AC Round 3 of 23 Formula Agile 2023 Thu, March 30th 2023

[KFMaster]

Depends on the corner type (YSAR)

If it´s the slow corner before the long WOT zone, absolutely not

That´s where the brake bias mentioned by Rasmus comes in.
With my recent setup I use 54 to "rotate" the car into the corner.
But that also means that I have to start braking with a straight wheel or the FA will spin


Let´s say it was a medium left closely followed by a tight right and 5sec WOT after that then I´d try to trail the car in in 3rd, have the Nadir (YSAR) before the apex of the right and WOT early.

WOT = wide open throttle?
54 = 54% front bias?
Nadir? YSAR?
I am not quite sure about those acronyms, but I think I got what you are saying and it makes sense.

Sadly that´s where my inaptitude let´s me down because the FA is just too fast fore me.

Your answer in short:

if you track out too much your apex is too early!! Turn in later, if necessary sacrifice entry speed until you have the line right.

As always it takes practice to get it right (and the confidence that car will turn in when you need it. )

Carry on, driver Carsten

Even though I get it, in practice is hard. I am have all sort of trouble driving the Baku circuit. It seems much tougher than either Jeddah or Albert Park. Much much tougher for me. I am working on the first and last corner, boy it is tough to get just the right speed and turn in point combo. For the last turn, it seem the window is so small I either turn in too early with too much speed runing width on exit or turn in later and going way too slow loosing all sort of time or too fast missing the apex by 2 meters

I am doing the one thing two corners thing -- one thing at all corners are too much

I wonder if anyone have thought of an app that would let you specify a section such that at the exit of the section it teleports you back to the start of the section and put you at the same states (car attitude, speed, etc) as the last time. I can then keep repeating to practice a single corner.

 

[KFMaster]

My wheel is not stationary. I have the f-gt lite and fold it away when not driving.
This lead to using "mouse steering" with arrow up/down for throttle/brake and arrow right for upshift, arrow left for downshift.
You can even do throttle blips while braking and downshifting that way

AC had some kind of TC and abs algorithm when using keyboard pedals and it works kinda well for cars like the Tatuus F4 or for cars that actually have TC/ABS.

It doesn't work for F-Agile though... Car is too crazy

Anyway my point is: I drive only via visuals and sounds then and I could use this to dial in my visuals!

I tried that with the Abarth before I got my wheels. PWM the steering and brake is sort of manageable because of the slow dynamics. Even that I can barely do.

I locked all G-Force effects, since you can't really see what the suspension is doing with them activated.
They are immersive, but I put them to "locked" in CM.

If you want to try this without mouse+keyboard controls:
Set the ffb gain to 0% so your wheel turns smoothly. You might need some damping to have some resistance for precision.

If you then also turn off audio, you'll know what your eyes are doing for you

I may try this some time to see what I may learn.

That's not a great plan.. Having a bad setup is also not a great plan, so you're screwed anyway if you don't get a good setup from someone fast.

I'll upload my Albert Park Setup. I managed to do a 1:40.9xx with it.
So P3 in qualy, in theory.

Spoiler: softest springs and aero at 14/7!

That's way more important than the setup, of course. But they do go hand in hand.
Not so much with the GT4 as you can't really make a corner flat out or not depending on the setup, but with the Agile the aero has such a massive impact, that you can't get fast with it being wrong.

I will try your Albert Part Setup. Would it be usable for Baku, with so many tight 90 degree turns it is seems a very different circuit than Albert Park.

OneNote has infinite page size and you can drop pictures without then being locked within page borders or text blocks.
You should try it out, I love it for stuff like this.

I'd never write letters or so in it though.

Wow, you copy pics into your onenote? I just write down observations and make notes of which log file and which laps, just go open up the log file again later if needed. I always get lost with onenotes with all these tabs.

Hehe I'm using 50% gain with 8Nm of my csw 2.5.
But it's like wine & coffee. You work your way up

Yeah I know that pain.. Only invest much time in tracks that will definitely be used regularly.
Or if a track is a real challenge and mastering it can help you overall.

It depends.
That's really the only thing that can be applied to all corners.
Depending on the car, the grip level, the setup, cambered/off-cambered etc. all change the perfect line.

In short:
- tighter line = less distance
- wider line = higher speed but more distance

And then it also depends on the next corner. Or rather the "combination" the corners are part of.
Being 0.3s faster through T1 but that leading to losing 0.4s through T2+3 is not worth it.

Some people do this by "instinct", which is called "talent".
I personally struggle a lot with this. Using different cars on the same track or different tracks with the same car does help.

Yeah, I have to look at the logs and the track map to figure this out. Definitely lacking talent here. The trouble is also that I can get to decent time in practice, but when the situation changes I fall apart. Like in this last rookie GT4 race. I got down to a decent mid field lap time practicing by myself, but once the other cars showed up, my driving get messed up from looking at people 20 meters away

Also driving different sims helps me a lot, since every sim gives you different ques.
rF2 gives you massive feedback about how loaded the front tyres are. You touch the brakes and the ffb shoots up.
But it the official GT3's feel like a sponge for me.

AC is a brilliant mix of everything but it's really difficult to keep a slight drift at the exit. It just goes without hope of catching it.
I drive GT3 cars at TC 1.
At TC 2+, I spin.
With TC at 0, I spin.

I am afraid doing it in AC is taking up all my BW, I am going to have to stick to learn one thing at a time

It also has the most sensitive trail braking oversteer.
Coming back from other sims, I always spin under braking for the first 15 minutes.
I can't see the difference in releasing the brake while turning in in Motec, but it makes a huge difference.
After 15-30 minutes, it's totally fine and I have no idea how I could spin like I did..

Meanwhile I'm drifting through every corner with a mild TC setting in rF2 and ACC.

