Taming these pesky open cockpit cars

[Ethan Bass]

I have been racing GTR Evolution for five moths now, and I can drive every tin-top car in the game and be comfortable enough with it in a field of 20+ cars. Even tin-top mod cars like the DTM, Camaro 2010, Porsche etc. In those types of cars, getting to grips with how they drive, how to set them up, and being comfy in them, maybe not especially fast, but have them under control to the point where it will do what I tell it to do, isn't too hard, and they can be sussed, if not mastered, but sussed out in a day or two at most.

Now, with open wheelers, all of them, from Caterhams to F3000, I just can't get the hang of them.

I spend days practicing, trying to get used to them, but no matter what I do, the cars just won't respond the way I want them to, or they'll just act like unruly beasts and try to go off at every turn. Really is annoying.

I would love to take part in open wheel events, and be capable of getting into any car and, not necessarily be mega quick in it, but fast enough not to be a moving chicane, but able to place the car where I want it, and be comfortable and have enough confidence in the car, like the F3000, that it's downforce and grip will actually work.

Is there any major thing that needs to be done, like, how different of a driving style do you need to apply for driving these cars, what kind of testing and experiments can you do to properly learn about their characteristics?

Any help would be awsome, thanks.

 

[Tim Meuris]

Same problem here
these open wheelers are darn tricky to drive...

 

[Danny Asbury]

I've driven a little bit of prototypes, but my open-wheeler experience is mainly with the Formula 1 cars. The oddest thing I noticed with those compared to closed-cockpit, is that you can just smash the brakes without the worry of locking the brakes. Sometimes open-wheelers want to snap around on you, so don't forget to ballance that out with either a brake bais high toward the front or by applying light pressure to the accelerator while braking (or a combination of both).

I'm no pro, but I hope that advice helps. Good luck!

 

[Brendan Crosby]

I don't think I can help you with the caterhams other than saying that you can't limit the brake pressure settings enough and so you have to use very precise threshold braking in order to be fast with them, same problem with the radicals. High downforce cars like the f3000's generate such a high level of downforce at high speeds that sometimes you never have enough braking force when you get to the braking point. This effect rapidly decreases though as your speed decreases so you have to adopt a braking technique where as Danny said you have to quickly mash the brake, maybe keep it at 100% for half a second and then slowly decrease you're braking as you turn in and meet the apex. A similar thing applies to corner exits, you have to be much more progressive with the throttle than you have to be with touring cars and even gt cars where there are some times you can punch the throttle from 0 to 100% very quickly. This is an effective way to do it in open cockpit cars:

you can be a little rougher than this with the f3000s but f1s are much less forgiving.

If this still doesn't help you than your setups aren't fast enough and that's a whole nother subject that only a very select group of people have ever "fully" understood.

 

[Brendan Crosby]

here's a good illustration of open cockpit technique

 

[hagen72]

I started to love the open wheelers while driving the Formula Master cars. It seems to me that these cars are easier to drive than the F3000. But as far as I remember FM is content of RaceOn.

 

[Ethan Bass]

Thanks for the feedback guys, has helped get an idea of what I need to do with my style to suit the open wheelers. One thing though, would doing some events with the Formula BMW car be any good? I.e. is the skills learned in driving them fast, transferable to the Formula Master and F3000?

 

[Yves Larose]

Ethan if you join that event http://www.racedepartment.com/race-...7-sunday-december-12nd-2010-a.html#post688111 i will be able to give you some pointers for the Caterham.

 

[Ross Balfour]

I think it's all about controlling your right foot on the throttle. For me, I drive F1 cars and WTCC cars completely differently as the both respond differently to the same amount of acceleration.
I'm not the quickest open wheeler on the planet for sure, but I am better at open wheelers that WTCC or Mini's so I can try and help you as much as I can.
In open wheelers, you can't really accelerate fully until you are well out of the corner. I start accelerating slowly when I hit the apex, then out of that I slowly put my right foot down, you can feel it in the steering wheel if the car is trying to spin you, so not letting the steering wheel turn to much is also crucial or you will be round in no time.
It all boils down to practising, just try to master a track without spinning first, then try to go for hitting apexes and finding braking points. Sorry If I didn't help much!