rec.autos.simulators

The hard part is - how do I make up the time?  I'm already at my limit.  If I
go any faster in the turns, I crash.  I'm aware some people say you have to go
slower to go faster.  Well, I'm ALREADY slower(see # 3).  NOW what?

Eldred

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Practice, practice practice :)))

Andre

It isn't helping.  I've done TONS of laps at Monza and the Glen, and half a
ton<g> at Kyalami.  I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with being the
slowest red thing on the track.  It used to be the slowest BLUE thing, so
there's progress. <g>

Eldred

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http://www.racesimcentral.net/

I think it'll help you.

Andre

If you are not driving an Eagle too, don't worry - the Eagle has the highest
top speed of all cars. If you are, however, check out if your wheel is
calibrated correctly, especially the gas pedal (don't press it full while
calibrating - just almost full). Also try playing a little bit with the gear
ratios, maybe your 5th is too long or short.
Of course, better exit speed makes better top speed ('practice, practice,
practice'... again :-)), so watch your exit speed especially out of
Parabolica (a good point to do this is the point where you almost hit the
red wall to the left - watch the replay in chase view)

Same as above, regarding calibration, gear ratios (maybe a shorter 3rd
and/or 4th) and the 'practice thingy'.

Before braking for Lesmo1 or Vmin in Lesmo1 ? If before braking you should
work seriously on Curva Grande and check your setup. Understeering kills you
in Curva Grande (and Ascari - must be taken flat), try stiffer rear roll bar
or maybe lower power side ramp angle (if you dare... ;-)).
If you are slow in Lesmo1, we are at 'practice...' again.

Well, I also have way to go for the quick times, but at least I'm quicker
than the Sentell replay that came with the game (1:29.62 with the Lotus).
So, all that's left to say is ... (the damned 'p'-word again:-))

Peter
Vienna, Austria

Everyone else will hate you if you race online ;-) but that's the price
you have to pay!

Take a look at http://www.racesimcentral.net/~schubi/fastlaps.htm and download
one of the really fast setups - they probably won't be quite as fast as
they were as the ride height will be increased by GPL 1.1 to 2.5 inches,
but still faster than your current setup.

The car will probably be a bu**er to drive at first, but I've found that
a combination of doing consistent laps with a comfortable setup followed
by trying to get consistent in a fast setup is a good way to improve
your laptimes, as you can otherwise get "locked into" a slow setup and
don't see how to improve.

I came back to Monza after a long time out and found I could do
consistent 1:30s without hitting the barriers, by using Ian Lake's
hotlap setup (unfortunately he's now out of the top 10 so you can't
download his setup!).

Monza is one of those circuits that's really boring to drive if you
can't keep up with the other cars - the only e***ment is the racing,
not the circuit!

There are only 4 real corners at Monza, so there isn't too much to
concentrate on!

The downside is that if you lose time anywhere on the circuit it's hard
to get it back, so you need to focus on getting every corner absolutely
right.

T1 is pretty easy - brake pretty late and make sure you get a 4-wheel
drift here otherwise you'll need to slow right down to stay off the
barrier.  You should go round it in a consistent slide with the nose of
the car pointing towards the inside curb.  Just ease on and off the
throttle to keep it balanced, and put the throttle flat down as soon as
you can see you're going to make it without hitting the barrier.

For the first Lesmo you have a lot of braking to do and it's easy to
spin out as you turn in, so you need to get on the throttle pretty
sharpish (but smoothly of course!) to prevent this.

Lesmo 2 is the hardest turn to get right, and it's very important to be
fast out of here, because of the enormous following straight.  On the
other hand you don't want to end up in the bushes!  I haven't really
sussed this one myself, but I think the key is to use all the road and
get a little bit of 4-wheel drift so you can turn in and aim slightly
right of the apex and drift just past it.

Flat out at the little left-hand kink - if you turn in slightly before
the racing groove the car seems to go round on rails, but if you're a
bit late turning in you'll need to lift a bit.

For the hairpin I find it's possible to brake extremely late here (about
a second past the start of the braking zone) and trail-brake into it,
then 'feel' it with the throttle so you can accelerate as soon as
possible without oversteering into the barrier on the right.  You want
to drift out to the left anyway as you exit this turn, so (I think) the
trick is to steer left to correct oversteer rather than backing off too
much.  Tricky!

Personally I think this circuit is much more fun with a fast but tricky
car like the Lotus - in a safe but slow car it's just plain boring.

At the guardrail on the left at the entry.

So how many laps have YOU done?  I wish the program kept track for you...

