quite a basic question... if you just can't get any faster, how do you know whether you need to change the setup or change your driving style?

Check your consistency. When you can regularly drive near your pb, f.e. for 5 laps in a row, you might be able to blame your setup.

Vain

sounds reasonable, but then again, what if my driving is just consistently slow?

A small chain of thoughts:
1. You trained a lot and studied different replays of good laps from lfsworld.
2. Even though you try to drive fast your average laptime doesn't improve.
3. You've got enough control over the car to drive long distances without any errors.

When all of these are statements are true your laptime is propably limited by your setup.

Vain

I have noticed one thing about myself. I usually drive little too carefully and and I just don't get enough close to my limit. I'd encourage you to check some wrs about their braking points, corner speeds and racing lines. Then just try to brake little later, press the gas pedal little earlier and try to use all the width the road has. A good setup is always a good thing, but it must suit your driving style (oversteer/understeer etc.)

In the beginning when braking little later it just feels the car won't stop, but it does, just turn in soon enough And be smooth...

Quote from Hyperactive :

A good setup is always a good thing, but it must suit your driving style (oversteer/understeer etc.)

thats what i mean. lets say you always spin your tires and oversteer when accelerating out of a corner - would you make the setup more forgiving and thus slower or would you keep it as-is and work on your throttle skills?

since a car can't learn but a human can, wouldnt it be theoretically better to use a 'perfect' but almost undrivable setup and learn to handle it?

of course it'll be very frustrating in the beginning but in the long run it should yield better results, no?

It depends more about the car/track and how much you have already spent there. I glanced at your online pbs at lfsworld and you don't seem to be slow in any way.

Of course you can start with a frustrating setup but you really want to be sure it is good too . Generally the people winning the online races have a good setup but not all. Just take a setup you think is fast and hold on to it. I noticed you have done a lot laps in AS nat. And your pb is better than some will ever get . The wr setups may be good, but they must be driven so no sliding or slipping is allowed.

Can you make consistent under 1:45 times? How are tires doing after 5 laps? Does the setup appear to be pushy or oversteery?

Skidding your tires will not gain any speed. Sometimes you may get a lucky slide (like Schumacher did in bahrain(?) couple of years ago) which don't cost you much time, but generally you are wasting you tires and losing speed. If you slide in some setup all the time, the setup may not suite you, or you are just pushing too hard. If I was you I would think long and hard about changing the setup.

Noticed too that you are driving with xrr, so I can't really give any specific tips there as I drive the fzr mostly.

Well, seeing as both play a role, you should find ways to seperate them.
I'd say you need 3 setups, the default one, yours, and a setup giving fast
times to other(s). Find a fast guy (ideally already a friend..) and trade
setup with him. See if:

1-you are faster than usual with his setup
and/or,
2-he is slower than usual with your setup

If any of these are true, i'd say you can gain by tuning your setup.
If on the other hand there is no clear difference, then maybe your
driving skills are the limiting factor. Driving too carefully for example.
I find messing with the FOV can do wonders with your perception
of speed as you approach turns. I always set my FOV as high as
possible (some people can't stand too high) so things 'appears faster
than they are'. It's helped me take turns faster by reducing the time
i lost understeering at the entry.

Sometimes being faster is all about confidence in a predictable setup.
Some 'fast' setups are considered undriveable by the majority while
some 'slower' ones might be much more confortable and allow you
to be much more consistent. It's like that tale about the Turtle and
the Rabbit, it's not only about being fast, it's about finishing ahead
Put another way, it's not the laptime that's important to win, but
the overall time. This is where consistency is very important. I got many
top3 positions by simply hanging out through the entire race. Preserving
my tires, trying to keep acceptable (if not the fastest) times and repeat
those times over and over. I usually concentrate more on my braking
points and look where i need to gain speed, trying different ways to take
a turn (usually playing around with the apex) and noting the lap times.
Next thing you know the race is over and you are 2nd or something while
the fast guys are arguing who crashed who.

In any case, it's not a simple thing to pinpoint, but at the same time, it
is one of the major factor in the staying power of LFS. The fact that you
can't find the perfect setup in a week just makes it more fun in a way.

