Wow Z, you do seem to have a talent for setups 👍 I pretty well know what each part does on its own, but I haven't quite grasped how to get them all to work together like a symphony. Any tips?
It's funny: I've only just begun to produce decent setups. I've had the game for nearly 5 months, now, but I spend most of my time in online races.
GT4 genius' advice to check out his setup for Melbourne coupled with
Shaggy Alonso's advice re: the bettering of his time by running absulutely zero downforce at Monza really 'sparked' everything. I was amazed at how easily the car drove under these conditions at both circuits and began to tweak further. While altering these setups to suit
my driving style, I began to understand how things interacted with each other a little, though not quite enough to explain it. At this point, the only thing I can do is share the information I've got on my end through trial and error. Believe me, there's been a lot of error.
With this revised setup pretty quickly I was able to shave a half second off my previous best and ended up getting down to a 1'19.8" ish. Also I feel even more confident with this one, far less issues with the back end getting away from me. That being said I'm not certain I'll be seeing the 1'18" 's with it though, just not consistent enough around the entire track. You must be pretty darn consistent though, that 1'18.7" seems like a pretty smokin' time.
It's really all about tackling the two chicanes, which, for me, is exactly where I don't feel too comfortable with the car just yet. I love it through all of T1 and through to the Piratella (fast left; turn 7), but after that, it's on a knife-edge. I'll tweak further.
Any consistency I've got at this track (which, btw, is one of my least favorite) has simply come through online racing, though I thank you for the compliment.
So did you race the MF1 or just practice qualy with it? Also you running 100% races or less? Right now I've settled on 30% for this career run.
I 'built' the setup during a Saturday Practice session and took it through a Qualifying run, but didn't race it yet as I think I can still improve the setup and time. For my hard career, I'm running 50% race distance. I was running much less when I was on medium difficulty since it was only intended to gauge how tough the competition was, etc.
Thanks to your description there I think I've found a way to shave about 3 tenths off my previous fast technique through here. Pretty cool. But you are right, I'm always at the razor's edge trying to pull it off. I'll probably still use the slower/safer technique in the race.
That's one reason I try to improve the setup to the max. If I can snatch pole, the AI gets scared when you brake late and most times it will create just enough of a gap for you to go about your business. As long as you remain consistent and use some blocking techniques when necessary, you're pretty much in the clear.
Ran just a few laps with the Ferrari, sick how much more natural speed it has compared to the Midland, and put down a 1'17.6" pretty quick. But boy was that a fraught filled fast lap. At various points I lost the rear at T1, at the 1st fast left hander after the hairpin, then at the bottom of that same hill which is a long fast double right and of course the previously discussed left hander after the chicane. Also I found I had less margin of error through the chicane compared to the MF1 setup. But that's racing right, no two drivers are exactly the same. So I'd definitely need to tweak further before I'd feel comfortable racing with this one. Once again though, no doubt it is a fast setup.
Thanks for sharing man.
Glad to share, and glad that it's helping.
I love the Ferrari on some circuits, but it's a very twitchy car on others. If the McLaren were to have enough outright speed, I'd probably prefer it over the Ferrari.
As stated above, those chicanes are still taking me out more often than not, at least in the MF-1. I think it might be a gearing issue, but I'll have to test further to prove that theory.
@GT4 - right. CoD4 is highly so. I think F1:CE could have approached that level if they just would have made the online mode more social. Their stupid virtual keyboard chat thingy is beyond cumbersome. Voice chat should have been a mandatory feature. Oh well
Agreed. I just recently purchased a Bluetooth headset for chatting with others on the PS3 and really wish that it could be used with F1:CE. The text limitation and keyboard layout you mentioned are poor, to say the least. It's pretty much reduced everyone to ebonics, but that's another topic. 👎
Don't recall that ever happening prior to the update.
Anyway I did run a practice race in GP Weekend mode with those settings and on hard difficulty. I qualy'd 14th, got a good start and settled into 13th for the first lap. Then moved around RSC on the 3rd lap after the start/finish chicane only to have him sideswipe me going into T1. Bastard! Managed to hold onto, and settle into, 13th until about lap 14 of 19, but then made a silly mistake on T1 and spun off the track. From there the race kinda fell apart for me and I'd ended up DNF'ing on lap 18. Damn oil slick on the blind part of a corner's back side that was effectively impossible to avoid. 
How in the hell do the CPU drivers all either miss these things or run right over them w/o incident? 
arriving today will put a little dent in my playing time for other games.
. Hadn't practiced all that much at this track either, so that plays a part too.
. 'Course that's also alot of the game's appeal, just like lan GT4.
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