[help] having trouble improving lap times

Watch your own replays from multiple angles, watch one from someone else who's a bit faster ( this is why I prefer replays to youtube captures ), watch your own again - keep an eye on how much speed they carry at various points in a corner. If you can get a replay rather than a vid then use all the tools you can to compare car attitudes and so on; if you can't get more speed out of softs over mediums you might just need to rebalance your car for your driving style.

Talking of that; try a radically different setup balance that forces you to drive in a different way - same as the suggestion to drive a street car, just using the car you're somewhat used to. Doesn't matter if you're not as fast, you're looking to break the mould. I used to have a bad habit of setting myself up on the edge of the track, eyeing the apex and starting to drift towards it before I'd begun braking ( I think I picked that up from GPL ), which totally destroyed all the positioning effort I'd just done ; running a setup that liked to rotate under braking for a while ( in whatever that was, probably NR2003 ) made me more aware of what was going on even if it did make me more paranoid. Of course then I started left foot braking & using both pedals at the same time which I still haven't stopped myself doing, but that's at least less of a problem...

But really, comparing your laps with someone elses corner by corner with an eye for detail is probably going to be productive.

 

To an extent I agree if the corner is not a hairpin type drop in speed.otherwise I will always try to brake as late as possible if it is.but thats just my opinion. Braking too early can easily lose you time as well but hey people have various driving styles.To each their own

 

You practiced the sim for 9 months but >you are yet to put it to work properly.< Driving is, like Aris mentions, a "demanding brain activity" - you definitely worked on your muscle memory, reactions, driving feeling etc... but the to be faster you need to shift a switch in your brain and focus on driving differently.

My advice would be to expand your horizons, watch real or sim onboard laps, try new techniques and tidy up your current ones.

And also what worked for me was learning drifting ... not the "flashy" and "smokey" stuff, but the complete car control 100% of the time including 4 wheel slides - this helps in two ways 1) you stop being limited by scary stuff and unknowns, allowing you to properly try new techniques. And 2) it tidies up braking and entry speeds which improve laptimes and make the car flow better to corner exit.

 

There are two types of late braking:

1) Braking as late as possible to still make the corner
2) Braking as late as possible to have a perfect exit from the corner.

In scenario 1) you win 0,1-0,2 during the braking
In scenario 2) you lose 0,1-0,2 during braking, but you win 0,5-0,6 during acceleration.

(fictive numbers, just as an example).

In general people learn a track, start to brake later and later, until they can't brake any later. By that that time, they often are braking too late and losing a lot of time at corner exit. Hard habit to de-learn .

 

So Ok I do what I'd say I won't do. If I will get flamed I will blame @Aristotelis

Disclaimer: I know the lap isn't clean, not the best I could achieve and I'm not an alien. I made all those videos to get some slower league guys a little help to get a basic idea how to drive the tracks.

So how to drive Spa in the 2:18 area (brake points can slightly differ now due to ABS changes):


Wing settings I recommend at least 0 front and 2 rear now after the patches, but if you are more familiar with more just use more.

Most grip related issues come from the tyre temperature and pressure, for the normal sunny tarmac conditions (37 degrees) I use these settings for Spa to get mediums with the MP4 in good ranges:

Front:

• pressure: 24psi
• camber: -2.5deg
• TOE: 5

Rear:

• pressure: 23psi
• camber: -2.9deg
• TOE: 0

 

A long time ago (before MP was launched) people shared their replays on this forum, it was way better than videos. You could replay them and watch for braking points, turn in / exit points etc and get more precise feedback than just a video as you could enable the pedal app and other apps that give good info, which would otherwise take up all the screen when driving.

I learned a lot from one of @Hany's replays of the MP4-12C at Imola, particularly learning the importance of weight transfer and how to manage it. Now I'm still nowhere near as fast as him but after watching how he did it I shaved about a second off my laptime in that combo after hitting a wall (figuratively speaking) with my own method.

 

@Aristotelis

I'd also want to expand on this: Brake early, for now.

Braking early allows you more time to plant the car where you want, and the exit doesn't change that much. The trick is to brake early, but brake less. That way you keep the speed up, but you're not right on the ragged edge.

