2010A4-Portimao-TrackGuide-v1

Team	Event	Venue	By	Date
	2010A4	Portimao	Andy Jones	2010-01-17

Track Layout

Find the image here: Portimao2

Turn by Turn

	Easy
	Caution
	Risk

Turn Notes

Turn	Description	Entry	Apex	Exit	Gear	Comment
1	Right				3	Fast turn downhill, so a risk of running wide
2	Kink				4	Flat
3	Hairpin				2	Better grip than you might expect allows good speed through this hairpin.
4	Left				3	The car goes light over the crest so have to be very easy on the throttle and wait.
5	Hairpin				1/2	Downhill so early braking and a decent straight afterwards means looking for a late apex
6	Kink				4	Flat
7	Sweeper Right				2	Can turn this tightening sweeper into one smooth turn to take the sharp angle uphill. Again the exit leads onto a decent straight, so exit speed is the objective.
8	Sweeper Left				4	Flat
9	Right				2	Very tricky tightening right hander as the track falls away. Very easy to run wide, so the safe way is to take the latest apex you can find. Not too sure about the wear line on the track surface here - there's a line that turns in later to a late apex. Also easy to over-rotate on exit. Everything is difficult here.
10	Sweeper Left				3	Flat
11	Left				1/2	Blind, sharp left. Brake before the crest, then ease off the brakes as you reach the rise.
12	Hairpin				2	Classic opportunity for a late apex on a hairpin leading on to a straight. Objective is to get to full throttle as early as possible.
13	Sweeper Right				5	Flat all the way from the hairpin the the start/finish. I find it best not to double apex this sweeper although that is how it looks at first sight. Better to stay a little left through the early part of the turn with a single apex just on entry to the straight.

Key Risks and Opportunities

The key risk at Portimao is getting lost - with so many blind crests and vaguely similar hairpins, you should prepare welll enough to get the line well established.

The second risk area is the many elevation changes combined with variations in the camber. That means that the grip in each turn has to be explored separately as it will vary depending on the rise and fall.

The third area of challenge is the choice of wing. There are many slow turns combined with what is in effect a very long straight with a downhill finish. In the lap replay for this track, top speed is just over 300kph.

Benchmarks

2010A Trained AI

AI seems unusually slow here.

Previous GMWC Rounds

Other Files

A reference lap replay and supporting Motec on the MRDC10A-02-SOFT-25-SPRINT setup are here 2010A4-Portimao-TrackFiles-v1