SCC - Ferrari 355 Challenge Series - Series Complete, results posted!

[arvore]

Arvore ,my difficulties' for the competitions :
different clock( time ,orario )
my 2 little children....


and to end I am very slow......

talk to you soon, hi

Hmm,I eard different...people here know You for being pretty fast.👍
But I understand you Real Life commitments,though...
Try joining us during the week,if You can.👍

 

[jjaisli]

thanks
I am sorry i use a translator ,this is able' to produce misunderstandings (I have to learn to speak English one day )
jjaisli it uses the video as you want no problem 👍(and' a pleasure for me )

No, there was nothing wrong with what you wrote. The translation was fine. I just didn't realize exactly what your intentions were.

Arvore ,my difficulties' for the competitions :
different clock( time ,orario )
my 2 little children....

There are ways around this. The races start (for you) on Sunday night at 22:00 your time (I believe). So maybe your children will already be in bed?

 

[blown540ci]

bravo very good video pino

 

[kemp333]

Waow! Great video Pino!👍 But it's sad there are no replays for online races in this game... ok, there aren't replays in GT5p or NFS too...(don't know for others race sims). Hope we'll have this option on GT5!

 

[Alan_G]

Just to confirm; race starts at 2000 GMT, so this is 2100 BST?

Either way, I will be there.

 

[jjaisli]

This time (click me)

Edit: Less than an hour to go now!

 

[Alan_G]

Here's my quick review.

Race 1 (Dry)

Got a fairly good lap in; put me 2nd behind Vompatti. In the race, had to push really hard to stay with the Flying Finn. Around lap 5, saw a chance to squeeze into the inside of Luffield, and we went side by side down the pit straight. I had the inside for Copse, and also Vompatti seemed to get a slide and lose time around the outside of Copse. After that he kept strong pressure on me, but I held on until the end.

Race 2 (wet)
Started last. Got a nice start. JJ was in front and had some kind of inner-car experience, causing a big incident! Picked up a few places. FingersAndThumbs was leading. Got a slipstream on the Hangar straight, and stole the lead. And that was the end of the action for today!

Thanks for organising the event JJ! Looking forward to next time.

 

[vompatti]

Jeff, thanks once again for the event. It was nice to be back after such a long break, even though I have to admit that it would've been nice to see more cars on the grid.

Quali: I thought that my lap was bit too safe, especially on the first corners, but I was able to get the pole position with a very small margin. Nice surprise for sure!

Race 1: In the start I was able to keep my position and after first corners we started to make difference to the rest of the group with Alan. Our gap went back and forward for about 5 laps. Then I did a mistake in the very last corner and drove just a little bit wide so that Alan was able to put his nose on to inner line. We drove into the first corner side by side, Alan on the inside. Unfortunately under braking I lost my cars tail a little bit, which resulted in my cars front hitting the side of Alan's car. It got a bit stuck in there on some weird way and then when it got loose, it threw me wide and on to the grass. I came back from there about couple of seconds behind Alan. Too bad that I couldn't get into his draft, because our difference after 20 laps was just shy of 6 seconds. I did some +1s mistakes. So it could've been interesting race if I had got into his draft. Now I couldn't catch him. Overall quite a good race for me (minus those couple of mistakes), I was able to keep up a good pace (several 2'00,0x laps) and I even drove my pb during the race (ok, only by -0.01, but still! ).

Race 2: In the start there was a really weird lagcrash between jjaisli and someone else. kemp bounced in front of me and I had to break during the acceleration so that I wouldn't hit him. After that we drove several laps with kemp, him in the front me following close. I was trying to find a good spot to overtake but it wasn't that easy to find. Also I had jjaisli in my tail, so I couldn't use very weird lines. During our battle we did overtake Rhino and Redgate. With Redgate I had a side by side contact and he went off, I don't know, maybe you didn't notice me in there? But I don't think I did anything wrong in there and I couldn't go any further as I was already on the side of the track. Unlucky for Redgate, he lost a lot of time in that incident. After that I was able to get pass kemp and started to chase FINGERS. I did catch him and I started to seek for a good opportunity to overtake. Eventually it did come and I was able to rise up to 2nd place. It was lap 6 or 7 and Alan was already 18s ahead. So I immediately decided that there is absolutely no point to start pushing like in the first race. Especially when I didn't feel so comfortable with my setup on the rain. So I picked up safe lines and a pace that allowed me to make a bigger gap to FINGERS and drove like that till the end.