ACC lacks feedback but it feels really rigit and how I'd imagine a real GT3.


54 with the Agile is pretty far to the rear. I used 55.5 at Albert Park and got that slight tickle from the rear when trail braking.

Hmm, that may help me with better turn to the apex. As in the case I have from today working on the Baku first corner: The best one I did is the light blue in terms of exploiting the traction circle, but not the best exit speed. I missed Apex by quit a bit. If the car just rotated more, the light blue run would have been the all around best one which is should be. Or may be I still didn't turn in latest enough and went in too fast as Carsten was saying. It is all too early to say since I am struggling with any kind of consistency as you can see. Long way to go.

 

[stigs2cousin]

WOT = wide open throttle?

54 = 54% front bias?

Nadir? YSAR? The Nadir is the slowest point in the corner, a concept I learned from Prof Korf.



Even though I get it, in practice is hard. I am have all sort of trouble driving the Baku circuit. It seems much tougher than either Jeddah or Albert Park. Much much tougher for me. I am working on the first and last corner, boy it is tough to get just the right speed and turn in point combo. For the last turn, it seem the window is so small I either turn in too early with too much speed runing width on exit or turn in later and going way too slow loosing all sort of time or too fast missing the apex by 2 meters

Yeah Baku is a horrible track, another one of FIA´s "money over racing" tracks.

If I were your coach I´d have you stop 100-200m before every braking zone and look for additional brake markers (which is in Baku because of "walled in")
Next roll forward a little and find markers for turn in/ apex so that your car tracks out all the way to the wall in neutral or very slightly understeer.
For T1 you should pick up the throttle slightly before grazing the inside curb.(late apex for more "power time")

When you got it down do SLOW laps to commit the lines to memory.
It´s easier to hit the marks and you notice more details because of less tunnel vision.

Another thing:
have a break every 30min, don´t work to long as results deteriorate fast.

I wonder if anyone have thought of an app that would let you specify a section such that at the exit of the section it teleports you back to the start of the section and put you at the same states (car attitude, speed, etc) as the last time. I can then keep repeating to practice a single corner.

I think IRacing has that feature.
Advice from pro racer: concentrate on one sector, "just drive" the rest. While "cruising" let your eyes wonder and find new details/markers.
Carefull, the tyres cool down fast.
Sometimes when I loath a track I learn it with an easier car (MixerCup or ND)

When your comfortable with the track start doing "test races" aka AI races.
AC AI is quite miserable, but you get used to driving in traffic.
Prepare to crash a lot (they´re THAT stupid) and learn to drive around them.
Carefull when following into the corner they brake quite irregularely.

Happy Hunting Carsten

 

[stigs2cousin]

I tried that with the Abarth before I got my wheels. PWM the steering and brake is sort of manageable because of the slow dynamics. Even that I can barely do.


I may try this some time to see what I may learn.


I will try your Albert Part Setup. Would it be usable for Baku, with so many tight 90 degree turns it is seems a very different circuit than Albert Park.

Wow, you copy pics into your onenote? I just write down observations and make notes of which log file and which laps, just go open up the log file again later if needed. I always get lost with onenotes with all these tabs.


Yeah, I have to look at the logs and the track map to figure this out. Definitely lacking talent here. The trouble is also that I can get to decent time in practice, but when the situation changes I fall apart. Like in this last rookie GT4 race. I got down to a decent mid field lap time practicing by myself, but once the other cars showed up, my driving get messed up from looking at people 20 meters away


I am afraid doing it in AC is taking up all my BW, I am going to have to stick to learn one thing at a time

Hmm, that may help me with better turn to the apex. As in the case I have from today working on the Baku first corner: The best one I did is the light blue in terms of exploiting the traction circle, but not the best exit speed. I missed Apex by quit a bit. If the car just rotated more, the light blue run would have been the all around best one which is should be. Or may be I still didn't turn in latest enough and went in too fast as Carsten was saying. It is all too early to say since I am struggling with any kind of consistency as you can see. Long way to go.

View attachment 654900

I´d say its to early for you to worry about the traction circle when you don´t drive the line to exploit it.

In the earlier phases of driver development time is gained on corner exit.
So the most crucial part of T1 is missing in your traces.

Pros can gain time on entry by exploiting the traction circle, GOAT´s find another 1/10 by keeping mid corner speeds up (Ross Bentley/Speed Secrets. Don´t google him, you have enough on your plate)

See my other post how to gain time in your recent situation.

MFG Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

WOT = wide open throttle?
54 = 54% front bias?
Nadir? YSAR?
I am not quite sure about those acronyms, but I think I got what you are saying and it makes sense

Apart from the 54, I was completely lost too, lol

I am have all sort of trouble driving the Baku circuit. It seems much tougher than either Jeddah or Albert Park.

It has no flow. It's just 90° turns without any sense. So don't be hard on yourself. It's long, it's stupid, boring and depending on the version kinda ugly.
But you can have great racing on that track here at RD due to it being quite wide and lots of possibilities for switch backs, side by side action and slipstreaming.

I wonder if anyone have thought of an app that would let you specify a section such that at the exit of the section it teleports you back to the start of the section and put you at the same states (car attitude, speed, etc) as the last time. I can then keep repeating to practice a single corner.

Yeah that would be awesome.. in Project Cars 1 (not sure if 2), you could race the Nordschleife Sectors separately. I'm not sure I'd ever really learnt that track without this feature...
I'd absolutely love that feature. I know we're "simulating real life", but I'd really like for the devs to also use such great possibilities that simracing offers over reality.

It's not like it wouldn't be possible.. I don't even need the timings to work or anything. Just put the car at coordinates X/Y/Z and I will press ESC and restart manually.

