Don't worry about tuning.

[Beethy]

In my 300 hours of Dirt Rally 2.0, I kept thinking my incorrect tuning values were the reason I lost so much in the weeklies during my first 50 hours or so. I made it a habit to look up Youtube videos of the #1 drivers. One guy who kept winning consistently was this Japanese driver. Looked him up, and to my surprise, he totally skipped tuning. He also always used the hood camera, though that's a personal preference.
Tuning does make a difference, but not so much that you need to get the exact values.
I personally adjust only 2. Ride height and final drive.
High ride height on bumpy tracks, lowest ride height on flat tracks (without jumps).
Low final drive on tracks with lots of hairpins or sharp turns, higher on tracks with many straights.

[[RXS] da| reeZe ^.-]

In all local played (online uploaded) time based racing games you can affect the behavior of your clock by producing frame losses.
I tested it in several games.
Just to write you down a example. In WRC10 i asked me all the time why i even wasnt possible to catch up the time trail times in belgium.
After couple of talks to other high settet drivers they told me, i just should undervolt CPU to cool it down.
It pretty seems like they realy thought it is temperature based.
But by certain tests i figured out that the temp was not the reason.
The CPU worked slightly instable and caused frame losses.
Based on that Frame losses the ingame time calculated slightly different.
Finaly i was able to increase my stage time (~20km) about 20+ Seconds, just by doing these undervolting.
Bad thing about it was, that i was only able to play 4-5 Rounds before the game crashed.
I tried this so far in EA WRC also, but it always run into UE Access Validation Failure 0x0000000 and so on. You know, these error message, which some people reports.

Games i have tested it:
Dirt Rally 2.0, Dirt 4, RaceRoom Racing Experience, WRC8, WRC10

[PAWNSTAR]

huh?

[epikos77]

Originally posted by RXS da| reeZe ^.-:

Based on that Frame losses the ingame time calculated slightly different.

This is why at the end of the day I settle on just improving my own times. Yes it's nice to place high on the leaderboards and that will naturally happen just through trial and error and experience but the only apples to apples comparison you can make is against yourself.

And yes, Beethy is correct, especially early on, players should concentrate on learning the tracks and don't worry too much about tuning. Once a player feels they have reached a point of no longer improving their time then one can tinker with the tuning to max out a run.

[screamin42]

IDK, some cars are just downright terrible with default setups. I'm no beginner and I think the only cars that have pretty safe setups for new drivers are WRC1 cars, though I haven't driven everything yet.

[Beethy]

Originally posted by RXS da| reeZe ^.-:

Finaly i was able to increase my stage time (~20km) about 20+ Seconds, just by doing these undervolting.

Damn, I always had a feeling something was up with time trials.
That's why I liked the dailies/weeklies/monthlies. You couldn't retry, and if you crashed(the game), you were screwed. The times in those challenges always seemed more realistic, since I'd be able to land in the top 10, and sometimes even win.
Yet with the time trials, I couldn't get close at all, except for maybe some FWD cars.

[screamin42]

I don't know about the tech on this, but if it is possible some turd will do it. I have only spent time in one TT so far, I'm 3.something seconds off the top time on a short stage, I doubt the top time is cheated. I can see taking a second maybe Two off my time. The DR2 times seemed legit as well, DR1 however there are obvious cheats. So far the cutting of large parts of the stages with minimal time penalties is what is happening now.

Some people just spend all their time in TTs, it's easy to knock 10 to 20 seconds off your time with practice and tuning. Daily club stages, or club rallys are the way to go, more realistic times since you can't restart, just like the dailys/weeklys/monthlys in DR1 and 2. You will not see TT times in those, but you will get beat by faster drivers a lot.

[shadow82]

Originally posted by screamin42:

Daily club stages, or club rallys are the way to go, more realistic times since you can't restart,

Until you figure out that you have a real life and need to pause the game. Then the game will just tell you that it does not want to pause your timer while your away, resulting in monstrosity like I had where your total time in 26 minutes on a 11 minutes stages where all independent sector tally up to about 11 minutes. Enjoy the pre-alpha early access game debugging mess we have.

[Beethy]

Originally posted by shadow82:

Originally posted by screamin42:

Daily club stages, or club rallys are the way to go, more realistic times since you can't restart,

Until you figure out that you have a real life and need to pause the game. Then the game will just tell you that it does not want to pause your timer while your away, resulting in monstrosity like I had where your total time in 26 minutes on a 11 minutes stages where all independent sector tally up to about 11 minutes. Enjoy the pre-alpha early access game debugging mess we have.

What are you talking about? I've never had this happen. Besides, you can chill out at the start line for however long you want, even unpaused.

[screamin42]

Originally posted by shadow82:

Originally posted by screamin42:

Daily club stages, or club rallys are the way to go, more realistic times since you can't restart,

Until you figure out that you have a real life and need to pause the game. Then the game will just tell you that it does not want to pause your timer while your away, resulting in monstrosity like I had where your total time in 26 minutes on a 11 minutes stages where all independent sector tally up to about 11 minutes. Enjoy the pre-alpha early access game debugging mess we have.

A member of a club I am in tested this last night in a stage and did not get any time added. Maybe something in the patch changed that, I don't know, I just ignore life for 11 minutes. In MP I tried to pause once and ended up deep the in the bushes. I haven't had issues with the game.

[shadow82]

Hopefully the fixed it with the last patch, the same was happening if you re-started a stage in career mode, at the end the whole time you spent was added. It kind of discouraged me to try any further club races after seeing that bug though. Glad it might be working now.

Edit : link to bug report for proof https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/Time-is-being-added-without-any-reason-to-my-overall-time-in/m-p/13181174?attachment-id=757356#M1344