Quote from Jertje :

I didn't want to respond to your post originally, as I don't want to come over as the defensive iRacing-crusader on the LS forums when you (re)raise some valid arguments, but If the flag drops after you have crossed the line, the lap definitely counts! I myself am a master at driving like a muppet until I see a chequered flag, and have driven plenty of valid qualify-times in the very last lap of the session, as people were disconnecting.

All your other points are based on opinions really; I don't mind the SR system, and will race everybody and anything, anywhere, even though I am almost at 4.99 rating D level and rising. Just out of curiosity, why do you want a hardcore reset-option that resets your lap counter, but you do mind the 'harsh' SR system?

The sim definitely has some major missing elements, such as the mentioned split times, replay saving, flags, pitstops and the missing European tracks, but all other mentioned items are just things that are not really needed to make a great sim - who really cares about having a track map or names over cars? At some point you just know the track, and also the people you're racing with based on their paint scheme.

Of course my views are based on opinions, isn't that the point?

You're right that some points are very minor as it's just an unordered list with the intention of summing up my iRacing experience. I didn't want to make an ultra long post that nobody would read but let's discuss the points you're interested in.

Quali Flag: maybe there was another reason why my laps didn't count. Do SR penalties for using too much curb cause this?

Car reset and SR: car reset just destroys any feeling of immersion and the fact that the laps don't get reset means there is no reason at all to drive into the pits yourself. Although I'm not sure, do you even get repaired if drive into the pits without reset? I don't really know what connection you make between what I said about resets and what I said about SR. For me the SR is just too difficult. The highest I ever had was 3.0 rookie but it dropped down to 2.3 in between and is now back to 2.5. In 2 of my last 4 races I was tapped from the side on the straight right after the start (ruining my car) and in the other 2 people spun in front of me before the first corner. Add in that I get penalties for using curbs about once a lap and it's not surprising I'm having problems with SR. The highest SR gain I ever got, after an almost perfect race, was +0.1. That means I would need about 15 hours of uninterrupted, perfect racing before I'm even allowed to race the skip barber that I paid 15$ for...

Track map and names over cars: the way I drive in LFS is shift-F mode all the time, with shift-F and some other HUD controls mapped to my wheel. When I need some specific information I shift-F, have a look, and turn it off again. Sort of like a pit board. In iRacing I find it difficult to get the information I need. If I don't even see the names of the drivers I might as well be racing against AI. In real racing you know your 20 odd opponents and what they look like before you even get to the track. Again, it's just some info I switch on for a moment when I need the info so I fail to see how that detracts from the pureness of the sim. Track map is the same thing. It just helps you see what's going on in the race, information that you would get via radio/pitboard in real racing. Right now in iRacing you need to navigate through F1/F3 menus to get any useful race information.

All that said, the most important part of any sim is of course the physics. What's a shame here is that after being thrilled during my first few outings, the more I drive now the less I like it. The feel is great but once you try to really get on the limit and reduce lap times I feel that the physics encourage you to use unrealistic driving styles such as always staying on the throttle a little bit, using loads of steering lock to balance and slow down the car and yanking the car into oversteer by banging down the gears.

And there is definitely an issue with the way the game responds to my brake pedal. I spent some time looking at the bar graphs during braking and the brake pedal often jumps to full depression when I'm only at about half way travel. I checked in the driver and in LFS and it's not a problem with my pedal.

Bottom line is that any sim is only as good as its tyre model and I'm not sure that statistic based models are ever going to be good enough. And before you flame me, no LFS physics aren't perfect either not they're not far behind and better in some areas.

Grats and nice driving. The track looks a bit nuts in an F3, almost like driving on a country road.

What class are you doing next year?

Been trying it a bit, not too happy with it, certainly not for that kind of money.


Quick list of points:

-Tracks are fantastic, look great, mega accurate, fun to drive, LFS' main drawback.

-Physics feel very nice in the Solstice, but still has the typical fundamental GPL problems (use steering-induced understeer to go fast, use lot's of throttle under braking to improve balance).

-Great force feedback.

-Skip barber feels horrible, counter the turn-in oversteer by mashing the throttle, wtf?

-No brake force adjustments, wheels lockup all the time.