I think this was a bit more than a maximum result for me, due the pole position. Otherwise the result was basically what I thought that I could achieve. In the first race I was a bit surprised how close I was to Alan and that I was able to keep up even that well on his pace. In the second race there was nothing else I was able to do, as it seemed that Alan got through the pack very fast and for me it took several laps. Also I think that my pace (even if I would've pushed) compared to his wasn't as good as it was in the first race.

 

[jjaisli]

Supercar Challenge - Ferrari Challenge Series - F355 Challenge Season

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Event No 3 - July 18th, 2010 - 20:00 GMT - Silverstone - RACE RECAP


I want to thank those who participated in the 3rd round of the '1996' Ferrari F355 Challenge season from Silverstone. Now that the world cup is over, I was expecting to have a full house for this event and was more than a little disappointed that the turn out was quite small and many Challenge Season regulars didn't make it either. Perhaps people were simply busy on a summer evening or away on holiday.


QUALIFYING: 2 laps - conditions 50% dry/wet chosen at random

I flipped a coin and tails meant it was dry qualifying for the first time this season. I was able to set a relatively clean lap but it lacked the precision necessary to really shine. But it was good enough for 3rd on the grid. And I consider myself lucky that regulars such as mhm66 and new_soul were absent as they would have undoubtedly put up a better time and pushed me further down the grid

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RACE 1 (Feature Race): - 20 Laps - Dry

I have to admit, the feature race for me was terribly boring. And I'm considering whether it's worth it to post any video at all. I made a decent start and held my position but had no chance to make up any ground on the two in front of me either (AlanG & vompatti). I managed to stick with them (about 2.5 seconds or less) for about 3-4 laps. And at the same time, I noticed kemp1010 behind me made a small mistake and dropped back several seconds. And from that point on, nobody challenged me from behind and the two guys in front of me were able to steadily pull away. Aside from coming up to lap frawe toward the end, I never even saw another car between laps 4 & 20.

Feature Race Results:

[youtubehd]6bWr8Zfl_Gw[/youtubehd]



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RACE 2 (Sprint Race): 15 Laps - Wet


Going into the Sprint Race, knowing that I had a very fast AlanG & Vompatti behind me, my strategy was to make a great start and pass at least one car before the first corner, which would at least allow me some breathing room. It didn't exactly work out this way. Some weird lag caused me to momentarily warp inside Redgate's car in front of me. Fortunately for him, it didn't put him off too much, but needless to say, I found myself in last place going into Copse. Not exactly the idea situation.

From there it was pretty much a comedy of errors working my way through the field. Going through Becketts, I could see Arvore on the side of the road and making no effort to get back on the track and wondered what was going on. Moments later, he left the lobby.

Around Club, I finally caught up to the tail end of the pack and was at least somewhat relieved to find vompatti in front of me. (Nice Alitalia livery, BTW) It was pretty clear that the cars immediately in front of him were holding him up as he was taking some odd lines into some corners and braking earlier than he otherwise would be, but like me with him, he simply couldn't get around them. It was here for the first time that I noticed that Frawe was also gone from the lobby.

On lap 2, exiting Beckets and going up the Hanger straight I was able to get around Rhino. And through club and abbey, it was clear that kemp was fighting hard and doing all he could to keep vompatti behind him. On lap 3 on the entrance to maggots, Redgate went a bit wide and allowed the 3 of us (meaning kemp, vompatti and I) to push through.

At the start of lap 4, kemp was trying to defend the inside line to prevent vompatti from making a move around Copse. It didn't quite work as he intended as vompatti was able to brake a bit later and drive around him. And having good momentum myself, I thought about trying to take kemp on the outside as well, but he quickly crossed the track to the outside and blocked that route, forcing me to back off slightly. Unfortunately on this same lap, braking into Vale, I got a tire up on the grass and couldn't stop in time and hit kemp from behind. (sorry Kemp). It knocked him onto the grass in the braking zone. And I then slowed down to allow him to retake the position. But at the same time, I became concerned about Redgate and Rhino coming up behind me and didn't want to impede them. So I worked my way through Club and then pulled onto the grass and let them both by. I searched frantically for Kemp and still couldn't see him and wondered if he had spun trying to get back onto the course. And about 2 seconds later, I finally pulled my finger out and thought to look at the interval timer and realized to my horror...that I was in last. And Kemp was already back on the road, quite a distance in front of me. No, this race really wasn't going as planned.