Since we have Pitboxes, Starting lines and Hotlap starting points, it's not impossible at all.

Maybe I'll start a thread in the modding forum and ask how much trouble that would be to add an editable additional layout the existing tracks with custom starting points.

Thanks to all the CSP Debug Apps, you can easily drive to the starting point, screenshot the coordinates and put them into the correct file.

PWM

Now YOU'RE starting with the acronyms, lol. PWM means Pulse Width Modulation, we probably all use it for at least one PC fan (4-pin plug).

I will try your Albert Part Setup. Would it be usable for Baku, with so many tight 90 degree turns it is seems a very different circuit than Albert Park.

Oh, I forgot to share it, sorry!
Here's the a link to my Google Drive, which I'll be using for the future. Everyone with the link can put files in there (and delete others ).
I put my setup and my MoTeC files in there.

F-Agile Stuff - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Wow, you copy pics into your onenote? I just write down observations and make notes of which log file and which laps, just go open up the log file again later if needed. I always get lost with onenotes with all these tabs.

I'm not sure if the "free" version of OneNote is identical or not, I got an office license for free so I'm not using it but afaik the two versions got merged with Windows 11 and you can only get the other "OneNote for Windows 10" App by actively searching for it in the App-Store.

Anyway, a long OneNote blahblah since this thread is completely derailed anyway:

I started using OneNote for the university in 2015 when buying a Surface Pro 3.
Nowadays rocking a Surface Pro 8 for absolutely everything and OneNote got a lot better in recent years (still nerve wrecking at least once a week, but it's slowly getting there...).

I do my private CAD sketches in there, write my "Journal", share some notebooks with friends since you can see the "activity feed" and what's written by whom etc etc.

It's like a gigantic building full of paper and office tools with infinite desk & paper sizes.

If I need something "nicely written", a full Excel table or nice icons/layouts from Power Point, I can just drag the files into OneNote and it'll create a link or "print out".

So everything that isn't forced to be on paper by others, is digital for me. And way better sorted than any desk I've seen.

You can also use the search function in OneNote and make handwritten Texts "searchable" too.

So if you can't be bothered to go through your structure when needing your track notes from 3 years ago in the Tatuus F4, just type Tatuus into the search and you'll get a chronological results list.

You also can just drag & drop more than office files into OneNote. You can drag shortcuts to MoTeC etc. in there too so you just open your track notes and can launch CM, MoTeC, whatever from there.
Sadly you can't drag explorer folders in there. You'd need to create a shortcut first.

But my main use is putting screenshots from braking points + Motec graphs next to my track notes

Or noting down the button read-out from each game. Here's CM for my McLaren wheel, since the numbers make absolutely no sense for me and I forget what's what every time I don't use them for a few days...

I just googled for a picture of the wheel, dragged it in there, rightclick -> make background (so you don't drag it around all the time by accident), created one textbox with the size, font, colours that would be readable for me no matter the background and then copy pasted + changed the number for every button.



About "all the tabs": It's super easy once you use it a bit more.
You have:
Notebooks -> Contain everything, top layer
Tab-Folders -> contain Tabs or Tabs folders
Tabs -> contain pages
Pages -> Content

And you can create "Page Blocks" by rightclicking on pages.
Looks like this:

But only the "Page block" can be minimized. Layer 1 and 2 then both gets folded away but you can't fold the 2. Layer pages into the 1. Layer Page.

The default layout is a bit messy, I totally agree. But you can click on this little icon:


Which moves everything into a nice side bar:


Then you just put the pages to the left too (one of the settings is the pin-needle symbol from 2 screenshots earlier):

The trouble is also that I can get to decent time in practice, but when the situation changes I fall apart. Like in this last rookie GT4 race. I got down to a decent mid field lap time practicing by myself, but once the other cars showed up, my driving get messed up from looking at people 20 meters away

Totally normal. This is what experience and frequently racing gives you

BW

No idea what that means

Hmm, that may help me with better turn to the apex. As in the case I have from today working on the Baku first corner: The best one I did is the light blue in terms of exploiting the traction circle, but not the best exit speed. I missed Apex by quit a bit. If the car just rotated more, the light blue run would have been the all around best one which is should be. Or may be I still didn't turn in latest enough and went in too fast as Carsten was saying. It is all too early to say since I am struggling with any kind of consistency as you can see. Long way to go.

The brake bias should always be set as far to the rear as possible. When you starting spinning or losing control during braking or turn in, go 1-3 clicks towards the front.

This will give you the possibility to brake later, keep some slight amount of braking until the apex and also turn in later, which opens up your line, lets you floor the throttle earlier etc.

There's a reason you can find videos of Micheal Schumacher constantly using his thumbwheel throughout a single lap. Every corner = different brake bias!
Nurburgring GP is a good example of lots of totally different corners, which all need a different BB to get the absolute fastest lap.

I don't have a thumbwheel, only the little red switches (34) on my picture and changing this throughout a lap messes too much with my focus.

However with the RSS GT1 at Donington, it was absolutely crucial to my laptimes so I created this:




After about 10 laps, I didn't need to think about it anymore. I'd say this gained me about half a second and also more consistency from lap to lap!

Yeah Baku is a horrible track, another one of FIA´s "money over racing" tracks.

Indeed...

Another thing:
have a break every 30min, don´t work to long as results deteriorate fast.

Yep! That's absolutely crucial for me too. It doesn't need to be "30 minutes", but as soon as you stop improving and have the feeling of "Just not putting everything together", take a break!
Can just be 5 minutes of walking around your room, resting the eyes or whatever.

Sometimes when I loath a track I learn it with an easier car (MixerCup or ND)

Yep, switching the car can help a lot. In the case of the F-Agile, I'd say using the Tatuus F4 could work well since it has a similar way of driving, just slower.

