Improving lap times

I was looking at the F1GP Hall of Fame qualifying lap times. I noticed that i am almost 10sec slower than most of the records. I use the same car setups as the Hall of Famers, and i am running at the Ace level. What do i have to do to shave at least 5sec off my times? Is there a trick that i'm not doing? Myabe i don't brake late enough. But as far as i can tell, braking any later usually puts me in the grass. What am i missing here? -- -- Dave

What controller are u using {keyboard is particularly shite} use all the kerbs etc and practise practise etc........................... GAUNTLET

In some courses, I managed to get a time that is about 2-3 second off the best time. I was amased after I watched the downloaded replay file by the way how they drive the car. But they use wheel, I use keyboard! I can tell you one thing for sure, if you don't have a wheel, you will not get the final 2-3 seconds. If you are 5 sec or more off the best time, you just have to pratice harder. Chris => I was looking at the F1GP Hall of Fame qualifying lap times. I noticed => that i am almost 10sec slower than most of the records. I use the same => car setups as the Hall of Famers, and i am running at the Ace level. => What do i have to do to shave at least 5sec off my times? Is there a => trick that i'm not doing? Myabe i don't brake late enough. But as far => as i can tell, braking any later usually puts me in the grass. What am i => missing here? => => => -- => -- => Dave =>

Afraid not. I think you will find that the top times on F1GP are set using a keyboard. But I do agree that some of the times look unbeatable. About a year ago I held the best time for Siverstone, now people have gone a second quicker than this. I don't know how. I guess they are just very good. However - Can a fast computer influence the game's timing? When I switched from a DX2/66 to a P133 the average lap times in a race situation seemed to fall. Anyone got any concrete answer?

: What controller are u using {keyboard is particularly shite} use all : the kerbs etc and practise practise etc........................... : GAUNTLET I am using the Gravis Gamepad. I think i found out what's slowing me down. All the Hall of Famers run without traction control. They also use the keyboard which i'm not willing to do. I've tried running without traction control but the car becomes a real handful...sliding everywhere and all sorts of wheelspin. I don't see how the tires would last at all. What type of driving style are the guys using? It try to be smooth, and not get into any "power drifting"....but maybe that's what needs to be done? -- -- Dave

Hiya m8 I use a Logic 3 freewheel and NO traction control. Without Traction I can beat my previous records by over 2 seconds!!!!! Cya\ The answers are there. You just have to know where to look... Check out my web page for all your links to F1GP,Indycar,ICR2,Nascar and X-Files. Do it know : http://members.aol.com/ARobe85580/home.html

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> I was looking at the F1GP Hall of Fame qualifying lap times. I noticed > that i am almost 10sec slower than most of the records. I use the same > car setups as the Hall of Famers, and i am running at the Ace level. > What do i have to do to shave at least 5sec off my times? Is there a > trick that i'm not doing? Myabe i don't brake late enough. But as far > as i can tell, braking any later usually puts me in the grass. What am i > missing here? > DaveHi Dave,

from somebody who knows how you feel, I've been playing this for years, and I'm usually about 5s off the fastest lap times except for Portugal(Estoril) and San Marino(Monza) which either means that with practice you will know the circuit by heart and you'll be able take different approaches into corners which you might not have thought of before, or that it is impossible for a normal person to get those times (not superlicense material snif). I've been improving a lot since I've been analysing my laps using the very excellent GPAnalyser by (... oophs forgot, sorry!). This way you can usually tell if you are breaking too late or too early, if you are breaking too hard and loosing too much speed around the corners (fastest way around a corner is not always the best if you know what I mean, sometimes getting the best exit speed is more important). Once you have all this info, you still have to put it all together in one lap, which is the hardest thing to do (I've heard that some people keep saving their lap after every corner just to get the perfect lap). I've generally improved by 1 or 2s on my previous best times by using this method, but I'm still a long (few seconds)way away from those times... Bruno

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>I am using the Gravis Gamepad. I think i found out what's slowing me >down. All the Hall of Famers run without traction control. They also >use the keyboard which i'm not willing to do. I've tried running without >traction control but the car becomes a real handful...sliding everywhere >and all sorts of wheelspin. I don't see how the tires would last at >all. What type of driving style are the guys using? It try to be >smooth, and not get into any "power drifting"....but maybe that's what >needs to be done?