On lap 5, approaching Maggots, I was gaining on Redgate rapidly and pushed hard to maintain that momentum going into Maggots very fast, hoping to pressure him into looking back and making a mistake. But I suddenly noticed Rhino off the road and heading back to the track and became distracted myself, missed my turn in point and left the track. Oh, the humility. A few corners later, I made a rather opportunistic inside pass on Rhino going into Abbey and made it stick, although he NEARLY got me again at bridge.

At the start of lap 7, I had a good run on Redgate approaching Copse and took the inside line. I could tell we touched but from my view, it looked more like he touched me while turning in. But I couldn't be sure and since he was off the track, I decided to be fair and concede the position back to him. He made a small mistake exiting Beckets (or he decided to give the position back to me, I'm not sure) and I found myself about 15 seconds behind kemp with the race 1/2 way over. But I put my foot down and tried to crank out consistent laps.

At the start of lap 10, I had narrowed the gap down to <8 seconds and thought I could probably catch him again before the end of the race. But a few corners later I saw that he had made a mistake exiting bridge and approaching Brooklands. He managed to get back on track in front of me but I tried hard to pressure him going into Brooklands and he left his braking just a bit too late and I was by him, now about 10 seconds behind FINGERSANDTHUMBS with 5 laps left.

I was able to put a few, high 2:05 laps in during practice. But I was simply trying and pushing too hard to catch Fingers and a series of small mistakes over the next few laps meant I really wasn't able to break that far into his lead. I finished the race in 4th, less than 5 seconds behind. A bit unfortunate but certainly more exciting than race 1.


Sprint Race Results:

[youtubehd]YuVDaqiW3uY[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]_le20tCqSvc[/youtubehd]

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Combined Results from Round 3:

As expected, the return of AlanG & vompatti meant a new order was created. It's a shame that Henrik & new_soul weren't able to make this round as I'm sure it would have been great fun and interesting to see where they would have landed after being thrown into the mix. As Silverstone is not one of my favorite tracks, I wasn't really expecting to do too well here. But all things considered, my results were better than I had hoped.

Hopefully in two weeks time, we'll have a better turn out at Vallelunga.


Combined Series Standings (After 3 Rounds)
1) - mhm66 - enzo - 76
2) - jjaisli - Forza - G27 - 74
3) - FINGERSANDTHUMBS - Creative - 57
4) - kemp1010 - MX - 48
5) - arvore - Mandolin Club Racing - 45
6) - AlanG184 - GTPlanet - 39
7) - tunrupdaheat - ScudEire - 33
8) - vompatti - ILRT - 30
9) - Redgate - Eurogamer - 28
10) - GTP_bullie77 - Lusitania Racing - 18
10) - GTP_Hun - T L Team - 18
12) - new_soul - UKOG - 16
13) - Rhino_WJB - Team Z - 12
14) - L449KUX - TheRacingElite - 10
15) - frawe - Frawe - 9
16) - SimcoeAce - Mad Dogs - 6
17) - Firedshot - TheRacingElite - 4

I'll add some video as soon as it's published!

 

[vompatti]

My Silverstone setup:

Setup: Front / Rear
Springs: Soft / Soft
Dampers: Soft / Soft
Roll Bars: Hard / Hard
Ride Height: -0.030 / +0.030
Camber: -4.00 / -3.20
Toe: +0.15 / -0.10

(Nice Alitalia livery, BTW)

Thanks, even though it's still a work in progress livery. I thought that Alitalia theme would sit nicely on a 355 Challenge Series

Combined Series Standings...

I have a weird feeling, that there might be something missing on the standings, maybe you should double check it

 

[Jerry786]

Can you include me in this series jjaisli? You guys look pretty fast!

 

[jjaisli]

I have a weird feeling, that there might be something missing on the standings, maybe you should double check it

Ooops! Fixed. My biggest issue here in the forum is that I can't cut & paste data directly from Excel and the constant editing to make it legible was making me mad. So I gave up and did what any sane person would do--take a screen capture, edit it and paste it as a JPEG file.