When your comfortable with the track start doing "test races" aka AI races.
AC AI is quite miserable, but you get used to driving in traffic.
Prepare to crash a lot (they´re THAT stupid) and learn to drive around them.
Carefull when following into the corner they brake quite irregularely.

This is great to learn different lines or driving without seeing anything.
Not really racing, more like surviving haha

I´d say its to early for you to worry about the traction circle when you don´t drive the line to exploit it.

Indeed.. the traction circle, for me, is only there to see if my general car control sucks.
It's more like "But I do everything exactly as the faster driver, same line, same inputs, same setup. Why am I 1.5s slower than him and just can't hold the speed through the turn although the input traces look identical?!".

Well, his scatter plot is a circle and your's is a rhombus


I'm going to do some Baku Laps now and see if my Albert Park Setup works

 

[KFMaster]

Yeah Baku is a horrible track, another one of FIA´s "money over racing" tracks.

If I were your coach I´d have you stop 100-200m before every braking zone and look for additional brake markers (which is in Baku because of "walled in")
Next roll forward a little and find markers for turn in/ apex so that your car tracks out all the way to the wall in neutral or very slightly understeer.
For T1 you should pick up the throttle slightly before grazing the inside curb.(late apex for more "power time")

When you got it down do SLOW laps to commit the lines to memory.
It´s easier to hit the marks and you notice more details because of less tunnel vision.

I actually did a couple of very slow laps to "walk the track". But that was before I didn't any real drive so wasn't looking with specific things in mind. Now is time to redo that especially looking for landmark near the breaking points. Very good advice -- I think I will get much more out the track walk now.

Another thing:
have a break every 30min, don´t work to long as results deteriorate fast.

Yes, I have been doing this. I try not do more than 5 or 6 laps each stint, so I don't forget what I was doing and observing, thus can corelate to the data logs.

I think IRacing has that feature.
Advice from pro racer: concentrate on one sector, "just drive" the rest. While "cruising" let your eyes wonder and find new details/markers.
Carefull, the tyres cool down fast.
Sometimes when I loath a track I learn it with an easier car (MixerCup or ND)

MixerCup, as either the Abarth or Mazda? What is ND?
I was thinking of doing this using the Ginetta, but then the feedback I get from it was so different from the FA, so didn't.

When your comfortable with the track start doing "test races" aka AI races.
AC AI is quite miserable, but you get used to driving in traffic.
Prepare to crash a lot (they´re THAT stupid) and learn to drive around them.
Carefull when following into the corner they brake quite irregularely.

Happy Hunting Carsten

Yeap, once I can drive the track in a decent way, will get going with AI practice races. One question: what number do you set the AI drivers? I did some research on that, people seem to suggest don't set the AI aggression to be too high or things go crazy.

 

[KFMaster]

I´d say its to early for you to worry about the traction circle when you don´t drive the line to exploit it.

In the earlier phases of driver development time is gained on corner exit.
So the most crucial part of T1 is missing in your traces.

Pros can gain time on entry by exploiting the traction circle, GOAT´s find another 1/10 by keeping mid corner speeds up (Ross Bentley/Speed Secrets. Don´t google him, you have enough on your plate)

See my other post how to gain time in your recent situation.

Yes, I will follow your advise on this one. I think I was indeed doing my development in the wrong sequence. I am going to work on slow in, fast out first -- get the car nice and stable before the apex so I can hit the apex accurately and drive out with max speed especially for corners before long straights.

 

[KFMaster]

Apart from the 54, I was completely lost too, lol

It has no flow. It's just 90° turns without any sense. So don't be hard on yourself. It's long, it's stupid, boring and depending on the version kinda ugly.
But you can have great racing on that track here at RD due to it being quite wide and lots of possibilities for switch backs, side by side action and slipstreaming.

Haha, I will look forward to that, hopefully I can get down to decent lap time to race with some one

Yeah that would be awesome.. in Project Cars 1 (not sure if 2), you could race the Nordschleife Sectors separately. I'm not sure I'd ever really learnt that track without this feature...
I'd absolutely love that feature. I know we're "simulating real life", but I'd really like for the devs to also use such great possibilities that simracing offers over reality.

It's not like it wouldn't be possible.. I don't even need the timings to work or anything. Just put the car at coordinates X/Y/Z and I will press ESC and restart manually.

Since we have Pitboxes, Starting lines and Hotlap starting points, it's not impossible at all.

Maybe I'll start a thread in the modding forum and ask how much trouble that would be to add an editable additional layout the existing tracks with custom starting points.

Thanks to all the CSP Debug Apps, you can easily drive to the starting point, screenshot the coordinates and put them into the correct file.

Sounds like possible indeed. Carsten mentions iRacing already have it. Unfortunately for me, no BW (band width) for me to do more than Sim setup. When you ask for this feature, let me know the link, I would love follow the discussion to see if anyone wants to undertake such a feature development.

Now YOU'RE starting with the acronyms, lol. PWM means Pulse Width Modulation, we probably all use it for at least one PC fan (4-pin plug).

Haha, but you know PWM.

Oh, I forgot to share it, sorry!
Here's the a link to my Google Drive, which I'll be using for the future. Everyone with the link can put files in there (and delete others ).
I put my setup and my MoTeC files in there.

F-Agile Stuff - Google Drive

drive.google.com

I just downloaded your laps and setup, will check them out this week. Thanks!

I'm not sure if the "free" version of OneNote is identical or not, I got an office license for free so I'm not using it but afaik the two versions got merged with Windows 11 and you can only get the other "OneNote for Windows 10" App by actively searching for it in the App-Store.

