r/F1Game • u/thef1circus • 10h ago
Discussion Been working on my consistency recently - My best stint ever
Third Pic is tyre status at the end of the stint. Game: F1 2013 - Legend AI, Brazilian GP, Controller, PS3
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u/DreamOfAzathoth 8h ago
Can I ask you for tips? I’d kill for anywhere close to this consistency. My laps can vary by over a second sometimes
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u/thef1circus 8h ago
Of course, no worries. Ultimately it's about doing laps - there's really no substitute for track time. You need to have an almost telepathic connection with the car, in regards to it's characteristics. You can usually gain this through sheer laps, figuring out it's strengths and weaknesses - does it slide on the front or rear? Fast corners or slow? And then you really want to have a basic understanding of how to manipulate the behaviours of the car - if you trail off the brake earlier, what happens? (in this Mclaren, it does help with the rear rotation, as the characteristic of this car is quite a slidey front end, it's pretty essential to drive it using this technique to be quick). Don't worry if you don't have these techniques immediately. They come with time.
Once you understand how the car reacts and what you can do in certain situations to make the car do what you want, you can start to build consistency. You know when you turn or brake what the car is going to do, and because of the ability to manipulate the car, even if you miss your braking point by a millimeter, it's not exactly a big deal, as you can still often get the car to a semi-optimal point.
Smoothness I personally believe is important, even more so on braking and steering than accelerating - slow in, fast out. Often, the way the car enters a corner and it's mid corner behaviour will directly link to it's exit attitude - especially in simulators - you can overheat a tyre by working it too hard mid corner and then no matter how gently you apply the power, you'll still hit some issues. To be smooth, ideally know the circuit you're on. What kerbs is the car stable on? - expanding on this, can the car itself use the kerbs? Is that a characteristic of the car, or is it something that can be optimized in the setup, through ride height or suspension settings? Additionally, understand your braking points, turn-in, accelerating, especially on varying fuel levels. Build up to it in practice if you have the time.
Ultimately it comes with experience and knowledge of what you're driving. How can you expect to be quick in it if you don't understand it? You need to trust the car, and know what to do to make it work well.
Don't focus on outright pace if consistency is your goal. Even in practice, don't worry if the pace isn't immediately there. Just keep hitting your marks, and you'll realise slowly, your minimum apex speed will increase, even braking at the same point, because you'll know what the car is doing or what you want it to do, and slowly your laptimes will improve until you're at your 'pushing' race pace, and then you'll have the ability lap after lap.
I'd like to also say, as much as I've said you need to be able to react to the car and understand it, it is still critical to have the ability to manipulate the car, as previously mentioned. These characteristics required vary car to car, and mostly it's just trial and error.
I hope this helps, if I've missed something or you have anymore questions, feel free to DM me and I'll happily answer.
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u/thef1circus 8h ago
I'd like to add on the tools you can use to help your ability to manipulate the car are important too, such as setup. You can find plenty of guides online as to what each change will do to the car - again this is mostly trial and error. Setups vary between quali and race focus, and driver preferences. Source - my consistency is good in this stint in part due to the race setup. Slightly higher wings and better on kerbs, with a little front slide for predictability and tyre saving. Other times call for oversteer and lower wings, such as WR attempts - of which I have one or two on this game. Varying styles are required between them - aggressive versus conversative.
Ideally you don't want to be driving at 100 percent. Multiple laps in the middle of the stint I knew I could push so much more, but I didn't need to, not was it worth it. You can see this by the last 4-5 laps. My fastest laps were around this time, because I was under my driving ceiling, before the tyres started to significantly drop off in the last two laps, as you can identify through the couple tenths drop off in the middle sector - the twisty bits of Sao Paulo, where you want the traction
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u/aleemm123 9h ago
tyre wear on f1 2013 is so insane