What’s the best way to practice to become faster?

[ZeroSV]

I’ve been simracing about 5 months now and I was wondering what’s the best way to get faster overall? I ask because I want to go from being 2-3 seconds off the best times to making that gap smaller and smaller. I’ve seen some aliens say they weren’t good from the start but they spent the time to practice everyday and got faster by doing that. What I wanna know is what exactly is it that I’m supposed to do as practice because I feel that it’s a bit different than other things you’d practice for which is why I’m confused and feel like I may not be practicing right. What are the procedures/things that I should be doing everyday to improve on becoming an overall faster driver. I’m willing to put the time and effort but just don’t know how to practice. Thanks

(Just to clarify, I’m talking specifically about getting faster and not getting more consistent as that’s not a problem for me.)

 

[RasmusP]

One thing people don't get is just because they lack all the "sub-skills", it doesn't mean they have no talent. They just have a very very bad starting point.
Referring to my football analogy, the skills for simracing in a quick list that comes to my mind:
- hand/eye/feet coordination
- imagining the real car from the 2d monitor view
- precision with hands and feet
- reaction time
- being able to repeat the same things
- concentration
- judge speeds
- memory for brake markers etc
- adapting to new things quickly

Depending on how good you are at these things in general, you gonna improve in shorter time. If you have to learn it all, then it'll take a long time. And it's also about efficiency.

Not to talk bad about you Ernie, really don't. I'll just use you as an example:
You have some real life racing experience and a **** ton of real life experience! I guess you're not a "gamer" though and are not the youngest chap around.
So you might lack some points at:
- imagining the real car from 2D monitor view
- reaction time
- adapting to new things quickly

And you probably learnt how to do things decades ago and burnt "wrong" things into every cell of your body.
You are a bloody save driver and awesome fun to compete against! I have nothing but respect for you man! Any time we came together on track I always enjoyed it

Then on the other hand you might have a 16 year old who has never driven a car but played all hectic games you can imagine.
His vision and approach to a hotlap is a completely different world.
If you coach this chap correctly he'll be like a sharp knife with only good inputs.
But it takes years to become a good racer on track and that's where he will probably suck massively. No awareness, bad judgement of risks to take etc.

 

[BrightCandle]

We have known for quite a while that mastering something mechanical like playing an instrument takes 5-10 thousand hours to master. Surprisingly perhaps you can get 80% of the way in about 100 hours. For the untrained it is hard to distinguish the difference between 1000 hours and 10000 hours of practice, but there is a difference and as a society we do notice the higher skill. Many of the professionals around us have over 25,000 hours or more in their profession at the age of 20, they started when they were children and have been putting in the consistent hours ever since.

This post in my opinion is about how to execute that practice well. Which involves many of the things others have mentioned but I think also direct skill practice including learning to drift and driving on a track radius to understand minor tweaks to the car balance. I actually wish more games had a basic circle and basic tarmac areas to drive on to practice a variety of things but it seems they don't appreciate that some people do need these things to get better.

Once you hit 5k probably 10k hours of simracing and you have tried a lot of different types of practices to improve performance then you are at the stage where more might not bring much benefit. But if you only have 100 hours it is hard to say you are limited by talent because you definitely can still improve, no one was born knowing how to drive a car at the limit of its grip. It mght then be worth looking at some fundamental measurements like your reaction time eye to finger and nerve impulse time from foot to finger and you may find you are not as quick as the best and it may limit your peak. But once you have these sorts of hours of decent practice you will be lapping well and consistently.

Apparently in preseason testing Schumacher did 150 laps a day. He would just get in the car and start driving. A sim racer recently did this with a track they didn't know (I tried to find the video again I can't, was on YT) and by lap 12 they were getting around relatively consistently but still pushing to find time until about lap 30 by which point he calmed down and just tried to be consistent and then gradually the time came and the last 50 laps were all consistent and it was in this period his fastest lap was set. Try doing 150 laps of the circuit just trying to sustain a consistent pace and tell us how that goes for improving lap times.

 

[Kek700]

@RasmusP ,well , what can I say but thank you for those kind words.
I always assumed that people see my “pension book” flapping around on my cars roof, thinking there’s that silly old bugger, in the way again.

