Most important stats for a driver?

[Mokona]

So im just very confused by how my driver is doing so bad.

stats
Driver 1/Driver 2
Break 5/Break 20
corner 8/corner 20
smooth 14/smooth 2
overtak 9/overtak 7
consist 12/consist 4
adapt 6/adapt 2
fit 4/fit 8
feed 13/feed 3
focus 7/focus 15

car difference in favor of driver 2
Breaks 30
Engine 40
gearbox 50
suspen 10

Positions at the start of each race Driver 1 3/4, Driver 2 1st. Within the first 3 laps driver 2 will drop down to at least position 10 but usually to 16 or less. Driver 1 will take over 1st or fight for 2nd and hold these positions until the pit. Driver 2 has the better mechanic with the minimum stat being 4 where as driver 1 has 0-2 stats. All pit stops are fast with almost no mistakes happening ever and for 2 of the races they had same tire change outs. Strategy is the same for both drivers with only 1 fuel difference for split pit stops. Driver 2 for 3 out of the 4 races was "feeling better" then driver 1 sitting at about 8 where driver 1 was sitting about 6. In the 4 races I ran driver 1 would always finish above driver 2 by at least 10 seconds and has even been able to sit in 13 place for 2 of those races where driver 2 is always 18 or less.

Considering everything driver 2 should by far be the better driver with the better car. Overtaking is the only real problem but when you are 1st place at the start of the race overtaking doesnt mean anything. I was expecting this driver to at least get 14th but hes not coming anywhere near it. What exactly is wrong?

[Kapika96]

Firstly, smoothness makes a huge difference. Tires lasting longer, and getting better performance from those tires for a longer period, is very important. That big a difference could potentially even mean driver 1 could do a race with 1 less pitstop than driver 2, that saves around 35 seconds minimum.

Consistency is also very important. You want your driver to be performing as well as they can for as long as they can, not just every now and then

Looks like driver 2 is better on a one off lap, while driver 1 is better over a race. That's reflected in the stats and also seems to be reflected in your race results. Maybe it's time to give driver 1 the better car instead and look into replacing driver 2?

[Mokona]

Funny thing, I switched the parts around at the start of my new season and now the drivers are driving about the same which means driver 2 is driving better with worse parts while driver 1 is driving worse with better parts. Maybe the mod that randomizes stats is bugged and not showing the correct stats or something.

[domharrison69]

Driver form impacts this too, and that will fluctuate with the race. There is a bug around how you allocate cars between drivers, sometimes the aren;t given the correct car and you typically can see this is happening if you struggle to allocate drivers in practise sessions.

[Maya-Neko]

Braking and Cornering pretty much defines the overall speed of the driver, so they're pretty much the most important stats.

Smoothness helps to improve the ability to save tires and might be essential to be able to make one less pit stop. But don't look at it that much. If the driver is bad at everything else, he/she might still loose more time on track than saving by one less pit stop.

Overtaking will obviously help while overtaking. So it's important, when you expect to overtake many people like in reversed or random grid orders. On the other hand it gets less important, when you're leading most of the time anyway. Help the driver to overtake with the engine mode in that case.

Consistency will determine, how good they're at hitting their top performance consistently. It's therefore quite important for qualifying sessions, but should also come in handy when you've rivals of equal pace in a race.

Adaptability will help the driver in case of changing weather. Not that important in my opinion, as it's heavily RNG based, when you get rain. But don't ignore it completely, as it also affects the drivers speed after a setup change.

Fitness will determine the drop of performance over the course of the race. If it's too low, the driver might get overtaken more often at the end of a race.

Feedback helps you to to generate points in practice. Keep in mind, that you can also use your reserve driver in training, so one of the main drivers can have a lower feedback, if your reserve driver does have a high feedback value.

Focus will determine, how many mistakes they make. Not that important to get it maxed out, but a driver with low numbers will eventually crash more often.

------

So overall i would say:

Braking/Cornering > Smoothness/Feedback > Fitness/Consistency > Adaptability/Focus/Overtaking

It's my opinion though. Feel free to post your priority list^^

[sonar1313]

Smoothness for me is THE most important factor. You should be laser-focused on reducing pit stops. One extra pit stop that you didn't need to take is a killer. High smoothness also gives you more strategy options. You can have your drivers be more aggressive and not conserve so much, and you can stretch out rain tires if you have a long stretch of bad weather. (Or slick tires if you have a long stretch of good weather between rain.) Smoothness is king.

Braking, cornering, and overtaking are all about speed. Overtaking is very important because there's nothing more frustrating than being stuck behind a slow driver for several laps while the front of the pack stretches out.

Focus is very nice to have because crashes will ruin your whole day. Feedback is important, but the difference between a 10% bonus and 15% bonus isn't much. You can spare a driver with lousy feedback if you have a reserve with good feedback. In fact, unless I have two drivers at like 18 or higher, I always find a reserve with feedback higher than one of my drivers. So you can ignore feedback in one of your top two.

Consistency and fitness are not that important. You will likely not notice the difference between drivers with bad or good traits here. Consistency helps your drivers lap times remain steady, but only in a vacuum. Lots of other things affect lap times, particularly your tires and traffic. Fitness helps them stay strong in the late stages of a race, but by then, it doesn't matter much except on those rare occasions you're in a tight race for position at the end. More often than not, things have been decided by then.

Adaptability is almost useless. Get the right tires on the car and it won't matter. If you time pit stops correctly, your driver's adaptability will matter not at all.

So, in order:

1. Smoothness (dictates your entire strategy)
2/3/4. Braking/cornering/overtaking (makes your driver go fast)
5. Focus (fewer crashes, but they're relatively rare anyway, and 20 focus won't prevent them all)
6. Feedback (handy, but can be worked around with good driver hiring)
7/8. Consistency/fitness (matters only in certain instances)
9. Adaptability (nail your pit stops and this won't matter at all)

[Maya-Neko]

Smoothness will only be adventageous, as long as you're able to get a one stop out of it though, but everything beyond that only has diminishing returns. And there are many things, which might lower the importance of smoothness.

My first driver has 19/18/14 (braking/cornering/smoothness), while my second driver gets to 4/7/19. The first driver is still able to pull off a one stop in most races and finishes way above my second driver in most races, where i didn't make a mistake or have other problems with my first driver.
So it doesn't really make sense to look for another driver with an even bigger smoothness level, if i've to sacrifice a significant amount of speed for it.

Having both is obviously the ideal point though, so the best strategy might be a good mix of both, instead of just beelining one of it^^

[Polylog]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Smoothness will only be adventageous, as long as you're able to get a one stop out of it though, but everything beyond that only has diminishing returns. And there are many things, which might lower the importance of smoothness.

My first driver has 19/18/14 (braking/cornering/smoothness), while my second driver gets to 4/7/19. The first driver is still able to pull off a one stop in most races and finishes way above my second driver in most races, where i didn't make a mistake or have other problems with my first driver.
So it doesn't really make sense to look for another driver with an even bigger smoothness level, if i've to sacrifice a significant amount of speed for it.

Having both is obviously the ideal point though, so the best strategy might be a good mix of both, instead of just beelining one of it^^

I disagree, smoothness also helps run the car on good tire conditions for longer. Say I run a 2 stop strategy on soft tires, it makes a huge difference if my driver comes in on 10% every time or at 20%.

In your example, your first driver has way more total stats compared to the second, that definitely plays a role as well. I'm not saying max smoothness before everything else, but if I can get a point in smoothness or cornering, I take smoothness every time.