I tried a few wr setups and although I mostly struggled to keep the car under control I did the same lap times I usually do with my own setup...
so to me that sounds like my driving needs improvement and it has nothing to do with the setup

i'm not skidding very much, I just used that as an example.. I think my setup is more understeering than the opposite. I just hotlapped (which i rarely do) with a full tank and did 20 laps but then i had to stop because my back was killing me (office chairs with wheels are NO good for playing lfs). I could have done another 5-10 laps before I would have had to change the front tires (R3). R2s on rear wheels were doing fine. apart from one major mistake in lap 5 which sent me into the grass a little I didnt do too many mistakes, starting with low 1:47.xx laps, and then staying in the 1:46s. best was a 1:45.86.

so... is doing laptimes with around 1 second difference constistent? should I stick to whatever setup i'm using now and just do another... 500 laps or whatever?

btw that pb on as nat was months ago... after a pause of a few weeks from lfs it has now taken me about two weeks to only get near it again and I'm far from braking it...

ah well... maybe driving xrr in 5 lap races just isnt a good combination pushing the car to its limits, doing low 1:45.xx and then seeing an fzr on a public server do mid 1:42.xx doesn't exactly help with being confident in your skills

thanks fonnybone, your post seems to have surfaced my real problem (or i'm just seeing dead people again )

I think what's really bugging me is that I don't really know how deep I want to go with lfs. If I may exaggerate a bit, there's two choices:
1) be the casual fun racer. take fzr, take a wr setup, copy the driving style of the faster guys and smoke everyone in public 5 lap races
2) be the hardcore simmer. take xrr, make your own setup, drive in endurance races and practice 4 hours a day while studying car mechanics to drop another 0.01 seconds every two weeks.

so if I drive an xrr in public 5 lap races on weekends only and use my own setup despite not really having any idea what all the settings do, I'm obviously doing something wrong :doh:

I'll dig myself a big hole now and won't come out until I know what I want and who I am anyway... illepall:

Quote from ZeroDexter :

sounds reasonable, but then again, what if my driving is just consistently slow?

It's almost impossible to tell someone that drives clean, smooth, consistent but just slow laps where to improve. Sometimes they just need to forget everything except the layout of the track and start attacking it again. People get into a groove of doing things at certain times.....braking too early, accelerating too late...not using all the road, perhaps it's hard to change the habits. Hardest to spot, but quite common time-loser, I think, is using the steering to move to the outside after a corner rather than using the throttle and letting the car go where it wants to. You took the proper racing line, it looks like you went fast, but you could have gone faster by being a bit more eager with the loud pedal. It's much easier to tell if someone is too early on it than if they're too late, and much easier to know yourself if you were pushing it or not.

Definatly check wr laptimes. On so classic with fox i was getting crappy times until i watched wr replay, and that helped ALOT!

Sometimes it helps me to think of something i've heard a long time ago.
"You want to be either fully accelerating or fully braking as much as possible.
Any time you aren't, you are losing time. " What works for me (mainly in rwd)
is to try to brake as late as possible while still making the turn (yeah that part
seems obvious but how many times do you think it WHILE racing?), using
brakes to take me through the turn. I believe this is the same as trail braking,
although i've always associated trail braking with automatics since it's also
used to preload the torque converter while braking. It's also a way to help
an understeering car turn as it induces some slight oversteer. Anyways, the
basics are the same, it implies braking while turning.

Most people (ok, i have no data to back this up..) seperate 'taking a turn' into
3 steps. Braking, turning and accelerating. The 'turning' part is where you
waste time as you usually have a constant speed, no acceleration. You
aren't fully accelerating nor fully braking. 'Trail braking' overlaps the braking
and turning zones so you are still using your brakes as you begin to turn.
That way, you can reduce the time lost braking by braking later (which also
means you can reach higher speeds before braking) and by 'riding the
brakes' you can enter the turn faster. You basically share time between both.

The key here is to brake late and hard without locking up but you must
release the brakes gently (and gradually) as you turn, maintaining a small
amount of brakes all the way to the apex, once the apex is passed (when
you start steering less/unwinding the wheel) you should be off the brakes
and accelerating as hard as possible. Personally, i find it very analogous to
drifting as you are basically trying to maintain a very small drift throughout
the turn. After a while, you get in the zone and it's quite a rush to come in
'too fast' only to make it through the whole turn at the limit of adhesion.
It's all about timing.

Consitency in my opinion is all about practice/experience and finding
optimal brake points and sticking to them as MUCH as possible.

GPL Foolishness:

http://website.lineone.net/~richardn/

Save the page and take your time to read it, its excellent! I always recommend that good old page to anyone that asks what are they doing wrong. I learned a lot from there, and still like to read it from time to time, its quite inspiring. Some of the things are GPL specific but vast majority applies to any kind of racing, sim or real.

Quote from ZeroDexter :

quite a basic question... if you just can't get any faster, how do you know whether you need to change the setup or change your driving style?

Not read the whole thread, so I apologise if I've missed points already raised.

In my opinion you can't. That's the fun thing! But we are all driving identicle cars, so if someone else can make a certain setup lap quicker than you then it's skill related (or just not to your riving style perhaps). If no-one can make a set go quicker, then it's setup limited.

