I've been reading up on some racing technique and most people claim smoother movements (braking, accelerating and turning) will result in more grip and faster times. The explanation for the physics seems to make sense.

Then I watch the fast replays. They look anything but smooth. Instant on-off braking. Instant on off-throttle. Quick and big jerks of the steering wheel. What gives?

Quote from goldsbar :

I've been reading up on some racing technique and most people claim smoother movements (braking, accelerating and turning) will result in more grip and faster times. The explanation for the physics seems to make sense.

Then I watch the fast replays. They look anything but smooth. Instant on-off braking. Instant on off-throttle. Quick and big jerks of the steering wheel. What gives?

looking hotlaps, eh? They drive like mad over there, pushing the car on its limit they use. Hotlap is getting all out of your vehicle, racing is smoother but still fast.

The jerks in the steering wheels and the on-off braking look like kb and mouse driving to me.
Anyway, if you are fast and smooth, you shuold come to a good time nontheless.

Don't confuse hotlapping with racing

Smooth former WR, off current WR by 2 tenths on a 2 minute lap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kACdhgzNmjc

I do quick moves with steering wheel because it feels like it gives more accuracy in long corners than soft and easy work with steering wheel.

Yes.

I consider myself as having a fairly smooth driving style. Well, you can for example check my hotlap at FE3/FXR, and then check the next guy there. Should be some difference I think.

Smooth is faster consistently - but the very last tenth between a pb and a racing lap is taking everything right to the limit. And in most cases that will be agressive.

In terms of numbers it would be sth like this (FZR, AS3 example, of course

CD1, 6 laps:

For my standards a great race will be 1:40s every flying lap. With that you can win 99% of races there. It's tough to pull off (for me).

My PB is a 1:40.38 (that was with draft, but I also have the clean splits to get it).

A great race I would get a fastest lap of 40.65, a couple of laps in the 40:70s to 40.80s. All this is smooth racing and keeps tires alive to do all 6 laps.

Anything under 40:60 is taking it to the limit. Very late braking into the first and last pins, rear drifting around the pins, screeching tires all the way. I get 2 attempts at this in a race, then the tires are gone.

Once you really get to know car and track you know where you can be smooth without losing time and where being too smooth is too slow.

Again the above example: For really fast laps the last pin on AS3 needs to be taken at 110%, very late brakes, very aggressive through the pin and super early on throttle out if you want really fast times. But it will eat your tires up in no time. On the other hand the first pin can be taken smoothly and you only lose a few hundreths. The chicane can also be fast and smooth and T1 has different lines, some with are agressib¡ve and super fast, others which are still fast but easier on tires.

Knowing this you can plan you laps according to the state of your tires. And you can be fast and smooth, knowingly sacrifing a couple of tenths - or trying to regain them by being aggressive at the right time.

On a hotlap you have no such concerns - 110% every inch of the track.

Cheers

aceracer

lol my BL1R/FZR hotlap shows my driving style, agressive babey!

Agressive is for hotlapping. (i.e one super quick lap out of hundreds)

Smooth is for consistantly fast racing.

Even good hotlappers are "smooth". You can be smooth on the controls while still being really fast on the controls.

Smooth also refers to stuff you may not be picking up on. Like on turn in, a small movement to start the weight transfer and then a smoother turn in from far earlier than what most people do would be pretty smooth.

Most people turn in too abruptly and too late. That causes rapid weight shift and rapid increase in force at the tires. This is what I would call not smooth.

I think you should stick to your own style, i mean everyone has a little difference in his line and driving style, its not always the best to copy others.

About the hotlap replays, many WR setups are heavily based on oversteering, because it allows higher cornering speeds. But this makes the car nervous and requires a lot of rapid correction movements. So many hotlaps are done with very low steering-wheel-lock and FF settings, this could be the reason for the quick movements you saw there.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Agressive is for hotlapping. (i.e one super quick lap out of hundreds)

Smooth is for consistantly fast racing.

So i do both then? you can drive agressively in enduro and be consistant. Seen as i do run in them and i don't change my style much at all

Try taking an XRT out at hotlap pace and doing more than 3 laps on a set of tyres..

