Chassis design

The **Chassis Design** process starts when you receive an email from your Lead Designer. You then have to choose from a variety of suppliers in four different categories, **Engine**, **Fuel**, **Material** and **Brakes**. Depending on the rules of the series there are three other things you can choose: **ERS** supplier, **Rear Package** and **Nose Height**. The four standard suppliers affect your car's **Tyre Wear**, **Tyre Heating**, **Fuel Consumption** and **Improvability,** and the ERS supplier affects the **Starting Charge**, **Harvest Rate** and **ERS** **Type**.

## Budget

To finance your design you get all the money you allocated after each race to 'Next Year's Car' in the **Finance** screen. It is recommended that you set this as high as you can afford to. It is likely that you will want to spend a bit more than you have allocated so try to save a bit of money at the end of the season or from your prize money to help subsidise your chassis design.

## Chassis Ratings

Your chassis will receive star ratings in four categories: **Tyre Wear**, **Tyre Heating**, **Fuel Consumption** and **Improvability.**

### Tyre Wear

Affects how faster your tyres wear, principally in the race. Good tyre wear will mean your drivers can do longer stints or push the tyres harder.

### Tyre Heating

Affects how quickly your tyres heat up and cool down. Good tyre heating will allow your drivers to push for longer before the tyres overheat or conserve the tyres without losing temperature so quickly.

### Fuel Consumption

Affects how quickly your car burns fuel. Good fuel consumption will allow your drivers to drive longer stints or use higher engine modes for longer. The game works by sorting all the cars in a series into thirds based on their fuel consumption. The top third (for single seater and GT series the three teams in the championship with the most stars for fuel efficiency, for endurance series the best two teams) use 25% less fuel per lap than normal, the bottom third use 10% more and the remaining teams in the middle third use the normal amount of fuel per lap.

### Improvability

Affects how much you can improve your components by. Each star is worth 8 points of performance, so each component on a five star chassis will have a maximum value 40 points higher than the same component on a zero star chassis. The starting performance level of each component is unchanged, so for example an engine on a zero star chassis could have a performance level of 160 and max of 180. On a five star chassis the same component would have a performance level of 160 but a max of 220. This improvement carries forward to any new parts designed during the season as well.

## Suppliers

### Engine

Engine suppliers are rated in four categories:

* **Fuel Efficiency** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Improvability** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Base Stat Modifier** (a number that is added to the base performance stat of all of your new components)
* **Cost**

### Fuel

Fuel supplies are rated in three categories:

* **Fuel Efficiency** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Improvability** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Cost**

### Materials

Materials suppliers are rated in three categories:

* **Tyre Wear** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Tyre Heating** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Cost**

### Brakes

Brake suppliers are rated in three categories:

* **Tyre Wear** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Tyre Heating** (from *very weak* to *very strong*)
* **Cost**

### ERS

ERS suppliers are only available if your series has allowed ERS and the details depend on which form of ERS has been allowed. ERS suppliers are rated in three categories:

* **Starting Charge** (from 0-100%)
* **Harvest Rate**
* **Cost**

If the series has Advanced ERS enabled you will also have to choose the type of ERS (Battery, Supercapacitor or Flywheel).

## Rear Package and Nose Height

These choices are only available in the World Motorsport Championship. Adjusting the height of your car's Rear Package allows you to fine tune Tyre Heating and Improvability and adjusting your car's Nose Height affects Tyre Wear and Fuel Efficiency. These are trade offs so raising the Rear Package will increase Improvability but decrease Tyre Heating while increasing Nose Height will improve Fuel Efficiency but make Tyre Wear worse.

## Dilemmas

Once you have chosen your suppliers and other adjustments you enter pre-season. During pre-season you will get up to three Dilemmas which can affect your car. These will either allow you to improve one rating on your car in return for a reduced rating on another (e.g. +1 Tyre Heating, -1 Tyre Wear) or improve a rating (or, if you're unlucky, not reduce a rating) for a certain cost (usually quite high). You can choose to accept or decline these. Once these dilemmas have been dealt with your chassis construction is complete and it's time for pre-season testing.

## Strategy

For help on choosing suppliers, look at this guide on Steam.