It also doesn't matter so much how early you go full throttle, as how soon you start increasing throttle and keep increasing it. There will always be that physical limit of how soon you can go full throttle on the ideal line with the best setup and smoothest technique, and it's nowhere near the apex, so don't sweat it. There's a reason why the best of the best get on the gas right before the apex, even if it's very little, under 5%.

@Jaye

Turn ABS off and don't turn it on until your braking is near perfect without ABS.

Once you turn ABS off, you will notice that you're locked for the rest 1/3 of your braking zone. That way you will brake less overall, keep braking up to the apex and let off smoother.

 

Is there any other calculator, or any way to calculate it manually? Because my screen is smaller than 19"

 

Ask for a replay + setup (and maybe motec data, but it can be confusing) from someone fast and watch it closely, compare with your replay to see whats the difference with the pedals/wheel/lines, eventually you will find things that you´re missing.

 

If you multiply both screen size and distance from eyes to screen by the same amount, it should scale linearly thus leaving the angle unchanged. So for example you can use double screen size of your monitor with doubled distance and the resulting FOV angle should be correct for your monitor size.
That said driving at correct FOV with 17" or 15" screen would be like driving with a periscope - it's a good bottom value but probably not something you want to use all the time.

 

Should just point out that knowing how to safely late brake without losing too much momentum/time is pretty important when you're racing, as opposed to hotlapping. Most important for both dramatic charges into corners and balletic wafting around is reducing braking properly.

 

@Arch don't worry about me, I was able to do high 2:17 laptimes with my race setup and low ones with qualy setup. These videos were most time done in a hurry at the first day of practicing the upcoming league track, to bring it live as fast as possible for the other guys. And with my crap equip it's hard to go without ABS
But this is what I told in the open letter to the community thread. Someone asks how to get faster, you show him a "fast" line and somebody jumps in and critisize it. I already told that I'm not an alien or want to become one. As long as I'm in a 1 second RSR record window, a track is Ok for me.

 

Oh thanks, great idea

 

I did some laps on Spa with the Mclaren GT3, the only change being changing to soft tires, and my 2.21.4 best time really doesn't give me much credibility, even if I say that I never drive Spa or the Mclaren.

I thought about making a good setup so I could actually do a good lap and show the effects of my driving advice, but that's wrong. I'm going to start driving unfamiliar car/track combinations until I get good at them on the stock setup, then make a good setup, get a time 1 sec from the WR then move on to the next. If I can do it on Mugello in the M3 GT2, I should be able to do it anywhere else IMO.

You cannot drive like I say on the stock setup. Getting on the throttle early, trying to 4 wheel drift mid corner, or braking all the way to the apex while at the limit is just so unrefined in the stock setup, and very unpredictable, that I can't even recommend it. Better times were achieved by trying to change my driving based on the setup. The driving was *technically* worse, but it suited the rubbish setup better.

@Nahkamarakatti made a video where he setup the Quattro S1 and that shows just how important setup is.

The fact is that good driving can only make a bad setup bearable: it's not gonna make it terribly fast. I think to get 2 seconds from RSR WR's on stock setups would defy the laws of physics, on some tracks and cars.

Of course, the less setup options you have, the less important setup is. That's why we tell you to go drive the streetcars, because by lowering the tire pressures a bit and adding some camber in the front, you can in fact drive a good time.

Waaaaayyyyy back in early 2014, I trailed Niki Djakovic's Imola/BMW M3 E30 S1 WR by 1.5 seconds, and I was a lot worse back then. There's no way I could have done the same in GT cars: absolutely no way. Not now, not then.

@Jaye

Yeah, I change my statement a bit: On an ideal setup, that'd be wrong. I had to do similar things on the stock setup, even without ABS.

Like I said, it's not a terrible lap. Just not accurate of what kind of driving you do on a very good setup.

Also, like it's been said, hotlap and race driving and setups are different. That 2:18 that you did was really good for a race situation IMO. If you kept putting out consistent laps 2 sec from the WR on medium tires (Softs would wear out fast, and be slower than meds after some laps) then that'd be enough to win a race with good drivers in it.

EDIT: Slows? Slow tires? A bit of a brainfart there, thinking about mediums being slower.

@Richard_Dastardly

There's nothing wrong with using two pedals at the same time. @Hany does it all the time. Are you implying he's driving wrong?

