General tips to improve lap times

I'm starting by posting a replay file of me doing the Spa in the Mazda MX5 Cup. No YouTube account yet so I hope it won't be too annoying.
I kept improving my times each lap. I used stock setup but reduced brake pressure since my pedals reach max output very early.

I hope for tips both in setup tweaks to get more grip and how to find time on the track in general.

Cheers!

Edit: The title should have *requested* in it

 

Since it's more convenient, here's the video:

(set as unlisted and only linked here)

As you said in the other thread, a FFB wheel will help you feel what the car is doing.

What I notice, you can carry more speed at some turns.

0:14: you hold the line too tight towards the exit and could accelerate earlier while using the track width.

0:20: don't coast, throttle as long as possible and then brake (even if it's just a short tap), also if the car understeers (loud tire squeel) don't turn in more (very evident at Bus Stop chicane), that will only increase understeer and the car ultimately loses speed for the straight, again use the full track width on exit

0:33: carry more speed and use the track width

0:47: a little late on the brakes and therefore missed the turn-in, in the following left you (at lap time from 1:56.2 to 1:57) you opened your steering, so you weren't near the inside curbs and got a bad trajectory, leading to understeer, losing speed and again too much steering lock to make the understeer worse


1:01: that is pretty good, it should look like that in more turns (maybe a tiny bit earlier turn-in and a little bit more speed still possible, but pretty good overall)
the following section is just full throttle, nothing much to tell ( in faster cars you could take a bit wider line on entry for Blanchimont)

1:41: too late into Busstop chicane, so strong understeer and the bad habid of turning in more which increases the understeer, worsens your line and costs speed, added by worse traction with later possibility to apply throttle
try staying on the right side of the track on the first part of Busstop to have a wider line for the left turn, so you can carry more speed and accelerate earlier


general tip: train yourself to be a bit more patience on throttle in & out of turns if you have understeer, hold back a bit more, ease off the throttle a bit earlier, if you do it right you gain more by maintaining momentum over onto the straight then you actually lose by fearing you would lose by using too little or too late throttle


I think I have a Spa replay somewhere, I'll upload that too with pedal inputs. (Edit: sorry, it was from a race and had too much distractions in it for a good example lap)

 

My 2cts:
- the default setup is too stiff, soften it massively;
- check the tyre pressure after 5-6 laps in a row: it must not be far from the ideal pressure or you lose seconds per lap.

 

The lap delta app is your best friend

It'll tell you how well you're taking a corner, but more importantly it'll tell you how good your corner exit speed was.... get a great exit and you'll see the predicted lap time count down at a very satisfying rate all the way down the next straight.

You can then experiment with corner entry speed and mid corner speed but ensure you get a good exit every time. Slow In, Fast Out is a good starting point, eventually you can start working on fast in, and finally on fast mid corner speeds too, but not at the expense of exit speed.

 

Recently I found out that geting from 35 fps to 70 fps and updating from 12years old monitor to more recent good resolution monitor helps quite a bit to be faster lol

Then a less recently found out that following ideal pressures and having tire app on all the time is a must. It is great that Kunos default tire app shows ideal pressures now. You can start learning how to do a setup from there.

Also laptime delta is quite a cheat for braking points, even if you don't have time to look at it in more intense races, it massively helps to learn braking points and more... just keep braking later and later till you aren't loosing midturn and exit trajectory.

Use as much track as possible to straighten your trajectory as much as possible.

EDIT: use enhanced understeer FFB effect, at least for me it is very helpful, and feels good

 

Thanks soo much for all your advice! I think I got the bad habit of trying to force the steering to grip by turning harder after playing too much on the xbox. The only way is to slow further until the squealing stop but not increase the steering input if I understood correctly.
Slow in Fast out will be a new mantra instead of trying to push it everywhere. I guess the monitor makes the speed look slow while it's actually too fast.
New G29 wheel is on the shopping list.
I have about 133-144 fps while driving so I can't blame the hardware

 

Once the front tyres are sliding, no amount of extra steering is going to help in AC. Instead ease off the gas gently to get the weight of the car to shift forwards, that will help give more front end grip, also unwind the steering to "hook up" the front tyres and get them gripping again. Feels counter intuitive at first but you'll soon get used to it.

Slow in, fast out is a great starting point, you'll soon find it doesn't apply in every circumstance but by then you'll have figured out what works for you.

And simracers can always blame hardware

 

@Schnipp great bunch of advices, thank you from me too! personally i have realised that while i can make 8.36.555 at Nord Endurance i still suck at late apex trajectory on Nurb GT so i practice more intense now

 

Use the back tires as a reference to hit the apex & use the whole width of the track. You will naturally compensate accordingly to the traction layout of the car.

 

Great tip. Aiming correctly for the apex is difficult and I always see it disappear way off to the side. I'll start inching closer to the track edge now that I know how to make the tyres grip. Have also had trouble trusting my ability to fight the oversteer at power on so I've been overly cautious and playing it safe.

