Assetto Corsa Round 1 Imola

Fine with me ! Let's try it

 

Some guys here are absolutely aliens .. Tim was at another dimension, I watched the replay several times to see how he drives... I just cant do it.- lol.. At the early laps I did a couple of mistakes and I got my self at the very back.. I tried to come back but then I had a small contact with Paul and I got last again about 15 secs away from the next guy.. I tried to be concentrated and I managed to do some good laps around 2:06 and 2:07.. Finally my 8th place was a miracle - at least I didn't finish last Was a great joy for me, thank you all and I hope to be here at the next race

 

Tim, Davide & Laurent. They qualified in that order and finished the same. Well done, lads. Tim just dynamite out there.
I had an eventful and entertaining race. T-boned Ed in an early lap which damaged my Alfa seemingly not at all despite obvious nose damage. Sorry to see Ed retire on the spot. Later, a spin in almost the same place while glancing at my leaderboard display. Note to self: Keep your eyes on the bloody road! Still later, a spin exiting the last chicane which took me by surprise. Dropped a place thanks to that and never recovered. Even after these offs, I managed a best lap some four seconds better than anything laid down in pre-race trails. That can't be bad.
The little Alfa 33 quite a fun ride. Looking forward to more action at Silverstone.
Doni

 

I really enjoyed last night, these cars have been in my top 5 since they came out and really didn't disappoint!
Don't think I've ever driven one on full tanks and was amazed how nice it remained - I actually found you could carry more speed into Aqua minerali as the car seemed more stable (I still lost it there 20 mins in though ).
Davide did a great job of keeping me honest in the first half of the race, although I was slightly faster and pulling away by a few tenths a lap on average he was close and consistent enough to worry me.

Well done to Laurent on taking third and to all who managed to finish.

On a trackday I could help (I often do with my mates), but it's not so easy in a sim. I can't type fast enough and the person i'm trying to help won't be able to read my comments at the right time

Normally in AC all I can do is encourage people to watch the lines of faster drivers and try to explain the effects of the setup options (the real life effects as I understand them at least - although AC seems to do a pretty good job of replicating them).

From the point of view of racing lines :
Firstly, you don't have to emulate my lines, or Davides, or Laurents. Certainly not at first if you're 5 seconds or so back - pick someone who's consistent and lapping only 2 seconds or so faster.
Someone at that pace may have similar control to you but will likely make the time with better lines.
Secondly, when I say lines I mean the whole deal, brake points and throttle points included - sometimes it's as important not to brake or accelerate somewhere as it can be to turn in the right place! (turn on the pedals app and watch me through Tosa in the final 20 minutes of the race (when I'd finally sussed it properly), before that I was trying to dance the car through using brakes and throttle to step the back out. By the end of the race I'd found a line that didn't require anything more than the normal light tail braking on entry, speed was maintained by just coasting to, and slightly beyond, the apex. I could then exit at full throttle - according to the live timing app the better line was an improvement of nearly half a second over my earlier 'fighting' method, and better yet it was consistent unlike the previous method.

For setup there's not much available on these.
Get Protires to work out the tire pressures you want.
For camber they don't seem too bad stock, I think I only added 0.1/0.2 negative to the front right, maybe a tiny bit to front left. I didn't touch the rears.

Toe is harder as you adjust it to suit the track first, and your own style 2nd. If you can't find a happy medium then you just have to drive around it.
These cars have an open diff, so don't go silly on large positive or negative rear values - it might make you faster but the car will become much harder on the limit. Over an hour falling off a few times because the car is fighting you will be slower than having a slightly slower but stable car.
I think I had 0 degrees rear, this helped me turn under power but meant I had to be very careful breaking mid corner (it's part of why I span at acqua minerali).
Rev limit can be raised to 102% before engine damage starts, and although they can't be adjusted in the setup - the brake bias can be adjusted in car.
Default is 54% front, I was running 50/50 for most of the race.

Beyond this I don't think I can help any more!

 

Only decided to get out of bed and run this race literally a minute before the start. Glad I did as this car is great to drive. I gave up on the H-Pattern shifter as I knew from practice that I wouldn't make it to the end as every downshift was causing damage to the gearbox. I don't have the movement or dexterity in my legs and feet to dance on the pedals heel and toeing. I've tried but it always ends in disaster. This car seems very prone to gearbox damage as I drove the GPL 67 cars with the H-Pattern doing clutch-less downshifts and I managed a whole race with minimal damage. Driving flappy paddle you don't get any damage so its a huge advantage. Why AC went down this route of forcing the clutch to be used I don't know. rFactor 2 doesn't force it and its a joy. One more thing I don't like about AC. Damn this sim is so close to being great. I almost gave up racing this sim but this week I found the best reason to keep driving and that's 'Pop-up Headlights'. I drove a Toyota MR2 MKI (I used to own one. Excellent fun motor) and I just sat in the pits switching the headlights on and off. Little things.

As for the race the first few laps showed how much practice I hadn't done. I got tagged from behind at one point and caused a bit of mayhem. Sorry to all who got caught up in it. Finished 6th which was a distorted position considering how slow I was to the top guys.

Well done Tim.

Ken can we take out the motor in Tim's car and make him pedal the next race.

 

You could have waited for me a bit dude... honestly, I don't feel really comfortable with this car, too light on the front end, always a bit too understeering, doesn't allow me to throw the bodyweight the way I want. Good fun tho. Well done all.
Tim, are you using H-shifter or paddles for this one?