My Silverstone Setup:
Springs: Soft/Soft
Struts: Hard/Soft
Roll Bars: Hard/Hard
Ride Height: -0.030 / +0.030
Camber: -4.00 / -3.20
Toe: -0.05 / -0.05

I found my Hockenheim setup to be almost undrivable around Silverstone. I had a very difficult time coping with the quick turn in around Maggots-Beckets and it made placing the car almost trial and error. So I went with the more conservative and stable negative toe on the front. Ultimately, this probably compromised my pace a bit, especially around Luffield, which is why I kept taking such a wide entry. But I felt a bit safer.

YouTube is just processing the last video now. I'll edit it in to my race recap post above when its done. The other two are already up.

 

[Rhino_WJB]

It was great to run in this series again, though this event was one to forget for me :-(

I had been playing with the set-up in some TT practice during the day, and eventually managed to get my PB down to 2:03.*. I was tweaking when I could, but being a total novice in this area, I just ended up messing it up. The base tune was actually Jeff's Hockenheim set-up: now I see my error! "I found my Hockenheim setup to be almost undrivable around Silverstone." - jjaisli

At best, I keep up with mid-pack, so lack of practice and a set-up I ruined resulted in a poor weekend for me.

Both races were uneventful really, given I was at the back, fighting the stay on the track. The wet race saw me off track 3 times at Becketts: my entire focus was on not interfering with anyone else's race at this point.

I enjoyed the drive, though of course disappointed with the result. Will be back again though for the next race, hopefully with a better performance :-)

 

[jjaisli]

Can you include me in this series jjaisli? You guys look pretty fast!

Hi Jerry--certainly you can! Just make sure you go back to the first page of this thread and read my first post carefully so that you're familiar with the rules and organization. The game allows you to race any car on-line, whether you've unlocked or purchased it or not. But you can only tune and adjust the suspension after you've purchased it. In order to run competitive laps, you'll need to fine tune the suspension. Vallelunga is coming up in two weeks so you should have plenty of time to practice.

I had been playing with the set-up in some TT practice during the day, and eventually managed to get my PB down to 2:03.*. I was tweaking when I could, but being a total novice in this area, I just ended up messing it up. The base tune was actually Jeff's Hockenheim set-up: now I see my error! "I found my Hockenheim setup to be almost undrivable around Silverstone." - jjaisli

Well, don't forget Wes, adding negative camber will increase the level of grip (without sacrificing tire wear). But springs/struts/toe are all very personal and what works for one person may not work for another. I can tell you, I would have found vompatti's setup VERY difficult to drive. With enough practice, I'm sure I would have managed. And chances are, I might have even had a faster PB if I managed to string a good lap together because potentially this setup is faster. But I certainly would have been slower over-all because I don't think I would have been as consistent. And this is actually one of the reasons I don't really like to post my setups in advance. There's such a temptation to take a setup from guys like AlanG or Vompatti, who are SOOO much faster than everybody else, mirror what they use and expect to be faster. And it usually doesn't work this way. It's a matter of finding a setup that allows the car to behave and react in a way that makes you feel comfortable and allows you to attack corners faster and more consistently.

You may find my Silverstone setup was just as bad.

 

[Rhino_WJB]

Yep, I appreciate set-ups are personal, but I was willing to try anything, looking for an improvement over default. I'm not blaming the set-up really for my poor weekend, only that it compounded my lack of pace!

Thanks for the tips on set-up adjustments: I shall try spend more time for the next event in getting something that works for me.

 

[Alan_G]

I had been playing with the set-up in some TT practice during the day, and eventually managed to get my PB down to 2:03.*.

Yep, I appreciate set-ups are personal, but I was willing to try anything, looking for an improvement over default.

A couple of people have disagreed with me in the past, but I'm adamant that the easiest setup on all cars in the game is the default setup; the further away from default you go, the more difficult the handling becomes (with the exception of toe settings, which, with particular changes, can make handing slightly easier).

Not directed at you Rhino, or anyone in particular: Some people are far too quick to turn to car setup changes whenever the lap times are not good. I just think people are looking for the quick-fix solution, rather than the tough reality of having to either select better lines, or execute the lines better.

