Couldn’t seem to get tyres warm , skid city Feeling of disconnection with car &/on track Maybe just me or/and a characteristic of the actual car Official online quali & race got a feeling this car will not be a hit
FFB feels a bit more balanced, slightly stronger forces with less extreme variations (peaks etc). Tyres feel less like they're trying to explode, just at a 'normal' rF2 level now. Didn't notice the visible wheels, and didn't think I would. I don't understand how important they seemed to be to people (for driving I mean; obviously bits of the car being invisible is weird visually). It's a non-aero car with quite small tyres which probably aren't very soft. Needs to be driven to its capabilities, but has decent grip for what it is.
When I tried the car (1.0) it felt like a normal car, I didn't feel floatiness and/or low grip levels, it felt like a really stable and easy to drive car. The FFB was also perfectly normal, I felt everything. And I tried it on Bathurst which is not the easiest track. The only thing I needed to get used to was the bit nervous braking (without adjusting the brake bias, I don't know if it's present in the car or not). So honestly I don't understand all these comments and complains.
I loved it then, and now still love it. Got to understand that no way people who drove almost exclusively modern race cars for months if not years are not going to be weirded out by a car that resembles 50s racecar. It was very prone to oversteer/neutral steer almost at any turn at the limit. While braking and coasting you also had to be in check, had to be very very active with steering. Fundamentally same now, but got better tires, perform better. Should be easier for noobs of this car kind to avoid overdriving so much.
Unfortunately it seems many virtual drivers immediately blame the car and not their bad habits when they can't keep a car on track. You're definitely right though, the more positive feel should help somewhat. The base/low forces are stronger and more consistent. A definite improvement. (And that's comparing apples to apples - 6 degrees caster in both)
Sadly, it seems like most current sims are built around users expectations rather than the real cars because of this.
This 100% I sincerely hope that it was not made easier to drive because of all this whining. Too late for me (and my neigbors) for me to test it right now. But tomorrow.. if it is even slighlty "nerfed" i hate all of you who complained about it.
The constancy of the tyres makes it easier to tell what the car is doing, but I don't think the car's capabilities have changed (based on telemetry). I only did a handful of laps on both, but in the first version I had to mentally adjust my expectations so as to dance around the car's limit instead of charging past it; now it's much easier to feel where the limit is. I'll be very interested to see what current and previous Caterham owners think of it. I just did a lap at Nords and I hope it's realistic because it feels very good. *edit... sorry, think I was a bit wrong here. See post further down.
These are the words we fear because it means that even if it's wrong it'll stay that way. I hope it's not.
YES! YES! YES! Caterham with the update is fantastic! This is a major Homerun IMHO. Thanks to all involved.
Well... I have to revise my earlier post having done more laps back to back comparing the two versions (and pushing harder, thanks to using a smaller track to help learn where the limits are [especially me, as I'm not especially fast and am out of practice]) Not too surprisingly, the 'fuller' FFB reflects more solid and consistent grip. While I haven't done any straight friction comparisons, the new tyres certainly don't appear to have less, so the more consistent response does provide more overall grip - and this helps keep the rear end under control. Meaning faster entry, higher mid corner, faster exit, lower laptimes. For me, that's in the order of 2-3s over a 1:10 laptime. (maybe I'd get closer with 1.00 with more laps - not sure) I'll say something because I think it's important to keep in mind - and sorry @Kelju_K as I am sort of pre-empting your potential next post here - with these two versions having measurably different performance there's no immediate way of knowing which is correct (assuming one is and the other isn't). If we had the current version from the start, how would it feel? It's hard to judge that retrospectively. I'm pretty confident most will prefer the way it is now (though I do find @Adrianstealth 's earlier post amusing, but that's just expectation vs physics), but there'll be others who liked the V1.00 and will now feel it's been dumbed down. Everything is relative, and you can get used to most things, and I don't know if anyone will have accurate measurements of what the performance should be. Even those with actual Caterham experience may not be able to judge that, though I'm certainly still curious to see how those guys feel about the handling now.