 

@Paul Anstey Weird, I'm also driving the H-shifter in this one and don't really have issue with the clutch. Maybe you are releasing the clutch too soon ? Whether you need to use heel-and-toe depends on when you downshift. I'd say H-shifter was harder with the GPL '67 cars. Not sure how you managed to do clutch-less downshifts in those ..

 

For the GPL cars I could wait for the revs to drop but this car the revs don't die away quickly enough so its more difficult. I couldn't find a way of doing it that didn't cause damage. I'll give it another try before the next race.

 

Davide - I'm driving H-shifter and clutch (I always drive the gearbox type the car has).
I noticed in the replay that you were running at 106% of the rev limiter - were you slowing near the end due to engine damage or just the car going away from you? I decided not to risk an hour with full revs available.

Paul - are you sure you aren't simply trying to change down too soon? Sequential mode won't let you do this so you won't over rev or rush anything - in manual there's nothing to stop you going from 6th to reverse

The only other possibility is that your clutch pedal is playing up (this has happened to me in GPL a few times). Go into the controls screen so you can see your inputs and then spend a minute or 2 pretending to drive. watch what the clutch is up to in-between and during gear changes throughout.
If the pot is getting grubby on your pedals you might find that the pedal is giving false signals, that can cause gearbox damage during shifts through no fault of either your own or AC's. You can adjust the dead zone to compensate until you clean the pedals and pots out.

And on a more important note - where did you find the MR2? I've never owned one but have driven a few Mk1's on track that belong to friends - they're great fun.
If you like pop ups go find the 180SX, I can send you a setup for the stage 3 tuned version that stops it being a drift hooligan and turns it into something more of a track rocket (I modelled the setup on my own car - frankly I'm amazed how close it now is to the real thing).
The standard tune is also pretty much bang on the money for standard 180 too, bridge to Gantry is within 10 seconds of real life times (In favour of AC - who would have thought I push harder when I can't die!).
Just make sure you change the engine sounds to something really dull and lifeless (I'm using the Kunos Audi S1 road car) as SR20's always sound horrific...

 

You can find it here
https://assettoland.wixsite.com/assettoland/toyota

 

I put rev limiter on 104 only for not shifting into 5th gear on the straight. I did not have engine damage from it. Maybe if I braked later into T1.. Other than that I ran default setup. There is not much to setup and I didn't really try, the base setup seemed to work quite well imo.

Qualifying : P3. Seeing I was less than a tenth off Davide's time, I could have had a go at P2 as there was more pace on a clean lap. I ran out of fuel for my last lap in qualy.

Race : Bad start since I dropped the revs too much on the line. Maxime had a bad start as well and I was able to hold P3. Lonely race from start to finish. I could have pushed more at the start and try to keep with Davide but I was too cautious. With the extra fuel the car was really stable and could be pushed harder.

I'm having some issues with my VR performance lately.. may be due to oculus updates, CSP or Sol.. I need to find what it is because at times it just drops too much. I'm glad I was not in the middle of battles with this performance.

 

Same here mate, I never got why AC allows paddles on H-shifter cars, it's a huge advantage for those who use it...

Indeed, I did the same, tho I had to lift a bit at halfway through the race because I was running out of engine...

 

Since the top 3 is using H-shifter it can't be that much of a disadvantage other than risking damage. And even if it was a big disadvantage I would still use it ..

 

Agree, usually who races vintage cars rather drive the proper way anyway. This is what comes in my mind when someone drives a vintage car with paddles...

 

I had a go earlier today - I made double sure that auto-clutch was off as it should have been (It was) and then took the Alfa for a few laps of Imola without heal-and-toeing anywhere. I would just brake, use the clutch and down shift like you do in a road car when driving in wellies.
Worked fine for me apart from the car nearly throwing me into the scenery a few times when the rears tried to brake traction!
I then did the same thing in a '67 BRM with the same result, apart from actually crashing this time..

I think you should perform the controls check I suggested. If the pedal is only just starting to let go then it may take a while in a session to show itself.
Best thing you can do is put the pedals app somewhere in your line of view and then go practice for whatever your next race is - for some reason the replays don't seem to record clutch usage, but it does work in the app on a live session.

If that doesn't show anything then you may just be too quick on/off the clutch, or even slightly too late onto it can have the same effect if you have any throttle on (check that for poor behavior too).

Hope that helps

 

Think it's in the generic tab

 

Thanks Tim. My pedals are in need of a clean as my clutch pedal is squeezing. However I have checked it and it appears to work fine. I will do as you suggest. I suspect in may just be down to me and getting the timing right. Need to do more practice

 

Thank you for your excuses. We all know what is race-start/pack excitation..

I did watch the replay, not entirely and not everywhere ofc, but I have to say I saw quite a number of erratic or guilty behaviours, but didn't see anyone giving any place back or any self-imposed drive-thought, which is a bit worrying imho.
Everyone can make a mistake, but if we do, we have to demonstrate 1st) we feel guilty and sorry, 2nd) we are going to self-impose any proportional panalty, at the very least that we don't take advantage of what we did. If not races will always be messy, as mess is also appealing to more mess.
Then sometimes it's hard for human being to keep self-control and to have a wise opinion on what exactly happened, it can also depend on the interface stuff (single screen, triple, VR for exemple), so we need to watch the replay, objectively admit any clear fault, and we have to self-impose a penalty the race after (generally a drive-through, following the rules).

Race report :
Did a pretty bad start from 4th, then got spunt in Villeneuve variant, restarted from last or something. Race was quite fun then trying to catch back top 6 asap. I did 2 stupid-noobish average faults trying to catch my friend Jos, so that I ended 5th, 2 tenghs behind him.