F1 noob question

[zamoy72]

Hi guys,
First of all I am new to F1 and played only few hours so please bear with me.

I play on easy and have problems with second race in career mode (Sepang). I followed set up guide (for dry) found here:

F1 2013 - Setups 

A Guide for F1 2013

By: Dominik 95 PL

Setups for every track, weather and type of race with some movies:)

and had no problems achieving pole position for the race.

The race is 14 laps and the tires strategy is to change at lap 8 from softs to hards (if I do recall) . I lose my 1st position before 1st turn and I am able to maintain 3rd until lap 4-5 when tires are degrading so much that I spin at corners, need to slow down and everybody is taking me over and I drop to around 20th place before the pit stop. The car handles totaly differently than in practice or qualifying runs.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

[Mintar]

Hi, just a few things to consider here:
Congratulations on pole position. What car are you driving though ? It will be quite difficult to stay in front in a slower car, such as the Toro Rosso (which is what I used in my first career season). That is normal. Also, the tyre wear of a backmarker team might be higher than for other teams. In my experience, this is bad, but manageable.

Setups are car specific too, it might be that the setups for the Mercedes or Caterham in that guide do not match your current car. Also, it is normal for the car to behave somewhat different in a race, due to the amount fuel on board, compared to qualifying.

If the race is 14 laps, you should probably drive around 6 laps on options (the softer tyres) and 8 laps on primes (the harder tyres) instead of doing 8 laps on the soft tyres as you wrote.
Plus, in your race, you will start on the tyres that you qualified on, so try to do your qualifying lap in a single lap, don't try to do a few laps on them to improve your time. If you need to improve your time in qualifying, get new tyres and again do 1 fast lap only, so the tyre is still at good health for the race.
Hope it helps, and good luck with your races.

[zamoy72]

Thanks for your reply and advice. I am driving for Toro Rosso.
Looks like I killed my option tyres during qualifying since I did not realze that I would need to use them for the race. Anyway, changed my tyre strategy to pit after lap 4, I used KERS properly at 3-5 gear and managed to be 1st in 1st corner. After tyre change I did drop to position 19th but regained most of it since all were pit stopping at lap 7-8. Then there was rain forecast at lap 8 I think, rain appeared at lap 10 and I changed to intermediates immediately when felt that I am losing grip. I did drop to 10th at pit but easily overtook everybody at next lap as it was raining quite strongly and cars were slow or pit stoping for intermediates. I was leading the race until the final lap where I felt that tyres were slipping and unfortunately one mistake costed me 2 positions. However, I did manage to take my first podium - 3rd place. Hurah!!!

[AgentRuby]

Some things to help you out.

Hopefully, you are manually shifting.

When you downshift there are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Always use the brake first and listen for the engine to come down for really slow turns.
2. When you do your downshifting for that big turn most likely you will be in 7th grear.
3. Start downshifting and counting at the same time 123456 like that or in this case I would only come down to 2nd for this turn so it would be 12345. Get used to leaving that last gear coming down hanging, and only go to it after the turn is mostly done. So it would be like 1234--5 coming down.
4. When you are downshifting to that last gear make sure that you do it in such a way that will not make the car slide out to the right.
5. One cause for that would be too much speed and the other most likely cause is that you were down shifting when your car was at a vulnerable moment such as the turn. Never downshift in the turn until you really know how to feather the throttle and be sure that you can do it without feeling the car lurch forward. Anything that upsets the car will cause wheel spin or sliding and it will cause more tyre wear.
6.Always think balance when you are turning. Say to yourself while turning "am I balanced?". Am I going at a speed that will allow me to cleanly make it around the corner in order to have the fastest possible exit speed?
7. Another problem that I have seen in most online setups is that they always seem to use 48F and 52R for brakes. The problem is that when braking, the car will seem to turn better while braking, when in actuallity if you look close enough, the car's rear is sliding out which is really bad for the tyers. A lot of setups are good but always make sure to change the brakes to balance 50 50 or possibly slightly to the front. Pay attention to the car for any wacky movements while braking. That is the hint that you should change the brakes. Nevermind about pressures for now because it really depends on the track. For instance, on Monaco I like to keep it on low pressure because of the first turn and I hate to slide.

