Where am I loosing 2,5 seconds? - I call thee, Prodrivers.

Hello!

I have quite some experience with sim racing, but neither is it my main hobby nor am I very competitive.
It just happened that someone gave me a setup - I am not very good at setting-up a car myself - and he drove a 1:54:5xx with this setup. Now, as you will see in the video if you are willing to spend some time on it, the best I could do is a 1.56.8xx.

I am not whining - I just need somebody to point out to me where I am loosing all that time. The chicane in the end is rather meh-ish driven, but that cannot be all. So - could some of you better drivers just give me a hint?
Aside from further editing the setup, as this is not my point here.

Thanks in advance!

Here's the video:

 

IMHO you brake too early in some corners and then push gas before apex, also not good exit from some corners. This little mistakes overall make huge difference in time

 

You carry too much speed on entry. Try to be smoother. One brake (slightly later), slower turn-in and once you step back to throttle don't do it too early. Try to press throttle only once. No pumping.

 

Corner 3/4/5 complex - brake later into T3 and come in on a late apex of T4 staying to the inside of the track then swing from out wide and power through the apex of T5 so you carry as much speed as possible onto the shortish straight.

Carrousel and last corner - brake fractionally later and start turning in from wider so you can again hit a later apex and accelerate earlier onto the straights.

Chicane - lots of time to make up here. Practice what suits you but attack harder. Try turning in a little earlier and having your front left go to the left of the first bollard and power through. Try not to upset the suslension too much though.

 

You're driving ur stuff very good. Ur not rly loosing time. Ur at the edge.
Or you can try going fast into first eS and going fast out of second eS.

 

Ignore @Niki Đaković

You intrigued me. So I took it for a spin. Result after 10 or so laps:

http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRLiveTiming/index.php?page=rank&track=15&car=7 (#20 in the full rank)
Touched here and there in the setup but not a huge deal. Suspension/dampers completely default vanilla shake mix etc.
Your answer: Everywhere.

The worst part is when you think you're going fast but you're not. You're actually 'understeering' the car or in other words you make it not wanting to turn as much with your driving. You hug the inside every corner, yank the wheel and start pumping the throttle in a desperate attempt to make it turn. I've no idea how much time you've spent in that machine but that's not how you drive it. That's not the way you drive your family sedan either.

Ignore @Nahkamarakatti and what he said about the entry speed too. Worst example - Dunlop Curve (the spoon before the Schumi S). You brake too early, hug the inside like it's yours and understeer your way through losing a huge chunk of time only there. Maybe worth half a second. It's a 90 degree turn followed by a long straight... Do you really think an early apex is a good idea???

Remember, you should not fight the car. You should make it do what you want it to do without arguments. Treat it like a woman, heheh If you want more feedback, contact me on private.

 

I don't know the names of the corners so forgive me if I say something that has already been said. I don't think I'm a pro driver as I get pwned online sometimes but I'm 3rd on 2 of the Rivali leaderboards, so I must be at least competent.

At 0:20 there's a lot of space on the right to use so you can carry more speed into the corner.
At 0:28 brake later and turn in a little faster and a lot later so at 0:32 you are as far left as possible. Then turn in and touch the apex at 0:34 to give you a better exit for the straight.
At 0:46 you could go left a little more and take a wider line to give yourself a better exit for the next straight. This should make a fair difference as the straight is quite long.
At 1:00 you could turn in a later and apply less and more smooth throttle in the middle of the corner to avoid understeer and to get a better exit. You want to touch the apex towards the end of the corner to give the best possible exit for the long straight and S bends.
At 1:10 you could definitely take a straighter line through all of that section, try to get closer to the kerbs.
At 1:21 turn in smoother and hit that apex.
At 1:26 you should be further over to the left and again turn in later to touch the apex a little later to get the best exit for the long straight.
At 1:43 just avoiding those sharp kerbs may improve time, as well as braking a tad later and turning in a tad later and smoother and as you probably know avoid having to make those corrections on the exit.
At 1:51 again brake later and turn in later as you have a long straight next so the best exit takes preference. Also remember to do this on the out lap as it will affect the start of the timed lap.

