I participated in a group practice session hosted by an online league which was followed by mini races. The car was F1 and track was Yas Marina. Almost everyone including me had prepared set ups prior to the practice and we all started practice with those set ups. From the beginning of the practice session for about 3-40 minutes I was 0.4 sec behind lap leader and 3rd fastest. However as the track was getting rubber up and by 1 hour mark, I was pushed down with middle with 1.0 sec from a leader and at the end of the 2 hour session, I was 2nd from the slowest and 2 sec spread with the fastest lap. I was surprised that while I only made 0.4 sec improvement in the 2 hours, other drivers made 1-3 sec improvements. I noticed that they kept exiting the server and spent 5-15 minutes outside then came back in and drove again and repeated this consistantly throughout the session. Does anyone know what these guys might have been doing outside the server? Also how can I improve my lap more than 1 sec like those drivers did when the track is getting heavily rubbered up with 20 drivers or more? Other driver's who tried my set up told me it was well balanced but would not explain to me more than that.
My 2 cents is that having more grip on track is not enough if you dont know how to adapt and use that extra grip to go even faster, so you end up only taking the speed from the "rubber part", but not from the "pushing part", if that makes sense. There is also the case of a setup not being that good till there is more rubber on track so theirs could be better than yours
This behaviour is not new to me, i saw some guys do the same in the past, and they were the fastest on the server.
Thanks guys, Will// if their set up is not good till the track is heavily rubbered up, that means they practiced solo with a lot of AIs to build rubber prior to this group practice and I understand that. However, I don't understand the rubber part/ pushing part of your comment. Never heard this before. Can you please explain me? Thanks!
It depends on the car mod how much improvement realroad gives, but at least on the Formula ISI 2012 F1 car, if the track started out as green, then 3 seconds improvement is nothing unusual. I have no idea why they kept exiting the server, but only way to ensure you will get rid of most cheaters is by using anti-cheat client like simracingtools, which is what many leagues require.
When I happen to exit the track I would be typically looking at the telemetry checking for tire temperatures. However in my case, is because in DX9 alt tabbing out of the game sometimes provokes the impossibility to recover focus.
spaskis // can't you also check the tire temp within rfactor 2 instead of quitting it and opening motec? bwana// yes, they come back in same car each time and this was a league version of mod.
I think that confident hotlappers prefer to run few laps, then wait for some rubber build up to try again. In the meanwhile to not get bored or tired they mind other business out of the server, or they simply take a look at liveracer server (if your league host one) or take a look a telemetry as other pointed out. About progress, heavy rubbered track is not automatically faster than a medium rubber, you have to be able to stay on the narrow rubbered line and at the same time drive faster.
I think is just something related with setup, stable doesnt mean fast. More Rubber and You can set the car for more oversteer. Lower wing helps a Lot.
There is a temperature indicator ingame but I don't like it. It's static and I am not sure to which of the motec logged files it corresponds. I am used to Motec where I can compare evolution and different stints.
I mean when there is more rubber you may be able to brake at slighty different points, how you turn, how early you can go on throttle again, etc. Some people manage this very well so they'll improve even more with more rubber so just having more grip there does not mean everyone will improve equaly.
Thanks guys, Ebeninca// Why would you set your car up for more oversteer when the track gets heavily rubbered up?
Will// so push part you meant was about opening throttle earlier on fully rubbered track than green track?