If @Bruno Iwanczuk would only start reading this
Forums article from the beginning and try and absorb
all the parts with advice in it.
I for one would feel that all here has achieved some success.

We all have that feeling of futility, I have been practicing for the GT3 race at Sveg Raceway, it’s a very long circuit.
I will turn up on the day to start practice after trying as hard as I can to learn and quickly get around this circuit, then see that I am going to be 10 seconds off the pace. Bugger. ( hope it’s less than 10 )

Short circuits make you feel better about your driving.

Success at anything is usually preceded by a heap of failure.

 

[Miguel Batista]

@Kek700 @RasmusP @BrightCandle great posts you guys this is precisely right.

I believe the difference between a Sena or Jim Clark to many other great drivers is how they surpass their limitations. They have the drive (le pun) and the will to break a barrier once they reach it and just work that extra hard. We have all been there in or of those situations where you reach a hard limit that seems insurmountable but when you put enough time and effort into it (Sena in the rain) you can usually overcome it. Is it fun? No...

For instance, I am reaching a point in my pcars2 career in the radical where I am struggling against 95%AI. Around donnington park my consistent lap time is about 1.04 whereas the AI can lap at 1:03 which I reach sometimes and 1:02 which I have the potential to reach but have never reached before. I could lower the AI difficulty and move on but I noticed that I am losing most my time in the first corner and last chicane so instead, I took it upon myself to practice until I can drive faster around the track. Is it fun? Not really. Very frustrating actually but it is making me a better driver overall and speed will come and then I will have the satisfaction that I beat the AI fair and square. World record is in the 1:01s btw.

 

[RasmusP]

Thanks for the flowers, your posts are very good ones too!

I noticed that I am losing most my time in the first corner and last chicane

Maybe you should practice the same things on a different track to give yourself fresh input and new motivation/fun.
For the chicane I would suggest monza and zolder. They would be good tracks for this... Tight, fast approached chicanes with sausage kerbs.
For the first corner at donington... Hmm, Jerez and Road Atlanta come to my mind. There aren't many tracks with a quickly approached off camber 90°+ degree turn.

 

[Brandon Wright]

Another well-meaning sim racing thread that quickly devolved into an off-topic pissing match.

Nice job guys, nice job.

 

[Andy-R]

I'd put exit speed above all else there (rightly or wrongly) as you carry the speed from Redgate all the way down to Old Hairpin.

 

[Brandon Wright]

I'd put exit speed above all else there (rightly or wrongly) as you carry the speed from Redgate all the way down to Old Hairpin.

Exit speed is everything, slow in/fast out, you gain much more from a fast exit than a fast entry. That Skip Barber video I posted has an excellent demonstration of this theory.

 

[ZeroSV]

Once you get the basics down it should transfer to other tracks. You'll have to learn the specifics of that track, but turn-in/apex/track-out theory is pretty much universal (though there are variants such as the late-apex). Watch these videos from the AC physics guru Aris and it will help a lot, and you'll see how what he's doing will apply to any track you drive on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLhcxwsAYQYBBjJD2IfMCVr3vayF_I3unZ&v=V1JJl2DOwEs

This video from Skip Barber is one of the bibles of performance driving too, it's old but all still relevant and is easy to understand. I try to watch this video at least once a year to freshen up on the basics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-sGV2XXUeU

Thanks those videos were useful, learned some stuff still too.

 

[Andy-R]

Exit speed is everything, slow in/fast out, you gain much more from a fast exit than a fast entry. That Skip Barber video I posted has an excellent demonstration of this theory.

I think it depends greatly on the corner. In this case there is a straight after so I'd definitely look for the best exit over all else.

 

[ZeroSV]

One thing people don't get is just because they lack all the "sub-skills", it doesn't mean they have no talent. They just have a very very bad starting point.
Referring to my football analogy, the skills for simracing in a quick list that comes to my mind:
- hand/eye/feet coordination
- imagining the real car from the 2d monitor view
- precision with hands and feet
- reaction time
- being able to repeat the same things
- concentration
- judge speeds
- memory for brake markers etc
- adapting to new things quickly

Depending on how good you are at these things in general, you gonna improve in shorter time. If you have to learn it all, then it'll take a long time. And it's also about efficiency.

