How many seconds can a good setup save you?

Whatta hell you mean "Aliens" or "cream of the crop" need to start doing laps for blah blah blah...
GamerMuscle you make less and less sense as the days go by...

http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRL...controller_type=all&community=all&friends=all

About car setup:
Increase of speed, depends on track.
Other uses; you want to run as much as possible per fuel litre, and dont want to ruin your tires while doing it.
Check out season 1986 F1 championship for a good reference how setups were used.

 

http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRL...controller_type=all&community=all&friends=all

I wonder how the hell these guys manage it? My best with z4 at nürburgring is 1:58.9 or something... it's crazy. No matter the setup these times look impossible. Maybe the car has been changed and these are old records?

 

Don't think so, these guys are just that fast and it's always the last 1% that is the hardest. On many combos i've come to around ~1.5s of them and if i could combine all of my "perfect corners" into one lap it would definitely be at the WR level but that won't happen.
They are called aliens because they have the experience, skill and concentration that allows very precise car control allowing for such crazy laptimes.
Honestly assuming the car is pushed to the limit, just missing the apex by 50cm can mean even as many as 0.1s of time loss, multiply that by all corners, and you get your time difference.

@spiritofsenna I have no idea hahaha. I think it will boil down to how exactly each car has brake system implemented. Some cars will become more handful, some not.

@Ethan Dean That's still an accomplishment, especially if its a "main combo" of GT3 on big track with a almost 1000 people on the board (including aliens). I just have my WR's on less driven combos, and i can still see the perfect line being ~1s faster.

 

Wow if someone pays anything for a setup they have issues. Some people take things so far its just no longer fun surely. Who realy cares so much to win a virtual race.

I just want to have fun drive as fast as I can and drive clean and fair. If thats not fast enough then well done to whoever beats me.

 

Thats news to me, never heard about people buying setups. Those who buy must be a bit clueless...

 

The most efficient way to get competitive racing is to race people the same speed as you.

I know lots of people that are just about the same speed as me, and most of the time we are close. If we are running a championship, and in one of the races i´m soundly beaten, even if i knew that i drove as well as i could, i´m reasonably sure that they found something in the setup, then what i do?

I copy them!!

When you know what you car is doing, its easy to compare to what the other guy did and follow his tips.

 

A few thoughts though.

Some, but not all aliens have a very high number of invalid laps on some combos so clearly some people are hunting for perfection on exactly the invalid lap trigger points, millimeter correct perfection gives these WR times which may seem unreal, but they are not.
I haven't got any WRs but I have got a few top tens and I can see there is not really any bug exploiting or anything going on.
I think with many cars people overlook the gear ratios, if a car is set-up for hotlap/qualify 1st gear needs to be set for the slowest corner perfectly and top to nearly max out on the straight. Loads of people seem happy with 2nd gear on the slowest corner of the track, to my mind this just leaves huge chunks of time on the table. Also brake bias is crucial. The rest can just shave a bit here and there

 

There you go...

 

I am a reasonably fast driver, if I really give a specific combination of car and track a week to set a hotlap, I usually make the top 10 RSR, if not the top 5.

For example, in the Ferrari 312T at Imola, im #4 on the WR, 0,525 behind Klaus Ellenbrand.

Not to brag, but just to show that my experience counts in this case .

Back to the question at hand, how much time do setups give you:

It depends! In the more complex cars, like the Lotus Exos, setups make huge differences. It can be up to 2-3 seconds a lap compared to the default setup. Yes, that much. If you take a look at simpler race cars, it perhaps can be 1 second compared to the default setup.

There are a couple of things to consider:
- By using the setups from Racedepartment/RSR, I have set quite a few top 5 RSR times. So, if you have a look around, there are quite a few decent setups!
- Setups can improve outright grip. However, usually it is more a matter of improving (for example) the turn, or stability of the car under braking/accelerating
- A really fast setup could be slower for you, as it is unsuited to your driving style
- When you start to feel comfortable with a setup, you will get faster. This is the most important point. When you are as comfortable as can be, start thinking about slowly making the setup more 'edgy'.

Now, I personally am very annoyed by guys who say: 'I'm such a good driver, so fast and all, but I'm just 5 seconds to slow because nobody gives me a good setup'. If you read this and you are knodding your head: you are just too slow, or too lazy to download some setups and give it a go. There is no magic in setups. People who are good at it work hard and are kind enough to share it sometimes. Be thankful! And quite simple accept that some people are and will be faster than you.