There are only two setup changes that are essential: Maximum negative camber, and min-front/max-rear ride height (although some cars bottom-out with that). Hard roll-bars can give slightly better cornering. But everything else is not going to rake-in the tenths.

For every event, stick on min/min camber, min/max ride, keep everything else soft & default, and then just hit the track. Twiddling with bits of setups and going for hard suspension is just going to make things more difficult at such an early stage. Or the point is, if one is struggling for pace with this setup, then the problem lies on the track, to be blunt!

EDIT:

I'll just stick on my car setup here, for no reason in particular. It's really the standard kind of thing:

Camber: Min/Min
Toe: +10/+5 (Approx.)
Ride: Min/Max
Dampers: Soft/Soft
Springs: Hard/Soft (I think)
Roll: Hard/Hard

The 355C is a very oversteer-prone car, no matter what the setup. I tried the full-works of setup changes, and could not eradicate the oversteer. So I just commit to what I know to be roughly the fastest raw-pace setup, and put extra care into being more smooth than I normally try to be.

 

[jjaisli]

Well, I have to say Alan, I do disagree with some of your points. On some tracks, not going with FULL maximum negative camber could be an advantage because it does have some detrimental effects (it increases your braking distance, makes the car a bit 'twitchy' and makes it a bit tricky to put full power down exiting some tighter corners). But in general, the benefits outweigh the negatives. I've said it a thousand times but if this game took tire wear into account, nobody could run full negative camber for more than 10~15 laps without having their tires worn to shreds. And it really irks me a bit.

But I also disagree about min/max ride height. Again, on some tracks, there is little benefit to having minimum font ride height. It can make VIR, for example, outright treacherous. Henrik and I both found raising the front ride height to +0.05 at this track was faster over-all.

While I agree, the most important thing is to know the track and your braking points and taking proper lines through the corners and knowing when and how much to apply the throttle, setup changes, toe in particular, can change the handling characteristics of a car and will force you to take slightly different lines around some corners. And being able to understand and exploit that difference can be a huge advantage. I can tell you, it would be VERY difficult for me to drive Silverstone with +10 of front toe. At least with this car. And I would certainly have to change my approach to some corners. I agree it's potentially faster. But not necessarily in practice.

 

[Alan_G]

On some tracks, not going with FULL maximum negative camber could be an advantage because it does have some detrimental effects (it increases your braking distance, makes the car a bit 'twitchy' and makes it a bit tricky to put full power down exiting some tighter corners).

Yeah, I agree with that. I didn't really articulate my point well enough. For wheel users in particular, it can be important to look at running less camber. Although I tried this out on Monza and found I was losing more time in Lesmos/Ascari/Parabolica than was gaining in braking etc. But the stability could be beneficial for wheel users (well, everyone I suppose!).

But in general, the benefits outweigh the negatives. I've said it a thousand times but if this game took tire wear into account, nobody could run full negative camber for more than 10~15 laps without having their tires worn to shreds. And it really irks me a bit.

Well, the tyre wear is just one part of it. I don't believe such extreme camber values should be drivable in the first place. The fact that we can drive on these extreme camber settings exposes the limitations in the SCC physics. I don't know much about it, but I feel that in RL, the instability would make it un-drivable, and also that it would be just slow cornering (like in GT5P for example - once you go beyond a certain point with negative camber, you lose cornering speed).

But I also disagree about min/max ride height. Again, on some tracks, there is little benefit to having minimum font ride height. It can make VIR, for example, outright treacherous. Henrik and I both found raising the front ride height to +0.05 at this track was faster over-all.

I think it makes straight-line optimal. For some cars, raising it is necessary as the front of the car bottoms-out into the ground, which kills the cornering speed (DB9 and Enzo for example).

 

[Redgate]

Enjoyed both races even though my mistakes lost me places too easily.
@ vompatti- we did hit in the second race but it certainly wasn't your fault as i was already losing control when it happened.
@ jjaisli- i thought i'd given you enough room when i turned in but obviously from the contact i hadn't. There was no need to let me back through but i appreciate your fairplay and no i wasn't letting you through just another mistake on my part.
Thanks for hosting and organising to jjaisli and to everyone who took part.

