Lamborghini begins to pull away quite nicely in the overall standings from the BMW, while the Audi R8 leads a very close group of cars from third back to seventh. Our next two tests could shake this middle pack up quite significantly though! Next up, was the Tyre Wear test that so many of you had requested since the GT4 video, and then again in the GTE video, so, here we are! Taking the cars to the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit, where the track temperature is a little over 46 degree’s, and the track is entirely green for maximum graining. Each car would go through a set number of laps, and I’d record the wear on each tyre, and work backward from there to get our Degradation per lap for each car. The Ferrari would finish at the bottom of the table here as the only car to suffer from over 2% of wear per lap in these hot conditions. However, the Mclaren wasn’t far behind at all on 1.

95% per lap, meaning both these cars 10:51 - would struggle to make it to Lap 50 without the tyres exploding entirely. Mid-Engined cars are typically better on tyre wear then Front-Engined cars, so it was a surprise to see two of them in the bottom two spots. However, the two Front-Engined cars didn’t make it very far either as expected, with the BMW and Mercedes tying on 1.8% of Degradation per lap, which would get them to a theoretical Lap 55 before letting go. The Ford GT GT3 was a surprise package in Third Place at 1.

68%, which was very close 11:23 - to knocking off the Lamborghini in Second place at 1.65%. But, after being in the middle of the pack for many tests, the Audi R8 LMS would finally get its breakthrough win in a test with a Degradation per lap of just 1.6%, lending itself to an impressive theoretical 62 laps before a tyre let’s go. This result would officially put the Lamborghini Huracan out of mathematical range of being caught and would be guaranteed to take out the Top Spot. But, the fight behind was still on into our final test.

11:57 - Fuel Consumption is a big part of GT3 racing, with Fuel Saving and underfueling to gain track position a common sight, so it had to be tested. Throughout the Straight Line Speed Test, Laptime Test and Tyre Wear Tests, I was recording the fuel numbers for all cars as well. I’ve then converted the fuel usage into a Percentage of the cars total fuel capacity. With the varying displacements of these cars, the Fuel Tank sizes vary from car to car between 110 litres, all the way up to 130 litres, so using the fuel burn per lap by itself would be unfair to cars who do use more fuel per lap, but have a bigger tank size to accommodate this. I then combined all these fuel burn percentages from the three circuits to give us our end scores.

12:41 - Unbelievably, the Lamborghini Huracan came out on top once again, over its german cousin; the Audi R8 LMS. The Ford GT GT3 would surprise once again with the third-best consumption throughout these tests. The Ferrari’s up and down score-sheet continues with a 4th placed ranking at 8.05% of fuel used throughout these tests. The Mercedes AMG would round out the Top 5 ahead of a disappointing result for the BMW M4 GT3 at an enormous 8.19% of fuel consumption over the three laps. This car had been scoring pretty well throughout all the tests, but finally, a weakness has been found in the BMW’s armour.

13:19 - The last place would go to the Mclaren in the end despite having the largest Fuel Tank to play with at a monstrous 130 litres. So, that wraps up all Five Tests, but where exactly does that get us?! The last place based on points, unfortunately, goes to the Mclaren MP4-12C GT3. Whilst the Acceleration of the car is quite good, several factors, unfortunately, let the car down. The Ferrari only just escaped a last-place finish by 1 point, but again several factors meant this particular car struggled in these tests. Great straight-line speed will surely be a big benefit to running the Ferrari at circuits like Le Mans, and it is a car that takes kerbs very well, but sadly instead of Kerbs, this time it’ll have to just take an L.

14:06 - Fifth place goes to the Ford GT GT3, and honestly, this car could have scored much higher than Fifth if the car was more comfortable to drive over a lap. 7th place in the Double Points round hurt this car’s chances, as just Fourth Place in the laptime challenge would have seen the Ford ranked as the second- best car. The very odd steering feel and Force Feedback let it down though, and it wasn’t just last at Motegi, but a distant last. The Mercedes AMG GT3 would round out our tests in Fourth, but I would have liked to see this car score higher. It’s a personal favourite of mine, in fact, I even have a 1:12 Scale Model of my Daytona 24 Hour winning livery, but the Straight Line Speed and Acceleration just aren’t there this time around in the Mercedes’ Balance of Performance.

14:49 - We’re going to skip third place and go straight to Second Place as we see a tie between the Audi and BMW. Both cars have very different strengths and weaknesses, and when one is strong, the other is weak. It’s a unique balance between the two, but both did extremely well over the course of the tests, with the Audi never finishing worse than 5th in a test, and the BMW having two-second place finishes. But, the first placed Lamborghini never really looked challenged. Comfortably outscoring its competition, and never finishing off the podium in any of the tests.

15:23 - The scoreboard does give off a false sense of impression that the Lamborghini is over-powered though. The BMW M4 GT3 ran the Lamborghini to within 2 points in the Acceleration test and completed the entire drag-strip run just three-hundredths of a second slower. It was even closer at Motegi though with the BMW narrowly missing out against the Lamborghini by just two-hundredths of a second. In the Fuel Consumption battle, the Audi got within.03% of total consumption, and then beat it by.05% in the Tyre Wear Test.

15:54 - The Lamborghini was just on the right side of the close margins every time. Ladies and Gentleman, I’m going to wrap the video up there because this has been an insane undertaking for me. I’ve been flat-out over the past five days to make this video happen so please please please like the video, hit subscribe and share it around as well. I would appreciate it, oh so much!! I’m Beau Albert, I’ll see you all in the next video, but I can tell you right now it’s not going to be another Balance of Performance video for a while!! .