-Penalties for using the curbs are outright infuriating, last corner of Laguna anyone?

-Security rating is way too hard to improve, makes you scared of racing, maybe it was easier when there were less drivers in the beta.

-Extremely annoying security rating messages that come up in your face and can't be disabled

-Damage is ridiculous, get tapped on the rear, steering is bent, handling gone.

-Ugly, badly positioned HUD elements that can't be configured (needs LFS shift-f mode)

-No flags!

-Lack of information (I want the LFS track map).

-No names over cars to identify drivers.

-Reset allowed, teleport to pits doesn't even reset your lap counter, wtf?

-FPS counter keeps coming back on after I switch it off.

-Inconsistent framerate (40-110 fps) even at lowest settings, including some severe stutters.

-No replay saving.

-No data recording/analysis.

-Audio volume way to low, unadjustable, need to crank up my speakers until they hiss.

-In Quali a lap started shortly before the chequered doesn't count, wtf?

-Lack of European cars and tracks, stuff like Spa, Brands, GP2, DTM, F3 aren't on any list of future projects.

-Adds a service to Windows startup.

-Forced DirectX install.

-No split timing.


Uh, that's a longer list of issues that I thought it was going to be. Basically I think I would want either a mature version that doesn't feel like a beta and has tyre physics improvements or a light version that is a lot cheaper and limits me to driving offline, for the sake of the excellent tracks.

Last edited by J.B., Wed 10 Sep 2008, 20:30.

If there had been an armco instead of runoff I think Kimi would have left more room or both cars would be out.

Quote from amp88 :

There's been a lot of talk about the overtaking incident but a lot less about Hamilton's weaving after the incident. David Hobbs on the SPEED coverage mentioned this at the time. If you watch it he definitely made 3 moves and possibly 4 on the straight. Raikkonen initially followed him for the first couple so he was trying to slipstream back past. Even if Hamilton didn't deserve the penalty for the chicane incident, should he have got it for weaving?

True, the weaving was a bit dodgy but not penalty worthy as he wasn't blocking Kimi by doing it. In fact I believe it may have been an angry reaction to Kimi ramming his front wing into Lewis' rear tyre in La Source, which was by far the most dangerous and unsporting move of the day.

And samjh thanks for the new perspective and picture analysis. I have to concede that AdamW was right to be very careful with respect to camera angles. But even if he is a bit less ahead than I though, the fact that he is ahead under braking at all still means that the idea that he should go through the chicane behind Kimi is absurd. It's either side by side, crash or one car leaves the track.

The real issue that nobody is talking about though is who are these steward guys anyway? They certainly don't have any credentials that should allow them to make sporting decisions like this one. How long is F1 going to continue letting amateurs make important decisions, having rules that are so poorly defined that consistent penalties are impossible, having guys in their eighties in the most powerful positions, having a leading representative who is known to enjoy twisted sado sex? F1 is stuck in the past and needs to catch up with modern times. I'm not watching until they do.

Quote from samjh :

Massa, naturally, thinks otherwise:
http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news ... ove-was-optimistic-massa/

But who cares about Massa's opinion. He's the guy who said in Valencia that Sutil had no right to do 80 km/h in the fast lane of the pit lane because he was a backmarker.

Last edited by J.B., Tue 9 Sep 2008, 08:16.

Quote from AdamW :

It doesn't show anything because it's an angled shot with no useful reference point. Remember watching rowing at the Olympics?

Right, but the cars are much too close to each other for such an effect to be relevant. I didn't see rowing but I know they don't race right next to each other.

Quote from diablo21 :

That pic shows nothing..

It shows just how far ahead Lewis was under braking. It shows how ridiculous the idea is that he should have tucked in behind Kimi at the apex.

Quote from Mustafur :

Actually there was. If you see the replay Lewis could of stayed on the track and not hit either if he had of slowed right down at the apex.

At the apex of the right hander? Are you kidding? He was trying to overtake and had much more momentum and braked much later. Are you saying he wasn't even supposed to try to overtake? When you're this far in front at the entry I don't see how or why you could possibly slow down enough to tuck in behind the other guy at the apex:

Quote from Shotglass :

there was no contact whatsoever in the chicane... stop making things up

There wasn't, but only because Lewis took evasive action. There's no way they could both have stayed on the track without contact, I'm not sure what you're seeing in your screenshots.

