LeGeNd-1
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- 7,249
- Australia
- GTP_LeGeNd-1
Sitrep: finally diamond at Interlagos after 4 hours. I fluked the last corner and beat Lewis by 0.1 secs at the line. My advice for the last turn is to exit it in 2 parts: you want to straigthen out a bit in the middle of the corner (basically cut the apex diagonally) and put in a bit of gas to get some momentum forwards, then turn left a bit again to line up with the exit kerb. This might sound messy but the little bit of extra km/h you get earlier pays dividends up the big hill rather than being smooth and patient on the throttle. Brake balance at -2 for this one. It sounds counterintuitive but the understeer at the infield is compensated by the shorter (and stabler) braking distances.
Next up is Dragon Trail. This one took me a lot shorter than expected (<45 mins). The key is maximising exits from the chicanes, just like Monza, and using all the kerbs available. Also I find you can gain a few tenths if you stay tight exiting the hairpin before the chicane (on my diamond lap I get all squirelly out of here and almost smashed the inside wall, but still gained massively on Lewis who took the wider exit). The chicane timing is crucial - ideally you start lifting and turning in at the middle of the kerb on the outside (just before the overhead gantry). Aim the left apex and that should get you as straight as possible for the right. In Makozi's stream he mentioned the importance of keeping the wheel as straight as possible over the final right kerb, otherwise it'll spit you out wide. If you survive that, the final corner can either be taken tight or double apexed ("V" line). Just make sure you focus on exit again as you can gain a lot on Lewis here. Also for this track the steering wheel FFB settings seems to have a large affect on how stable your car is over the chicane kerbs: with my T-GT I used -2/2/10. Brake balance at 0.
Maggiore isn't my favourite track, so I expected lots of difficulties for this one. Luckily I got diamond after 1.5 hours. The main key for this track is gradual transitions. Whatever you do, whether it's coming on/off brakes, coming on/off throttle and steering HAS to be smooth and progressive. Probably the only place where you can stomp the brake is T1 and the banked hairpin. Everything else, stay smooth. It might feel slower but you'll be faster, trust me. You can also abuse the track limits for this one, especially T4, the uphill esses, banked hairpin apex and the last sector's double right hander apexes. Remember to brake earlier than you think and focus on exit. Hamiton is VERY fast in the last sector due to your car's understeer, so your best bet is nail the lap before then so you have enough gap before this section. The last corner is also quite tricky as there's no obvious brake markers - I use the middle of the blue billboard on the left. Just trail brake and hook your inside tyre over the kerbs Initial D style and accelerate as early as possible. On my diamond lap I was behind coming in, got a good exit and the gap timer gradually went down from +0.012 to +0.006 to +0.002 and crossed the line only -0.003 ahead
Damn that was TENSE!!! 
I changed brake balance a lot for this: start 0 for T1-4, +5 for the bowl and uphill esses, +1 for banked hairpin and back to +5 for last complex.
Going to Nurb GP next. Been at it for 2 days now and currently +0.3 off. I'm losing so much time in the left-right combo after the arena complex and after Schumacher-S (again, curse the understeer). The tricky thing with this track is your braking point for the next corner is very dependent on how good your exit is from your previous one, and I'm not consistent enough to brake on the ultimate limit everytime, so I end up slowing down too much/too little. Also I've seen the aliens cut the chicane like nothing, but unlike Monza I'm having a lot of trouble here because the high kerbs unsettle the car so much. This one's gonna be as painful as Interlagos...
Lewis set these times sometime last year (probably during winter 2018-2019 or even earlier). The "understeer" physics update is released this year sometime before the rain tracks started coming in.
It's really obvious if you compare the guides from OP, SuperGT, TheKie and even Hizal/Igor/Makozi the pattern where they gain time vs losing time against Lewis. They always lose time in the fast flowing corners and gain time coming out of slow tight corners. This also explains why Willow and Brands are frankly so much harder than everything else, because these tracks do not have slow tight corners where the understeer traction advantage can help you. Whereas on the easy spectrum, Monza and Dragon Trail have lots of chicanes where you can just maul the gas without consequence. Bathurst the uphill section Lewis is very fast (because little weight on front wheels exacerbate understeer) while on the downhill he's slower. Maggiore the last sector uphill left-right, Lewis can flat the right easily, whereas we have to lift on both corners. I could go on but that's just the obvious ones.