 

[Alan_G]

Here's a little map for Vallelunga with the very useful corner names!

Really like this circuit though. Probably my favourite overall in SCC.

 

[vompatti]

This talk of setups in the last posts got me curious. In fact so curious that I did something that I haven't done before. I went back to Silverstone to do couple of laps with jjaisli's and Alan's setups.

First I tested jjaisli's setup. The thing I didn't like that much was, that it was much more unstable in the last part of braking and in there it lost the rear end more easy than my setup. On the fast corners it sometimes did draw the nose of the car back during the corner. What I mean, that I turned it into the corner, everything was going nicely but then it started to understeer in the middle of the corner making it a bit hard to keep on the track when coming out of the corner instead of running out of track. And the last minus for me was that in the very last part of coming out from the corner, when you got your car back to straight and didn't need to steer anymore it was occasionally bit wobbly. On the plus sides it didn't oversteer as easily as my setup and if you got caught to an oversteer it was a LOT easier to recover. Anyhow, it was a very fast setup. I was clocking low 2:00's and I'm sure that going under 2 minutes wouldn't be a huge challenge. But those little characteristic things meant that it wouldn't be ideal setup for me. I need my car to be stable in the last part of the braking because I often turn in with still holding some brake on.

Then Alan's setup. Well, this was interesting. It was so easy setup to drive. No oversteer, car behaved logically and was sitting on the road like a glue. Without the doubt the easiest setup to drive out of the three. Only negative characteristic thing was that little understeer it gave on Copse and Bridge. However, there was another issue. I was slow. Even though driving was pleasant and easy, my times were bad. I drove much faster times with jjaisli's setup. I don't know, maybe I was driving it wrong with that setup but I really couldn't make any fast times even though I felt that I was driving good laps.


It was interesting to test, even though I drove only some laps (maybe 8 laps with both setups) and to see that in the end, I think I would've pick my own setup for the race. It was after all the one that suited best for my driving style and how I would like my car to behave. Ok, after this test I would've tuned it a bit more and maybe got it even better as it wasn't exactly the way I wanted it to be.

 

[Jerry786]

jjaisli

Id like to enter this series if thats OK?

 

[Alan_G]

Ah actually, my setup is slightly different. The Toe is +5/+10, not +10/+5.

To be honest, I'm never quite sure what I'm doing with toe. With the 348C at Virginia, I remember that more positive front and negative rear made it sharper cornering, although too much made it oversteer-prone, and too much negative rear gave traction problems.

So my thinking with the 355C was to make the rear toe positive to try and calm the oversteer a bit. To be honest, it's difficult for me to see much difference between toe settings. One thing I must remember is that you wheel users are probably getting much more communication with the FFB and things, so that probably makes the setup fine-tuning more important.

Anyway my point earlier was not to condemn setups at all, of course. It's just that I think the vast majority of the focus should be on having an honest, hard look at the selection of lines, and execution of lines; each time you exit a corner asking yourself did you do the expected line, or why not, or could the line be faster etc.

I'll give an example of this. During the event yesterday, I did around 10 consecutive low 2'00. This was killing me, because in practice I had done a 1'59.8. I was pushing very hard. So I thought about my lap in detail and considered where I could do something different to find speed. I realised I needed to get closer to the apexes of the Becketts left/right, and also thought about taking a slower apex of Brooklands, and a straighter exit. I did these things in a nice clean lap, and suddenly a 59.3 went in (a bit faster than I expected to be honest).

So if this were a practice race where Vompatti put in a mid 1'59 or something, and I was pushing to my limit and only doing 10 low 2'00 laps, then I may think "hmm, maybe I need to delve into my car setup to get me into the 1'59s", whereas all I needed to do was switch on the brain and have a serious think about the lines, and try to understand where the time could be lost.

I need my car to be stable in the last part of the braking because I often turn in with still holding some brake on.

Yeah, I do this all the time. There can be a lot of time to be found by braking & turning together. For Silverstone 355C, I do it slightly into Becketts, a lot into Stowe, braking right up to the left apex of Club, and Brooklands braking right up to the apex.

 

[jjaisli]

jjaisli

Id like to enter this series if thats OK?

