Lets take BL-GP with an XFR for example. (Yeah, i drive this a lot)

My best time was 1:19.0xx but i don't think this was because of the setup i downloaded. I've never made it that fast since this.

In online races the laptimes of the best are around 1:17.xxx.

I had the idea to this thread while reading this one: Good driving vs good setups .

So, what times are possible with standard-setup?

It does depend on the car and the track to some extent, but I normally find that a default, or inappropriate setup rarely makes more than a second or twos difference.
Maybe more than that in aero cars if your gearing and aero setup is completely wrong for the track though.

You should be able to get within 2 or 3 seconds of most WR's with the race_1 setup on most cars. Raceabout and LX's are probably the hardest to get that pace with the standard setups.

Better setups aren't necessarily faster than standard or race_1 setups in hot lapping. But I find them usually much easier to drive the current track and am I able to do faster laps in general. So better setups add more stability to laps times than speed.

it's not really that the standard sets produce less actual cornering force, it's more that the tweaked sets out there may simply suit you're style better.

agreed about the LX's and racabout, not a very forgiving set at all, but with a softer rear they really dig in and go!

I just drove a few laps at BL-GP with the race_1 setup in the XFR. After a few laps it's really good to drive. Better than i had in mind (i'm improving - Horray! )

But I noticed something really interesting:
The first few laps I pushed to see what time i could make. But I didn't get under 1:21.5xx. Also my tires got hot.
So I decided to drive some smoother laps to cool the tires down and suddenly also my laptime went down. I drove 1:20.0xx laps one after another.

I always thought that if the tires sqeeze in the corners without drifting I'm fast because the car is on the limit. Am I wrong??

Also the race_1 setup seems to work fo longer races. Thats also one difference to the downloaded setups. With these you can drive 2 or max. 3 laps before the tires are completely red.

Depends on the track also. Because most sets need to be setup for a certain part of the track to help gain more time. Like for the FE Green chicane.

Or for instance, a standard setup of the MRT5 on Aston Cadet is absolutely horrible, and the car needs to be better suited to slower steering and designed to cope with the 'rise then fall' in that huge chicane at Cadet... or else you'd be sliding all over with the default set. Would be very hard to get within 3 secs of the WR time at least, maybe even 5.

Quote from Tweaker :

Or for instance, a standard setup of the MRT5 on Aston Cadet is absolutely horrible.

Damn right. That's a nice combo too. The default set has huge understeer for the MRT5, both from the suspension and the diff (we all know how sensitive the MRT5 is to diff settings from S1). The difference in cornering speeds is quite dramatic (I've found).