Anyway, a long OneNote blahblah since this thread is completely derailed anyway:

I started using OneNote for the university in 2015 when buying a Surface Pro 3.
Nowadays rocking a Surface Pro 8 for absolutely everything and OneNote got a lot better in recent years (still nerve wrecking at least once a week, but it's slowly getting there...).

I do my private CAD sketches in there, write my "Journal", share some notebooks with friends since you can see the "activity feed" and what's written by whom etc etc.

It's like a gigantic building full of paper and office tools with infinite desk & paper sizes.

If I need something "nicely written", a full Excel table or nice icons/layouts from Power Point, I can just drag the files into OneNote and it'll create a link or "print out".

So everything that isn't forced to be on paper by others, is digital for me. And way better sorted than any desk I've seen.

You can also use the search function in OneNote and make handwritten Texts "searchable" too.

So if you can't be bothered to go through your structure when needing your track notes from 3 years ago in the Tatuus F4, just type Tatuus into the search and you'll get a chronological results list.

You also can just drag & drop more than office files into OneNote. You can drag shortcuts to MoTeC etc. in there too so you just open your track notes and can launch CM, MoTeC, whatever from there.
Sadly you can't drag explorer folders in there. You'd need to create a shortcut first.

But my main use is putting screenshots from braking points + Motec graphs next to my track notes

Or noting down the button read-out from each game. Here's CM for my McLaren wheel, since the numbers make absolutely no sense for me and I forget what's what every time I don't use them for a few days...

I just googled for a picture of the wheel, dragged it in there, rightclick -> make background (so you don't drag it around all the time by accident), created one textbox with the size, font, colours that would be readable for me no matter the background and then copy pasted + changed the number for every button.

View attachment 654928

About "all the tabs": It's super easy once you use it a bit more.
You have:
Notebooks -> Contain everything, top layer
Tab-Folders -> contain Tabs or Tabs folders
Tabs -> contain pages
Pages -> Content

And you can create "Page Blocks" by rightclicking on pages.
Looks like this:
View attachment 654929

But only the "Page block" can be minimized. Layer 1 and 2 then both gets folded away but you can't fold the 2. Layer pages into the 1. Layer Page.

The default layout is a bit messy, I totally agree. But you can click on this little icon:
View attachment 654930

Which moves everything into a nice side bar:
View attachment 654933

Then you just put the pages to the left too (one of the settings is the pin-needle symbol from 2 screenshots earlier):
View attachment 654931

Wow, nice work with setting up the OneNote. I actually use it allot for work, but only for one thing, which is to make meeting minutes. It is nicely integrated with outlook meeting calendars. Now that it has been turn into a subscription based software, I don't want to do anything with it. But what you showed makes me rethink -- I did some research and decided to give Joplin a try. It looks a little simpler to use than the OneNote.

Totally normal. This is what experience and frequently racing gives you

No idea what that means

The brake bias should always be set as far to the rear as possible. When you starting spinning or losing control during braking or turn in, go 1-3 clicks towards the front.

This will give you the possibility to brake later, keep some slight amount of braking until the apex and also turn in later, which opens up your line, lets you floor the throttle earlier etc.

I assume your Alberto Park set up is already like this, which I can try it out

There's a reason you can find videos of Micheal Schumacher constantly using his thumbwheel throughout a single lap. Every corner = different brake bias!
Nurburgring GP is a good example of lots of totally different corners, which all need a different BB to get the absolute fastest lap.

I don't have a thumbwheel, only the little red switches (34) on my picture and changing this throughout a lap messes too much with my focus.

However with the RSS GT1 at Donington, it was absolutely crucial to my laptimes so I created this:

View attachment 654934


After about 10 laps, I didn't need to think about it anymore. I'd say this gained me about half a second and also more consistency from lap to lap!

66 seems very biased toward front, earlier the number Carsten mentioned was 55 (i.e., much closer to the rear). These seems to be very different numbers, especially compared to your Dodington range where 3% adjustment can make 0.5 second difference. I must be missing something here

Indeed...

Yep! That's absolutely crucial for me too. It doesn't need to be "30 minutes", but as soon as you stop improving and have the feeling of "Just not putting everything together", take a break!
Can just be 5 minutes of walking around your room, resting the eyes or whatever.

Yep!

Yep, switching the car can help a lot. In the case of the F-Agile, I'd say using the Tatuus F4 could work well since it has a similar way of driving, just slower.

I will give the Tatuus F4 a try.

This is great to learn different lines or driving without seeing anything.
Not really racing, more like surviving haha

Yeap, I need to be able drive off my normal practicing lines

Indeed.. the traction circle, for me, is only there to see if my general car control sucks.
It's more like "But I do everything exactly as the faster driver, same line, same inputs, same setup. Why am I 1.5s slower than him and just can't hold the speed through the turn although the input traces look identical?!".

Well, his scatter plot is a circle and your's is a rhombus


I'm going to do some Baku Laps now and see if my Albert Park Setup works

Yep, I will do as Carsten suggested, stop worry about traction circle, focusing on getting out corner stably and at maximum exit speed.
Would love to see a flying lap of Baku from you as reference.

 

[RasmusP]

66 seems very biased toward front, earlier the number Carsten mentioned was 55 (i.e., much closer to the rear). These seems to be very different numbers, especially compared to your Dodington range where 3% adjustment can make 0.5 second difference. I must be missing something here

Yeah you're missing that the notes were for the RSS GT1 Tornado (Lister Storm) at Donington GP

54-57 is the range for the F Agile.

Would love to see a flying lap of Baku from you as reference.

I'll try to get some done over the next days. Didn't drive the Agile there yet and Albert Park took a few hours

 

[KFMaster]

Yeah you're missing that the notes were for the RSS GT1 Tornado (Lister Storm) at Donington GP

54-57 is the range for the F Agile.

