Advice about my driving on Magione in Alfa Romeo Giulietta?

Hi, just started playing AC and I'm trying to match AI times from N1 E4 so I can have a ghost of a chance to win it.

This is my relatively okayish lap (I apologise for shifting noise in the background, didn't realize ps camera recorded audio):


Now I can see gaining few tenths by simply cleaning the lap (my best is around 1:31:6 with TC turned off) but I just can't see where can I gain time to go sub 1:30. I have tried to go with more speed into Curvone, but at ~100km/h the car heavily understeers and I go wide. I have tried pushing some break points but then I just overshot the turns. My absolutely worst and least favourite turn is Tornantino. I'd really appreciate your advice.

Playing on PS4 with Thrustmaster T300RS with H-shifter and clutch. ABS and TC set to factory, everything else turned off. Setup is completely default and if it is possible to go 1:29 on default setup I'd prefer to stay default (to actually gain some skill instead of relying on setup and then having to look for setups for other events as I just can't work them myself).

 

Pretty good lap, maybe coasting a bit in some turns, try breaking a bit later and straight back on the gas.
Cheers

 

Hi Garret02,
the driving seems good. Being the Giulietta a car that is too slow with TC on, you should set it off and pay lots of attention to your right foot. Every time that you hear the engine build revs, you should suspect that the tyres are spinning. Try to step on the throttle just when you are sure that tyres can transfer the power to the road, or you will lose time. A trick you can use is staying in 3rd ger instead of in 2nd. I use 2nd gear just at the Tornantino, for the turn-in, shifting again to 3rd before the little right turn where you accelerate for the straight. Using a longer gear has a couple of advantages: you roll faster at turn-in, because you have less engine-brake, and you have a better traction at turn-out (provided that the engine has enough torque to be used at low revs. In this case it has enough, even thanks to the turbo).
I attach a replay of a lap (honestly not that good, but it's just to show the different approach) and the setup I used, I hope both are usable on console, I am on PC.
Please change the extension from .txt to .7z and unzip.
Have fun, grats for nice driving!

 

I'm on a PC, they are a bit different but it should not matter much in this case.
Firstly assuming PC and PS4 has the same career you are not supposed to win every competition you enter, E30 is just quite a bit faster, also some of the Abarths are tuned and everyone except poor old Alfa runs better tires. That said going below 1:30 in stock setup IS possible with Giulia.

Looking at your vid, you are loosing maybe even 0.5s in the first two turns by taking a karting line. Instead try double apex - that includes trailbraking, and exit line thats a bit more straight.
Torantino is tricky, generally you want to enter T3 with a bit of overspeed ending up close to the inside of the hairpin and then flick the car in place. Counter intuitively first corner in this esse is more important for laptime.
Muro is great, but then Curvone needs as much track width used as possible. You could fit whole another car on free space left both on left side of entry and right side of first apex. Thats probably 0.2s there alone.
Monte Sparello is slow too. Almost karting line entry with only straight line braking, no kerb usage and slows down way too much, you can probably squeaze 0.3s or more there by using more track width. You don't need to be fully to the right for the next corner, especially since grippier asphalt does not extend as far.
Last section is looking nice and smooth but there is still room for pushing, most of the individual turns in esses you do with exit oriented mindset even thou straight is only after the last one. If you go in more hot you can shave 0.2-0.3s there.

Anyways still it looks like really good job, have fun!

 

Thanks for initial feedback. So far I managed to bring down time to 1:31 flat. What should be my time on time checkpoint on the long straight to still be able to do sub 1:30? My best is 51:246. Man, driving IRL is like a thousands time easier...

Thanks a lot. It helped me a bit and I'd love to try all of your suggestions but this car understeers like crazy. I feel like I can't do any turn that is over 60 degrees without understeering. Any idea on that?

While I can use your setups (but like I said, I want to squeeze everything I can from default setup) I can't use the replay. Thanks for tips.

 

Understeer just means that the line and speed you envisioned is not physically possible. So you have to rethink how exactly you want the car to go through the turn.

Firstly even very smooth trailbraking can lead to oversteer in Giulietta, use that (or a flick) to get a slip angle for the whole car. Next you want to focus on keep that angle high for as long as possible. That requires some braking deep into the turn which you can't do with your run of the mill racing line, so give yourself room for that by changing entry speed and line. With half of the corner done on the brakes you can then add throttle (30%-50% pedal) to get it to torquesteer. If you are smooth it's possible to retain most of the slip angle. Clipping a kerb also helps here as it unloads rear inside tyre, pulling the car more to the inside.

