My apologies for missing week 1, as I think I mentioned it was the wife's birthday weekend and I was no where near a PS3 or sober... But I finally found some time for tuning/testing this car on Suzuka for week 2 and I'm ready for the race! Oh it was last night? That was for serious? Damn I thought that was just a practice
Well had I been able to do any testing before the race this is what I would have found, I'll share for other's, perhaps it will aid them.
First off, I think I'm a much better driver in bumper cam than in cockpit cam. I raced cockpit last night because I love the look of these cars in that view, open wheels spinning, steering wheel turning and lighting up and flashing... But to be honest with myself, I don't think I'm nearly as clean as in bumper cam. Error #1 found this morning.
Pre/during/post race I remember some people started discussing tuning (myself included) and most people kept their setups stock with full aero. I was one of the few who decided to be daring and try a bit less than full aero. Well after some actual practice I can say this, full aero is most definitely the way to go, hands down! My best lap time last night was a 1:37 something and that was probably with a draft during the race. So this morning I fired up my lounge and started practice with the exact same suspension setup I used last night and upped the downforce to max. I think I banged out a 1:37 my first timed lap and immediately knew full downforce was the way to go. A few more laps and I was finding I could take turns a whole gear higher than I could last night. Error #2 found this morning.
Lastly I decided to try going stock suspension settings with full down force vs my settings. Granted I didn't change much, but it was a bit here and there, most importantly I think was camber. At the end of the day, I found that although I was able to finally turn a *slightly* faster fastest lap on my settings, I was more inconsistent overall and couldn't really throw multiple clean laps together back to back. The difference in timing between my fastest lap on stock settings and my settings doesn't nearly outweigh the ability to throw fast laps back to back on stock settings. Error #3.
So if I could re-run this race what did I learn? Use bumper cam because I'm most used to it. Use FULL downforce, the top speed loss doesn't nearly outweigh the ability to take turns a gear higher. And lastly use the stock suspension settings. I'm sure it's possible to find a better setup depending on the track and everything, but these cars seem pretty tuned to themselves as is from the factory, and I don't have the time or experience to tune it to each individual track.
So my best best lap on my suspension was a 1:33.865, all by my lonesome on Suzuka... But for consistency sake, I was able to pull these 3 in a row. So like I said, I'm totally ready for race 2, albeit a day late