Hi Jerry--I did actually answer you (previous page, post #254). But in short, "yes". Read the very first post (page 1 of this thread) to familiarize yourself with the rules and procedures and I'll see you on the 1st. I don't have an actual sign up sheet but I do give priority to those who have already taken part in past races. However considering the almost dismal turn out for the last race, I doubt a full lobby will be an issue.

 

[Alan_G]

However considering the almost dismal turn out for the last race, I doubt a full lobby will be an issue.

Well, there were 9 players at one point; not as bad as one of the Old Timer events - I remember Redwood (250GTO I think) had around 5 people!

Lets hope some of mhm, Mario, Bullie, newsoul make the return.

 

[bullie77]

Well, there were 9 players at one point; not as bad as one of the Old Timer events - I remember Redwood (250GTO I think) had around 5 people!

Lets hope some of mhm, Mario, Bullie, newsoul make the return.

Yes, almost 100% sure I'll make a return for Vallelunga.

I'm uncertaint however about being possible to race the last round, at Spa.

 

[vompatti]

To be honest, it's difficult for me to see much difference between toe settings. One thing I must remember is that you wheel users are probably getting much more communication with the FFB and things, so that probably makes the setup fine-tuning more important.

Yeah, I think this does make some difference. I would expect that because with wheel there isn't those hidden assists that pad has, the information and cars behavior comes in as much more "raw". Maybe because of that fine tuning steps in with a bigger role. You might need to do that extra tuning to find that optional setup to make you not necessary faster, but more comfortable with the setup so that your car behaves as you expect it to behave, thus making you faster on the track due the confidence you gain. I can honestly say, that in Silverstone I improved my times with one second after a small toe change. And those better times came much easier than my previous pb at that time.

BUT,
having said that, I agree 100% with this:

Anyway my point earlier was not to condemn setups at all, of course. It's just that I think the vast majority of the focus should be on having an honest, hard look at the selection of lines, and execution of lines; each time you exit a corner asking yourself did you do the expected line, or why not, or could the line be faster etc.

And I want to underline this too. Even though I'm not the fastest driver or expert with setups, I want to make clear, just like Alan, how important it is to FIRST get to know the track and the car. For me personally, I don't touch to my setups at all for the couple of first practice sessions. Of course it is recommended to have those "usual" values (max- cambers, max- front ride height and max+ rear ride height and so on) in the car. This is simply because the grip in corners, speed in corners and your braking points are so different from the default setup. But put those in, just pick up basically whatever toe settings, as long as it doesn't feel absolutely impossible to drive. After that, practice, practice and practice. Until you are absolutely 100% sure that setup is the thing that is slowing you down, not your knowledge of the track or the car. If you start right from the beginning with switching your settings in every occasion you will only end up confused. For me it might be something like 50 laps without setup changes if the car and track are new for me. You have to know what gear to use, where to brake, where to turn in, what lines to use etc. before there is any use for changing the setup. Because you have to drive on your personal limits before and after the setup change to actually see the real difference.

 

[jjaisli]

First I tested jjaisli's setup. The thing I didn't like that much was, that it was (1) much more unstable in the last part of braking and in there it lost the rear end more easy than my setup. On the fast corners it sometimes did draw the nose of the car back during the corner. What I mean, that I turned it into the corner, (2) everything was going nicely but then it started to understeer in the middle of the corner making it a bit hard to keep on the track when coming out of the corner instead of running out of track. And the last minus for me was that in the very last part of (3) coming out from the corner, when you got your car back to straight and didn't need to steer anymore it was occasionally bit wobbly. (4) On the plus sides it didn't oversteer as easily as my setup and if you got caught to an oversteer it was a LOT easier to recover. Anyhow, it was a very fast setup. I was clocking low 2:00's and I'm sure that going under 2 minutes wouldn't be a huge challenge. But those little characteristic things meant that it wouldn't be ideal setup for me. I need my car to be stable in the last part of the braking because I often turn in with still holding some brake on.

Then Alan's setup....driving was pleasant and easy, my times were bad. I drove much faster times with jjaisli's setup. I don't know, maybe I was driving it wrong with that setup but I really couldn't make any fast times even though I felt that I was driving good laps.

I meant to comment on this last night but didn't have time. I'm on my way to work now so I'm short on time again.

