Quite often when I'm driving along the straights of circuits completely flat out I've noticed people driving the same car are faster than me and easily overtake.

Can someone explain why this is so? I've tried using different setups but I'm still slower.

When someone is faster even though he uses the same setup as you do he propably has more training, which results in a better line which allows him to achieve higher speeds.
In other words: Practice.

Vain

Quote from Vain :

When someone is faster even though he uses the same setup as you do he propably has more training, which results in a better line which allows him to achieve higher speeds.
In other words: Practice.

Vain

Well said

It's basically because they take the corners faster, so they exit the corner at a higher speed and therefore reach a higher speed quicker on the straights. It's a bit depressing at first when this happens, but practice lots and try to take a line which allows you the fastest exit speed from the corners. If you think about it, you spend 5% of your time on the brakes, 25% going around the corners, and 70% on the straights, so setting yourself up for a good straight-line speed on the exit of corners is the best way to gain time on a lap.

also manual clutch with most cars is a bit faster.

Quote from DarkTimes :

It's basically because they take the corners faster, so they exit the corner at a higher speed and therefore reach a higher speed quicker on the straights.

Not necessarily.

Vain

Quote from Vain :

Not necessarily.

Vain

helpful as ever . . . . .

Sorry. [sarcasm] [/sarcasm]

:tired::bananadea:spam4:

Quote from Vain :

Not necessarily.

Vain

Eh... it's pretty much exactly the same thing you said though. You said it's cause they have a better line, I said they take the corners faster. Same thing in my view, just different wording. Unless I've completely miss-understood what you said...

The topic is a lot more complex, that's why I was so short-worded before.
In a twisty section with a slow car it is important to carry momentum throught the corner. In a fast accelerating car in a turn before a long straight it is important to get power down as fast as possible after the apex, so you choose a line that sacrifices apex-speed to allow maximum acceleration and gain time.
You can write a nice book about this, but I'll keep it this short.

Vain

Make sure your wheel and pedals are calibrated correctly. Sometimes the calibration goes out of whack and you don't actually use 100% throttle but maybe only 80-90%.

On turbo cars, although sounding ugly, keeping the throttle down while shifting is quite faster, because the turbo boost isn't lost while doing so. To do this you have to disable "throttle cut on upshift", though. Even if you don't want to flatshift, you are still faster by just releasing the throttle a bit, instead of fully like the throttle cut does.

A tiny improvement in exit speed on a corner before a long straight gets magnified a lot by the time you are most of the way down the straight. Most of lfs is about driving smoothly. A lot of people 'over-drive', including me, scrubbing off loads of energy by trying to take a corner too fast.
I would say the one most important item to concentrate on is smoothness. Slow in and fast out really does work, and it saves your tyres.

What you mean you have'nt found the NO5 yet?.

Go to car setup and add nitro to your car, will make it a lot faster on the straights......

Dan,

Quote from Pegasus :

Quite often when I'm driving along the straights of circuits completely flat out I've noticed people driving the same car are faster than me and easily overtake.

Can someone explain why this is so? I've tried using different setups but I'm still slower.

one other thing to remember, the most important corner on the track is the one before the longest straight. it's better to enter it a little slower so that you can exit that corner with as much speed as possible.

the trap most new racers fall into is coming INTO a corner as fast as possible, which comprimises their exit speed. on almost every corner it's more advantageous to lose a little time coming in so that you have more speed coming out. especially if there's another corner very close after that first one. you need to be in the correct place to take that one.

speedfreak227

Quote from danowat :

What you mean you have'nt found the NO5 yet?.

Go to car setup and add nitro to your car, will make it a lot faster on the straights......

Dan,

Well, it's not that easy. Go to pits, press t and write "/enable scawenabilities", then go out of pits and enter again. Write "/enable NO5", press enter, and then write "/NO5 level 27,4"

And then /impulse 101.

Quote from Pegasus :

Quite often when I'm driving along the straights of circuits completely flat out I've noticed people driving the same car are faster than me and easily overtake.

Can someone explain why this is so? I've tried using different setups but I'm still slower.

Pedal harder . . . .

Quote from Funnybear :

Pedal harder . . . .

Best post i've read in a long time... LOL!

Sometimes my own genuis disturbs me . . . he keeps prodding in the back when I'm trying to sleep.

year ago (and i mean years ago) we used to go to oulton park regularly and got friendly with one of the racers in the champion of oulton formula ford series (ok he lived on same estate as a m8 and needed help)

anyway varous racers in that series were convinced that one of the racers had an illegal engine as he was always faster down straight than everyone else. he didn't he just happened to come out of the bends noticably quicker than the rest and if you watched carefully he was slower into the bends when not under preasure. when he had some one right behind him, he would be as late as the rest of them on the brakes, and faster into the bend than he was normally, but was no faster then than the rest down the next straight

found out last year the same guy is now circuit operations dirctor at anglesey racing circuit

*** shameless plug alert***

if you get the chance to watch at anglesey its got very good racing for its size and this may be the last year to see it before a major revamp which may loose its charector whilst gaining bigger meetings

http://angleseycircuit.com/

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm making the mistake of going into corners too fast so I will work on my cornering technique.

The old saying less haste, more speed really rings true.

Exit speed is all

Quote from Funnybear :

Sometimes my own genuis disturbs me . . . he keeps prodding in the back when I'm trying to sleep.

rofl