F1 career setup advice
I must admit I always feel bad taking up peoples time with fairly similar requests or questions but i hope this is ok. As much as I am a big fan of F1, im not the most technically minded so I was won...
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This is right in my wheelhouse and it will be a pleasure to help 👌
It would help too to know what you struggle with the most. Think of driving a F1 car as composed of these basic stages:
- Slowing down. Right before corners, done mostly by braking the car but can also be done with lifting & coasting or engine braking. Could be a heavy braking zone after a long straight or a mild one in the middle of a corner complex.
- Cornering. Arguably the most important one. Could be further broken down into three phases:
- Corner entry. The phase between braking, releasing the brakes and steering the car into the corner. You could be understeering here (when the car won't turn as much as you'd like), oversteering (the opposite, when the rear gets naughty and tends to rotate too much), not being able to follow the racing line...
- Mid corner. That's when you are about to or have just hit the apex. That's when you're locked into your steering input and is getting ready to get back on the throttle. Again you could be understeering or oversteering here.
- Corner exit. That's when you get back to the throttle either immediately after hitting the apex or when you're finishing with straightening up the car, completing its rotation. You could be losing traction, having your wheels slipping or spinning in place, understeering or oversteering.
- Acceleration. That's all about applying throttle correctly and upshifting gears to get the most out of the grip available for you and translate your engine power into speed. You could be losing traction, having your wheels slip spin in place.
What is it that you find that happens to you the most? And of all those scenarios what is the hardest for you to correct on the fly?
They can all be addressed both by setups and by driving technique. But they require different fixes, and with these things it is always a matter of compromising one aspect for the other. Hence why it's helpful to know what you struggle with the most, as maybe you could cope with a tad slower car on corner exit to account for understeering but could not tolerate a similar fix if it gave you an oversteery car instead.
In case it can be handy. Mind you though, these are all old files I used to share back in the glory days of Codemasters forums. I'll most definitely have a better understanding of the many concepts discussed, but I don't remember ever being called out for being off by that big of a margin back then 😉
Some handling issues, quick fixes and definitions of common terms used:
Similarly, a quick reference sheet for the various setup elements in the game:
Now this is a cheat sheet I've compiled over time but it is not F1 focused. I use it more often for ACC and the occasional Gran Turismo. GT3 cars perform and handle differently, but hey – cars be cars, right?
- @mariohomoh wow thank you for all this info, I will give it a real good looking over.
Incredibly helpful, thank you!
