The starting point for elite setups, we call it"The Initial Start Setup" for Codemasters F1 2011

Hi Racers,

It has been a while since the last posts in the DarkPSI's setups series as we switched over to Shaggy Alonso's Driving Styles to show how deeply connected these two topics are.
One can't live without the other. Now we hope that you have the basic tools to better understand setups and driving styles - if not, feel free to read DarkPSI's Setup Guide and Shaggy Alonso's Driving Styles as they are really required to understand/get the most out of this and following tutorials.
In the last article of Shaggy Alonso's "Secrets of Driving Styles continued - Understeer vs Oversteer (and everything in between)" a great foundation for what we plan to do now was created.

picture by Nick J Webb - CC BY 2.0

A perfect setup results only in a fast lap time when the setup matches your driving style.
So it is clear that you can only have a perfect setup when it fits your driving style, the circuit and your car. (as equal mode in F1 2011 is not really equal, the last point is quite important)
The physics engine of F1 2011 is honestly pretty limited in comparision to real physics, but we also think it is sometimes underrated.
So as the game F1 2011 has its own physics you have to evaluate what the setup parameters really do with the car in the game. Perhaps to make it more clear, raising the wing-settings in F1 2011 mustn't always mean more speed in a specific corner like it would in the real world. Don't get me wrong, for sure higher wings in F12011 equals more downforce, but what I mean is that if you lower the wings e.g from 11/11 to 10/10 you might get the result/feeling that in some corners you can just drive the same cornering speed because your car feels a kind of less weight and more pointy.

You might have already read about some rumours that there is one 'universal' setup which works on every track. That's also a thing we came across and yes there is one setting which really works pretty good on nearly every circuit with the exception of Monza. But I would name it more a kind of a "Initial Start Setup" which should be the starting point for tweaking the car to your driving style, the specific circuit and your car.
You can get the "Initial Start Setup" by following on google+ (header line), after following you will be added as a vip member and you can see the post with the setup on the PSI Sim Racing Google+ site.



Now it's a little bit like in real F1, you try to tweak that setup in a way that you find that extra second by working the setup torwards your individual needs. This is a very difficult discipline in F1 2011 as you really must have a feeling for your grip level and the ability to drive constant laptimes on a circuit.
One man who has this ability is Shaggy Alonso who by the way won the Nations League Event in Silverstone. He was able to manage a 1:23.3 in qualifying in Silverstone and we would like to take that stunning lap as an example how to develop a setup connected to your driving style.


But first try to make some rounds in silverstone with the "Initial Start Setup" to get a feeling for the car. We would love to hear your feedback and laptimes you can reach on the silverstone circuit with the "Initial Start Setup".


Remember we will make only little tweaks on the "Initial Start Setup" to reach the low 1.23's in Silverstone.
We will give you advise for every corner by going deep into the setup and the driving style.
More about that in the next article.


keep racing
DarkPSI