This brings on a good general question: How do people approach car setup?
I'd like to hear how others go about car setup. Here's me:
First of all, I use a joystick and NO steering help. The setups I've seen
when people have steering help ON are ridiculous. Presumably they are using
the keyboard. They need to stop being cheapskates/wimps and get a joystick
or wheel,and turn steering help OFF. So anyways...
Car setup is a compromise between straight speed and cornering speed, with
the goal of achieving the lowest lap time. For a qualifying setup this is
a sufficient setup goal, but in a race, since it is much easier to pass on
a straight than in the middle of a corner, you don't want the car to be
slower than other cars on the straights, even if the extra downforce would
lower your lap time. Besides, being faster in the corner doesn't help if
someone is holding you up in the corner.
This is how I approach basic car setup for World Circuit (F1GP):
The first thing I do is choose my top gear, since my speed at the end of
a straight has to be sufficient to prevent other cars from passing me. To
save time, I cheat by going to a Q session and "ride" in other cars to get
an idea of the fast cars' top speed. I then set the top gear such that I
hit this speed when the tach hits the redline. BTW, I use automatic gear
changing, partially because changing manually is difficult with a joystick,
but also because I can't cheat by using the rev range above redline, which
would give the "unfair advantage" (pretty silly flaw in this game). Then
I set the low gear, such that I'm in the proper rev range to use this gear
in the slowest corner. I then space out the rest of the gears evenly.
Later on I might tweak some of the inner gears depending on the prevalence
of medium speed corners, or long straights. On tracks where the difference
between the slowest speed and fastest speed is not as great (e.g., Hungary),
you might not need to use all six gears. The idea is that you don't want
the gears spaced out so much that you get out of the powerband, but there
is no need to be busier than you have to if you are not using the full
width of the powerband.
I then set the wings such that I reach redline at the end of the longest
straight. I generally have 10 degrees more wing on the front, to give me
good turn-in on fast corners, while keeping oversteer manageable (and fun)
when powering out of slow corners.
The idea with brake bias is that optimum braking (shortest braking distance)
occurs when all four tire contact patches are braking at the threshold, which
depends on the fact that the contact patches are bigger in the rear, but most
of the weight of the car is thrown on the front tires under braking. However,
I believe that experienced racers put brake bias slightly back, and begin
turn-in while still *** the brakes. This turns the car faster so you can
get on the gas sooner. I don't mess with brake bias much. I usually put brake
bias at 4R. On slow corners I'll try to turn-in while *** the brakes, and
if I'm in the right position I can get on the gas immediately, and when I can
get of couple of those corners turned perfectly, my lap time is noticeably
improved. I think I would be more consistent with a wheel and pedals than on
the joystick.
This is the basic setup, but the tweaking goes on for a while. For instance,
I may find that increasing downforce to improve speed around the corner just
before a long straight is worth it even if top speed suffers, because I may
be going so much faster than the fastest AI guy at the exit of the corner
that he couldn't catch up by the end of the straight anyways.
Doing car setup in a race sim really makes you appreciate the importance of
continued testing during the season by the real race teams.
Bring on GP2, a setup ***!
Dave
