rF2 Flat6 Series vs. Ferrari Challenge @ Canadian Tire Motorsport Park - Friday 29th January 2016

[Frederic Schornstein]

I had really fun driving the Ferrari, as I don't like to drive the Porsche as it's too unstable for my driving style.
I was so surprised to be starting in 3rd, but the aliens didn't qualify, so I would have been at least 3 more places back in the much slower Ferrari.
I had a pretty good start and could stay in 3rd for a very long time with Porsches pushing hard. After a wrong gear shift lost 3rd position, but could keep Franklin behind and finished in 4th.

Second race was a different one. Was out of the groove somehow. Had a great battle with Freddy, but after some laps I missed a gear and went very wide in the second corner. Freddy and Phil could pass me. I could get on Phil's tail. In the first corner I felt he went too wide, so I dived to the inside corner, but he cut back, so I slammed in the wall. I had suspension damage and lost at least 1.5seconds a lap. Sten and Rui were gaining on me fast in their quicker Porsches. I had trouble controlling my car. When coming out of the slow double right handers I almost lost it and the bump from Run made me visit another wall. As there was only 1 minute left and being last in the slowest and damage car I drove slowly to the pit to end my race.

The Ferrari is a lot of fun to drive and I hope we will see it again.

The battle was great always a bit scary going side by side with the Ferrari that definetely has not a lot of aero grip. Really difficult to make it stick with the long straights

 

[Tero Dahlberg]

It's taken me a while to get used to driving the Flat6. I think I'm one of those sim racers that have a fairly strict driving style, as in I suck at adapting to car's/setup's needs. As opposed to people who can adapt very well and be fast in any car and with any setup pretty much from lap 1. Those people do exist btw, I've had some as teammates over the years. And they're kind of freaks

Tinkering with the fairly limited setup has helped too. The main issue for me is and has been the mid-corner/steady-state understeer. Which is due to the weight bias. Though there are other cars with fairly rearward bias that don't quite behave like this. Maybe. But most cars also allow you to adjust much more of the setup and you can basically fix "the problem".

In the Flat6 you really need to turn/keep turning the car mid-corner with the throttle. And that tends to make you drive it like a drift car, and the tyres also allow you to get away with that. For a while at least, but not forever.

Here's probably a few reasons why:

The "weirdness" with the tyres is not only the above, but also that if you overheat the front tyres due to struggling with understeer, you still wear out the rear tyres faster.

 

[Stenne]

Very interesting and valuable info. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Tero.

Although I have limited experience of differet mods I can recognise the fact that some cars are more easy to get comfortable than others. Probably because they suite my "natural" driving style better, like with the Flat6 where I can "steer" with throttle and left foot braking. I also like the FWD BTCC cars which I can drive in a similar way.

Then to the point. The GT3 cars. I've tried shared setups from several drivers and also tried some tweaking of my own. But I just can't get familiar with them and I struggle and feel like I'm fighting the car instead of driving it.

So if someone could shed some light on the difference in driving technique between f.ex. the Flat6 and the GT3 it would be great.

 

[Daiman Patel]

Sorry that I wasn't able to join you all for this event. And apologies to those who I didn't manage to add to the sign-up list - I can see that there were a few of you who signed up quite late. After a busy week I decided to blow off some steam on Friday evening, and haven't had the chance until now to catch up with messages. I hope you joined and enjoyed the event.

Hopefully you'll all be able to join us for more racing next week.

 

[Tero Dahlberg]

Sounds like a rough Friday

 

[Daiman Patel]

Sounds like a rough Friday

HAHAHA! I've just realised how that sounds, but that was definitely not the case. This has been an incredibly busy week for me at work, and I was also in the office yesterday which is why I didn't check my messages and haven't yet created event threads for this coming week. The latter is currently in progress.