What made you faster?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Turtle, Jan 21, 2018.

  1. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    Hi everyone

    How did you improve and how fast were you in the start?

    What do you think made the biggest improvement in you laptimes apart from hardware?

    I've spend just a total of over 5 days in r3e now. One third of the time I have trained quite intensively to be faster at different tracks and for the last couple of weeks I've trained gt3 cars mainly at:

    Mainly i play for no more than half an hour at the time..

    Mazda laguna seca (1.8 seconds off pace)
    Bathurst (3 seconds off pace)

    In the start I was 8-10 seconds off and had no idea of how to get there :) But every time I went back I got just a little bit better.

    The youtube channel of presidentsmug helped me alot. f you are struggling I suggest looking at his videoes. I think that has made the biggest improvement for me..
     
    • Like Like x 2
  2. Mich Angel

    Mich Angel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2015
    Ratings:
    +216 / 0 / -0
    From my point of view there is only one real answer, practice, practice, practice, practice...etc..
    But then of cause there is not just one answer to that question.
    I have done a lot of research in tracks, cars behavior and listen/watch real racing driver and their teaching in styles. Like difference and how you can combine defensive, offensive or aggressive driving and when and how to behave what is okay and what is not okay etc... Youtubed a lot to try find videos going through driving techniques and of cause watch how others drive..

    But in the end it all comes back to one thing practice, practice, practice, practice...etc..
    Try practice preferably against better driver, same with Ai don't set them to easy when you learn and start from the back and try work your way up in a race... this way you can practice what you learned.
    Set your focus on finish a race not wining it, stay with in the limit of your driving skill, avoid go to much over the edge of your skill level it will most likely end you in a crash and that is not how you win or get a good position in a race..

    Consistency is the key to wining as in your speed and lap time should be consistent lap after lap then you will advance over time as you get better you get faster by it self don't try to force it. Forcing more out of your skill level will only end in disaster and again this don't win you races. Be patient and consistent, let others do the mistake and leave them in the dust of you disappearing in the horizon.
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Informative Informative x 1
  3. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    If only raceroom had something similar to iracing, so I could race whenever I wanted. Consistency is for me much easier in r3e. Iracing is so unforgiving :)
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  4. ChatCureuil

    ChatCureuil Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2017
    Ratings:
    +308 / 0 / -0
    Practice is good only if you practice the good habits, not the wrong ones. :eek::) It's important to read driving technics so you can analyze your own driving from another point of view and see what you're doing wrong, or what you're not doing but should do. And when you're driving, think about all that, observe what you're actually doing, why you're doing it and is it the correct thing to do at this moment. Find the parts where you're not close enough to the grip limit, why you always lose the car in this track part, ...
    A driving resource that might help.

    I own a wheel since one year and my first step forward was to rebuild my FFB from scratch, taking the time to feel how each value impacts it. And after months of being satisfied by it I'm actually modifying it again to get a better feeling in countersteer. FFB is very important to feel the car behavior.

    Settings my FOV to a realistic one helped too, with this tool. I have a 23" single screen so using a FOV like 0.5 removes a lot of the peripheral view but I better feel the car and can visually detect each tiny car move.

    Then I progressed by reading some driving technics and trying to apply them. Sometimes I read again something I'm supposed to know and I understand it in a new manner that helps me again.
    Some cars help me to progress more too, like the new Cayman, this car is a driving school by itself, it's very good for training weight transfer.

    I also progressed a lot in driving with people, in MP servers or leagues. That didn't make me faster but more consistent and more aware of surrounding drivers, keeping my racing line, overtaking...

    Today I feel my next learning step should be on braking, I'm not consistent enough, with poor precision, and probably a load cell brake pedal could help. :)

    And I still have a lot to learn if I want to approach the fastest drivers. :)
     
    • Like Like x 3
    • Winner Winner x 3
    • Agree Agree x 1
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2018
  5. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    I like the book. It is a lot like Scott Mansell at driver61.

    I've tried to use your approach identifying what I am doing wrong in each corner and then I say to my self what I will do next time at that corner. Then I build up a mental plan consisting of what to do in each corner and update the plan on the fly each time I've done a corner.

    The ideal way would be to split each corner into the parts described in the PDF listed in this thread, but I will run out of mental capacity if I have to do a whole lap until I get to the same corner again.

    Do you focus on a few corners when trying to identify what you are doing wrong?
     
  6. A.T

    A.T New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 22, 2018
    Ratings:
    +2 / 0 / -0
    I started out Sim Racing with RFactor. It was an absolute pain because of the sensitivity.

    However in this case I would advise to do alot of Online Races and start out with slower cars to learn how to fully utilize available grip.

    A more technical approach would to be to understand what settings suit your driving style or rather what makes you faster around the track. Its a fine line I must say.

    But all in all, as Mich has pointed out, practice makes perfect.

