Pablo, don't waste your time replying to Blue Flame. He's a know-it-all dickhead, who generally knows nothing at all.
It's completely pointless having a conversation with him. (On any subject. If your view on something differs from his he will either call you a liar, or ignore your view entirely.)
Because the ideal line or technique in a sim is different to the ideal line or technique in a real car, because tarmac is a very variable surface that alters in grip, gets dust on it... Cross winds are reduced and magnified by the local structures... real bumps are, with the exception of the largest ones, always different to simulated bumps.
In short, what you learnt about Laguna could have been learnt in any simulator - the way around the track, the vague rhythm etc. Actually being quick in real life means forgetting the sim version almost completely.
That is why it's not a very useful learning tool really. The F1 drivers use simulators mostly for car development (setup work, aero, gearing), not for REALLY learning a new track. Plus their simulators cost many thousands more than the ones we get to use.
That's not to say laser scanning isn't nice, or doesn't produce accurate looking tracks. But they won't drive like the real track. Not yet anyway.
What, really are you talking about? Your attitude is foul, you should see anger-management or something.
Either way, it's funny the latter part of your comment because I'm saying what I know is fact because of my experience, but the way in which you have pieced this comment suggests you're disputing it which is ironically hypocritical.
He said, (and I doubt he has first hand experience) that the camera mounted inside that MX5 in the video doesn't show the track as you see it from the naked eye, (when it does), and that iRacing DOES show it as you see it by the naked eye and because I've disputed that I'm apparently a this-this and this.
You're actually the one ignoring MY comments and hurling insults at me.
If you actually read what was written down you'd know that you and me don't have opposite arguments at all.
Get your head from your proverbial.
I did this video in conjuction with Malcolm Edeson, a coach driver who has more than 20 years of experience, worked for Jim Russel and raced in Oulton infinite times. the mx5 video is SD, this is all that is available for multiple bullet cam systems [which this is] and the section shown was from a much larger 'view'.
the view in a cam or sim is ALLWAYS different than the naked eye vision, you have 2 FOV mixed and this cameras only 1.
tip for you: dont doubt about other's first hand experience if you dont know them. or they will blow up your flame
iRacing accuracy varries greatly depending how far details were away from the scanner when it captured the data. Example in the video above of an oval being scanned. The outer lying data does not look inch accurate let alone mm.
laser scanning doesn't simulate how tracks evolve during a day. Tracks can vary depending on how moist the soil is and how that reacts to various temperatures etc... Commercially available physics models are just not good enough to take laser scanned tracks anywhere above being something nice. And a track will change all the time. Bumps develop over time etc... I don't think anyone has enough money to re-invest in re-scanning a track every 12 months.
I think the idea they train drivers how to drive in real life is a complete myth. To get into enough depth of how you attack a track you have to put in hundreds of laps on the sim. And by then you've probably picked up a ton of bad habits that you than have to unlearn. A decent driver will still come along and be quicker, without any sim experience.
Sims are brilliant for learning general techniques, but for the detail of learning a circuit properly, nah, not yet, not for a long time.
I certainly prefer driving on laser scanned tracks because they feel really good, but I won't fool myself into thinking I am learning anything special above a bog standard sim track.
i didnt say that, i know from a day to another(also hours) it could be a really different track in terms of feeling. you can learn the layout but not the car reactions irl. in real life you have to improvise while insim you can do the same with same track conditions everytime.
"A decent driver will still come along and be quicker, without any sim experience."
also a decent driver can be shit in a simulator due to the lack of sensations.
and also could be good in both RL and insim
and good insim crap in RL.
xD so many situations.
To add to the discussion:
A talented driver doesn't need a simulator, but a less talented driver (like myself) can definitely take a good bit of knowledge from looking at a virtual track a few hundred times. So yes, every bit of accuracy helps, but it won't elevate the sim-driver above average.
The accuracy of the track will just go to your memory, the physics would correlate to your mental and physical preperation for the races. If physics ain't all there (and they are definitely further toward WIP than anything) then the simulator won't help you too much in actual racing.
Well in reality it's not because it's a camera and not a human eye!
What you see on onboard laps is what you see when you're there, you're disputing that, which is a little odd if I'm honest. Seems like you just want to disagree with me for anything, so better just leave it.