Actually knowing whether a setup is wrong is to try as many different sets as you can. but don't discard a set until you've done AT LEAST 10 laps on it, preferably closer to about 30. You may HATE a setup to start with, but after a few laps you'll have started to suss what it'll do and where. This will not only improve your skill (driving round a problem, finding new techniques etc), but also help you define what makes a setup feel right, and what makes a setup wrong.

Also bear in mind certain tracks have VERY different characteristics required. A nice loose setup at BLGP in the Fox will be much eviller at SO Town, so try not to get used to a single 'type' of setup for any given car.

my 2 cents.

i'm way too aggressive. just tried getting a perfect lap together but in almost every lap I got one of the corners wrong.. after about 30 tries now I'm so angry I'm about to cause real damage to something in my room :mad:

thanks for the kind responses but although studying WRs and trying dozens of sets is probably the way to go, it's just not something I have the patience for. and I'm not really learning anything from it, they're just 20kph faster everywhere but i dunno why.
my driving isnt much different from that of the current WR on AS3 so I guess I'll just throw away my set and do a trillion laps with a WR set, feeling like someone else did my homework...

1. To relax while driving get chewing-gum or something else to eat. In my experience M&Ms are good . That eases me to the point where I can concentrate on the next turn, instead of cussing at myself for getting the last turn wrong. And it's a nice reward for a new section-pb.
2. When you're at unrest, stop for a while. Watch some TV and come back relaxed. That will also help you to be easier to the tyres. The car will say thanks with well heated tyres and optimum grip.
3. Look forward. Nothing's worse than having your imaginary eye at the last turn, while you could already be preparing for the next turn.
4. Learn to love your setup by trying to find it's limit. You will need ages to learn these while hotlapping.
5. Don't try to be fast, try to be steady. Speed will come with steadyness.

Vain

one little hint on studying WR's always watch from the same view you use while driving! One guy asked me how could he learn something from watching WR's and after I talked to him a bit, it came out he was watching them from the TV camera :doh:

Quote from Misko :

GPL Foolishness:

http://website.lineone.net/~richardn/

thanks for the link! very interesting

Quote from ZeroDexter :

i'm way too aggressive. just tried getting a perfect lap together but in almost every lap I got one of the corners wrong.. after about 30 tries now I'm so angry I'm about to cause real damage to something in my room :mad:

i do the same thing. i push the car/setup too hard and get the corners all wrong. usually down to me breaking too late or oversteering and over-correcting.

then i just get mad and quit before i break stuff. other times im just in the mood to race, and pull of some quick laps and flawless driving. its just practice, which can get frustrating.

Lapping the same track and set endlessley can lead to bad habbits(as well as good).

Try a very different track and car that forces you to drive differently, I find it can help with defining setup problems.
the fox at one of the long south city tracks requires lots of throttle control(for me at least) at the apex for many of the bends. This feels very different to an xrr and might give you some setup ideas.

I make myself time targets that I must achieve before I allow myself quit. (Sometimes it takes damn long You said that you lose 20kph in straights? Downforce? Corner exit? Compare your gears used to the wr replays?

I would just drive few laps with the setup and not looking at lap times at all. Then ->pits -> back to the track. Now try to brake little harder in every corner, and even if it looks you're not going to make it just turn in. Also try to keep a little bit throttle in the corner, it may balance the car. And analyze your driving. Everytime you push the gas pedal, check if you stab it or press it smoothly (the magick word). And then never stab it again.

The frustration is just there, but keep driving and it will fade away as you progress. The journey from 1:45s to 1:44s and 1:43s in as3 is frustrating but rewarding

EDIT: check post 15

I think you can change your style and the setup and then decide if it works.

In my case, unless it's basic set like race_1, setup makes very little difference. I was once on a server with XFGs and lumbered around on race_1 well off the pace. Sinbad then kindly gave me his set. What a difference! It took 2-3 seconds off straight away. Trouble is I was still 2 seconds a lap off the leaders pace.
I can make EVERY turn perfectly. Unfortunately I can't do it on the same bloody lap! Mostly it's a mind game and the older you get, the less mind you have to play with.

Quote from Doorman :

I can make EVERY turn perfectly. Unfortunately I can't do it on the same bloody lap!

That one's great (and the problem so well known too)

But on topic: It is hard to tell if it is the ste or the skill. Sometimes another set (and only adjusting one or two screws a little) might have a huge impact on laptime. But then there are the occasions you drive with an experienced racer, and just by following his line (and I do not speak of dragging, as I can't keep up anyways) you manage to cut of another 2-3 seconds.

But then, I am still a noob (except on these forums ).. should spend more time driving than browsing the forums