Uh, Randy!!! <g>

Eldred

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Thanks.  I've seen the site before - 3:18-3:20 for race laps at Spa(my PB is
3:33), 1:27.5 - 1:29 at Silverstone (PB is 1:35.xx), 1:28 - 1:29 at Monza (PB
is 1:31.8x).  As you can see, I'm WAY off the pace - 3 sec. at Monza, 6 sec. at
Silverstone, and 13(!) at Spa.  I don't even want to THINK about Monaco or
Zandvoort!  Realistically, how many laps do you think it will take before I can
even get CLOSE to those times...?

Eldred

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I have used GPLDump so much to compare woeger's laps to mine. In the
beginning I saw that I was losing lots of time in the 2nd lesmo (which
is absolutely the harderst corner to get right on Monza). So for a
whole evening long, I took the 2nd lesmo, drove backwards before the
2nd lesmo, (I was offline folks!), took the 2nd lesmo again, drove
backwards again, and so for the whole evening I was doing nothing else
than taking the 2nd lesmo. I tried lots of lines, I practiced
trailbraking, I changed my setups so I could get earlier on the gas
without my rear braking away.

That evening, I still couldn't take it as fast as woeger. But I
learned lots. Especially trailbraking is so important in the lesmo's,
it really helps so much to turn the car fast around in these corners.

And now I can take all corners allmost as fast as woeger. My braking
is even better than his so one day I should be able to beat his
laptime :)
But I've never succeeded to get all corners perfect in one lap.
The only thing I now have to do is practice, practice, practice :)

Just for your statistics, I've driving hundreds and hundreds of laps.

Also be sure to check out this site:
http://website.lineone.net/~richardn/

It's one of my favorite GPL sites. The driving tips are very usefull,
read them very carefully. And also try to understand the car setups,
it helps so much if you know WHY your car is acting in certain ways,
and how you can adjust the car to your own driving style.
It's also very satisfying to use your own-made car setup.

And on Monza.... drive the Lotus!

Good luck, don't give up, and have fun,

Andre

At most tracks I'd say consistency is more important than speed, but
Monza is so simple that it *should* be pretty easy to be consistent.

It can then get very boring if you're a second or two off the pace, as
you spend the whole race going slowly backwards through the field (or
just dropping further and further out of sight).

That's why I moved on to other tracks - there just seems to be so much
more to driving fast at a track like Zandvoort.

How did you get on with the Lotus?

I think you should be able to beat 1:35 by just concentrating on getting
a good exit from each corner - especially the second Lesmo and
Parabolica.

In the case of Parabolica, you have to take it well twice - once at the
start of your hotlap and once at the end.

<snip>

When I started GPL about 1 1/2 months ago I had terrible problems with all
cars except the standard 1,0 Ferrari. They had way too much understeer,
which is very bad for Monza, as I mentioned before. But that problem went
away, when switched to fully linear steering. Try that, if you don't use it
already.
AH' Ferrari setups are very good, but since the Ferrari lacks a little bit
power, it will be more difficult to drive fast laps at Monza.(Haven't tried
it yet). I currently use Ricardo Nunnini's Lotus setup with 1.0 standard
gear ratios an break balance at 57%. Try them, you can get them at
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~richardn/

<snip>

Yes, we need a lapcounter  :-) !
Well, I haven't counted them (who does ?), but surely some hundrets. But
that is not so much as it sounds. Consider having fuel for 11 laps, drive
until the car is dry, will take you roughly 20 mins with a short break. Do
that three times, takes an hour. Spend that hour every day a week long and
you have over 200 laps. (Not to mention the 6 hour sessions on some lazy
sunday afternoon :-))

Rush fan? Me too! :-)

Peter
Vienna, Austria

...see above...
Zandvoort - 1:39's

Next! <g>

I've got nothing going on this weekend(darnit), so I'll try do do at least 100
laps every day.  I may even try to tame the Lotus again.  Previously, it was
just a very high-priced lawnmower...

Eldred

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Ok, based on that type of estimate, I've done at LEAST 1000 laps.  I'm sure
there are some people who DO count their laps.  Maybe I'll START counting, just
out of curiosity... <g>

Yep!  They're my favorite group - I even owned a Rickenbacker 4001 at one time.
 I've seen them every tour since and including Moving Pictures.  I figured that
verse fit QUITE well with the newsgroups...<g>

Eldred

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I can do 1:28s at Zandy, and I've raced against some people doing
consistent 1:24s!

To do well at Zandvoort you really need to learn how to use
trail-braking to get consistent oversteer into the corners - almost like
rally-driving.  The key for me was to transition very smoothly from
throttle to brake and vice-versa (ie. not to stamp right on the brakes)
- you need to brake (slightly) a fraction before you turn in, continue
with the brake for a fraction (so you oversteer into the corner), then
get smoothly on the gas through the corner and accelerate out.  Once you
get consistent you'll be swapping between braking or accelerating right
through the lap, so it should become second nature.

I suspect if you can master that circuit then Monza will seem incredibly
easy by comparison, and you should learn a lot more about the car's
behaviour into the bargain.