Aha!

I'll try to get some done over the next days. Didn't drive the Agile there yet and Albert Park took a few hours

Please don't hurry because of me -- do the drive when you feeling like it is time to practice for the race
And thanks!

 

[KFMaster]

Hi Rasmas, Carsten,

I tried out Rasmas' setup and did a couple nights slow in WOT out practice. Rasmas' setup feels much more stable than the default -- I am locking up the fronts less on braking and can go through the last fast esses flat out after coming out of the last left hander. Repeating the "track walk" helped too, after picking up some reference points that I would otherwise not notice.

Did more AI races, now I can go from last to top three with AI (6 of them) set at the very modest 85%. The week before I could not keep up with them.

So progress! Thanks for all the coaching tips!

Dai
P.S., I also compared Rasmus' Albert Park data logs to mine -- very illuminating and confirming I need to keep working on the stuff Carsten talked about.
P.P.S. I also did a diff of Rasmus' setup vs the default. Allot of differences, but items that I sort of understand and I think explained (or puzzled) my observations of the handling differences:

1. Brake Power Mult reduced from 100 to 93 (less likely to lock up, but interesting I didn't feel the braking effect was any less)
2. Brake Bias more to rear 59 to 55 (this seems counter intuitive, I would have thought this would make it more likely to lock up front)
3. Tire Pressure +1 to +3, (keep tire warm after the long straights?)
4. Front Wing 7 to 14 (less front lock up at end of long straights - may be this dominated over the effect of 2; going through the esses flat out)

 

[RasmusP]

Rasmas'

Guess I'm gonna call you Dao then?
Although Raaasmaaaas sounds like my inner self when going 200+

feels much more stable than the default

Yeah the suspension is very soft, the dampers dialled in accordingly and I tried to make the car squat when going on the throttle to keep it from drifting.
And then raised the front wing until the turning felt good.

If a track needs lower drag overall, you can lower the rear wing until you start losing control and then lower the front wing until you can control it again.

Thanks for all the coaching tips!

Happy to see you progressing!

About the setup questions:

Brake Power Mult reduced from 100 to 93 (less likely to lock up, but interesting I didn't feel the braking effect was any less)

That was for Ernie, honestly. He hasn't the best feel in his brake-leg and I mainly built the setup for him to compare with his setup.
So I lowered the brake power until I could smash the brake pedal at every corner without instantly locking up

I didn't really lose time, but in theory you should run brake power at 100% and learn to brake better.
However if you can't push the brake to 100% for any corner, lowering it can help a lot. There's no reason to have more power than needed.

Sure, in reality it's a bit different, you can always smash harder onto the pedal until the hardware breaks, but as simracers, we can use the upsides of it not being real

Brake Bias more to rear 59 to 55 (this seems counter intuitive, I would have thought this would make it more likely to lock up front)

Brake Bias is always "to the front". So 59% means 59% of the brake power you push into the car are at the front and 41% are at the rear.
55 means the fronts get 55%, the rears get 45%.

Since the weight shifts forward under braking, the fronts always need more (in theory.. all sims and cars have different fixed values so it's not "55% deceleration at the fronts" but more "in our system, you move it to the front and back".

Most cars have different brake disks at the front and back, different size of pressure cylinders etc etc.
So it's really just a "changing the brake bias between front and back", not absolute percent of braking power! Therefore the numbers are only relevant when talking about the same car.

Tire Pressure +1 to +3, (keep tire warm after the long straights?)

I can highly recommend to download "Sidekick". It tells you the delta to optimum PSI.
In AC, the equations work very well, but the impact of the PSI to the behaviour of the tyres is minimum.
So just aim for "perfect" PSI to have maximum grip.

Sidekick reads out the perfect PSI and tells you the delta to your current PSI.
You can select it to be what's wrong or what you need to change in the setup (+2 vs -2. in both cases the tyre currently has 2 PSI too much).

Sidekick

After spending a lot of time developing RaceEssentials, I wanted to try a different approach to see how it will work out. This time, I give you Sidekick, a discreet but powerful app. I've learned a lot about AC app development in the past several...

www.racedepartment.com

Front Wing 7 to 14 (less front lock up at end of long straights - may be this dominated over the effect of 2; going through the esses flat out)

Yeah that's a massssssive difference!
Front Wings in general have almost no drag so you should always set them as high as possible.

The rear wing however has massive drag and also a massive impact of your acceleration out of corners.

So with aero cars like F1 or the F-Agile, your rear wing is the most important value.
It decides your top speed vs cornering speed.

Then, in theory, you set the rear suspension to not bottom out from the additional load from the aero at high speeds (F1 sparking on every straight...).
After you have your rear wing and rear suspension, you balance front wing vs front suspension.
Softer front gives more grip in slow turns, higher front wing more grip in fast turns.

Both will make you spin.

Then you dial in the dampers depending on the suspension stiffness. Harder spring need higher damper values.

And when everything is set, you dial in the chassis flex with your anti roll bars.

In general, a softer suspension is always faster, but overheats the outside tyres while cornering and leads to higher tyre wear.
You might also lose control with a too soft suspension, since the car is wobbling too much or can't shift the weight quick enough in chicanes.

The F-Agile is always "super stiff", so control isn't an issue. You only need to be careful with bottoming out. Albert Park is very flat though, so not an issue there.
And the wings aren't big enough to push the car into the floor on straights.

Yeah, that's why my Albert Park Setup is super soft with max front wing.





What I also wanted to mention:
If your car tends to understeer, you steer too much and push the throttle too much to get the needed rotation. You basically need to drift a little bit to be fast.
But controlling this with the F-Agile is almost impossible!

Same for with too high brake bias. You will need to "throw" the car into a corner to get it rotating enough and might overdo it.

