Go faster. Basic driving techniques at Game&Track YT channel

I'm actually using a controller. Please don't judge me lord! I have a PC but alas, I'm just a controller using peasant.. I'm using a 360 controller to be specific. Could the sensitivity be the issue? If you want I can show you via streaming through steam? I've been doing that test and sometimes the car does manage to stay straight for awhile, but once it gets to low speeds (with no steering input at all) it will veer left or right.

 

Thank you, couldn't subscribe, because it is already done

As much as, I'd like to think about myself as "advanced", there will always be some basics missed completely. I have learned a bit from the video, also it shows how to play AC with better immersion - go slow and then gradually get faster. Often me, and many others jumps into a track, does random guestimated fast setup and end up eating grass and damaging bodywork, restarting session, which is breaking immersion a lot, and not learning much in that way. It is always very nice to play in mature way.

I do never memorize braking points, always by feel. I guess I'm memorizing them anyway, just subconsciously. It is hard to define. I wonder if taking braking refferences consciously does affect attention concentration negatively, or would make no difference.

 

I tend to agree with donShere on the placing of the pedal app, not necessarily for own use, but to make it easier to watch for the viewer and make it easier for him to see what are you doing with your pedals. With the app placed on the A pillar like in your video, someone who is looking to learn something has to take eyes off the road and the steering wheel. As much as it might be true that when driving/racing having it right in front of the eyes might be distracting because of constant peeks on the app, but (imo) it would be better to observe your inputs with it being close to what it is in donShere's screen, or next to steering wheel left/right on the dash right under the windshield.

Anyway, nice video and good work on putting it together.
Hopefully at some point you will cover basics of behaviour on the track, during the race but also in qualifying. We have those discussions on forum every now and then about people having no clue on how to act, even on AB servers. Having KS dev guide on that probably could have a better impact than our endless discussions on that matter.


About braking instability, I haven't tried the Aventador in months, but during the weekend I did the special event with the 918 on the 'Ring (another car I haven't touched for a while). Drove with default setup on slicks and it was ridiculous to keep the rear in place, I had to feed it some throttle in pretty much every turn to not lose the rear. It kinda put me off from driving that car, but one thing that comes to my mind is that I drive with no TC. Could that be a cause of that? With all those fancy systems, 4WS and whatnot, disabling TC might be an issue here?

 

I'm with Aris' on reference points. Especially for braking but also for turn in like entering Ascari (think that's the name of it) at old Monza. When you have a reference point you can make small adjustments easily when grip or temp has changed or your tyres are cold or old, or there is a player in front etc. etc. etc. Surely a golden rule for consistent (even if not fast) lap times.

 

Thanks for the tip, I already feel automatic at most turns, but probably I just have some "automatic" things wrong. I'll try to rewrite that automatic memory by relearning braking points with more attention. I'll post if it halped. I suppose it will take time.

ALOOG guys will be good refference, they are always much faster.

 

@Aristotelis
Ok, watched the video. Very nice indeed. You're very good at explaining and a good trainer. I hope many drivers will watch it and learn.

Also, I like to force cars as well. That's one of the reasons why I love the 911 3.0 RSR so much, because that car has amazing handling when you throw it around.
Actually I just went up Trento in it.

If I may make a suggestion for the next video: talk a bit more about understeer.
You talked a bit about that already in the first video, e.g. close to the end, but I think it could go a bit deeper.
One of the driving mistakes I observ when watching others driving online, is who they (try to) handle understeer.
The most common thing: aaaah, car understeers, turn in more … doesn't help? Well, turn in some more and more and more …
While quite often it doesn't cost as much time, I think it's a topic that deserves to be talked about, because most drivers don't notice that they are making a mistake here.
Feeling the grip of the front tyres, turning the wheel such that you use that grip the most. And if that doesn't help, adapt other things (e.g. adapt the throttle or throw the car into the turn etc.).
It's really not that hard to learn, but you need to be aware of it.

 

Cool!

There is something that is commonly missing with tutorials.

I have plenty of friends to "like" racing (or maybe it's just the vanity of it; cool factor) but when it comes to actual driving technique, sure, they may know how to slide a camaro around in rain a little bit, but anything beyond that is total loss of control.

These friends will try my setup and cannot do it at all. And by this, I notice two major things; things that you cannot do in real life, nor in a sim, but because it's a screen, or a sim, or a video game, the automatic reaction to everything is On/Off switches.

The pedals inputs are on/off, and the steering inputs have no regards to the terrain in front of them.

Understeer is handled by steering more and more and more until they hit the outer wall. They don't understand the light feedback when understeering, nor even notice that it's happening. Add to that more steering input and it just drags it further on. The same general "notice" can be applied to oversteer.