Not to talk bad about you Ernie, really don't. I'll just use you as an example:
You have some real life racing experience and a **** ton of real life experience! I guess you're not a "gamer" though and are not the youngest chap around.
So you might lack some points at:
- imagining the real car from 2D monitor view
- reaction time
- adapting to new things quickly

And you probably learnt how to do things decades ago and burnt "wrong" things into every cell of your body.
You are a bloody save driver and awesome fun to compete against! I have nothing but respect for you man! Any time we came together on track I always enjoyed it

Then on the other hand you might have a 16 year old who has never driven a car but played all hectic games you can imagine.
His vision and approach to a hotlap is a completely different world.
If you coach this chap correctly he'll be like a sharp knife with only good inputs.
But it takes years to become a good racer on track and that's where he will probably

 

[RasmusP]

Lol the 16 year old would be a good example since I’m 16 and never driven a car

How many hours do you have right now in the sims you have? I guess yours are all on steam like for most of us?
I have 120.000 km in real life on my clock and about 1.100 hours in sims. Plus all the need for speed stuff as a kid when I got my first ffb wheel since I was 7.
Looking at these stats and my pace on track.. I guess I have the least talent of all of us

 

[Brandon Wright]

I think it depends greatly on the corner. In this case there is a straight after so I'd definitely look for the best exit over all else.

There are some exceptions to every rule, but generally a fast exit is going to benefit you far more times than not.

 

[Andy-R]

There are some exceptions to every rule, but generally a fast exit is going to benefit you far more times than not.

Yeah it's a good rule of thumb for sure.

 

[Kek700]

As Rasmus said in one of these articles you need to get a lot of things in place first.
Apart from going over what's been already said, I think the first or lets say one of the first things
to get:-
To be able to race, against Ai if you wish, 40 odd laps and more without making any mistakes.
This with the view of creating as many consistent lap times as possible. Not getting involved with best lap times.
@Miguel Batista watched you in a few races of late, you certainly do not lack speed.

 

[Brandon Wright]

As Rasmus said in one of these articles you need to get a lot of things in place first.
Apart from going over what's been already said, I think the first or lets say one of the first things
to get:-
To be able to race, against Ai if you wish, 40 odd laps and more without making any mistakes.
This with the view of creating as many consistent lap times as possible. Not getting involved with best lap times.
@Miguel Batista watched you in a few races of late, you certainly do not lack speed.

On that note, I found that a great way to practice racecraft is to do a race with the AI and try to stay in, and finish in, P4. Start toward the middle and work your way up to P4 and then try to stay there. It's surprisingly challenging and teaches you to anticipate what the other cars are going to do, it turns into a game of trying to keep P5 from overtaking you while not overtaking P3 yourself. It's a very good way to teach yourself how to anticipate the behavior of other drivers without risking pissing off real drivers, really keeps you on your toes.

 

[ZeroSV]

How many hours do you have right now in the sims you have? I guess yours are all on steam like for most of us?
I have 120.000 km in real life on my clock and about 1.100 hours in sims. Plus all the need for speed stuff as a kid when I got my first ffb wheel since I was 7.
Looking at these stats and my pace on track.. I guess I have the least talent of all of us

Out of all the sims I’ve played so far I probably have around 190 hours

 

[RasmusP]

Thr

Out of all the sims I’ve played so far I probably have around 190 hours

Good that you ask now then! Enough time to know what you're doing, not too much time spent practicing the wrong stuff.
I'd highly recommend to create a separate thread with a video of a good lap from you.
Like a clean lap, showing your current skills and pace so we can start to get you faster
And if you can't do a clean lap take one where we can see a common mistake of your driving.
Example: with the lambo gt3 I always understeered into the wall at Flugplatz (Nordschleife) while spinning at Pflanzgarten.
Did that lots of times. Then asked a friend for telemetry of his lap and I could get rid of my mistakes

 

[ZeroSV]

Alright, will do so when I can. I’ve been practicing on brands hatch with the Nissan GT3 so it’ll be that.

 

[RasmusP]

Alright, will do so when I can. I’ve been practicing on brands hatch with the Nissan GT3 so it’ll be that.

Sweet. Which sim btw? Then we can prepare it too if we've got nothing to do
(helping someone is a great way to find something to practice for yourself)