However if your car is sightly oversteering, meaning if you turn too far, you will spin, you can simply control the rotation with your hands, instead of with your pedals!

If you are a careful "beginner", you will probably brake carefully and go carefully on the throttle but you might turn too wildly with your steering wheel, making you spin with an oversteery setup.

But if you're really pushing, it's way easier to have the rotation available without the need to "push". You just keep the speed as high as possible, while being careful with the pedals and control the rotation with the steering wheel.

 

[stigs2cousin]

Hy Rasmas (scnr )

excelent (and eloquent ) writeup as always.

BUT:

And when everything is set, you dial in the chassis flex with your anti roll bars.

I won´t let you get away with this one

You dial out CHASSIS ROLL with your (anti) sway bars, and the distribution of roll stiffness front to rear. Analog to the spring rates the distribution determines under/oversteer.
ARB´s "don´t have an effect when both wheels of an axle move in synq ( think a crest/wide bump) but lead to crosstalk when only one wheel hits a bump/hole.

For chassis flex you need chassis braces to stiffen the body of the car, in production cars converted to racecars it´s mostly done with the roll cage.

And again I´d advise not to pile on Dai too much information too quickly, a good coach knows when to shut up and let the coachee develop in his own pace.

So Dai, when you feel happy with a stable setup TAKE A BREAK.!!
Drive something completely different or drive nothing at all for at least one whole day.

In a few days when your rythm ( brake/turnin/throttle) has stabilzed und you keep spanking the AI´s ( carefull, they are actually artificial stupidy including road rage ) report back with another question for us to solve.

Happy Hunting Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

I won´t let you get away with this one

You dial out CHASSIS ROLL

Yes Carschten, I know
You're correct to not letting me get away with it.
I meant to make it simple. Like you dial in the aero, starting with the rear wing.
Then the suspension accordingly and then "dial in the wobble of the rest of the car"

 

[stigs2cousin]

Maybe we should start a thread

"Nerding about driving dynamics and data analysis"

Momentarily I'm researching damper histograms.

Aris sendest his best


Good Night everyone Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

Momentarily I'm researching damper histograms.

If they look pretty and the car feels good, they're perfect.

I stopped thinking about dampers after reading about and looking at them for almost a year on/off.
Nice exponential curves, more or less symmetrical, not a skyscraper in the middle and not a flat pile a sh!t and it'll be fine.

I got access to the go-setups and the ones from coach dave to look at them and compare them.
Their best drivers recorded Motec files and they are completely different, both super fast and nice to drive.

They are both symmetrical and exponential to the middle.

I can post Screenshots tomorrow if you'd like?

 

[KFMaster]

Guess I'm gonna call you Dao then?
Although Raaasmaaaas sounds like my inner self when going 200+

Oops, sorry Rasmus
You can call me Dee, like Jim. Pit Radio: "Dee, don't worry, it will probably just polish off."

Yeah the suspension is very soft, the dampers dialled in accordingly and I tried to make the car squat when going on the throttle to keep it from drifting.
And then raised the front wing until the turning felt good.

If a track needs lower drag overall, you can lower the rear wing until you start losing control and then lower the front wing until you can control it again.

Happy to see you progressing!

Thanks! And one other thing I forget to mentioned, was that with your setup, I can feel the car "Hooked up". That is, during certain turns (the longer ones like the fast esses before the final straight) I can feel a consistent pressure in the steering from the g-forces and starting to get a sense of getting close to the limit. Would this a result of the softer setup? I don't get that feeling with the default setup.

About the setup questions:

That was for Ernie, honestly. He hasn't the best feel in his brake-leg and I mainly built the setup for him to compare with his setup.
So I lowered the brake power until I could smash the brake pedal at every corner without instantly locking up

I didn't really lose time, but in theory you should run brake power at 100% and learn to brake better.

However if you can't push the brake to 100% for any corner, lowering it can help a lot. There's no reason to have more power than needed.

Sure, in reality it's a bit different, you can always smash harder onto the pedal until the hardware breaks, but as simracers, we can use the upsides of it not being real

I putted this one back to 100 -- the only change. I already made adjustment on my Moza configuration software to match what I feel most comfortable for 100%.

Brake Bias is always "to the front". So 59% means 59% of the brake power you push into the car are at the front and 41% are at the rear.
55 means the fronts get 55%, the rears get 45%.

Since the weight shifts forward under braking, the fronts always need more (in theory.. all sims and cars have different fixed values so it's not "55% deceleration at the fronts" but more "in our system, you move it to the front and back".

Most cars have different brake disks at the front and back, different size of pressure cylinders etc etc.
So it's really just a "changing the brake bias between front and back", not absolute percent of braking power! Therefore the numbers are only relevant when talking about the same car.

This where I am confused. With the additional front wing, won't you want to put more bias to the front? Your setup has 55% vs the default setup of 59%

I can highly recommend to download "Sidekick". It tells you the delta to optimum PSI.
In AC, the equations work very well, but the impact of the PSI to the behaviour of the tyres is minimum.
So just aim for "perfect" PSI to have maximum grip.

Sidekick reads out the perfect PSI and tells you the delta to your current PSI.
You can select it to be what's wrong or what you need to change in the setup (+2 vs -2. in both cases the tyre currently has 2 PSI too much).

Sidekick

After spending a lot of time developing RaceEssentials, I wanted to try a different approach to see how it will work out. This time, I give you Sidekick, a discreet but powerful app. I've learned a lot about AC app development in the past several...

www.racedepartment.com

Yes, that SideKick looks cool. I am going to install it.

Yeah that's a massssssive difference!
Front Wings in general have almost no drag so you should always set them as high as possible.

The rear wing however has massive drag and also a massive impact of your acceleration out of corners.

