(Part 2) What should I do before I embarass myself? (even though I am not)

[Jax Humanhater]

I was just playing GTR Evolution with the McLaren F1 Challenge cars on Monza, again; It's a blaze, but, not on my skill.

Here are some screenshots:

With a car like the McLaren F1 GTR, I should have managed a 1:42.600-800 at the most because I presume that's the real-world time.

My problem is I approach sim racing as if I am simulating an F1 car - a car that does not forgive even the slightest driver error (I'm not saying it requires perfection, but, just damn near it!) - and that makes me very cautious of going into the gravel trap.

Do you think Mohammed needs to realise that close-wheeled and lower-class open-wheel forgives mild and slighly moderate driver indiscretion?

 

[Dennis Phelan]

Mistakes are made all the time. That's a BOLD period. Even F-1 drivers on a lap by lap basis. Watch the live timing available or just listen to the commentators during practice, quali and race. The talk is about personal best and best possible segment times, lap times. None of them, none*, can do a lap with all three segments being their personal best: they all make mistakes constantly.

"With a car like the McLaren F1 GTR, I should have managed a 1:42.600-800 at the most because I presume that's the real-world time." You can do laps that consistently? Minimizing the variation in lap times is agood indicator of your driving skill at any laptime. You'll have a tough time putting down a fast lap if you can't keep mistakes out of all the laps you drive.

You will get to the laptimes you're capable of by not overdriving your skill level. Pressing to improve will get you knowledge and putting in laps will help coordinate your learned skills into consisent laps.

My take on your question, I think sim driving is like getting a higher education, the learning doesn't come from the outside, you ask the question, you find the answer.



*OK, given all the drivers ever and all the laps done by some great people, maybe someone did it.

 

[Jax Humanhater]

Mistakes are made all the time. That's a BOLD period. Even F-1 drivers on a lap by lap basis. Watch the live timing available or just listen to the commentators during practice, quali and race. The talk is about personal best and best possible segment times, lap times. None of them, none*, can do a lap with all three segments being their personal best: they all make mistakes constantly.

"With a car like the McLaren F1 GTR, I should have managed a 1:42.600-800 at the most because I presume that's the real-world time." You can do laps that consistently? Minimizing the variation in lap times is agood indicator of your driving skill at any laptime. You'll have a tough time putting down a fast lap if you can't keep mistakes out of all the laps you drive.

You will get to the laptimes you're capable of by not overdriving your skill level. Pressing to improve will get you knowledge and putting in laps will help coordinate your learned skills into consisent laps.

My take on your question, I think sim driving is like getting a higher education, the learning doesn't come from the outside, you ask the question, you find the answer.



*OK, given all the drivers ever and all the laps done by some great people, maybe someone did it.

There is also the matter of the ideal setup. There are some aspects of tuning, particularly the dampers and the suspension I need to learn.

 

[Dennis Phelan]

A car is always in the garage, ready to hit the track. The driver is not always a perfect match for the car and the car is not ready for the driver. There are some cars that can be tuned to extremes and others that have very limited adjustments to be made. There's always a car that seems like no matter what changes you make, the car still behaves the same.

We have had some decent drivers pass through RD over the time I've been here and we get a new crew all the time. Some are magicians and with a few tweaks to the svm file have a car that appears perfectly tuned to their driving style. There have been times when some of those master driver/magicians drop into a race with no time to throw a wrench at the car and drive a totally default version. It's been fun to feel the wave of amazment that passes down pit road when the magician, minus his hat full of tricks pops a rabbit out on the track with a fastest lap. Tweak or no, the speed comes from within.

Drive a car or develop one? Wring a tune on the car whenever you like, to the extent of your twanging abilities, even go beyond into the areas that aren't known: if soft springs haven't been working then throw on a set of hard ones and watch the times fly. We learn.

Mohammed, I can't tell you how many times since my arrival here I've been the slowest on the track. Every time a new batch of drivers comes in I have a hope that it will take then a long while to get up to speed but they usually pick up very quickly and once again, I'm at the back. One can only go so fast, my speed does not embarrass me. I use all my skill while on the track and fight to put up a good car, maybe my engineer needs replacing?

We're all here to have fun with one another. If I and others like me don't show up to do our best then the magicians will stop coming and there will be no show. What fun are the AI anyway, download TeamSpeak, set aside some time and come join us!

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

We've been pretty evenly matched thru out the years.. It takes certain kind of stubbornness to keep on driving, no matter what i do, i'm always 2 secs behind the fastest, and that's the ultimate best i can do. But driving a 1½h race without mistakes? In normal 30min-1h race there's about 5 places to gain just by watching others fail. It's not the most exiting way to perform but it has been fun sometimes to drive the Deathmobile: Coming from dead last, passing a driver and seeing him quit just because he is last and was way quicker in qualy. Then the next.. and the next one and so on.. I can remember dropping five guys in Monza on one particular GT event, singing Grim Reaper Not everyone can understand that a 2 second gap in qualy can drop to zero in race.. Or be even quicker than him in the race, specially at the starting phases. So it's a kind of embarrassment and one starts to think there is setup issues, controller issues, anything to explain it but the real reason.

Take a semi-race trim setup so to speak (half tank, race tires, cambers etc) and drive mostly on that. You'll be much more confident when the race starts than doing 90% hotlapping and not have a clue how the car works 10 laps in with heavy fuel, not always optimal tires etc. Also knowing that 1/3 of the grid has not done any real race practice and are starting with qualy mentality calms mind in the first turn..