| Before starting, I would like to answer some
question being asked over e-mail.
First, when I say PRACTICE, I really mean it,
always do this in practice mode, I always start to setup for qualification,
when my car is pretty good, and accordingly my lap time are satisfactory,
I lower fuel load to 4 FUEL LAP, and then push hard, I always seek for
the best line possible: on certain track the best line is not always going
( outside-inside-outside ) in a corner, sometimes it's due to bumps, or
a series of S or chicanes, or in some slow corners, sometime it's preferable
to exit a corner by going "offset" to favour a better acceleration, instead
of keeping a constant throttle, but before doing this, your chassis reaction
must be very predictable, and car feeling almost neutral with a very slight
action of understeer (preferable). Concerning my "pattern", now it's time
to do serious long session of practice with substantial load of fuel, to
simulate race distance ( between pitstop), keeping in mind the tire wear.
I always try to keep the same CAR BALANCE between the QUAL & RACE setup
eg: the car handling has to be the same, and all parameters being close.
The major difference between those setups, is
you'll have to raise car chassis (to prevent tire wear) and either lower
the spring load and/or ARB, keeping again the same RATIO to stay with that
very important CAR BALANCE, although some tracks won't permit to keep all
parameters to same RATIO. What I mean about RATIO is, for example: the
difference of FRONT ARB and REAR has to be equal between RACE & QUAL
( QUAL: F ARB = 3000 & R ARB = 300 ) keep the same ratio by going at
( RACE: F ARB = 2000 & R ARB = 200 ) so you'll stick to 10:1, I've
refered this to some track guide ( Monaco & Jerez ). Also same principle
for SPRINGS and WINGS, again sometimes it's not the perfect solution, you'll
have to try and see. CAR BALANCE ( between RACE & QUAL ) can be achieve
by just having the same chassis reaction, even by not sticking to the same
RATIO, but it's the overall "feeling" that counts here.
Most of my setups are achieve by doing ( in most
case ) 200 laps ( for RACE ) or more in different sessions, also one important
aspect is your general state of mind, that has to be optimum, there's no
necessity of trying when your "not in shape", after all, we're not pros
here. I do hope it was usefull reading this, and also hope you understand
why some setups takes longer to be posted with the track guide. |
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I always use other setups I've created that might
suit other tracks (by looking at track layout) |
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Then if I'm not familiar of the new track, or
lost "the magic touch" because I haven't raced for a while. I Always start
with around 8-10 FUEL LAPS, then I start making some laps, after only few,
I pause, and think in which direction I wanted to go, the very first modification
I will do is the WING angles and at the same time I will try to remember
how the gear ratio is OK or not, after this I return to do more laps. |
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I have to mention that after I'm comfortable
with the track layout ( making few laps and knowing aprox. the brake entry
point, how to accelerate, where's my force and weakness ), I'm probably
pushing the car to 90 % of the limit. I always keep THAT 10 % of reserve
to still comprehend what's good and bad about the setups. |
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Most of my setups, I''ll start with a difference
of WING angles of 3-4 deg, and I'll also start with 300 lbs of difference
between front and rear SPRING LOAD. If the track layout favors more slower
corners ( like Aida, Jerez, Monaco, Hungary, Adelaide ). I will definetly
use lower SPRING LOAD than average ( around 1100-1200 lbs in FRONT and
800-900 lbs in REAR). One of the reason for this is quiet simple, by staying
with a differential of 300 and keeping spring load LOW, I'm assuring to
get a neutral car in the slow portion of the track and at the same time
not loosing the rear too easily at the exit. After these modification,
I go back to do more laps, and I look if the car is sliding because of
too much or less SPRING LOAD, this is achieve only with practice and trial
& error. Also is the car on exit sliding at the rear, if not, raising
both FRONT & REAR SPRING load and see if it's still ok, sometime, you
have to make a compromise between this and how the car is getting to grip
in generals. |
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I will go back to WING angles, try to change
the diffential betwwen rear and front, see how is the response in long
curves, if the car under/oversteer, then I will make correction to the
WINGS. A small trick, (since I'm not in favour of "always 1 deg rear wing",
I always adjust the REAR wing to get maximum speed on the longest straight,
comparing to what the CC is doing and I try to have a small advantage of
5-15 kph on the fastest Computer Cars. Then I adjust my front wing to keep
the diffential of 3-4 deg (more or less). One more mentioning is, this
is done at the same time as other setup parameters. |
| * |
Now it's time to get "serious", I will make-up
the lack of general grip ( mechanical ), by adjusting the Anti-Roll Bar
to a good level ( in front: 2000 & in rear: 150 ) to start with. Depending
of the track layout ( Monza, Hockenheim, Monaco ), I will go to faily high
level ( because of these rapid change of direction ), other tracks like
( Aida, Jerez, Montreal ) don't permit high levels of ARB, all the other
tracks that are not mentioned fits between these 2 extremes. |
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After I'm pretty satisfied with the general "feel"
of the car, I work on packers vs ride height. Again I invite you to read
that section. After I've found the perfect compromise about packers I will
fine tune the setup, with gear ratio: I always adjust the 6th gear in first,
to get maximum top speed ( getting to redline at the end of the straight
( last 5% of it )). Then I look at the first gear, optimizing the speed
out of the slowest corner, then workn all other gears keeping in mind to
always get good acceleration out of corners, and trying not to be already
at the top-end of engine revs in the mid-phase of the corner. You'll have
to make compromise about this, since there's no "magical" formula, and
most important try to keep gear ratio close enough to always have maximum
acceleration. Sometimes I will deliberatly lengnten a particular gear (
always first 3 gear ) depending on track layout. At other circumstances,
I will do the reverse by shortening the 6th gear, due to long straigth
going up a hill ( for example: Spa Francorchamps ), in favour of not loosing
acceleration, but at the expense of running longer in redline ( you may
loose few kph ) but in general, it's worth it. |
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At this point, I really start to push the car
to the limit, seeing the srong and weak point, and making adjustment if
needed. I can confess sometimes, I was going in the wrong direction in
terms of all the fine-tuning occuring between pitstop ( I guess they call
this Murphy's law ). I always rely on Performance Telemetry at this stage
to see what I'm doing wrong or right. |
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