New player, having a hard time heating up tyres

[Alexandre Arruda]

Hey guys, maybe someone can help me out?

I've recently bought a g29 wheel and Asseto Corsa, and this Sim Racing thing pretty much amazed me. This game is a blast. So, next month, iRacing Brasil will host a new season of a championship series for begginers and I'm like "WTH, "i'll give it a try. They'll even give new entrants 3 months of subscription for free."

So, before I subscribe to that racing league I decided to practice the MX-5 Cup in Laguna Seca, one of the tracks that league runs. And boy, do I need a lot of practice.

My first problem is tyre temperature. The hard slicks used in Asseto Corsa take a LOT of time to heat up, up to 5 laps sometimes. And I never get to heat up the left front and left rear tyres. I even tried to use assymetrical settings (15 psi for the left tyres and 17 psi for the right tyres), and although this setting makes me almost get proper temperatures, the left tyres are always a little bit colder than their optimal temperature. I also tried to add some negative camber, but I feel I'm going to some extreme cambers and I know that extreme set ups are usually not good to go for.

My second problem (and proably a consequence of the first one) is consistensy. I still haven't managed to complete 10 laps without spinning or drastically oversteering. Not to mention I still find it extremely difficult to downshift while cornering. Although it might be obvious that braking, turning and downshifting at the same time is an extreme stress for balance, I feel that if I managed to trailbrake and downshift correctly, I would improove my times a lot more .Especially at turn 1 and the corskcrew.

Aaand that brings me to my third problem, which isn't a big deal for me anyway, but... after ~50 hours of practicing, my lap times are waaaay to high. I mean, I've managed a personal best of 1:41:1 and an average of 1:43. Although those are times made with half a tank of fuel, lowering the fuel isn't giving me a better feel of the car.

So, I wonder... do you guys have any tips for setups and driving techniques that might help me?

Thanks in advance

 

[Mr Deap]

I recommend to practice like the placebo at first & transition to correct pattern. The default setup is somewhat usable & the change is minimal for optimal.

It sure look ugly, but it's the easier path. Mostly focus on deceleration & cruising. Avoid using the accelerator before the apex.

Once you somehow understand the driving model, it should be easy to make improved change with the setup as the general documentation is somehow usable.

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

@Alexandre Arruda Very serious question, can you describe what did you understand from MrDeap's post above? And say what is the main difference between Placebo and the two others?
Don't worry about wording, just speak your mind, thanks!

Anwyays, Hard tyres are designed to last and work in any conditions, having troubles heating them up is normal. Especially for light cars where they can last one (or more) races. Unfortunately the best way to heat them up is to drive fast, and it's a slippery slope - the faster you go the more grip you have. And It will feel worse if you have "bad" laps (where you spin or go off track). Only consistency can really help here.

Mx5 cup tyres do like a lot of (negative) camber and it will help you push harder therefore generating more heat. Also don't run with too low pressures, open up the tyres app and focus on tyre pressure color - keep it green, it has more impact on grip. As for the temps, the blue tyre color looks bad but the tyres have plenty of grip still, so don't worry about it besides being careful on the first 1-2 laps.

Although it might be obvious that braking, turning and downshifting at the same time is an extreme stress for balance

If you do stuff right it shouldn't be. Try to match the revs when downshifting (by heel and toeing) and if you already do it, you might be moving brake pedal too much during shifts.
Time your downshifts to a moment where the car isn't performing a transition (from trailbraking to cornering for example. Maybe try shifting at lower revs the closer you are to the corner.
If you could post a video or replay we cold give you more specific tips on what to work on.

As for the setup, default is "ok" but going softer and more negative camber will net you some grip.
If you find the car to be hard during trailbraking or having driver induced snap oversteer experiment with balance a bit (ARB/springs). For example: you many find that more front grip can actually lead to more stable car (by reducing need for trailbrakeing and needing less steering input to turn reducing chance of snap oversteer, thou it's Laguna so it might become dicey in hilly sections).

edit: Took the car for a spin, in T1 you don't want to be aggressive on the brakes as the balance shifts to the rear under ABS assistance. Keep the car turning in the braking zone by shifting aggressively - it should not upset the car if you are not hard on the brakes.
As for corkscrew, brake so you get to the right side before left turn and take a wide entry in 3rd gear. Focus on clipping the apex, and it's throttle from there. You kind of want to fly over the whole section, the faster you go the more understeery it becomes.

 

[Mr Deap]

I did play a bit with the car, but downshifting & spinning out is due to the high disparity of wheel speed when switching ratio(or changing gear) causing the tire past the slippage(lost of traction) due to the combination of the brake & engine torque at the driven wheels. It's the effect of not using the clutch or not enabling auto clutch(using auto clutch provide loss of speed during straight line speed.)

Although even by enabling the auto clutch & having slower acceleration it wouldn't provide large disparity of lap time to the point it's not competitive or a usable state for online play. Tapping or hold the throttle while downshifting maybe help a bit to reduce the high disparity of ratio while changing gear if no clutch is used.

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

@Mr Deap Not only you are wrong twice, you are contradicting yourself. What you write there looks nice but it's not english, it's unintelligible mess, that's the problem! And the main cause of people "trolling" you.