A lot of times as well, I see people say: 'I can't understand why people are 5 seconds faster than me, I am eeking everything out of the car.' When I see a hotlap of them, they drive so bad. And yet they think they are Michael Schumacher. If you want to become faster, first and foremost, analyse your own laps and driving style, or get some advice. If you want advice, or comments on a hotlap of yourself, you can always private message me. I am happy to help.

 

There's no magic. I've driven high 57's with MP4 GT3 on race with higher fuel load and medium tyres and I'm not an alien. There's many places where you can gain much time by choosing the right line. Delta-app is the friend of mine. I'm driving lap after lap keeping an eye on the app. I'm not analyzing my replays. I'm just driving and thinking, what if I choose that kind of driving line this time... Let's see how its works... If it works do it couple more times just to make sure it really was faster.

I'm using just slightly modified setup. Only made it a bit more balanced.

 

Wow I really need to rethink my whole racing approach!!

 

let me rephrase that.

I wanna see you heel and toe a modern open-wheeler

 

Aris, two very good posts.

I'd like to highlight one specific point: a common mistake which I see 90% of the simracers make, is not using the entire track. It is such an easy thing to change in your driving. Always make sure that you inside wheel of a corner is at the very inside of a corner, instead of 2 metres away from it. Same on the exit of course, but not using the entire track on entry is such a common fault.

Aris, how fast are you yourself?

 

This.

I am one of those 5 secs off WR drivers. Which I am OK with, because only about 4-5 months ago I was 10 seconds off. Simcade games taught me bad habits, like braking way too late, and after lots of reading and practicing, I probably now brake too early, but have much more control over the car and can actually choose my line and try earlier acceleration out. Only then was I able to really start using more of the track. If you're struggling with the car through corners, your line is whatever you can manage without spinning, and it's unlikely to be very fast.

What setup I do is largely around being comfortable in the car. I had a fantastic race at Mugello yesterday in the Evora GTC 8 laps, where I battled somebody from the start with just about exactly the same pace as me. Main difference in setup? I had ticked gear ratio one to the right to make the gears just a bit longer. That doesn't actually make me faster, but allows me to get earlier on the gas after corners, and really helps stabilize the car as well through some fast corners. My opponent had default gearing (watched the replay), and had to work much harder to keep control.

As I said, we were really at the same pace, but his corrections and slight over-driving allowed me to get ever closer, and at the end of lap 7 he got slightly loose in the last fast corner and we were side-by-side on the straight. At T1, I was on the outside, so decided to brake early, while he braked late, got a little unstable and ran wide, and I completed a clean over-under to pass and went on to win the race between us (it was a battle for 3rd, but felt like a win to me ).

Again: the guy was same pace as me, and this was the best racing I've had, battle for the whole 8 lap race so this is nothing about me being better than him or whatever (I am looking forward to meeting him on track again and added him as Steam friend) - but the point is, at the same speed, but a more stable setup, allowing smoother driver inputs and therefore better car control, I ended up ahead of him.

Also shaved 0.8s off my PB, for a 1:51.3 along the way, somehow

 

lots of guys are 4-5 secs off, i myself am one of those
a better driving style and setup would close up that gap a bit more but then there's still a gap left
and that's a gap you can only close when you have 're skilled enough
sure, Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna, Sebastien Loeb, Greger Huttu are all just people
but they differ a bit from the rest of the people by being insanely fast while driving

 

The important thing is to practice and practice and practice and practice, and never give up, for an example, i installed the RSR app yestarday, or the day before that, and im currently driving the Mclaren GT3/Nurburgring combo, the WR is 1:55.xx and im doing high 58-s, i know that i will maybe never be able to beat the first time, altough i have a setup that can go 1:55.xx because i got if from a guy that does low 1:56.xx but the important thing is to practice, to feel the car and learn the cars behaviour, the more laps you do the better you will be, so thats all that is to it, there is no magic setups that will make you do WR times, its all about how your drive and how much are you willing to put effort into the car/track combo your driving. Thats all i have to say.

 

Nice comparision, Greger Huttu between Ayrton Senna and Sebastien Loeb.

In my opinion exists something weird in the Mclaren Mp4 GT3 / Nurbüring WR, I´m not referring they are using cheats or something similar, but:

If you take the top 6 fastest laps, there is a huge difference within the 3º split, between Joco (5º) and Andy (1º) there are more than 6 tenth in this split, is it strange, isn´t it? - The last chicane is inside -

WR link

 

I dont see the point of using cheats to be the best, people who do that only deceive themselfes and noone else, everybody else thinks your the best, but you know your not because you used cheats, i coudent handle that, i feel ashamed just thinking of it, and will never understand people who do that kind of things, and im not saying that the WR holders use them, just saying what i think, i guess it cdependes on what type of person your are, but anyway, going off topic with this post