Is it possible to load someone elses Ghost car file into AC?

 

What I saw from the video, here's my 2cents:
-As was said before, the racing line in general could be much improved.

-Learn how to take a corner by using entry, apex and exit points. It's perfectly natural to find this a daunting task but if you want to get fast and become consistent you need markers.
The first thing you want to do when you start going around is making sure you have a brake marker for every corner. This eventually will eliminate the possibility of understeering through a corner because if you have a clear brake marker that you know will slow you down sufficiently, the only thing that can go wrong is that you turn the car in at the wrong time. I'm a pretty quick driver and brake markers are still the first thing I get down everytime I get in a car on track. The only corners I really use turning points for are obviously blind corners and or fast corners. Mostly I just turning from feel or knowledge of the track but I rarely find myself using them. What I usually do if I'm struggling with a corner with a car I know is if I'm running wide at the exit I've probably turned in too early, and if I have room to spare at the exit I've probably turned the car in too late. It's a handy "trick" for getting a simple 90° corner down.
What follows again goes with the same philosophy that if you have a correct brake marker which puts you at the apex at the correct speed, the exit will naturally flow from that with the correct throttle inputs so...

Try to avoid entering or exiting the corner in the middle of the track at all costs. Optimally what you want to be doing is drive through a corner where you have the correct amount of speed to automatically get from the apex of the corner on the right trajectory which because you're at the limit of grip will naturally take you to the place where your aiming the car at. Trying to exit a corner tighter after the apex is something that shouldn't be possible because your at the limit of your front tires so trying to turn more would just understeer the car. This obviously, is like I said, when you're at the limit of the car but it's something that you should aim for in the end.
Obviously the latter is not an universal truth, there's alot of things that can alter the normal would be racing line like chicanes or double apex corners and what not, but in general the rule applies that you want to get pushed to the edge of the track by the speed of your car

-Try to not mash the brake pedal because the ABS will be working overtime and you'll just make your braking zones longer. Try giving a car like the M3 E30 or Toyota AE86 ago for a low powered car without ABS so you can learn yourself brake pedal discipline. I did see a couple of brake applications which were perfectly smooth which in a car like this is what you want because it will limit the balance shift to the front but there were what looks like a couple of panic brakes (maybe because of the lack of markers) which help very little in slowing the car down fast.
Also remember that the brake pedal is not just for slowing down, it's a major part of how you can alter the balance of a car dynamically while trailbraking through a corner. The amount of brake pressure you apply, the velocity of how quick you apply or release the brake all have a major influence on how the car will behave while turning into a corner. This is obviously a very difficult technique to master but is very necesarry to be a fast driver.

-Try to smoothen you're steering inputs, don't turn the wheel in little bits but try to make turning into a corner 1 smooth movement.
Same thing with the throttle, a wise man once said "Don't press the throttle unless you know you don't have to take it out again." Essentially meaning, try to avoid jerking the car around by going on the throttle, off the throttle and back on again.
You'll ruin the car balance, the suspension (especially in a soft car like that) will be bouncing all over the place and you'll just lose time.

-And maybe try to take Mazda to something a little bit tighter to get to learn the limits of the car, Spa isn't really the best place for that car if you're just trying to improve yourself in general and not just at a specific track.

Well, this turned out longer than the 4 bullet points I started with but what the hell

 

If you like to read about stuff then "Speed Secrets" by Ross Bentley is a good start.

Some stuff related to driving technique isn't intuitive, at least not for me anyway. It's still hard to put what he says into practice but at least you'll know what to aim for and the reasons why it'll make you faster.

 

Or if you find the Skip Barber - Going Faster documentary online, it's a great watch and full of great information.
That's the one thing AC really still lacks, a Formula Ford/Skip Barber kind of car which, imo, are some of the best and greatest racecars to learn car control and driving on the limit of mechanical grip with.

Sure it's old but don't let that fool you

 

Cheers again guys! And Tim, I'll make sure to follow your technique.

 

some really useful tips here! thanks a lot guys!

 

When I have time (or don't understand how they can be so much faster than me on a particular track), after the race, I watch the replay from the winner's POV. If you're an AB driver, you should go to Aloog 1 or Streetfight servers and try to watch races from aliens like @henri (Salminen) or @baronesbc (or watch his youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/baronesbc).

Personally, I learned a bit from books but I learned more from watching faster drivers on the same tracks and same cars as me. It's also more entertaining and motivating (but sometimes a bit depressing: I remember watching Henri at VIR on an old racecar, a Lotus 49 I think, and thought he was driving a different car than I was, or had 2017 tyres or something...).

By the way, I started a similar thread a while ago and got some very good replies. You may want to check it out.

https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/i...ng-better-at-sim-racing-watching-video.35213/

 

Awesome! Missed that in my search. BaronesBC bookmarked

 

Best tip a can give is: practice - learning - practice - analyzing - practice - watching - repeat.
And consistency is the key.

 

Excellent advise, thanks.
Sounds like we need special camera view just for that.