I would say that an agressive driving technique can be trained, practiced - ending in a more comfortable feeling and with the result of a smoother style, even though while still beeing on a razor's edge, most of the time on track. Having some luck and a sense for setting up a car for your liking could be helpful and quite supportive as well for that process.

With a smooth drivingstyle you should able contain your fast driving style or whatever driving style your having In hotlapping fast and agressive works maybe for the best imo.. Speacially with fast cars like GTR´s.. with slower cars it could be different. but it just depends pretty much for the car and track, some of the turns if you want to come pretty quickly you just have to do fast steering and be agressive Lets say, that smoother would be easier to maintain. Thats how i feel it, you can correct me if im wrong

Quote from goldsbar :

I've been reading up on some racing technique and most people claim smoother movements (braking, accelerating and turning) will result in more grip and faster times. The explanation for the physics seems to make sense.

Then I watch the fast replays. They look anything but smooth. Instant on-off braking. Instant on off-throttle. Quick and big jerks of the steering wheel. What gives?

I know what you're talking about, I've noticed this too. The fastest guys always seem to be oversteering and over pushing the tyres. Maybe it's to do with the way the game gives audio/visual feedback to compensate for the fact you're not actually sat in a car or maybe it's to do with the tyre physics not being perfect and not enough forward speed is lost when you slide tyres in the corners. In my opinion it's probably a mix of both, but definitely mostly to do with the latter. I just think that you can slide the car around a lot in LFS and not loose as much forward momentum as you would do in real life. Also, I'm not 100% convinced that higher corner speed is maintained quite right when coming out of corners, I've followed guys that are doing a quicker lap than me and sometimes I'm quicker through a corner than them but never seem to make up much distance on the following straight and I know it's not down to gearing because a few times I know I've been using the same set.

They're getting a better exit then/less downforce than you, you don't really notice it until the straight, use the analyzer on LFSW and you will see.

Sliding is never faster than not sliding in a corner. Sometimes you see people letting it slide on corner entry, or mid-corner is mostly because of the corrections to make the turn, and sometimes just to cure the understeering or any other 'illness' of the car at the exact moment. It's always faster if you can do it without these corrections, but with the more powerful cars it's not that easy to do a fully clean lap without any errors or mistakes.
I do slide it a bit if necessary, but I'm always trying to be as smooth as it can be. Many times the car is set up to suit most of the corners, but it cant suit all of them. And in those turns you gotta solve it somehow, and then the slide happens.
Also, the powerful cars are much more forgiving when it comes to sliding in corners that the weak ones, where you gotta carry all your momentum out of the corner.
I think hotlaps would be the same if tire physics were perfect.

or FXO at WE1R .... at hotlap/pb pace for more than 10 laps .... ( i did it during a turnament race .... i started last and finished 4th... worked quite well for me.. )

It just depends what car you're driving and how it's set up. I try to be as smooth as possible, but that doesn't mean that I don't have the thing sliding underneath me.
It's just down to how you want the car to behave while you're on the limit, everyone is different.
In short, there is no proof that either aggressive or smooth is faster. It just depends on the situation a driver is in at that moment, and what he believes will be the fastest way through that corner at that particular point in time (I'm starting to sound like lerts )

Quote from [DUcK] :

It just depends what car you're driving and how it's set up. I try to be as smooth as possible, but that doesn't mean that I don't have the thing sliding underneath me.
It's just down to how you want the car to behave while you're on the limit, everyone is different.
In short, there is no proof that either aggressive or smooth is faster. It just depends on the situation a driver is in at that moment, and what he believes will be the fastest way through that corner at that particular point in time (I'm starting to sound like lerts )

most of the laps that seem slow are the fastest and consistent i do .... and they happend just after i decided not to push the car to the limit but u dont feel that you are pushing it ( at least for me )

used to happen to me as well when I raced karts - that was because I was (am) smooth in karts. To be quite honest I haven't done enough laps in the car to tell you about that, but in LFS, usually I have a pretty good sense of what is fast and what isn't.
What you gave an example of there is subconscious driving, which is driving without thinking about anything, just 'in the zone', which is a good thing.

Smooth = slow.

if you are me