So there's that, and then another big one. I noticed this everywhere I go, IRL, in sim, doesn't matter: Elevation/terrain changes.

People new to sim racing, or a friend wanting to try the "OMFG STREET RACE BADASS VIDEO GAME" and they want to actually learn it. 100% of the time, friends will not even notice that they are going over an obvious hill, which lightens the car.


Essentially what I'm posting is that it would be cool to attempt to encourage people to take notice of these things. I tried telling people when to brake, how hard, when to shift, downshift, turn in, etc. Not a single bit of it matters because they aren't looking at the terrain and what's ahead of them. "Steer means turn, gas means go" mentality, if you will.

How do you break this cycle? This can be applied to real life as well (using your eyes properly for one), as general city driving gets people into a bad consensus of staring at the back of another car, as opposed to looking ahead and taking in the picture.
How do you encourage and teach people to pay attention to things they really never do? Dunno how to ask that, or suggest it in a way that makes complete sense, hopefully you get what I'm going for here.

Friends will ask me frustrated: Why did I spin out like that?
I answer with, well you're going over a hill at 130 mph in a 600 horsepower RWD car, with the gas pinned to the floor and you upset the car over that hill because the weight has lifted from the connection to the road. They don't understand that. In fact, they didn't even notice that they were going over a hill, or maybe, never even considered it. The only consideration was that they were going forward and trying to steer. Nothing beyond that.

I had this happen right in front of me IRL. A V8 RWD truck in tornado weather (we were all trying to get out of the trailer park because a tornado was headed that way and there was no safe place except for a supermarket nearby.) decided to pin the gas going over a hill to pass me in rain so hard I couldn't see 5 inches past the windshield (literal). One of the dumbest things I've seen IRL, ending in the 'ole famous "video game tank slap" into a pole.

The cognition of recognizing ALL parts of the environment that have an effect on a vehicle at speed or at slip.

 

Thank You Aris. After lot of hours in AC, I´m still 1 or 2 seconds slower than good drivers and I´m lazy person to check where are all my weakness. So this kind of tutorials will help me in both ways. BTW Why I always thinking that similar tyre temperature is more important than similar pressure? I was a fool.

I look forward to continuing, especially about car setup, defending and overtaking techniques.
I like your english, it´s very clear even for me.

 

Good work Aris and I fully agree with your core basics to going faster. Whenever I see people considerably off pace its clear they dont seem to understand how critical line and reference points are.

Many seem lost and dont know what it is they are really doing wrong hoping on luck to put a good lap down next time using their current approach. When really its all about maximising track, hitting apexes and being able to adjust reference points as needed to make up for past errors. Then it comes down to understanding how precise the driver is and how much margin the need to leave on braking to avoid big errors that cost lots of time, learning where they can push a bit more and where its maybe better to back off a little to make sure they hit the apex and nail the exit.

I think a good track for a more advanced video would be modern Monza, its such a simple track on paper but shows up any errors made on entry to exit with large amounts of time gained or lost before the next corner.

 

I 2nd this It has both what he said, and also time to explain things between entries and exits. Good idea.

 

I agree with @Aristotelis about the apps usage. I've always kept things very simple; race info, pedal/ffb inputs... I only use the delta when trying to find the last tiny bit of time in serious practice (like for a Pro race), but never in qualy nor race. Seems to work ok. On AC I'll use the tyre app first time out to set pressures and camber, but it gets turned off once these are set.

Driving a car fast is all about feeling it. Driving by the numbers will only get you so far... stop overthinking it and drive. It'll come. Pay attention to what the car and the tyres are doing, no app will let you know better than your "butt feel".

 

Good idea. Yeah, corner exit is one of the sources of time loss for most racers.

 

That narrows it down pretty much completely. On the other side it's one of that explanations that sound (and are) correct, but for a newbie, they don't have any idea what it actually means.

Regarding the apps: my screen is cluttered with apps and information.
But then I am able to focus on driving when it matters and not get carried away.
If one has trouble with that I would indeed suggest to reduce the number of apps to a minimum.

 

How do you set camber with help of tyre app? Probably a stupid question but if you dont ask you dont learn.

 

Great video!
I would love to see a video of you, explaining basic racing rules and how to behave on track around other cars.
You did a fine job in this video, i am sure your take on rules and ettiquette will be highly appreciated as well.
It will (hopefully) lead to more drivers being aware of the fact, that there are rules you need to obey, if you want to race others fair and clean.
I wonder why basic racing rules are not covered inside AC, maybe you can tell us the reason behind that?

A greek guy living in italy, talking in english and pronouncing Nordschleife like a german would, big thumbs up!