But I wanted to mention, I thought this was a great post and a very interesting experiment. I was also quite interested in your comments about Alan's setup because its actually much closer to your own and I found it fascinating that such little differences can have such a big effect.

However, in regards to your comments on my setup, on points 2 & 4, I agree with you completely. On points 1 & 3, I don't. I really didn't notice much or any instability under braking (although that said, I did once get a wobble, put a wheel on the grass and hit kemp from behind ) so this may sound like a rather silly argument on my part. But I think it was just 'one of those things'. Perhaps, as you mentioned in the other thread, the G27's pedals simply give me better feedback and feel for braking. But I find full negative camber has more of an affect on instability under braking and under power exiting corners than toe has. Although, obviously, toe will still affect it. But from my experience, negative toe (- values) in front generally makes the car MORE stable under braking. You are however, dead on about the understeer. The car does indeed understeer more and this is why, for example, I was taking such a wide line into Luffield to help compensate. And it's also why I felt, if you're confident enough to exploit it, your setup was potentially faster.

I found in experimenting with different settings that positive front toe (+ numbers) made the car turn in too quickly to be accurate and the resulting oversteer was particularly difficult to control around say stowe or club, where I was forced to back off the throttle completely in some situations. It was the medium speed corners where I had a problem. Contrast this with Monza (low speed chicanes) where I was very comfortable with positive front toe. I felt I suffered a bit under braking but was faster overall because of the quicker turn-in. The Ascari Chicane took a bit of practice to get right with the car so 'loose' but I was OK with it.

I also agree that it's probably better to start practicing for a different track with a 'neutral' car because it's easy to adjust your driving style to compensate or accentuate the setup characteristics. Too often, I tried to play engineer (I'm not ) and guess at what I thought would be an ideal setup for a track before driving it. And it ended up taking longer to ascertain what was a better setup.

 

[vompatti]

On points 1 & 3, I don't. I really didn't notice much or any instability under braking.

I think that I didn't know how to say correctly what I meant. So I'll try again As I said, I tend to keep some brake on still when I'm turning into the corner. So for example when braking in to Vale it was, just as you said, stable under braking. But when I started to turn into corner with lifting little bit of the brake but still holding it on a bit, and then going from that into acceleration. This was the moment where I felt your setup was more unstable than mine. As you stated, this could be due DFGT vs G27 or the difference between our driving style. So it wasn't really unstable generally under braking, it was that exact moment. But for my driving style that exact moment is quite important, as the correction needed in the situation often cost me some time before I was able to start accelerating out of the corner.

On point 3 it was really occasional, basically I noticed it in the straight before Brooklands. As I came often in there with some small 4-wheel drift from the previous corner and when I thought that now it gripped back, it suddenly did this left-to-right wobbly thingy. But it happened only couple of times and was easily prevented when I was aware that it could do that.

 

[jjaisli]

But when I started to turn into corner with lifting little bit of the brake but still holding it on a bit, and then going from that into acceleration. This was the moment where I felt your setup was more unstable than mine. As you stated, this could be due DFGT vs G27 or the difference between our driving style. So it wasn't really unstable generally under braking, it was that exact moment.

I see. And yes this makes sense. I've always felt that in this game, it's very difficult to descren that exact point of threshold braking where you go from maximum deceleration at the very edge of grip to full lockup. But you can tell immediately when you turn the wheel and it results in terminal understeer. There is no question, that turning on ABS allows one (or at least me) to vastly alter their driving style because you can brake and turn much more effectively. But since I find driving with such assists to be rather distasteful, and I actually never drove (in this game) with ABS (except to test it's effectiveness here or there), I've grown used to driving without it. And as such, I tend to do most of my braking in a straight line--very late, very hard, very abrupt. And dare I say it, when done correctly, very effective.

Hun200kmh and I are very evenly matched in pace. But he has expressed his frustration that I'm consistently able to gain time on him under braking. But I think he would find this only to be true at tracks like Montreal or Monza where my method IS particularly effective due to the nature of the course. Where at other tracks, especially that diabolic piece of hell on earth (known by some as Paul Ricard), it rarely allows you the luxury to brake in a straight line (except approaching turn one), I'm constantly losing time to him under braking because I'm forced to change my style.

All that said, I wasn't 100% happy with my Silverstone setup and it's possible with more time to practice I would have tweaked it further.