QUAL: 1 min 09 sec 201 Qual standard menu Qual advanced menu

RACE: 1 min 10 sec 653 Race standard menu Race advanced menu

Note

If you have downloaded both setup for QUAL & RACE, you'll find a small difference in the setups, mainly anti-roll bar reduced and same for spring rate in the rear. Although i find the race setup has a good car balance (more understeer)the reason for this big change, is to preserve tires easily up to 25 FUEL LAP (under 2.5 wear-out) The QUAL setup runs very well,but a little bit more "tricky" to master your car, mainly in the slow bumpy section, the car reacts the same way, due to it's fine dampers balance, and low spring rate (to prevent upset from bump when on limit)

Introduction

Circuit TI Aida is a slow course, slippery,and bumpy in some slow corners.You need to have a trade-off between speed and aerodynamical grip.Also since there's some challenging slow/bumpy corners,you need to realy work your dampers to match the spring rate (which i chose very low), to give you good mechanical grip, you need medium rate anti-roll setting.

This track has big challenges (mainly due to those numerous low/bumpy corners. (corners #5,#6,#8,#9). I had to admit that i had some hard time to get good lap times, mainly due to getting to know all the corner entry point correctly. Also i found new way of dealing with car setup, specially my new knowledge on ANTI-ROLL BAR and the interaction on spring rates. Also by adding PACKERS correctly, i could manage to lower car height and the benefits from this, is higher cornering downforce.

I consistently ran in the low 1 min 11 to low 1 min 12 range all the time, I even made a 1 min 12 sec 270 at the end of my practice (with worned tires). If your "gentle" enough on your tires, choose to go for 2 pitstop during a full race. Even a 3 pitstop is not bad if you can constantly run in the mid 1 min 11 range, At that pace you will outclass the field by 1.5-2.0 seconds a lap at ACE LEVEL. The track surface is very slippery and bumpy in some slow section, logical choice would be a 2 stop strategy.

Track Guide

Lets begin on how to go around the track as smooth & fast as possible. Passing starting line you'll reach around 285kph before entering corner #1 brake hard while downshifting to 2nd gear, try to be close to the apex then gently accelerate, when the car is in control then accelerate up to 4th gear going to corner #2, If your entry point is correct you can stay in 4th while negociating the corner, if your entry is low, flip to 3rd then again upshift to 4th at the exit. Then it's a series of S while accelerating and going down to corner #5. Here's a challenging corners, you want to accelerate as hard as possible but ther's some bumps that might destabilize the rear-end. The trick here brake at the 100 mark,while downshifting to 2nd gear, the perfect line has some bumps, make it a little bit wider and try to exit exactly at the cerbstone, then you go down the longest straight up to 295kph (it's a good time to pass slow cars). Brake hard again at the 100 mark, downshift to 1st gear, entry point is critical to get the corner (#6) correctly,touch the cerbstone on exit, accelerate carefully ,upshift to 2nd, then brake again to enter corner #7, this right corner is easy to deal with,but be carefull with the exit to get good speed in 2nd gear in that small sraight section, up to 3rd, then back to 2nd gear, keep throttle steady in corner #8. Then accelerate up to 5th gear, brake and downshift to 1st gear, now this corners and the next one are the toughest to deal with.

Here we are at REDMAN (#9) and HOBBS (#10), the most demanding section of the track, very bumpy, very slippery = easy to spin-off. Because of this section,you have to "trade-off" on your setup to get maximum grip, and actually gain time. Since it' a slow portion, and if you have a to "lift" the throttle to go around, well you'll lose precious time to Qualify, and during the race. Under some fuel load (23-25 fuel lap) when you start a race, the effect is less pronounce due to heavier car IF YOUR CAR IS WELL BALANCED, but as you do more and more lap, the TIRES WORNS OUT, less fuel load, and here you need a good chassis setup (mechanical grip). I give special attention to the setup here.

Race Setup

What's important here to get good grip is reducing the SPRINGS, both rear and front to very low level, i compensate with ARB REAR at 150 and ARB FRONT at 2000, to get good grip at other portion of the track. If you want to change wing angle (not shown here), keep a differencial of 4 deg between front and rear, then adjust car height to prevent plank wear. Important note: While working my setup here in this portion of the track, the big task here is to prevent car upset, which lead to spin-off, IT'S NOT OVERSTEER, so i found that by actually reducing spring load in front, the car reaction to bump is less, then the car can go around smoothly.

Now let's see how to negociate this section, (even with a good setup, you have to be smooth, yet fast to get good lap times). While entering corner #9 you're in 1st gear, let the car slowdown with engine torque, then accelerate up to redline very briefly.

Now the famous Hobbs corner, still in 1st gear, there's 2 way to view this section, either you make a wide turn, and prevent the bumps (play it safe) but loose some time, or you have to be very precise where to get the entry & exit point, worst is the amount of throttle applied. Let's view a good line for corner 9 and 10, and a PERFDATA example on throttle and wheelspin.