1) The cause of the slippage is not lack of clutch, you can shift clutchless and have no slippage in AC in many cars, including mx5.
2) "disparity of ratio" IS NOT the cause of slippage. And you explain (thou poorly) why several lines above.
I won't even start on holding the throttle while braking as a downshift technique. Nor calling downshift a "ratio switch" when talking about driving techniques.

How can you expect people to follow what you say and not get mad when every post you make either has too little info or is filled with nonsense.

(Off topic, but let's be real, every topic including a "MrDeap" post is automatically a "MrDeap" thread, sorry Alexandre, you are the next victim it seems).

 

[Mr Deap]

Some may scratch their head & wonder what some are on about.

 

[Kek700]

Mr Deap, If you just showed the video in slow motion the one with just the "tick" in it.

that is not far off being reasonably correct.

It would be a pretty good foundation for a constructive, helpful discussion.

To me there are just two important events that occur in a lap.

Transition time.
The time taken to get to the correct apex point.
( This is a single time saved.)

Additive time.
This is the best traction and exit speed which accumilates proportionly with
the lenght of the next straight.

 

[RasmusP]

Will only say something about the instability while shifting as we used the MX-5 Cup a lot in the Social Events.
You either tick "Auto Blip" in the assists or you need to tap the throttle on every downshift. Upshift: it's a bit smoother from my experience with auto-clutch but I would recommend to not use it as long as you don't experience problems. No clue what's the code behind it... When does it trigger if you don't map a clutch pedal etc etc..

Anyway: the blip while downshifting is needed in cars that don't have an "electronic kicker". Not needed for GT3 cars for example.
The problem here is, as Mr Deap calls it "change of ratio" or like I call it: when you shift down you need higher RPM. You can "sync" the rear wheels and the engine RPM with the clutch or manually.
If you use the clutch (automatically done), your rear wheels will get slowed down by the resistance of the engine. If you give a little push on the throttle this resistance won't be there.

If you have a manual car try to shift down to 2nd gear at 50 kp/h and you will know what I mean!

Anyway, this little resistance will be enough to either unsettle the car or even lock the rear tyres. Both probably leads to spinning.

 

[Andy-R]

I'm no good with setups and only ever try to set correct pressure and don't worry about temperature at all so agree with Pawel there. Maybe in cars with different slick options it is more important.

My natural tendency when I first jump in this car is to change down 1 too many gears quite often. It's a proper momentum car, you could try playing around with different gears. I tried that combo recently and IIRC I never shifted below 3rd gear.

 

[JoelK]

About the tyres, generally you wanna setup the tyre pressures to be correct, 'cause thats usually faster. Yeah you can get some heat into the tyres if you run minimum pressures, but you'll lose 0.5-1.5secs depending on the track you are at(Don't quote me on this, this is only IIRC) when compared to running colder tyres with correct pressures.

 

[JoelK]

Although even by enabling the auto clutch & having slower acceleration it wouldn't provide large disparity of lap time to the point it's not competitive or a usable state for online play. Tapping or hold the throttle while downshifting maybe help a bit to reduce the high disparity of ratio while changing gear if no clutch is used.

You're hilarious

 

[Andy-R]

I'm no good with setups and only ever try to set correct pressure and don't worry about temperature at all so agree with Pawel there. Maybe in cars with different slick options it is more important.

My natural tendency when I first jump in this car is to change down 1 too many gears quite often. It's a proper momentum car, you could try playing around with different gears. I tried that combo recently and IIRC I never shifted below 3rd gear.

Oops, I just checked. Looks like I was using 2nd in the final corner. I do find I start off using the wrong gears a lot at first in this car though. Same goes for the KTM, must be a 6 speed thing.

 

[RasmusP]

Btw you can also "drive bad" to heat the tyres. Not really for you qualy lap but when you can spare a tenth you can "brake with steering angle"/ scrub the fronts and drift a little to heat the rear.
This will cost time but if you are more safe with it or have more grip when you need it it can help.
Situations to do it would be during an outlap or when you're stuck behind a slower guy and would like to have more grip for the overtake that's about to come a few corners later.

 

[Andy-R]

The MX5 is missing the power of "power slide" Is it worth sliding around on the tyres when they are too cold to gain heat? I guess it is a question whether the graining or lack of heat cost you more.

I often weave to get the tyres up to optimum grip but braking doesn't seem to help much, weaving and way too much steering input do the job. I assume in real life braking and brake temp have a fairly large impact on tyre temp but it doesn't seem to be the case in AC.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Should point out that AC's tyres are rather more advanced than iRacing's, not sure how much you learn in AC will cross over...

But yeah - if the tyres are too cold, you're basically just going to have to drive harder. More camber will help but then if you add too much you'll be losing grip anyway unless the suspension geometry is something spectacularily bizarre.

 

[Kek700]

Interesting reading what people are saying about this topic, I have never been
able to solve it and just accept the temperature they are at after three or so laps.

I have even gone totally radicle in the setup, at the exclusion of every thing else,
just to see if would effect tyre temperature, even then no meaningful results.