May well have been the last F1 race I ever watch.

Wow, what a race! Great stuff by Hamilton, even though he was quite lucky considering how often he left the track.

Here's a Premiere stream of the battle between Lewis and Kimi, lot's of onboard: Click

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

We DO have skilled drivers, just they have no money. So simple. We had one to be honest, Zsolt Baumgartner, he was at Minardi a few years ago. He had to stop racing there due to the lack of money. That's Hungary... Britain is the home of motorsports. The money is over there. NOW... CASE CLOSED

Err, no. Baumgartner didn't drop out of F1 because of lack of money, he got into F1 because of his wealthy dad.

They only showed the second half of the pole lap on the onboard channel but it was a beautiful piece of driving so here you go: click

Last edited by J.B., Sat 6 Sep 2008, 16:20.

Quote from zeugnimod :

Yeah, and this, of course!

This is teh bestest.

Quote from Biohazard :

i did not intend to appear disrespectful. i just wondered what makes this plane crash different compared to all the others that obviously do not deserve a thread and thus respect for the victims.

I think the answer is that plane crashes with massive loss of human life aren't as common as you seem to think.

See the list here.

In fact Madrid is the worst plane crash on European soil since 1988. That's worthy of a thread I'd say.

But I understand your curiosity and don't think any of the name calling was justified. Looking at the list though, the real question is how can the rest of the world be content with having such an appalling safety record compared to Europe? All you have to do really is follow maintenance rules and let the pilots do their jo by the book.

Quote from BurnOut69 :

Same technique, just walk in

Not in F1 you don't. Maybe 20 years ago.

Quote from NitroNitrous :

I use my nickname, iRacing doesn´t know my real name and there is no problem

Good to know. But since you must have used a credit card, how come they didn't use that name?

Yes, but I don't have to tell anyone that data to use the card.

Quote from Jertje :

The name on your Credit Card is used, so unless you're committing somekind of credit fraud and have your CC registered under a false identity you'll be in the system with your real name

Perhaps if there is a major privacy issue the iRacing team would be willing to allow an alias? It's a very far-fetched idea and I hadn't thought of it really, but they are able to change names, and if you can argue your point it might work

Name on the credit card? My full name isn't even on my credit card (too long) and the Umlauts are written with extra "e"s inserted.

So apart from the fact that I don't see a valid reason for displaying my real life identity publicly on the internet, the credit card name would look pretty ugly as well.

Ah, after race they probably stopped restricting the F1 paddock from the rest of the paddock, but I don't know if that's always the case. I agree that getting to see F1 from the inside would make the trip more worthwhile but as I said, the people working in F1 are again separated from the rest of the F1 paddock. You'll only get to see them when they go from the pit area to the team hospitality. I certainly wouldn't pay or miss the race for that.

Last edited by J.B., Fri 15 Aug 2008, 01:29.

I can't see how FBMW paddock access is going to get you anywhere near F1 drivers. Either he was with a FBMW team and had access to the pitlane during the FBMW races because of that or he spent his entire day lurking around at some access gate or something where all drivers have to pass sooner or later.

But since you think watching the cars on the track is boring maybe that's more your thing.

Quote from chanoman315 :

before? after? pics with the drivers?

That won't really be worthwhile unless you get into the pit garage area, which is restricted to team members.

Quick question: do you really have to use your real name to race? Or is a name that sounds real good enough?

What's the point of being in the paddock during the race (unless you're working there)?

Quote from Shotglass :

...sort of like the way you can make stars explode by collapsing their photons waveforms millions of years later.

Nice. Who needs boring car analogies?

Concerning the rest of your post I guess the question I'm asking is if Kutta–Joukowski can fully explain the downforce from a Venturi undertray or if it only describes true airfoils. Perhaps time to start going through those CFD tutorials I've been wanting to do for ages now...

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Don't forgot ground effect downforce was what effectively killed Aryton Senna, because his tyre pressure was too low after the safety car period, and his car bottomed out, losing most of its downforce in doing so.

But if that wasn't the real reason then banning them was just a knee jerk reaction that got us to where we are today.