David O'Reilly
A bad quali means I can go forwards in the race.
Dear RD member,
This is part of a project I am doing for fun and to put something back into the site.
Feel free to have a read.
F1 2010 The Guide
Draft
Chapter 4 Setups.
Each track is unique in its requirements. Some tracks/ sectors require high down-force, some low. Gearing will be certainly unique for each track. Certain combinations of corners or straights may dominate the lap time at a particular track.
The subject of setups is a huge one. Hundreds of man hours are spent developing and testing setups and even then two of the fastest drivers may have very different setups for the one track.
How does one navigate through this massive area? The Author will suggest that there are three main approaches to choose from.
Again one needs to start somewhere and the engineers RHS fast setup is often a good place.
There is a wealth of setup info in the above documents. The author won’t pretend that he can add technical content. However If you do choose to develop/tweak your setups you will need a process to test them. The author is going to recommend a process.
Firstly you need enough practice laps with a familiar setup to be within .2sec every lap on the track. This may be 10 laps to get back in the zone at a familiar track or 200 laps to learn Monaco. There is no point testing tweaking setups if your times are going to come down anyway simply through improved driving.
All testing/setting up to be done on primes first. They will more expose car handling issues than options will and you will normally do about 2/3 of your dry racing on primes. Use 10-15 laps of fuel. Resist the urge to want impressive times just yet.
Regarding Assits and setup: The same goes for assists TCS off, ABS off. So we get the car naked in its engineering and balance weaknesses no options or assists for balance issues to hide behind! The reason is that the assists will camouflage any setup imbalances making testing harder. As an example: you may want to try moving ballast forward to get better turn in. When doing this, at a certain point rear traction under acceleration will become problematic. If you have TCS on you won’t lose traction and spin the rear wheels as the TCS will starve the engine of power to keep the rear wheels from spinning. You won’t get the wheel spin but your acceleration will be reduced. This is much harder to sense. Brake balance changes/efficiencies will be dulled also by ABS as you won't get lockup even if balance is too far fwd in the wet. At the same time the cars handling characteristics whilst allowing these things is not optimized.
So my take on it is that one should always do setups with no TCS or ABS and on prime tyres.
The Process: Having an idea from you engineering knowledge, what may help the setup make one change at a time. Do 2-3 laps and monitor the results. You should get a feel in certain critical corners if the setup is improving ie tighter line, earlier throttle possible, less lock up under brakes, less wheel spin. Maybe it will just be more speed on the straights. Part of the process is to understand and exploit the advantage you are looking for in setup. You may have added some wing. If so you have lost some straight line speed but have gained some cornering speed. You need to push to exploit this. You will also need to see improvement in the lap time. You see the setup will never be perfect for every part of the track so the task is balancing gains in some areas with losses in others. When you hit the correct balance the gains in critical areas will be greater than the compromises in non critical ones for that particular track.
When you have an improvement save it and move to the next parameter. Remember though if you are making radical changes that there is a link in dynamic car balance and one parameter can impact others. For example if you are running lots of font wing it may be helping with front braking and turn in. If you lower the wing angle, brake bias and or ballast and or camber/ toe in adjustments may be needed. Another example: you could be moving balance fwd to get better turn-in at the expense of traction or using more wing whereas the solution may be a camber adjustment. You may be running lots of front wing which is allowing you to have ballast well rearward and still get decent turn-in. If you have changed wing angle you will need to re-visit gearing.
If you get lost in a frustrating “setup circle”, go back to a base setup and just do laps for a while to clear your head and get you driving on the track right. Then start to tweak again.
Once happy that you have got a good setup it’s time to switch to options and low fuel for an attempt at your PB. Once you are finished testing , if racing with assists then its time turn them back on and get that little bit of help again.
Wet setups. The author has had some success with the approach of: Take the dry setup then; Two clicks more wing, two clicks softer springs and roll bars, brake bias rearwards 3 clicks, pressure and size down 1 click, two clicks off top speed, one click less front and rear camber.
Qualifying setups vs Race setups.
“It’s all a question of tactics and being able to pass your rivals in the race. Being slower in the tight sections is no great penalty because it is not easy for other drivers to pass you there.” Alain Prost.
Some drivers will have a separate race and quali setup, many do not. The theory is that in quali with low fuel and possibly options your corner speeds and top speed will be higher than in the race setup. This will impact gearing and wing decisions. Also while your quali setup is to find the ultimate solo lap time conversely your race setup may be optimized for certain overtaking points on a given track. Take Valencia for example: long fast straights and slow corners. In such a race one may decide that there will be overtaking opportunities on the straights that suit a low wing setup. One may also decide that the aero influence is negligible in many of the corners and that the slow corners don’t represent an overtaking opportunity or threat. The decision may be made to move away from the setup that gave you the fastest lap time to one that makes you faster on the straights. You will then need to manage the inherent compromise in the corners.