Obviously, the top top leaderboard times are still a lot faster than Lewis because these people understand how to exploit the physics and track limits more than Lewis, who drives the game "cleanly" as if it's real life. But for those of us who are not aliens it's just an extra layer of handicap trying to beat a 6x F1 champion
Next up is Dragon Trail. This one took me a lot shorter than expected (<45 mins). The key is maximising exits from the chicanes, just like Monza, and using all the kerbs available. Also I find you can gain a few tenths if you stay tight exiting the hairpin before the chicane (on my diamond lap I get all squirelly out of here and almost smashed the inside wall, but still gained massively on Lewis who took the wider exit). The chicane timing is crucial - ideally you start lifting and turning in at the middle of the kerb on the outside (just before the overhead gantry). Aim the left apex and that should get you as straight as possible for the right. In Makozi's stream he mentioned the importance of keeping the wheel as straight as possible over the final right kerb, otherwise it'll spit you out wide. If you survive that, the final corner can either be taken tight or double apexed ("V" line). Just make sure you focus on exit again as you can gain a lot on Lewis here. Also for this track the steering wheel FFB settings seems to have a large affect on how stable your car is over the chicane kerbs: with my T-GT I used -2/2/10. Brake balance at 0.
Maggiore isn't my favourite track, so I expected lots of difficulties for this one. Luckily I got diamond after 1.5 hours. The main key for this track is gradual transitions. Whatever you do, whether it's coming on/off brakes, coming on/off throttle and steering HAS to be smooth and progressive. Probably the only place where you can stomp the brake is T1 and the banked hairpin. Everything else, stay smooth. It might feel slower but you'll be faster, trust me. You can also abuse the track limits for this one, especially T4, the uphill esses, banked hairpin apex and the last sector's double right hander apexes. Remember to brake earlier than you think and focus on exit. Hamiton is VERY fast in the last sector due to your car's understeer, so your best bet is nail the lap before then so you have enough gap before this section. The last corner is also quite tricky as there's no obvious brake markers - I use the middle of the blue billboard on the left. Just trail brake and hook your inside tyre over the kerbs Initial D style and accelerate as early as possible. On my diamond lap I was behind coming in, got a good exit and the gap timer gradually went down from +0.012 to +0.006 to +0.002 and crossed the line only -0.003 ahead
Damn that was TENSE!!! I changed brake balance a lot for this: start 0 for T1-4, +5 for the bowl and uphill esses, +1 for banked hairpin and back to +5 for last complex.Going to Nurb GP next. Been at it for 2 days now and currently +0.3 off. I'm losing so much time in the left-right combo after the arena complex and after Schumacher-S (again, curse the understeer). The tricky thing with this track is your braking point for the next corner is very dependent on how good your exit is from your previous one, and I'm not consistent enough to brake on the ultimate limit everytime, so I end up slowing down too much/too little. Also I've seen the aliens cut the chicane like nothing, but unlike Monza I'm having a lot of trouble here because the high kerbs unsettle the car so much. This one's gonna be as painful as Interlagos...
Lewis set these times sometime last year (probably during winter 2018-2019 or even earlier). The "understeer" physics update is released this year sometime before the rain tracks started coming in.
It's really obvious if you compare the guides from OP, SuperGT, TheKie and even Hizal/Igor/Makozi the pattern where they gain time vs losing time against Lewis. They always lose time in the fast flowing corners and gain time coming out of slow tight corners. This also explains why Willow and Brands are frankly so much harder than everything else, because these tracks do not have slow tight corners where the understeer traction advantage can help you. Whereas on the easy spectrum, Monza and Dragon Trail have lots of chicanes where you can just maul the gas without consequence. Bathurst the uphill section Lewis is very fast (because little weight on front wheels exacerbate understeer) while on the downhill he's slower. Maggiore the last sector uphill left-right, Lewis can flat the right easily, whereas we have to lift on both corners. I could go on but that's just the obvious ones.
Obviously, the top top leaderboard times are still a lot faster than Lewis because these people understand how to exploit the physics and track limits more than Lewis, who drives the game "cleanly" as if it's real life. But for those of us who are not aliens it's just an extra layer of handicap trying to beat a 6x F1 champion
