time attack vs race

James Woods · Jul 20, 2011

In time attack, without a line and not with 1 litre of fuel, etc, with my preferred setup, i can get, 1:59's on Monza with the Seat, and never really over 2:00.4 if i don't make a big mistake. But in qualifying and races, i can barely get under 2:01.

What are the differences going on here? It's becoming very, very frustrating, I'd just like some advice.

Kim Strohmann · Jul 20, 2011

As far as I know in time attack mode you always have the best possible conditions(tire temps, track temp) and because of that always the best possible grip.
In q oder r sessions the conditions are always changing, even if the weather is set to complete dry, so it is not unusual that the lap times are a little bit slower.

Dennis Phelan · Jul 20, 2011

+1
Your car, perfect tires, perfect track, place to see two things.
What is your fastest possible lap? While not what I look for but I understand it's fun.
What is the best way to attack the track? This is what I use it for, to find out which way around the track or a particular section, corner, works best for me.

Marian Zelenka · Jul 20, 2011

You should drive and make your car setups just in practice mode. Time attack is just good for online competition.

Jim Cole · Jul 20, 2011

If you are going to be racing online, your time will vary from offline as well. Online the grip levels seem a little different mainly due to the issues of lag. You may not see much lag, but there is enough to change your time a little. The best solution for this would be to run a dedicated server on your system and log on to it in order to practice for the event. This way you are practicing with the same rough conditions that you would experience online.

Kieron Swart · Jul 21, 2011

What I do is the following to practice for a online race.
1. Run time attack with your own ghost as well as a online ghost which you download.
2. Once I know the racing lines I do a normal practice without lines and see if I can still run the same time over and over.
3. Then I join online and race.

But my times also drop about a 1 sec if not 2 sec when competing online.