See, you've just been taught that it's wrong because reasons.

If you overlap them correctly ie: you don't ride the throttle while in the braking zone, but you overlap them a bit while letting off the brake, it achieves two things:

It balances out the weight transfer.
It brakes more with your front tires because the rears are not locking, which increases stability because you understeer a bit.

You see, when we say that aliens drive oversteer setups, we don't mean that they go in drifting every corner. What we mean is that they do tricks like the above to get the car to handle neutral, but the setup allows for agile rotation and 4 wheel drifting instead of just becoming WORSE if you drive *properly* ie: overlap braking and throttle, smooth application etc.

 

Here's a lap I did right now. It wasn't very smooth even for my standards because I didn't practice this combo lately, but hopefully you guys can give me some feedback on it.
My setup was 0/2 wings, 7/3 ARB, 0 rear toe, 66% Brake Bias, 25% diff power, 10l of fuel and medium compound. I don't remember if I changed the Fast damper settings, but apart from that it was stock.
Track was in Optimal grip level and ambient temperature 25ºC.
I also tried a lap with the Nissan, but since I didn't practice much lately that car was pretty much undrivable, I really need to get in the zone to get a 2:21 on it.

 

@Poguinhas

Your biggest problems are line and braking. Acceleration is also late, but that's because of your braking.

If you look at your pedals app, you can see that your throttle application is pretty good: nice and smooth, not terribly early or late.

Your braking is the opposite. Although you apply the brake fast, you let it go very un-smoothly, increasing and decreasing brake, resulting in understeer. You also don't overlap your pedals at all.

Combine un-smooth brake release with not combining pedals/not being able to combine them due to bad braking, and you get a slow time. Your setup is also a slow understeer biased setup except with no wings, which means that you're forced to drive in a slow way to get the car around the track safely because it understeers on exit and oversteer on entry if you push it a bit.

My suggestion is to work on your braking in streetcars. Go to Vallelunga club in the GT86, put the track to Dusty, turn ABS off and work on only your braking until you can turn in very nicely and fast with a little bit of oversteer in some corners.

The heel and toe you're forced to do in the roadcars also forces you to focus on your braking pressure. It's VERY hard to release the brake smoothly without increasing pressure when heel and toeing.

 

I'd try several training sessions with two "rules"
1) Throttle only on or off - the car has grip, use it ... (more diff power might be helpful here too - something like 40-60%)
2) Do not let go off the brakes until you get to the apex - add some coast diff too (40-70%) if you feel unstable under braking, if the car is understeering move Brake bias to ~62-64 and drop front ARB. And if you slowed down too early, release some of the pressure and reapply it when near turn in.

The key here being, you have to carry more speed into the turns and then accelerate with more confidence. (Also a not really serious hint, drop that car, it's trash You'll need a "McLaren's university of random instability" degree to drive it properly - it's more difficult to setup and learn on it.)

 

@Nao I'd have to disagree. There's not that much wrong with his acceleration.

The reason he accelerates late in the first place is his braking. It will only get worse if his braking is unstable.

 

@Arch
I always felt like my braking was inaccurate. When I try to brake into the corners I always spin, maybe it's because the G27 brake is too heavy, maybe I'm just not very precise with my left foot but I have trouble braking smoothly.
What I should do, after I improve my braking, is brake more into the corner, and get on the power even before I fully release the brakes, right? I'll try to work on that.

@Nao
I never really felt good with the Mercedes or the BMW, and even though I like the Nissan, it's very unstable and difficult to control, that's why I chose the McLaren. I also let the Diff Power low because otherwise I get lift off oversteer, but I'll try to improve my braking, and afterwards my throttle inputs.

Thank you both for the feedback.

 

@Arch It's not about the acceleration itself but confidence in the car. As you said it "Your biggest problems are line and braking" I very much doubt that he is using bad lines because he doesn't know better, but rather it's because he can't feel the car good enough to properly guide it... If he masters being hard on throttle and be cool with whatever comes out of it, consistency will increase, and with it the proper line will come naturally.

Plus he >does< tend to press the throttle pedal slowly on exit when the car already has all the grip, it's not much time loss but it's there. (edit: look at 1:30 in the vid, thats like 0.05-0.1s time gain if he'd floor it instantly)