The exit acceleration should be mostly done on full power. If the car can't make the turn, it means you accelerated too early. This usually results in very late apexes.

Tricky part comes with mid corner corrections as most of them reduce the slip angle generating understeer. Regaining it takes ages if you don't want to brake more, so when you can go into the turn with a slight overspeed, as most of the correction will want to slow the car down keeping the front loaded.

Here is how i do it:

 

learning curve

 

This is fantastic reference video, thanks a lot! Hmm... seems like I need to look at my wheel inputs. At 0:42 in your video you brake later than me and still enter the turn smoothly while I almost immediately start slipping (and if I try to brake later I skid into sands). But this will take a while, without felling g-force to help me... But seriously, your help is greatly appreciated. I hope in a few days I'll be able to write here I did it.

 

Man, you gain ~0.3 on me in the first turn alone. It feels like you have a tad better brakes and can turn a bit more than me before understeering. I just can't do double apex on it. And eg on second turn, if I don't brake in straight line I go wide while you can do nice trailbraking (maybe that's why it seems to me like you have better brakes). I noticed in Roberto file, that he has camber set to a value I can't set myself. Is default setup, range and what you can set on pc different than on console? Here's what it looks like on ps4 (the only other thing I can chage is fuel and braking power, I'd love to be able to change brake bias...):

 

Ah I'd love to change brake bias on many street cars in AC too But more to the point, I don't know if PS4 is on the same patch as PC version so there might be some differences in tyre model*, and also for some reason setup ranges on some cars are slightly different yeah. Thou in case of Giulietta default camber is pretty good. Looking at it, default on pc is -0.8 front and -1.8 rear so it's completely negligible - rest of the settings (both changeable and live info) are the same.

If anything i may have adjusted pressures and fuel out of habit - since it's a thing check on any car in AC. I think -2 FL -1 FR and + a couple (3?) PSI on the rear.

The big thing thou was controlling the ABS. I remember that making the rear loose through setup changes was having significant negative impact on braking performance since ABS was freaking out. And the effects of that can be really big sometimes. For example i downshift very aggressively into T1 and even thou it's FWD car you can feel the car wanting to slow down and turn more as the engine braking helps with ABS reluctance to brake.
Next thing is entering corner too sharp while hard on brakes - if the car starts too rotate too fast, ABS will make the car wash out. So it's really down to being as smooth as possible. You can actually see me turning in as i press the brakes into T1 and then brake almost in straight line while aiming at apex just to not let the ABS think "I'm sliding out of control" - it's a conscious effort to keep the system happy.

Lastly while there should not much difference between PC and PS4 on raw grip, different tyre model (if there is any) might mean that car will drive a bit differently, thou i think last PC patches actually slowed the cars down street cars a bit. Comparing our videos in for example the high speed turn after the back straight even thou I'm really pushing tyres and track to the limit, you actually have better mid corner speed for some reason.
So instead of trying to copy brakepoints, try to emulate the lines. If you can't brake as late, then don't - it does not cost that much anyways. Modern F1 very rarely brake to the best of its ability during the race, and when they do you can't even see the difference. What actually costs time is finishing braking too early, not where you start it.

Slow is fast as they say

 

Ok, thanks for checking. Yeah, I need to figure out the ABS. Currently my best is at 1:30:7 and by the looks of it almost all of my gap to you is on first three turns. So at least I can focus on something. But I'm really starting to have enough of this car

 

Have you tried pointing it to the apex at T1 as you start braking? From your video it looks like you are holding to the outside of the track till quite late and then keeping quite a bit of speed up mid corner making it a longer turn than it needs to be. You can make much less of a corner out of it if you brake deep into the turn, slow down a bit more to get it facing roughly to the exit as soon as possible and then get back on throttle.

(wrong car but it shows what I mean more or less)

 

Yeah I tried. But so far I didn't manage to smoothly bring the car back to the kerb because of the understeering.

 

It sounds like you aren't slowing the car enough then. Understeer on entry means you're carrying too much speed, or are braking too hard whilst trying to turn, or adding way too much steering but I doubt that.