So, today I was home alone and decided to fire up r3e. The missus was out, I had some procrastinating to do so I on I went.
I didn't feel like racing but more like hotlaping and discovered that the 3rd heat of the ADAC GT Masters was on. So, Nurburgring short track, picked up the Audi R8 (my current favourite GT3 car) and off I went. I must've done about 40 laps, stock setup and my objective morphed from, doing a couple of laps to break the 1:30 barrier which I almost did (1:30.154). The interesting thing that happened was how my awareness of car and track evolved during these laps. Mind you, it is not the first time I did hotlaps this time something was different. I began to see where I was losing time and where I am still overdriving the car I realized that my driving lines were generally too tight which meant my corner exit angle was wrong and I end up losing speed. I also became keenly aware on the Audi' s behaviour in low speed corners where it understeers heavily after coming off of braking. I began seeing time that I could make up very clearly and it was phenomenal. I now know of about 6 or 7 tenths I can easilly shave off if I can get my driving lines consistent and once the car is properly setup for the track I can probably remove at least another half a second if not a full second. the reason I didn't drop to the low 1:29s was that I was getting tired after almost two hours and began doing a lot of mistakes. I was getting hungry, tired and needed to take a break. So I stopped, had some lunch, did some work and relaxed a bit. A few hours passed and I began watching some videos of real and virtual drivers driving gt3 cars around the Nurburgring to see their lines, braking markers and the lot to take some pointers which was very useful. However, by the time I was thinking of going back to the rig other commitments forced me away from it which sucks! It totally broke my flow. One of those moments I wished I was 15 again...
But, the more interesting aspect of this is that the workflow for becoming real good (I believe I can get to 1:27.XXX in a couple of days) is pretty obvious once you take the time to think about it and your attitude is correct. And this was the first time I really got into trying to master a track. I will surely try to squeeze more time in the rig to try and get as high as possible in this heat. My next few days will be as follows:
After shaving of those easy 6 or 7 tenths, I want to adjust the setup of the car. As I feel the car slipping away on low speed corners with a bit of understeer I will adjust camber And possibly anti roll bars. Afterwards, try to improve driving lines based on information off of on boards and adjust car accordingly.
Overall today I became a better driver which is just awesome. Just the change in attitude towards a task provided a noticeable improvement to my driving ability around this track and general drive craft. And boy do I wish I was 15 again and had the time to spend on this properly! SIM racing is awesome!
I don't really know what my aim was with this thread other than to share an experience in SIM racing I had today with people who might understand what I am talking about.
Also, I believe that the repetition ad nauseum of this workflow is the path to become an Alien. Now all I need is time, patience and perseverance to continue working on shaving those hundredths of second of each lap one corner at the time. Which is impossible for me for I lack the time, the patience and the perseverance.
Anyway, awesome sim racing day!
I didn't feel like racing but more like hotlaping and discovered that the 3rd heat of the ADAC GT Masters was on. So, Nurburgring short track, picked up the Audi R8 (my current favourite GT3 car) and off I went. I must've done about 40 laps, stock setup and my objective morphed from, doing a couple of laps to break the 1:30 barrier which I almost did (1:30.154). The interesting thing that happened was how my awareness of car and track evolved during these laps. Mind you, it is not the first time I did hotlaps this time something was different. I began to see where I was losing time and where I am still overdriving the car I realized that my driving lines were generally too tight which meant my corner exit angle was wrong and I end up losing speed. I also became keenly aware on the Audi' s behaviour in low speed corners where it understeers heavily after coming off of braking. I began seeing time that I could make up very clearly and it was phenomenal. I now know of about 6 or 7 tenths I can easilly shave off if I can get my driving lines consistent and once the car is properly setup for the track I can probably remove at least another half a second if not a full second. the reason I didn't drop to the low 1:29s was that I was getting tired after almost two hours and began doing a lot of mistakes. I was getting hungry, tired and needed to take a break. So I stopped, had some lunch, did some work and relaxed a bit. A few hours passed and I began watching some videos of real and virtual drivers driving gt3 cars around the Nurburgring to see their lines, braking markers and the lot to take some pointers which was very useful. However, by the time I was thinking of going back to the rig other commitments forced me away from it which sucks! It totally broke my flow. One of those moments I wished I was 15 again...
But, the more interesting aspect of this is that the workflow for becoming real good (I believe I can get to 1:27.XXX in a couple of days) is pretty obvious once you take the time to think about it and your attitude is correct. And this was the first time I really got into trying to master a track. I will surely try to squeeze more time in the rig to try and get as high as possible in this heat. My next few days will be as follows:
After shaving of those easy 6 or 7 tenths, I want to adjust the setup of the car. As I feel the car slipping away on low speed corners with a bit of understeer I will adjust camber And possibly anti roll bars. Afterwards, try to improve driving lines based on information off of on boards and adjust car accordingly.
Overall today I became a better driver which is just awesome. Just the change in attitude towards a task provided a noticeable improvement to my driving ability around this track and general drive craft. And boy do I wish I was 15 again and had the time to spend on this properly! SIM racing is awesome!
I don't really know what my aim was with this thread other than to share an experience in SIM racing I had today with people who might understand what I am talking about.
Also, I believe that the repetition ad nauseum of this workflow is the path to become an Alien. Now all I need is time, patience and perseverance to continue working on shaving those hundredths of second of each lap one corner at the time. Which is impossible for me for I lack the time, the patience and the perseverance.
Anyway, awesome sim racing day!
