Oh how I have been waiting for this car, since besides the Skippy it's the only one in rF2 I have driven in real life.
Audio: has captured the motorcycle engine origins fairly well, but the throbbing and deep exhaust note that you can hear a bit of at idle disappears as soon as you step on the gas!?!?! In the real car, the exhaust gets louder the harder you push it and becomes proportionally more significant than the engine sound. rF2 version not at all like the experience of driving the real one (but lack of exhaust versus engine sound doesn't affect just this car).
Graphics: where are the paddle shifters? Reflections from the road surface showing on the side panels of the car? In 2017? Some of the the 60's Historics had that problem on their windscreen since the first build of rF2. How on earth can this still be happening at this stage? I hope I don't still see grass poking through the floor of the car the next time I go off.
AI: releasing a car we have been waiting literally years for with un-calibrated AI? Sorry, that's just not good enough.
Handling: too much understeer relative to the real car. And believe me I was driving a "safe" set-up car, not one set-up for the top real racers. The steering feel is too heavy at low speeds. The real car has very heavy steering due to lack of power steering and fat slick tires despite its light weight. So, if you want to turn the wheel with the car stopped be prepared to use some muscle. Once moving, the steering is springy and lightens up quickly. The car responds fluidly to your every input. It is not like a Skippy. It's a dream to drive and you can drive it up to 9/10ths with ease. It makes any road car feel like a dump truck by comparison, so I hope no one thinks it should be at all difficult to drive or control. Of course the last 10% gets trickier, but it is still on the forgiving side of the scale by race car standards.
The heavy steering that hangs around much too long could be related to another bizarre element--the skidding or drive line binding when you come out of the garage or turn very sharply. As someone mentioned above, it acts like a go-kart suspension. Although this car does feel like a bigger or full-size go-kart to drive, that's because of its incredible responsiveness and flat cornering capability, not because it has no suspension or is actually constructed like a go kart. Something is seriously out of whack here. It feels like an AWD drive train with its binding and understeer!?!?
Throttle response seems incredibly jumpy in neutral. I don't think the real car can jump from idle to red line in that fraction of a split second. Once in gear, it's as though the throttle has suddenly been tamed or electronically throttled (pun intended). The real one I drove did not have this dullness. In fact, I spun the car leaving a hairpin corner just by getting on the throttle in second gear maybe half a second too soon. Just a smidgen too much steering angle left in the unwind when I got on the gas and around I went. But that was above 9/10ths. Anything below that and it felt like it was on rails. You could make yourself sick to your stomach just by weaving to warm up the tires there is so much lateral grip. Throttle response should be closer to USF2000. The relatively peakiness of the little engine does seem to be properly reflected. You have to rev it to get all the power, but it is still impressive acceleration mid-range.
FFB: My CSW feels OK--no serious issues with jolts or roughness. However, while in the "too heavy" steering phase described above, the FFB is grainy (and this could easily manifest itself as actual harshness on other wheels), like the steering rack is in some metallic molasses. The Skippy has always had this odd "feature" that doesn't exist on the real car. The Radical FFB should feel very much like the USF2000. If I closed my ears and eyes and drove the rF2 USF2000 and could get rid of its superior high speed aerodynamics, you'd have what the SR3 should feel like. Tossable. Feels and reacts like a real car. Incredibly capable by anything other than F1, Indycar or Le Mans standards. Steering rack feels like it is attached to rubber tires and bushings and has the appropriate spring to it. Fat slicks are very interested in self-aligning...the faster you go, the more so they want to centre themselves. Like many rF2 cars, this progression is lacking in the SR3. Probably OK at rest, then too strong at lower speeds and then too little at higher speeds. That's a major part of what makes it not feel like a real car, whereas the USF2000 does feel like a real car no matter which speed you are driving it.
Draw your own conclusions, but I expected a lot more.
Haven't been able to do a single lap yet.