Couple of other tips:
- In a lot of the corners you could steer into the corner smoother to avoid oversteer, understeer and corrections.
- It kind of sounds like the car is understeering in the middle of corners possibly due to the above or maybe just turning too much. I assume you use a wheel, try to feel that point where the vibration starts and the wheel goes light. You need to just turn as much as possible without that happening.
- I don't know how many laps you did but doing at least 5 laps one after the other I always find causes me to improve every lap. Probably due to tyre temps but also that little bit of experience just gets you used to the car and the track and bits where you might be losing time.
- I don't know if this will work for you, but I find trying to set a lap time actually causes me to crash more and make more mistakes, thereby making me slower. I find just going out there and driving I naturally just go faster.
- Check the fuel in your car. I think you have 120l of fuel onboard. The person you are comparing yourself to may have done it with 1l of fuel onboard and no fuel usage which will reduce weight drastically.
- You downloaded a setup which is probably good but setups can be subjective. It may not be right for your driving style. For example your sharp turn-ins may make stability more desirable for you.

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks to all of your answers! I appreciate every input! @iVG Yeah, sadly I even know that I am fighting the car, but its not my setup and it doesn't necessarily fight my driving style. But at least I don't think I am going fast, I know that I am underperforming - I just didn't exactly know where.

@Matty28 Thanks again for your very detailed explanation! Now I have something to work with!

And thanks to all of you guys, great community. Great tips! One of my problems is that sometimes I am just stuck in sort of a tunnel: I just carry on and do the same bad stuff lap after lap especially in cars that I am not that used to.

I`ll give an update once - or if - my lap times have improved!

 

I am now down to 1:56:247. Definitly an improvement! If I work some more on that and fiddle a tad bit more with the setup I might even make it to a 1:56:0xx. Thanks again guys!

 

Racing is not hotlapping though. Don't know if you're into league racing or just casual (your pace is far from casual to be honest) but managing tyre temps and working on your race pace outside the ideal conditions is far more important than pure lap time in a single blast hot lap. The super softs behave very differently from mediums for example. Getting them up to temperature in a race and maintaining it requires different approach regarding set up. Supersofts get up and ready in less than a lap and burn their way through quickly but that will lead you nowhere in a 25 lap race, let's say.

 

I mostly race public or with friends, I was league playing some years ago with Race07/STCC. So far I am actually rather succesfull in public racing - if that is what you refer to as casual. Maybe your standards are too high, but I am mostly doing fairly in your ordinary casual races. Actually I perform better in race conditions than I do in hot lapping. My major weakspot is that I am not really able to set up a car or to adjust my driving style to a certain car or setup. I have that one style and either the car and setup fit, or they don't. Bonus in racing condition is that I mostly have someone in front of me that I am able to study and follow, if the setup allows.

Edit: It might also be the case that I am performing worse than usual on Nurburgring GP. I checked some of your other times on RSR and especially on Mugello I am a tad faster than you. But I actually feel more of a rythm on Mugello than I do on Nurburgring, where I am constantly fighting with the track and car while on Mugello the track directs your line.

Now idea how I'll perform on longer races though, generally speaking. Mostly after that usual 10 laps in casual racing I already see my lap times going down towards the end.

 

A tad faster me during a race (sectors missing) and on Medium tyres? Congrats

 

Now you are starting to sound kinda *****y. The times I am referring to in RSR show either Hotlap or Practice and none of the times I refer to are driven with Medium tyres.
But I think we should leave it at that before things go out of hand. I feel some unpleasant tension here. You are faster on most other tracks and events, but Mugello seems to be my kind of track.

 

No hard feelings. Just point the exclamation mark on the right it says what tyres have been used for the lap. I've not set a time there on supersoft that's why it shows my best overall, which in that case was medium. I'll post my time on supersofts tomorrow.

 

To be honest I don't think there is anyone on these forums that is super-quick, so you can take and leave what advice you want. There are a number of people that are OK on the odd track but I guess it's really what suits you best. I'd suggest also changing the setup a bit more to suit you - just try tinkering around the edges a bit.

 

Are you being serious mate... Worst advice ever.

 

Then sorry for the miscommunication. I did do that and it didn't show mediums. Also I wasn't talking about a single car specifically. So I thought you were making a general assumption. In that case, sorry for my probably *****y response.

Edit: Now I get it. You were talking about the M3 GT2 on Mugello. I didn't specifically refer to that.

 

Yeah, the lap you said you are faster, Mugello @GT2. I'll give it a proper try and see where I get.
Sorry if I sounded like an idiot.

 

Ah, was my fault. Miscommunication.

 

Are you comfortable with your friends setup? Is it too tail-happy or not enough? If you have any experience in setups I'd have a look at changing it a little bit to suit you - remember that you can just go back to the original if you make changes that don't work out.

I also wouldn't pay a lot of attention to the RSR Live Timing app. Most people don't use it so you can probably multiply the top 10 by another 5 or 10. I don't know anyone in my league who bothers with it simply because of the constant updating required.