When one thinks this phenomena through it becomes clear that the characteristics of the track will dictate whether it (two setups) is a strong option. In the authors view tracks that are consistently fast or offer medium to high speed corners (Monza, Spa, Catalunya, Silverstone) and tracks that are consistently tight (Monaco, Hungary) will offer the least to gain from divergent setups. This is due to the fact that what gave you the fastest quali time will be needed in the race. At Monza for example you need ultra high speed in quali and the race. At Spa you need a balance of high speed and good high speed (aero influenced) cornering.
On the other hand tracks that feature a big variety of some high speed sections and low speed (mechanical grip) corners (Valencia, Marina Bay, Abu Dhabi) will potentially offer gains from divergent setups from quali to race. It’s not a cut and dried topic and all open for experimentation-enjoy.
The setup menu in- game offers good explanations but just for the record here is a simplified list and “lay mans” explanatory table of the setup adjustments follows.
This is part of a project I am doing for fun and to put something back into the site.
Feel free to have a read.
F1 2010 The Guide
Draft
Chapter 4 Setups.
Each track is unique in its requirements. Some tracks/ sectors require high down-force, some low. Gearing will be certainly unique for each track. Certain combinations of corners or straights may dominate the lap time at a particular track.
The subject of setups is a huge one. Hundreds of man hours are spent developing and testing setups and even then two of the fastest drivers may have very different setups for the one track.
How does one navigate through this massive area? The Author will suggest that there are three main approaches to choose from.
- The “keep it simple I’m here for the racing on track” approach: This driver can whilst in the pits click on the engineers menu and choose from about 6 ready- made setups. Varying from very high down-force to very low down-force, some with oversteer and some with understeer characteristics. Each setup is well explained in game. This is the “set and forget” approach. Probably still adjust gearing to hit max revs on the longest straight or you have left power unused!
- The “There must be some other setups I can use to gain an edge” approach. This driver can go onto the RD website and in the sticky thread called “setups” every track has a thread. Here you will find many setups recommended by various people. You can write them down try them and compare to the engineers setups. There is a handy form in the appendices you can copy and use to write them down. You can then tweak them further based on your testing on track and customise further. Even here, often the best starting point is to take the engineers quick setup for lowest down-force and tweak. Different drivers have their own style of driving and this reflected in their setups. You may find one particular drivers setups suit you. You can then use his unique setups for each different track.
- The “I want to fully understand all this and make/test my own” approach. This driver needs to absorb and use quite a bit of race engineering information. There are some great resources available and the author is going to refer the reader to these. The RD website has a comprehensive generic setup guide guide written by Ramon Van Rijn. It is available for download and the link appears below.
Again one needs to start somewhere and the engineers RHS fast setup is often a good place.
There is a wealth of setup info in the above documents. The author won’t pretend that he can add technical content. However If you do choose to develop/tweak your setups you will need a process to test them. The author is going to recommend a process.
Firstly you need enough practice laps with a familiar setup to be within .2sec every lap on the track. This may be 10 laps to get back in the zone at a familiar track or 200 laps to learn Monaco. There is no point testing tweaking setups if your times are going to come down anyway simply through improved driving.
All testing/setting up to be done on primes first. They will more expose car handling issues than options will and you will normally do about 2/3 of your dry racing on primes. Use 10-15 laps of fuel. Resist the urge to want impressive times just yet.
Regarding Assits and setup: The same goes for assists TCS off, ABS off. So we get the car naked in its engineering and balance weaknesses no options or assists for balance issues to hide behind! The reason is that the assists will camouflage any setup imbalances making testing harder. As an example: you may want to try moving ballast forward to get better turn in. When doing this, at a certain point rear traction under acceleration will become problematic. If you have TCS on you won’t lose traction and spin the rear wheels as the TCS will starve the engine of power to keep the rear wheels from spinning. You won’t get the wheel spin but your acceleration will be reduced. This is much harder to sense. Brake balance changes/efficiencies will be dulled also by ABS as you won't get lockup even if balance is too far fwd in the wet. At the same time the cars handling characteristics whilst allowing these things is not optimized.
So my take on it is that one should always do setups with no TCS or ABS and on prime tyres.
The Process: Having an idea from you engineering knowledge, what may help the setup make one change at a time. Do 2-3 laps and monitor the results. You should get a feel in certain critical corners if the setup is improving ie tighter line, earlier throttle possible, less lock up under brakes, less wheel spin. Maybe it will just be more speed on the straights. Part of the process is to understand and exploit the advantage you are looking for in setup. You may have added some wing. If so you have lost some straight line speed but have gained some cornering speed. You need to push to exploit this. You will also need to see improvement in the lap time. You see the setup will never be perfect for every part of the track so the task is balancing gains in some areas with losses in others. When you hit the correct balance the gains in critical areas will be greater than the compromises in non critical ones for that particular track.
