Formula One 2006: Championship Edition questions

nah, i dont think its really set up that way...

your tyres will go 'green' after the first lap...
just take it easy on them until then.

Automatic or manual shouldnt really hold you back, Im on a career mode with automatic, you'll actually end up losing time if your not used to manual.

I dont do parade laps, but a good way to heat your tires is to slow down then accelerate quickly while doin those quick turns.

The transition from medium to hard is quite steep in my opinion, the fastest times set by the AI in medium are the slowest time set by the slowest cars on hard.

Just make sure you've got braking/steering assist off tho.

Thanks for your input people. I appreciate it. The only help I have turned on is anti-lock brakes, all other help turned off (I once tried turning off that too but it made things really difficult and wore the tires down). With the PS2 version included I have now driven some 8000 laps so I'm no beginner. I like to think that I'm quite good actually although there will always be someone better around of course :)

I know that, as Sirilius pointed out, the difficulty curve is quite steep between medium and hard where what would be a gold time trial time would land you at the back of the grid on hard level. But there is a difference beteen steep and theoretically impossible. I just don't see how I could have done a faster lap than 1:20 flat on Silverstone for example with Ferrari and the AI is doing 1 whole second faster! Well not with automatic gears anyway. If I revved perfectly and a little harder with manual gears then maybe, maybe I could close that gap. Therefore, I suspect driving on hard level with automatic gear box is rather futile. I just cannot match the times the comp produces. I'm having a second driver seat at Super-Aguri and Sato constantly seem to outpace me with 1 second or more no matter how much I tweak the settings and push on. I tried putting in as clean laps as possible on the same course with the same settings with manual and automatic to see what the difference may be but my skills with manual gears are inhibiting the performance of a representable lap so far. So I'm still unsure of the difference although it seems rather small now (judging from reasonable stint as opposed to lap) after having assumed differently...

So I'm still thinking: Must I go manual on hard level? Did anyone ever take pole position on hard level with automatic gears with any team? Is it possible to be competitive with automatic gears on hard...? Did anyone do it?

I seriously doubt that Auto-gear is holding you back on hard. There are many people who can get pole position and win the race in Torro Rosso, dunno about super aguri though.

Im currently the first driver with super-aguri on hard in the 3rd round. Im more then capable of quafiliying around 13th, atleast getting into Q2. On hard, the car setup must be perfect. I practically run more then 80 laps in the practise section to tune my setup.

I found medium far too easy, after finishing the first season with torro rosso and getting a first seat with BMW, I was putting in more then 2-3 seconds ahead of the fastest car. I find it almost impossible to get a driving seat with torro rosso or midland in hard, so by no means am I expert. Even currently, Im struggling to find pace at sydney. But it happens, some course suits your style while others dont. I was surprised when I was able to poke my way into 10th for Bahrain and then 8th for sepang, running at 50%.

When it comes down to it, its all about practise.

I seriously doubt that Auto-gear is holding you back on hard. There are many people who can get pole position and win the race in Torro Rosso, dunno about super aguri though.

Im currently the first driver with super-aguri on hard in the 3rd round. Im more then capable of quafiliying around 13th, atleast getting into Q2. On hard, the car setup must be perfect. I practically run more then 80 laps in the practise section to tune my setup.

I found medium far too easy, after finishing the first season with torro rosso and getting a first seat with BMW, I was putting in more then 2-3 seconds ahead of the fastest car. I find it almost impossible to get a driving seat with torro rosso or midland in hard, so by no means am I expert. Even currently, Im struggling to find pace at sydney. But it happens, some course suits your style while others dont. I was surprised when I was able to poke my way into 10th for Bahrain and then 8th for sepang, running at 50%.

When it comes down to it, its all about practise.

Sirilius

I'm quite impressed by the high grid positions you've managed with Super-Aguri. Getting into Q2 is a distant dream for me as it is now...

I'm gonna do what you do and really take my time in practice and then run longer races to see where that leads me.

Done some more driving now. It seems I have a real hard time at Silverstone, but then again, Silverstone has always been difficult for me. Ended up lapped by pretty much everyone in the race after engine-tear and yellow wings front and back (only the front was my fault) forced a pitstop. So I took it easy focusing on just finishing the race since that matters for the team. Ended up 18th (last) because 4 cars DNF:ed and the team was so happy about this I was promoted to First driver (!). Next race Montreal. A track I have done much better in historically. And YES! Managed to place 16th after half Friday practice with a less than perfect lap! I'm much happier now that I've seen it can be done :)

I'll fight on at hard level now :)

lol thats good to hear. I run it at 50% track distance, which is why I take so long to refine my setup. I dont wanna slip up on my last stint just because I had too much negative camber which made me spin on a turn. Its all about consistency.

Im no expert at the car setup, only thing i fiddle around with is the wing adjustment, camber, toe-in and the gears. I've never touched tyre pressure and I always use soft tyres, never had any major tyre wear on the end of my stint, at worst the back tyre will start to go yellow on the last lap before pits.

I have yet to complete sydney, as I just cant find the right setting for the car, might just wing it and hope for the best, my low wing setting + slip streaming allows me to litterally rocket through many places in the beginning and then just defend till the end. One major thing I've learnt is to never rush to overtake, since running at 50% race distance, mistakes cost dearly, id rather finish a decent place then run into the back of someone while overtaking.

Ha! I managed to get into Q2 at the Malay GP. I even managed to knock Liuzzi down 1 place in Q2 and ended 15th on the grid. I just sat there staring at the standings screen real happy :)

I put in the best lap I have ever done at that track with Super Aguri at 1:18.700. Sirilus, what is the fastest lap you've done at Magyar Nagydij (Malay GP)? Just so that I can benchmark. I don't think I can drive much faster than that but if you've done like 1:18 flat or something then I know I have to think again about settings and driving. On an absolutely perfect lap with these settings I estimate I could do someting like 1:18.500 at best. And that is with stretch mentality :) I think I have good settings for this track. 57% wing on front, 55% on back and harder suspension (17) on rear wheels as well as harder rebound damping on back wheels. I found this helps enormously for the stability of the car on this bumpy track. -1.1 camber on front and -0.8 on back. I find overstear suits my driving better (but I guess that's is also why I have to stiffen up the rear of the car).

Any thoughts to help me out?

Ps. One thing is for sure though. The time it takes to find the right settings in this game and training to be competitive at hard level is so timeconsuming that I save the settings on an excelsheet as backup :) they are THAT valuable

another thing I noticed is that it is far better to let faster cars by then trying to hold them off. For example since one ends up at the end of the grid the tires won't cool as they will for the front runners. So my take-off is always better than the other field. So from my 15th position I shot up to 9th after the first turn. Good stuff hey? Not so. The type 10th qualifier are significantly faster and will push on so hard he will hit me sooner or later. Usually sooner. And of course that is what happened and into the barrier and "luckily enough" I only lost the front wing. Into pit, fill the car up and then drive the whole race from last postition with steadily wearing down tires. Of course, since Super Aguri don't demand anything, they were still exited about the 20nd position (last of finishing cars) I ended up with...

I probably should just try to keep cars up to .5 sec faster behind me in such a situation and the rest I should just drive aside and let them pass me. Or it will just end up in tears again.