[zamoy72]

Thanks for your advice - I will be moving to manual downshifting when I get hold of everything that is happening - right now it is like first driving lesson when one looks down to gearbox when shifting instead of looking at the road...lol.

[AgentRuby]

I was racing on monza today and I noticed something very helpful and important. It's one thing to know where the braking points are and there are many hints about braking points throughout all of the tracks if you look close enough. What stood out to me today and it may seem like common sense but I never thought about it until now. Those little markers with the yards written on them which I never really used until Legend mode. The last little marker, when you come into line with that or just a little bit before, all of your braking should be done and if you manually shift, all of your shifting should be done to. Even if you were still in forth because you downshifted too late. Your still fine as long as you keep braking and stop shifting after that last little marker. But save that stuff for later except for the braking. Just to repeat once. get all braking done when the last little marker is really close. This means you already started braking at some point.

Let's do it like this just for learning purposes.

1. The first marker, let go of the throttle and simultaneously start to brake
2. 2nd marker , brake a little more
3. 3rd marker, braking a little more and done

[zamoy72]

Thank you. Your breaking technique advice is very helpful. I tried it today during practice, qualifications and race in Bahrain and the car handled much better in the corners and in the exit.

I am still on easy with automatic gearbox - I tried 3 laps time trial in Monaco with all assist off except for racing line and I think it is stil to early for me - I was sliding, hitting walls, etc.

[AgentRuby]

For now I would keep abs on simply because without that you will have to micromanage the brakes. For instance on that very first turn it's not really a stop turn. So with that being said forward brakes are a no go. Rear brakes are also a no go depending on where you brake. It's so easy to slide there. For Monaco on that first straight and on quite a few spots on the track you will want to really listen to the engine and if sounds like it wants to stay at a certain speed by making a constant drone sound then leave it at that speed and always listen for that because it will help to make turns more efficient. Oh, and make sure that you practice quick shifting to keep the engine cool and that keeps the engine wear down which means while others are hammering the throttle and you hear thir engines crying, they are, and you will notice that when you are passing them in the later laps, while they are still trying to hit 200mph in 2nd gear.

For brake management. Something to experiment with.

1.Fast turns = rear brakes
2. medium fast turns = center brakes sometimes and that needs experimenting.
3. Stop turns or UTURNS like on the korea track for instance after the long straight. Forward brakes all the way and you should set it to forward somewhere in the middle of the straight so you don't have to be stressed about it.

The way you will know you are wrong with rear or center brakes. Mostly rear. Is that the cars rear will slide around the turn. That causes major tyre wear. While at first it can be decieving and it may cause you to think that you made a good turn but if it's sliding, switch to front brakes on the really slow stop turns. There are some in Brazil like that to. But you shouldn't have to worry about that stuff if you just keep abs on for now but then again it can help even with abs. It's just a lot to manage.

[Tzukasa]

Originally posted by ...:

Thank you. Your breaking technique advice is very helpful. I tried it today during practice, qualifications and race in Bahrain and the car handled much better in the corners and in the exit.

I am still on easy with automatic gearbox - I tried 3 laps time trial in Monaco with all assist off except for racing line and I think it is stil to early for me - I was sliding, hitting walls, etc.

If you're still working on this I'd also recommend using the ABS setting and the Traction Control to at least Medium, do that with Manual + Suggested it will help you keep from sliding around. Also the nice thing with that gear box setting is there is a light that tells you which gear you should be in for each corner so you arn't always guessing. You'll see that you're in 7th gear and next to that a red backed number 2 which means when you get to the corner you'll need to shift down 5 times. Also using manual instead of automatic will help Immensly with fuel useage and tire ware problems as you can shift early to save fuel and keep from burning tires out so quickly. Once you get the hang of just remembering you need to down shift while brakeing (which you'll learn pretty quickly) and when (how early) to upshift to convserve fuel/tires, you'll see a marked improvement in your performance all around.

[zamoy72]

Thanks for your feedback.

I am still playing but decided to finish my first season with current 'novice' approach. I got the second upgrade to my car and now regulary winning pole positions and last two races (Germany/Hungay) I managed to lead from start to finish taking my first wins in the season.
I received an offer from Sauber but decided not to take it - not sure if that was right decsion.

In the next season I am swicthing to manual gearbox and abs/tac set to medium as advised.