    Keep racing!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. Don Rudi

    Don Rudi Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2016
    Ratings:
    +284 / 0 / -0
    Better hardware, mainly better pedals, made me more consistent, but not really faster.
    What helped me lower my laptimes is watching onboard videos of real drivers, where the gears are visible.
    And more recently the videos of Jan Seyffarth - with his tipps and comments in mind my laptimes e.g. at Nordschleife started to drop considerably: (soon also in English)
     
    • Like Like x 1
  8. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    Interesting to hear how people improved :)

    I also improved my driving purchasing csl elite loadcell pedals. Upgrading to csw 2.5 from g25 did nothing for my laptimes. I will try to understand the information given through the FFB better. I drive with very low FFB as I feel high settings make my reactions slower.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
  9. Tuborg

    Tuborg Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2015
    Ratings:
    +455 / 0 / -0
    Don't you mean: I drive with very low FFB as I feel high settings make my reactions slower?

    Otherwise i don't understand what you mean :)
     
  10. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    That's correct, think you for the correction.:)
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11. Mich Angel

    Mich Angel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2015
    Ratings:
    +216 / 0 / -0
    This thread is so fun to read, how much it diverse from player to player what made it for each one of us.
    This really tell the story as it is, there is no magic way to be a alien driver.
    You either get it or you don't.
    But in the end it's all the same, nohow and practice is the most important you need.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  12. Tuborg

    Tuborg Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2015
    Ratings:
    +455 / 0 / -0
    Does he say that in the video?
     
  13. Tuborg

    Tuborg Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2015
    Ratings:
    +455 / 0 / -0
    I read somewhere that "alien" drivers uses very low FFB settings in their hunt for faster lap times.

    I think totally different.
    It's a lot of guesswork because I have never driven a real race car but I try to use what i think is the most realistic settings.
     
  14. Vince Wheel

    Vince Wheel Member

    Joined:
    Jan 22, 2018
    Ratings:
    +12 / 0 / -0
    I'm not super fast, and I need to improve my skills. Like all of you I practice the most I can (and the smoother I can), I watch the ghosts (leaderboard challenges..) and use my in-game replays. The e-book ChatCureuil mentioned is great!
    The hard thing for me is about keeping my driving good enough into a on-line flow of 20 cars :)
    Again practice..
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. Eddie Ellis

    Eddie Ellis Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2017
    Ratings:
    +19 / 0 / -0
    Yesterday I did the pedal test.
    I have the CSL Elite PS4 wheel and pedals and I have been racing for the last 2 months with the basic 2 pedal set. I had cheap Fanatec pedals for many years before that.
    I raced a 45 min league race at Silverstone with the standard pedals and then I installed the Load Cell pedal and ran a 15 minute race on the same track.
    My lap times were only a few tenths of a second faster than my best qualifying times. Not really a big difference at first. Then I looked at all my lap times and instead of 2 laps out of 10 being near my leader board time and 1 lap 3 seconds off, I had 7 laps out of 10 near my leader board time. My tires were much quieter than usual. I had accepted that I always hear a little skid while braking in tight corners and I always had a little more wear on my front tires. (Not a lot of skidding, just a fraction of a second when pushing hard.) I had almost no skids or front tire wear with the LC. I also caught at least one bad understeer push that would have put me in the grass with my regular brake pedal.
    I also find that trail braking is downright stable compared to what I'm used to. I have always trail braked on some cars, but it was always a risk and some cars it was impossible.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  16. Mich Angel

    Mich Angel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2015
    Ratings:
    +216 / 0 / -0
    Well what most peps don't get is that is not the gear that make you faster it is knowledge and practice, how to use what you got the best way, but in the end if you don't got the nohow to hit all apex the right or most efficient way and get car set up to suit your driving style the best, what gear you have won't make much difference.

    Sure you might scrape of some tens of seconds here and there with better gear but the real speed and good lap times come from knowledge and practice, there is no shortcut to that.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Winner Winner x 1
  17. Turtle

    Turtle New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Ratings:
    +4 / 0 / -0
    World fastest gamer winner now working at mclaren as simulator driver used a G27 wheel and pedals. He said He didnt spent much time training as He knew what to practice.
    when I decide to practice a track I make the improvement in the first 10 minutes or so and the rest of the time i chase that and in most cases i do not progress any further until next time i sit down. What I take from that is that a high frequency of practice is important. learning is restructuring the brain, and in my case that requires rest apparently. I am curious if you guys experiences something similar. if you think about, when do you actually improve when you practice?
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  18. Giorgos Tzanetos

    Giorgos Tzanetos Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 25, 2015
    Ratings:
    +32 / 0 / -0
  19. Eddie Ellis

    Eddie Ellis Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2017
    Ratings:
    +19 / 0 / -0
    I make some good progress during the first 20 minutes setting up a car. Then all the rest of my laps are just trying different lines with no big improvement. The next big improvement comes in the practice session with 3 or 4 guys who run exactly the same average pace that I do every week. It usually shows up that I run a a tenth or two faster in in 2 sectors and then give it all back in one tight chicane or bus stop. Running laps with them at race pace is where I find it.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  20. Mich Angel

    Mich Angel Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2015
    Ratings:
    +216 / 0 / -0
    Indeed, you can practice all you want one day but you get to that point where the brain can't take in more information and from there on nothing much happen. But well rested and a day later or two you go at it again and first runs you kick the shit out of your previous lap times. By the end of that other day improvement is well made and as previous it have a peek which you should avoid pass over and instead get a rest, relax and focus on something else to let your brain rest and what you learned sink in.
     
    • Like Like x 2
    • Agree Agree x 1