Does it go without saying that in order to be competitive at the club level you have to go beyond the default setup?
I can't believe that this is true. What lap times are you driving? Do you have assists on? The Nordschleife demands a highly tuned car setup, because of its uniqueness. Just the default wing settings and gear ratios are horrible - you loose seconds down the long straight, not to mention lack of braking and straight line stability on that track.I would say it heavily depends on the car, the track and your driving style!!
On Nordschleife for example with MP4 GT3, I can be just as fast with the default as with my super tuned, everything changed setup!!
I don't know if you could say that about the formula cars though, setup makes a huge difference track to track with those beasts.In the GT3 race last night I was a little less than one second faster using a custom set than using the default..When we run street cars the only thing I change is fuel.
The only track that you will run 2 or 3 seconds faster with a custom set than with default would be Monza IMO.
Agree, I think what happens is that you find a setup that suits your style around a track far quicker than you find the setup that is the quickest around the track. With any luck the two meet in the middle. Just look at F1 drivers that suffer when the rules change, and their driving style is no longer the optimum. You know who I meanYes, I agree with that. I've been driving in sims since 1998 (with Grand Prix Legends at first), and I opine that the time to start experimenting with setup changes is when you've gotten so consistent that you can't lower your lap times any more. It takes a lot of laps at any given track to achieve that. And as an aside, I've found that with a car I haven't driven yet at a track I've never driven, I'll have learned the car way before I've even learned the track, much less learned how to drive that track optimally. (Of course, I only mean optimally for me, not absolutely optimally.)
Just look at F1 drivers that suffer when the rules change, and their driving style is no longer the optimum. You know who I mean