The 'mask' of a brilliant setup - How fast are you really?

Great point too, if you're 5 seconds off pace you need to fix your driving, not the setup.

 

Yeah man. I just had one of my mates have a go at Monza in the M6 yesterday. He's a decent driver in real life and has had a few goes in the past and was solid mid pack driver in AC1. He was about 10 seconds off the pace on Monza. After a few hours of giving him detailed explanation where he is losing time he started lapping 1:51 even low 1:50s once in a while. He was using my setup. He was 10 seconds off my pace. Let that sink in. Going from 1:57 to high 1:50s he knocked 6+ seconds off his time on a track like Monza which is huge. None of it is due to my set though, he could have used the safe preset but he insisted of using mine so I said okay.... Still 10 seconds off.

 

Now that's the hard truth right there. And I am NOT in the preferred or talented group. And I'm OK with that.
I might add, that time, experience, and practice can make a big difference as well. For some, like me, that can be vastly longer or take more time, than others. It's just the way it is. Some people can draw or play music almost instinctively.... others struggle to be 'OK' with years of training and practice. No difference here, I think.

I have spent many hours fine tuning setups, and even believing I was gaining some tenths for that. Learning what to change and why. Maybe trying suggestions of others on the forums, etc, etc. And I have indeed found my times improving. Fantastic.

But, last weekend I joined an online MP and instead of using my highly refined and fine-tuned setup, I just hit DRIVE, and so had the default SAFE. Guess what. My laptimes were the same as they were with my secret setup. Any improvement I made over all that time had more to do with practice and experience, rather than the setup.

 

True say man, you've improved yourself not the car. It should even be more applauded that you did this all by yourself instead of using magical setups (which by the way do not exist).

Also good analogy with the average Vs gifted musician. Think of the gifted racing driver as if he can hear or feel the car better similar to a gifted musician.

 

Standard guideline from YouTube "Empty box" video: if you cannot drive laps consistently within 0.5sec difference per lap don't bother with setups. So I haven't . Except maybe in AC reduce rear wing for Spa. I can clearly feel difference in ACC between safe and aggressive but I just stick with safe since consistency is more important for me.

 

You can try and see how you stack up against others in the SRO Hotstint event which is locked to default setups. See if you're any closer to the top times there.

 

i have cut my time down from a 1:57.*** to a low 1:51 even 50's by just practicing hot stints and racing endurance against ai strength 88 aggression 20. my CN went up times went down SA 53 and RC23 sinds yesterday. Using the safe setup and only changed the psi of the tires.

 

exactly this, and this happened to me with paul ricard and the last part of the track that you need to get a good Race line to take those blind corners
i was doing pretty bad around 1.58.XX till i changed my lines and improved to 1.55.XX

A setup could help just a bit to adjust to your driving needs but the big factor is how you takes the lines and how precise you are

that's why i called my attention with this guy saying " a couple of clicks here " and doing 4s faster
sorry but is total BS

 

It may be BS but I know @esox71 since forever and I always shared many of my sets with him. I know he's a good racer and his lack of pace on that particular combo can be attributed to things like car understeer/oversteer. He knows his stuff and a good set can actually enable him to go a lot quicker. Unlike many newbies who solely rely on setups to go quicker... Then they hit a wall and can't improve. Also Paul Ricard is not one of the popular circuits in previously sims so I was in this position as well until a week ago when I started racing on it properly and found my lines. So it's just black and white.

 

There's no mask of a great setup, it's an illusion made up in your mind. There would be zero difference if the fast guy took the stock setup, and a larger gap if you got his setup like @PhilS13 . Most people here have done it to death with this topic I don't have much to add but simply to echo the majority. Evaluate what you want out of the sim, it seems you're happy having a good time/battles in the midfield but you're wondering what your skill/driving talent in the sim is like compared to the top guys, the answer is simply you are slow.

I can give you my setup, tell you how to drive it, braking points, how to shift properly, how to manage the brake bias, etc etc. and you still wouldn't get close. There are some posts here that say aliens aren't anything special its just consistent + intelligent effort ad nauseam, and you are correct. So there should be more aliens no? Few can do one of those, and the elite do both and more and better than you can do it.

OP is a decent driver, probably better than 80% of the current sample pool. If you want to be better, improve yourself. Ask for help, those that see you put in good work will help you. If you're some clown coming in spouting that a setup makes me fast over one lap, or 30 you are literally like white noise and probably drive like it too.

PS this was meant to be harsh, however I'm not like this as a person and in character, and those that ask for help genuinely I'm more than happy to help. I also get help from ppl that make me look absolutely pedestrian at my favorite track in my favorite car.

 

Absolutely man. Well said. Clowns just slow and moan about it because they don't understand the sort of pressure and concentration that's required to be this quick over the course of a race. Just white noise to me as you put it.

 

Setup only wins you few tenths, not seconds.
Setups are much more important over a long race rather a single hotlap, because running a setups you are comfortable with allows you to be more consistent, push a little bit harder, and lower the chances of mistakes.

Laptimes are much, *much* more influenced by driver's skills and talent... I can tell it because many of my friends use and appreciate my setups and they are seconds faster than me

:°/

 

On that track, with they particular track/weather settings I was doing low 57's
made some changes then I could get high 54's.... sooo they setting changes allowed me to go from being a **** driver to not so **** driver.....better!?

 

Do you race with a mouse n keyboard?
Do you have they built in assists because of it? dunno about ACC but on AC you did?

 

Nope, you just made the setup easier to push for yourself, which doesn't mean that the setup is inherently faster. it is for you though.

To evaluate the gain/loss between 2 setups we'd need to have some kind of "the Stig", someone who can push any car to its limit and never be a limit for the car.
In this scenario, the difference between a barely decent and a godly perfect setup would be just mere tenths of a second.

But as most of us are normal human being and not pro racing drivers, our skill level is more a limit than the car is, therefore a setup that suits our driving style and let us push comfortably will make quite a noticeable difference in laptimes.

To sum it up: a good setup does not make the car (much) faster.
A good setup will make you comfortable, therefore allows YOU to be faster.

 

Agree that set-ups won't shave seconds off someone's times, UNLESS, they are driving incorrectly, and the new setup masks this.
An example of a setup variable that could make a big difference in some drivers times, would be TC, for obvious reasons.

There is one other important point here though, achieving easy consistent and fast times, and driving in a race while always around and challenging other cars, are two totally different things, and require different setups to be the best in both cases.

To put that in other words,...having a setup that requires the driver to balance on understeer, will not be very useful in "racing".
Trying to turn inside another car with your fronts howling, won't work too well.


My opinion, and that's all anybody should take from any posts here.

 

you say "nope" then go on to say "therefore allows ME to be faster" therefore agreeing with my post, give me a ****ing break, you think I just came up the Clyde in a banana boat!!

 

I've honestly got hard times trying to understand what point you want to make, but sure, let's agree that

, that's totally what happened.

 

This.
Setups can make you feel more comfortable and confident, but not a better, faster driver. You can squeeze tenths out by feeling more confident in the car though, which is the point. And setups are personal. What makes one person feel more comfortable will not be universal, so the 'mate, share your setup' thing is rarely worth it either.

 

Most of what I think has already been said in a more eloquent manner than I can put it.

So a little story instead...

Racing in a league, using my setup developed over probably 8 weeks with double races each week. I have to rejoin as server restarts a little before the quali, of course I forgot to load the setup and took a massive chunk off my practice time in the very short quali session, so just re-corrected psi and used that for the rest of the season!
All while every week people were sharing setups, with me sat there sniggering