The line I use in the Solstice at Laguna is identical at every point to my Spec Miata. The way you must dive down to turn 2 and let the car float out to the middle of the track in the middle of the corner - identical. The way you must charge into turn 5 with an early apex so that the banking will catch you and how the car practically turns in by itself there - identical. The way I lift for turn 6 and the way I float the car in, the reference points I use, and how you must get the inside tires as close as possible to the red hump to take advantage of the sloping rumble strip - identical. The way you line up the car in turn 8 with the smaller tree on the right and how you floor the throttle once you're pointed at it - identical. The skating feeling through turn 9 - identical.
When I first got to Skip Barber I was praised for my turn 6 immediately. To this day my coaches and competitors all love my turn 6. I learned that corner on iRacing and the more I drive it like I'm in iRacing the more praise I get. It's probably my best corner of the tracks I've driven, and it's mostly thanks to the time I put in on iRacing.
It is true that the track changes. But it remains largely the same. Deposits of sand in turns 2 and 8 are easy to spot and avoid or compensate for. The line will rubber in as the weekend progresses but it won't change the actual technique too much, maybe a foot less distance at turn in, or slightly earlier power application, but nothing too major. Of course there are differences. But they are small ones. If you want to be absolute and say that any imperfection (such as lack of rubber or dirt) means it's worthless to a driver beyond "turn left here", well, then I don't know what to say to you. It was iRacing that taught me how to use the rumble strips at Laguna to destabilize the car on the entry. It was iRacing that taught me to be gentle on the braking and trail braking in turn 5. It was iRacing that taught me where to look to get the car to float into turn 6 just right, even with a blind approach.
I could have learned these things in real life, certainly. But it would have taken more money and more actual track time that I could have used to develop something else. And consider this - I had been driving various virtual versions of Laguna for years before I got iRacing. They were not terribly accurate versions (Race07, TOCA 3, Gran Turismo, and Forza mostly). It was only when I got iRacing that I started to learn the previously mentioned specifics.
I don't praise iRacing much any more, but the tracks are pretty hard to fault.
My coach is very talented and he used a simulator to learn World of Outlaws 900 horsepower dirt oval sprint cars. He went out and blew everyone away in his first season, on and off track.
A driver who doesn't take advantage of simulators, for whatever capacity, is a fool.
You are assuming those are the 'best ways' around the track. For all you know you could just be transferring habits from iRacing into real life and depriving yourself of an even better style of attack.
I am a paid up member of the sim club, just I think people are being a tad naive if they think they are learning tracks to any credible degree on a sim. Certainly they'll be an odd occasion where something coincidently is transferable, but we're not there yet where sims can teach you a track to any worthwhile degree.
I agree with Alan. I'm slamming a door on my head as I type it, but I agree with him...
I use sims. I've used sims a lot, both before I raced in real life, and after. They taught me a LOT about car setups, car control, racecraft, racer mentality, coping with the red mist...I've used rFactor and netKar to 'learn' circuits, and even (once) to work out the starting point for gearing the car. But I'm not foolish enough to think that the tracks, or the lines or the grip or the car behaviour (even in an excessively expensive simulator like iRacing that is, at best, the third best simulator out there at this moment in time) are in anyway realistic enough to be used, useful or quick in real life.
And I'm not even that good, and have a lot still to learn. If I was a professional driver I'd wager there was even less to learn in that regard, but just enough to make them useful. For starters, even Alonso or Hamilton or Kobayashi can practice RACING on a simulator - passing, repassing, defending... stuff you CAN learn from a sim
You're assuming that I'm assuming. You're assuming I've done no work in real life in order to go faster. I'm offended.
I would ask you guys if you've ever had the opportunity to drive the very same car on the very same track as iRacing (or on any laser scanned circuit), but I have a feeling I already know what the answer is going to be...
I'm assuming your not Fernando Alonso, and thus for all we know you could be approaching Laguna in completely the wrong manner. What you think is right, could be completely wrong. Unless of course you think you're at Alonso's level?
Look, what works for you works for you. That's great, that's fine. But for me tracks & cars are far too organic to be accurately modelled in the current generation of sims. I simply don't trust them as tools to learn tracks in any real meaningful manner. Other things they are brilliant for, I won't deny that.
What about Huutu's outing before he puked? Surely it's no coincidence that he did reasonably well after only a few laps - after all he'd never driven a NORMAL car before, and was under the weather.