The tires don't need to last - we're only talking about getting a single good lap out of Qs any way (2 at a few tracks, like Monaco), so the difference between TH on and TH off isn't really an issue. As for driving style, yes, you need to be very aggressive. A few power slides are definitely required, but more important is how you brake for slower corners - you have to get very deep in and use a heavy rear bias to "throw" the car into the corner, and possibly some "sawing at the wheel" as you exit to straighten up properly and make the tires grip again. --

>: What controller are u using {keyboard is particularly shite} use all >: the kerbs etc and practise practise etc........................... >traction control but the car becomes a real handful...sliding everywhere >and all sorts of wheelspin. I don't see how the tires would last at >all. What type of driving style are the guys using? It try to be In F1GP the tyres do NOT wear faster if you turn traction control off. They only will if you make more steering movements (e.g. if you get too much oversteer and don't straighten the car and you have to steer back to the straight line again), or by driving faster through corners (they don't wear at all on straights unless you 'weave'). So if you drive smoothly, which is the way to go, your tyres will last just as long as with traction control on (just a bit shorter if you drive faster lap times :). In real life it's probably different, but this is how F1GP has modelled it :) -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rene Smit AKA The SDI, Technical University Delft Faculty of Computer Science <A HREF="http://dutian.twi.tudelft.nl/~smit/sdihome.html">WWW</A>

Can you tell me what steering control do the top guy use? According to the replay, they must be using wheel. I personally believe keyboard cannot achieve the top time. Not even near the top time. Regards Chris => Well you don't need to worry about tires too much since you are only driving => one lap in qualifying, but by the end of that lap yeah the tires are stuffed. => => :) => => I'd suggest to everybody wanting to improve their times to visit the homepage => => of Ivanhoe Vasiljevich, he is the HOF champion at a number of tracks and even => => better, he writes track guides! :) He also has replays that you can => download, => and then you can see how these guys do it. The URL is => http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e8925403/f1gp.htm. Also, Dave Gymer has GPPerf => data logs of some HOF laps, they are a bit outdated but are still => blisteringly => fast. His URL is http://www.gamesdomain.com/~dgymer => => Hope this helps someone somewhere. :) => => Regards, => Bruce Werdschinski

Virtually all the top times are set using the keyboard. I don't know how you reached your conclusion from the replays but examinig the .prf files (from PPerf) in GPAnalyser will tell a different story. Actually it's http://www.gamesdomain.com/dgymer/ (or ".com"->".co.uk" in the UK, or ".com"->".ru" in Russia). Also by FTP: ftp.gamesdomain.co.uk in /pub/users/dgymer/f1gp/prf/ All accessible from my home page (below). --

It's amazing how people can be so convinced about something without having the required knowledge..... The fact is that ALL fastest times are achieved by using the keyboard (with traction help turned off)! "Gravity doesn't exist; the Earth sucks!"

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> >In some courses, I managed to get a time that is about 2-3 second off the best > >time. I was amased after I watched the downloaded replay file by the way how > >they drive the car. But they use wheel, I use keyboard! > >I can tell you one thing for sure, if you don't have a wheel, you > >will not get the final 2-3 seconds. If you are 5 sec or more off the best time, > >you just have to pratice harder. > >Chris > It's amazing how people can be so convinced about something without having the > required knowledge..... > The fact is that ALL fastest times are achieved by using the keyboard (with > traction help turned off)! > "Gravity doesn't exist; the Earth sucks!"

Well I use a keyboard, and i cannot get faster than 1'15"420 inMontecarlo even raising bhp; and that's the track I know better So, which is the best hardware to get those 1'11"s?? Alberto

...... ...... Unless you have a very slow computer (low framerate), hardware shouldn't have an influence at all! The keyboard is more than good enough. Personally, I'm using a DX2/66 with simple videocard and just the keyboard (with traction help ON, I don't have the guts to learn driving without it :) ). My best time at Monaco is 1:13.0, WITH standard BHP settings. As you can see, I'm still 2 sec off the best times, but learning to drive without traction controll should gain about a second. When I compared various splittimes, I found out that I could get 1:12.3 if I drove MY perfect lap at Monaco. Add the advantage of 1 sec from leaving traction help off, and you understand that 1:11.3 IS possible! Better train a little harder ;) "Gravity doesn't exist; the Earth sucks!"

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>Personally, I'm using a DX2/66 with simple videocard and just the keyboard (with >traction help ON, I don't have the guts to learn driving without it :) ). >My best time at Monaco is 1:13.0, WITH standard BHP settings. As you can see, >I'm still 2 sec off the best times, but learning to drive without traction >controll should gain about a second. >When I compared various splittimes, I found out that I could get 1:12.3 if I >drove MY perfect lap at Monaco. Add the advantage of 1 sec from leaving traction >help off, and you understand that 1:11.3 IS possible!

Well, I drive 1:11.3, but my perfect lap would be a 1:10.8. The top times are always 1 to 5 tenths of a second of the virtual ideal lap time. You can let my utility VBestLap calculate your virtual lap time, so you don't have to compare split times yourself :). For some tracks you need to change the split percentages though, so that they're on straights, or your virtual lap time might seem a bit too fast (as you don't brake at the same time every lap). You can find this utility on my home page. I use it all the time and it helps a lot. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rene Smit AKA The SDI, Technical University Delft Faculty of Computer Science Wenckebachstraat 42, 2522 CL The Hague,The Netherlands