Just heard two simple pieces of advice advice on an episode of Top Gear from Jackie Stewart teaching Captain Slow to drive a TVR fast on track (We are a bit behind down under) and thought I should post it here to help people getting into LFS….

1)DO NOT push the accelerator until you know you will not have to lift it again. Meaning if you put your foot down out of a corner too early and overload the drive wheels so you need to lift some to correct the mistake it will make you slower than waiting that extra bit of time before you get on the power.
2)Corner entry has less of an effect than corner exit on your lap times. So slow in fast out is the key.

Hope it helps some people

Quote from Hyperactive :

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=9006

Doh :doh:

I should have known better, been around the forum long enough

Just to clarify point 1) Where (IMO) Sir Stewart meant that while you still increase the throttle gradually, don't push it so far you have to lift off. I don't think he meant that you wait without using the throttle until you can mash it to the floor without lifting (which could be interpreted from point 1).

Forgive me, I can't find info on this in forum:
On the throttle indicator,the very top is yellow in colour, is it my imagination or did this change after u21, and what is it for.I suppose common sense would tell me that it's for an extra bit of power if you keep the throttle below the "yellow" point for a time?

Actually, the very top is white, you need to check your monitor settings

The white stripe just indicates that the throttle is depressed 100%. This is helpful for users with pedals that have calibration issues, sometimes resulting in only giving about 95% throttle. With that stripe this miscalibration is easy to spot.

Humm could have sworn twas yellow, it's a laptop lcd so maybe thats why.So as you said it's nothing to do with keeping that extra bit of power until the end of the race although im sure this is true to real motorsport. or is it?

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you're trying to say

I'm sorry Androidxp, what I was trying to say was in "Real motorsport" would a driver intentionally drive say 90% of a race NOT using 100% throttle thus saving the engine for the last 10%?

Well hmm, maybe, if the driver knows he has a shitty engine that is prone to failure. But then I wouldn't even start in the race, when you know your engine might explode at each straight.

What I think happens more frequently, though, is that they set different rev limiters, and let the engines rev higher only for a short time, like when passing. Atleast it's done like this in F1, I believe.

CSU1, the white bit at the top isn't any kind of extension to the throttle, no form of "overboost" or "power-to-pass" or anything like that (which I think is what you are wondering). It's nothing "extra", it's just something to alert you to pedal problems which you might be having, but not realising it.

If you can see the white bit, you know you are using 100% of the available throttle.

Quote from sinbad :

CSU1, the white bit at the top isn't any kind of extension to the throttle, no form of "overboost" or "power-to-pass" or anything like that (which I think is what you are wondering). It's nothing "extra", it's just something to alert you to pedal problems which you might be having, but not realising it.

If you can see the white bit, you know you are using 100% of the available throttle.

Thank you , that was established 6 posts aboveillepall
My next question was about "real motorsports" Edit pm sent to sinbad ...

In answer to your question, I very much doubt it.

Quote from CSU1 :

Thank you , that was established 6 posts aboveillepall
My next question was about "real motorsports" if you open your eyes you might see...

Hmm yeah, ok.

Quote from CSU1 :

Thank you , that was established 6 posts aboveillepall
My next question was about "real motorsports" if you open your eyes you might see...

Come on CSU, he was trying in good faith to help you. Being snarky to people who are assisting you is not cool.

And in answer to your question, I've heard of short-shifting to save the engine but I've never heard of anyone using 90% throttle to save the engine.

Quote from jtr99 :

Come on CSU, he was trying in good faith to help you. Being snarky to people who are assisting you is not cool.

And in answer to your question, I've heard of short-shifting to save the engine but I've never heard of anyone using 90% throttle to save the engine.

Errr! wrong again lol...open your eye's lol 90% of a race! not 90% throttle

I'd be very surprised if a driver stops using 100% throttle. Not only would it require more physical effort to hold the throttle off the stops, it would just slow you down.

What they'd do in real life is ease off into corners earlier, change gear earlier and allow the engine to use less revs. On a straight they'll still be 100% on the throttle.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I'd be very surprised if a driver stops using 100% throttle. Not only would it require more physical effort to hold the throttle off the stops, it would just slow you down.

What they'd do in real life is ease off into corners earlier, change gear earlier and allow the engine to use less revs. On a straight they'll still be 100% on the throttle.

Ok maybe not the driver doin it, but i'd bet those f1 cars ecu's don't give it 100% whammy till' near the end

two notes on those 2 pieces of adivce

1. not necessarily true for turbo cars
2. depends a lot on the corner
take bl1 for example ... the righthander after the straight
youre blasting into it at top speed and the exit leads onto a very short straight ... keeping the car at max speed as long as possible is more important than taking a lot of speed onto the following straight

Quote from Shotglass :

two notes on those 2 pieces of adivce

1. not necessarily true for turbo cars
2. depends a lot on the corner
take bl1 for example ... the righthander after the straight
youre blasting into it at top speed and the exit leads onto a very short straight ... keeping the car at max speed as long as possible is more important than taking a lot of speed onto the following straight

:bat: As the crow fly's; yes.

Quote from CSU1 :

Ok maybe not the driver doin it, but i'd bet those f1 cars ecu's don't give it 100% whammy till' near the end

Well, F1 ecus can probably do a lot of things to protect the engine, minimize the fuel consumption or give some extra revs. I guess mostly it is the fuel mixture and rev limit what they adjust during races...

Quote from Hyperactive :

Well, F1 ecus can probably do a lot of things to protect the engine, minimize the fuel consumption or give some extra revs. I guess mostly it is the fuel mixture and rev limit what they adjust during races...

Yes I know aren't they wonderful; if there is a set amount of 'punnishment an engine is to take per race, setting it give 110% for the last couple of laps would be nice

Hmmm. That 90-100% thing. In many old WWII fighters had a thing called "war emergancy power"(WEP) (No, don't quit reading... I get to cars soon ). It ment that for short period you could take maybe 110-120% power out of the engine. If run longer than the instructed limit you would risk the engine to blow up. Sometimes this requires extra cooling (like the MW50 methanol water injection Me109/FW190). GM1 used nox to get larger performance increase (Me109).

This wasn't unheard in race cars either. I remember that some old Mercedes Benz race car had a boost which you could run for maybe few mins per race. After that you were on the risk area. Normally it was used when extra power was needed like overtaking. This brings back the idea that LFS should have some old style race car (1920-30s) and that kind of "race emergancy power"(REP) system. It would bring some new dimension to longer races (besides old car would be fun)

So, basically Push-to-Pass wrapped in different words?

Quote from Aquilifer :

This wasn't unheard in race cars either. I remember that some old Mercedes Benz race car had a boost which you could run for maybe few mins per race. After that you were on the risk area. Normally it was used when extra power was needed like overtaking. This brings back the idea that LFS should have some old style race car (1920-30s) and that kind of "race emergancy power"(REP) system. It would bring some new dimension to longer races (besides old car would be fun)

back in the turbo days it was quite common to use a little more boost to overtake ... especially in classes with fuel limitations like group c
my father likes to go on and on about how one group c driver after spending several laps in the pits with no chance to win the race anymore went for an all out full boost run in the last laps of the race during which he overtook pretty much anybody