When you have an improvement save it and move to the next parameter. Remember though if you are making radical changes that there is a link in dynamic car balance and one parameter can impact others. For example if you are running lots of font wing it may be helping with front braking and turn in. If you lower the wing angle, brake bias and or ballast and or camber/ toe in adjustments may be needed. Another example: you could be moving balance fwd to get better turn-in at the expense of traction or using more wing whereas the solution may be a camber adjustment. You may be running lots of front wing which is allowing you to have ballast well rearward and still get decent turn-in. If you have changed wing angle you will need to re-visit gearing.
If you get lost in a frustrating “setup circle”, go back to a base setup and just do laps for a while to clear your head and get you driving on the track right. Then start to tweak again.
Once happy that you have got a good setup it’s time to switch to options and low fuel for an attempt at your PB. Once you are finished testing , if racing with assists then its time turn them back on and get that little bit of help again.
Wet setups. The author has had some success with the approach of: Take the dry setup then; Two clicks more wing, two clicks softer springs and roll bars, brake bias rearwards 3 clicks, pressure and size down 1 click, two clicks off top speed, one click less front and rear camber.
Qualifying setups vs Race setups.
“It’s all a question of tactics and being able to pass your rivals in the race. Being slower in the tight sections is no great penalty because it is not easy for other drivers to pass you there.” Alain Prost.
Some drivers will have a separate race and quali setup, many do not. The theory is that in quali with low fuel and possibly options your corner speeds and top speed will be higher than in the race setup. This will impact gearing and wing decisions. Also while your quali setup is to find the ultimate solo lap time conversely your race setup may be optimized for certain overtaking points on a given track. Take Valencia for example: long fast straights and slow corners. In such a race one may decide that there will be overtaking opportunities on the straights that suit a low wing setup. One may also decide that the aero influence is negligible in many of the corners and that the slow corners don’t represent an overtaking opportunity or threat. The decision may be made to move away from the setup that gave you the fastest lap time to one that makes you faster on the straights. You will then need to manage the inherent compromise in the corners.
When one thinks this phenomena through it becomes clear that the characteristics of the track will dictate whether it (two setups) is a strong option. In the authors view tracks that are consistently fast or offer medium to high speed corners (Monza, Spa, Catalunya, Silverstone) and tracks that are consistently tight (Monaco, Hungary) will offer the least to gain from divergent setups. This is due to the fact that what gave you the fastest quali time will be needed in the race. At Monza for example you need ultra high speed in quali and the race. At Spa you need a balance of high speed and good high speed (aero influenced) cornering.
On the other hand tracks that feature a big variety of some high speed sections and low speed (mechanical grip) corners (Valencia, Marina Bay, Abu Dhabi) will potentially offer gains from divergent setups from quali to race. It’s not a cut and dried topic and all open for experimentation-enjoy.
The setup menu in- game offers good explanations but just for the record here is a simplified list and “lay mans” explanatory table of the setup adjustments follows.
| Setup Parameter | Notes |
| Front/rear wing, 1-10 | More wing means more aero downforce and more grip in medium to faster corners. Little impact in slow corners. Also means car is slower on the straights. In-Game one can get away with little or no rear wing which real world physics would punish you dearly for. |
| Brake balance, | Moving slightly rearwards will allow more trailing brake. Needs vary track to track and subject to aero balance and ballast. Move back somewhat in wet. |
| Brake force, | Consider in wet and damp conditions to avoid lock up. |
| Brake disc size | Smaller=lighter unsprung mass for quail. Bigger takes longer (more heavy braking)to heat. If Rob keeps telling you that you need to warm the brakes they may be the wrong size. |
| Ballast distribution | Forwards increase front grip and response at the expense of rear end traction. Rearwards has the opposite effect. |
| Roll bar stiffness | Softer in the wet and slower tracks. Refer to RacerAlex’s guide. |
| Suspension: Ride height front/rear | Lower ride height means more “free” aero grip. If very bumpy track or riding kerbs may need some height. |
| Suspension: stiffness front/rear | Stiffer front springs will improve initial turn in but reduce actual cornering grip inducing undertseer. Stiffer rears a will increase oversteer by reducing rear grip. If you like understeer have front stiffer, If you like oversteer have fronts softer (than rear). Adapt for the track. Stiff rear springs also reduce traction (acceleration). |
| 7 gear ratios | Set 1[SUP]st[/SUP] for the slowest corner, 7[SUP]th[/SUP] to max out on the longest straight. Initially the others evenly spaced then minor adjustments for specific corners gearing. |
| Alignment Camber front/rear | Fronts need more camber than rear. Front: Test for turn in and grip mid corner in med speed corners. Don’t assume max (-1.5) is best! Rears flatter (less camber) means more acceleration, more angle may improve med speed corner handling. |
| Alignment Toe- in front/rear. | More front toe- in will improve initial cornering bite but cost some top speed. Rear toe-in is controversial. |
All informations in one piece, it's very useful. 