So with aero cars like F1 or the F-Agile, your rear wing is the most important value.
It decides your top speed vs cornering speed.

Then, in theory, you set the rear suspension to not bottom out from the additional load from the aero at high speeds (F1 sparking on every straight...).
After you have your rear wing and rear suspension, you balance front wing vs front suspension.
Softer front gives more grip in slow turns, higher front wing more grip in fast turns.

Both will make you spin.

Then you dial in the dampers depending on the suspension stiffness. Harder spring need higher damper values.

And when everything is set, you dial in the chassis flex with your anti roll bars.

In general, a softer suspension is always faster, but overheats the outside tyres while cornering and leads to higher tyre wear.
You might also lose control with a too soft suspension, since the car is wobbling too much or can't shift the weight quick enough in chicanes.

The F-Agile is always "super stiff", so control isn't an issue. You only need to be careful with bottoming out. Albert Park is very flat though, so not an issue there.
And the wings aren't big enough to push the car into the floor on straights.

Yeah, that's why my Albert Park Setup is super soft with max front wing.

This is great to know for learning setup. For now I won't attempt to mess with setup, cause usually that takes quick a bit of time driving the compare the difference. I don't feel like to have developed sufficient sensitivity to tell what the set up changes are doing to the handling. But it is great to hear your explanation so that I can have an idea what to look for in the driving characteristics of the car with different setup so I am preparing for eventually doing the setup development.

What I also wanted to mention:
If your car tends to understeer, you steer too much and push the throttle too much to get the needed rotation. You basically need to drift a little bit to be fast.
But controlling this with the F-Agile is almost impossible!

Same for with too high brake bias. You will need to "throw" the car into a corner to get it rotating enough and might overdo it.

However if your car is sightly oversteering, meaning if you turn too far, you will spin, you can simply control the rotation with your hands, instead of with your pedals!

If you are a careful "beginner", you will probably brake carefully and go carefully on the throttle but you might turn too wildly with your steering wheel, making you spin with an oversteery setup.

A careful beginner as you described is not what I strive for. My tendency is braking too hard and open throttle too fast It seems much more fun doing it that way

But if you're really pushing, it's way easier to have the rotation available without the need to "push". You just keep the speed as high as possible, while being careful with the pedals and control the rotation with the steering wheel.

I like what you are saying here. This is how I would like to drive. I hate cars that push. I gather your setup is eager to be driven like this Could I continue to lichee off your setup for the reset of this season

Thanks Rasmus!

Dao, Dee, Dai

 

[KFMaster]

Hy Rasmas (scnr )

excelent (and eloquent ) writeup as always.

BUT:

And when everything is set, you dial in the chassis flex with your anti roll bars.

I won´t let you get away with this one

You dial out CHASSIS ROLL with your (anti) sway bars, and the distribution of roll stiffness front to rear. Analog to the spring rates the distribution determines under/oversteer.
ARB´s "don´t have an effect when both wheels of an axle move in synq ( think a crest/wide bump) but lead to crosstalk when only one wheel hits a bump/hole.

For chassis flex you need chassis braces to stiffen the body of the car, in production cars converted to racecars it´s mostly done with the roll cage.

More knowledge to store in the back of my mind

And again I´d advise not to pile on Dai too much information too quickly, a good coach knows when to shut up and let the coachee develop in his own pace.

So Dai, when you feel happy with a stable setup TAKE A BREAK.!!
Drive something completely different or drive nothing at all for at least one whole day.

Is 23hrs close to a whole day
Can't resist from driving some more this nice setup and fighting the AIs
I will have stay off the simulator for a couple of day come Monday -- that will force me a break!

In a few days when your rythm ( brake/turnin/throttle) has stabilzed und you keep spanking the AI´s ( carefull, they are actually artificial stupidy including road rage ) report back with another question for us to solve.

Happy Hunting Carsten

Will do, and thanks Carsten!

 

[KFMaster]

So Dai, when you feel happy with a stable setup TAKE A BREAK.!!
Drive something completely different or drive nothing at all for at least one whole day.

In a few days when your rythm ( brake/turnin/throttle) has stabilzed und you keep spanking the AI´s ( carefull, they are actually artificial stupidy including road rage ) report back with another question for us to solve.

Happy Hunting Carsten

Now I have the next questions for advise

First, definitely needing breaks between practice sessions (as in not drive for a day) and don't do too long sessions. Even those short breaks I take quite help after a few rounds and I get get worse and lost. The other thing I have noticed is that it seems not helping driving different cars. I have signed up the GT4 race this weekend as well and tried to practice in both the Ginetta and FA. That seems like a bad idea at least for me, since I need to drive very differently and in completely different time scale with completely different sensitivity, it took allot of adjustment going between them. I feel I could make faster improvement if I just stick to FA. What can I expect to gain by driving a different car vs the time spend to adjust? I am leaning "drive nothing at all" especially time spent is also a consideration

Second, I have a clutch installed. It works great once in the race, i.e., if I crash I could (I can't yet, but the potential is there, need practice with that too) use clutch to get going again quickly. But I can't seem to use it at the start of a race. It won't let me put in gear even if I have the clutch in at the start. Is that a AI race limitation? I know in a real race I can put the car in gear before the light goes out (I got a penalty for it at last GT race ) so assume in a real race I can use clutch for start?

Thanks!
Dai

 

[stigs2cousin]

Hy Dai,

the advantage of driving more than one car is exactly that you need different aproaches and techniques which overall makes a better and more versatile driver.

BUT:

I'm not very fast in adapting to different cars any more, so normaly I drive one car a day.

About the clutch, check whether you have selected autoclutch when setting up the race.

(Drive page, left side, middle of the screen, I forgot the name of the pulldown menue)