 

[RasmusP]

Interesting reading what people are saying about this topic, I have never been
able to solve it and just accept the temperature they are at after three or so laps.

I have even gone totally radicle in the setup, at the exclusion of every thing else,
just to see if would effect tyre temperature, even then no meaningful results.

Yep.
It's also important to understand that tyres like the slicks at the mx5 cup are completely different to formula 1 tyres for example.
The hard slicks for the mx5 are like:
Grab the car, throw the slicks on it and just drive. No matter if 40°c in Texas or 5°c in Northern Sweden. They will just work. Not great, not perfect but okay.
Other cars have multiple compounds and are meant to pick the tyre that's perfect for the temperatures and the situation.

Comparison: are your street tyres meant to be at optimum temperature? Did you ever experience whether they are warm or cold? I honestly didn't. They just work.
Did I experience how a tyre feels with too low pressure? Yes, sadly. One of the scariest moments ever and I gave my dad a speech he won't forget when he told me he knew that one tyre would lose some pressure after some time..

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

The MX5 is missing the power of "power slide" Is it worth sliding around on the tyres when they are too cold to gain heat? I guess it is a question whether the graining or lack of heat cost you more.

I often weave to get the tyres up to optimum grip but braking doesn't seem to help much, weaving and way too much steering input do the job. I assume in real life braking and brake temp have a fairly large impact on tyre temp but it doesn't seem to be the case in AC.

Sliding definitely helps, but there isn't any place for it on Laguna Seca, maybe besides T1.

I was running Mx5 on cold Nurburgring and more than half of the corners there can be entered in a 4 wheel slide* and still make normal exits. It costed a little time at first, but by the lap 5 i was running 2s faster than the second place guy and was accused for hacking XD. At that point the pace was soo good that i had to do only minimal sliding to keep the tyres in green-ish to the end of the race. Difference was so big i had to lower the initial pressure to have optimum grip when heated up to keep the car going really fast. Thou stuff like that is an exception, not a rule just like IRL.

As for waving, i did not find it too effective in any car (besides initial warmup). Significant temp can be only generated by sliding. On some tracks it's possible to turn the steering wheel close to max lock at the end of a straight, for example at Imola just before last big braking zone. It really helps heating up front tyres at minimal time loss (I used it in cold Tattus races with mediums). On Laguna Seca second to last corner is a good place for this too, if you have spare time for it in a race.

* - 4 wheel slide: It's enough to be up to double the normal slip angle of the tyres.

I have even gone totally radicle in the setup, at the exclusion of every thing else,
just to see if would effect tyre temperature, even then no meaningful results.

The main temperature generator while racing normally is laptime. That's why radical setups won't work - they do increase temperature generation but then by being slower the tyre has more time per lap to cool which makes it look like nothing is happening. This is also why slower drivers struggle more with temperatures, and fast ones (i'm guilty here too) say "It's fine". Sometimes it isn't fine but gritting your teeth and focusing on consistent laps is the best tyre warmer, and for that you need a setup you are comfortable with to push.

 

[Alexandre Arruda]

Wow guys, you are great. I didn't expect to have so many answers in so little time.

First of all, i would never guess lowering the tyre pressures would increase laptime/decrease grip. I thought lower pressures = greater grip and greater wear.
I'll keep that in mind in the future. Do you guys know the ideal tyre pressure for the MX-5?

Second, about the video Mr. Deap posted... at first I just thought "Well, I have no clue what a placebo is and am too embarassed to ask, so I'll just pretend I didn't see it?" Hehehe you could tell me a little something, I'm new to this sim racing thing @Mr Deap. But anyway, I suppose you are telling me to avoid trailbraking? In the Placebo video I noticed you avoided braking too hard before the apex and turned the wheel a lot more than in the "correct" video. Is that what you meant to tell me?

Third, about this little pressure to the gas when downshifiting... I suppose you are talking about what we here in Brazil call "punta taco". I actually tried to do that in my practice, but I tend to overrev the car whenever I try it. I guess I'll spend some time practicing this technique.

I turned off the abs and the tc... after all, I thought that as I was already driving a low powered car, i would learn more without any assists. Do you think I should turn them on?

Tomorrow I'll spend a couple of hours practicing a little more, this time with higher pressures and maybe a little softer rear suspessions?

Anyway THANKS A LOT for all the answers. This community seems super helpful and kind. You're great!

 

[Richard Dastardly]

If you're going to disable ABS make sure you set the brake power to something comfortable, so you're not at brake-lock in the first 1/3d of the pedal travel... I tend to leave TC & ABS on factory, most of the time if a car's got them you probably want them for it.

"Pressure on gas when downshifting" gets called heel & toe, also - because originally you put your toes on the brake & kicked the gas pedal with your heel. It's much easier if you just use the right side of your foot to blip the throttle though ( I do that in real road cars too, works fine & never slipped off the brakes ). Throttle pedal travel is usually so much that you'll have to do something abusive to overrev like that. The alternative to that is to move the brake balance rearwards & only downshift when the revs drop, but in a little momentum car like the MX5 you don't really want to be braking much.