That's a very good point to make clear. As a possible suggestion, what one can do to combat this if you want to compare your own lap times in a totally unbiased manner, go into offline race mode and set the whether to be constantly clear and to practice in the practice session. Each time you complete "x" number of laps, simply restart the session and all the starting conditions will be the same. So even though in a given session with each lap you perform, you are in fact changing the performance of the car by warming up your tyres, road and laying down more rubber on the track which improves grip and all this will add to improve your lap time a bit with each passing lap (which could lead you to falsely believe that you lap time is improving when in fact the car is just getting more grip). Instead of comparing directly each subsequent lap time, you can compare say the laps that are around 10 laps-or-so into each session as the grip performance should have plateaued a little. This will let you know more precisely if your time is improving. However if you race online, you could also rely on the fact that if you are consistently slower than the consistently faster/fastest drivers by a certain amount/ratio, then you can simple look out for whether the bridge between you and their lap times are becoming shorter.
NIce thread and videos here. Id like to share also my part and show a nice explanation video about the 1959 Cooper-Climax driving at donnington park by sterling moss. The video was filmed for toggear in 1986! Lots of explanations about racing line and technical stuff, all with nice onboard cams. Its a good quality also and helped me someway at my beginning. And then have a look at Mr Clark...scaaary: Greets Modmate
^ nice videos modmate I just realised that these were hyperlinks to books. Thank you very much and I've just placed an order for Going Faster: Mastering the Art of Race Driving
A few tips from me is taking it that you dont use traction control, first thing I find is to get a stable setup by dialing out as much oversteer as possible without increasing too much understeer, so first thing is to soften you rear suspension so its a click or 2 less than the front, dont go overboard on increasing too much negative camber instead increase your caster, I find using a good amount or rear wing to start with also helps nicely for balance and for braking. And try make sure your running a good tyre pressure, also using your front anti roll bar making it a little stiffer is a good way of reducing oversteer. A good tip is to go online and find some good racers and ask nicely for there setups and try to get a few from different so you can compare them, good luck on ending your noob era
A good way for training that is to start a private practice adding a lot of AI cars (25 in my case). You won't see any AI car at all in the track (private session) but in 10-15 minutes you'll find the track full of rubber.
Excellent suggestion by gorgias my post follows his.. not only will the track rubber faster but you can I think jump in there car and watch their driving line noting where and how hard they brake their gear and when they accelerate, you can also compare your splits and lap times to yours. My current laptimes Meganes online I'm about 1 second of the top runners on each track, I know they have a better driving line than me and I'm pretty sure its not my setup which I have scratch built myself maybe they could do with tiny tweaks still but its my line that matters most.
There are 2 things to work on to get faster when beginning. 1) Driving technique. This is the technique of actually handling the car. How you use the controls, how you manage the pedals, the power, how you control the weight distribution and the springs/shocks and the brakes- controlling the beast. Your setup keeps the car within ideal parameters for the greatest amount of time in the race. It's about trade-offs. 2) Racing line. This is the path your car takes around the track and controlling your yaw, slip angle and using the ENTIRE road. You don't drive the line, you drive the car and it takes that line in the best possible way. It's like the difference between aiming a ball and throwing it and throwing it right so it goes where you want it to. Your setup allows you to drive the ideal line around the track. That's why if you follow a faster driver and "try to take his line" you will fail and fall behind quickly. The other driver is turning in early, his car is drifting through the apex, he gets on the power early and his car drifts out to track out always at that ideal drift angle. If you try to follow that line, you will react to what he does and you will be aiming the car instead of it taking the best possible path through the turn. Getting a setup from someone else is useless unless you tweak it to your own needs. Unless the other guy has the exact same wheel at the exact same amount of rotation and you have similar driving styles, it's only of limited use. that said, if you examine a faster guys setup, you can get valuable info- like amount of df, gearing, general spring settings etc. What always pisses me off is when some alien blows me away and he sends me his setup and I see that it's a disaster or it's stock- he's blowing my doors off DESPITE his setup! LOL
I think most alien drivers wont send you their best setup, why would they? so you can beat them? instead its more likely a down tune version of their best setup. I have like 5 setups for the same car on each track alway tweaking and tuning them, then I compare my changes to my older setup to see what changes improved my speed and in what section, then I save as a new setup with a note of my best acheived time for reference.
An aliens setup would probably be counter productive unless you have their level of skill to make use of it .
And while most likely true for some, i think that is a sad reality to prefer turning away from a challenge. Of course i'm not saying it doesn't feel nice if/when you can see yourself being a little quicker but wouldn't people prefer knowing if that's perhaps down to their setup? And if so, the response should be "ok, it's possible to be quicker, i just need to work on where i can improve (be it technique or setup or both)". Would it not all be to mutual benefit too? Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.
I just wanted to say that I don't think a thousand thank yous would do justice for when you suggested the "Going Faster..." book. It is the most comprehensive, unbelievably well structured and enjoyable book to read! It's also a complete flaming gold mine and is easily worth 10 times more than what it retails at!!!!! I don't think it could possibly get any better. Again, BIG thanks!!!!!! People who are reading this....whether novice or experienced....go do the biggest favour for yourself by purchasing a copy of "Going Faster - Mastering the art of race driving" by Carl Lopez. I have been awake till 5am each night for the last week reading this book. It's unbelievably addictive and contains explosive knowledge! [UPDATE] And shortly after writing this post I went back to reading and what is the title on the next page? "KNOWLEDGE IS SPEED" lol BUY THIS BOOK PEOPLE...IT'LL BE THE BEST £17 YOU EVER SPENT - PERIOD!!!
