AC Round 2 of 23 Formula Agile 2023 Thu, March 16th 2023

abecede · Mar 20, 2023

gearwhine said:
Markus, can you put any light onto which version of Albert Park we are using? I have been driving around on the version i have and would like to confirm the actual track to practice on...cheers

We won't do Albert Park regrettably, since there is no version of the track to be found that is not a rip from a different game, and therefore quite shady. But Han and I found a great replacement track which will be revealed on Thursday after the *SURPRISE* Event which you all are cordially invited to join! (hint, hint!)

Twoddle · Mar 20, 2023

I've not messed about with any of the telemetry tools yet. should i have a play with them i will happily share any date i collect.

I did take a look at acti and downloaded it for RD, after that i could not figure out what to do. when it comes to computer stuff i am very much an idiot and need complete walk throughs. when i get the patience i will look at it properly.

Kek700 · Mar 20, 2023

My opinion is you are a quick driver, it may help, people like me who in our race department hover around the top 5 or 10 for pace, sometimes a miracle occurs and I am close to the top driver, still with or without MoteC, i have never really found out why the time discrepancy. It is as big a mystery for me, now, as it always has been. I can try and understand where the time is going, but I have never actually found out "why". ( I can guess and be probably spot on, but in the end, it is just a guess )

This comes down to the fact without professional help and especially being surrounded by faster drivers who can not only help, but actually show you why you are slower. MoTeC remains a mystery as to how to make up time. it is not as though anyone here is not capable, we just do not get that group intelligence, we are all isolated.

I bought a setup and it was combined with a MoTeC data analysis of his time, Imola, ACC, his exit speed for that first corner was 15km/hr faster than I could ever achieve, even if I just tried to get to just get that speed and not worry about the next corner. if there was a reason, I was not there when it was set, so no idea how it could be achieved. And in isolation will never know!
Funnily my actual lap time was by my standards not that far off, so that 15Km/hr was quite important to me.

I enjoy using MoTeC, because I like that sort of stuff, and would say I am better with using it than not using it, but most of the time I get very little from it, just, "rarely" i spot a little gem staring me in the face.

So MoTeC is about living in hope, but rarely if ever produces anything that makes me quicker.

KFMaster · Mar 21, 2023

Kek700 said:
If you have drop box I can send you my MoTeC files

Thanks Ernie, I replied to your massage in mail box. Very much appreciated! Dai.

KFMaster · Mar 21, 2023

Twoddle said:
I've not messed about with any of the telemetry tools yet. should i have a play with them i will happily share any date i collect.

I did take a look at acti and downloaded it for RD, after that i could not figure out what to do. when it comes to computer stuff i am very much an idiot and need complete walk throughs. when i get the patience i will look at it properly.

Hi Jason,
I found the acti package to be really good and complete, with detailed step by step instructions for installation. I just went through it, if you need help with installing it just let me know. I think the tricky part is if you want to do live viewing from a different computer, then you get into this network stuff that always makes my head spin. For just recording the date using the machine that the AC is run on, we can skip that.
Dai

KFMaster · Mar 21, 2023

Kek700 said:
I enjoy using MoTeC, because I like that sort of stuff, and would say I am better with using it than not using it, but most of the time I get very little from it, just, "rarely" i spot a little gem staring me in the face.

So MoTeC is about living in hope, but rarely if ever produces anything that makes me quicker.

I hope the hope will come true

I have to say though before I even started this sim racing endeavor I was already planning on doing data analysis. I think it is part of the fun. Being of engineering background and lacking seat of the pants driving fast instinct, I want to approach racing in a technical way, from data gain insight that I otherwise have not.

This comes down to the fact without professional help and especially being surrounded by faster drivers who can not only help, but actually show you why you are slower.

Agree with that but I think it also depending on at which level and for what one wants to get out it. If one is within a second of the fast time, then it is definitely going to be very subtle stuff to look for and even then, how to correct that will still take professional coaching just like you say.

For me being 7 second off pace, I believe the problem will be much easier to spot. So I am very hopeful the telemetry data will help me, because at this level, once I identified where I am losing time, it should be pretty obvious what is causing it.

I bought a setup and it was combined with a MoTeC data analysis of his time, Imola, ACC, his exit speed for that first corner was 15km/hr faster than I could ever achieve, even if I just tried to get to just get that speed and not worry about the next corner. if there was a reason, I was not there when it was set, so no idea how it could be achieved. And in isolation will never know!

Even if you overlayed your best lap with his, still don't see any clue? That seems surprising, I would have thought 15km/hr exit speed difference is very big

stigs2cousin · Mar 21, 2023

"Data without context is just numbers" is my biggest problem.

Fact:

Driver one exits the corner 15 km/ faster than me.

Brake trace shows he braks roughly the same spot, but carries more speed into the corner and accelerates earlier and harder.

When I try that I slide over the edge of the world and keep falling alongside Great A´Tuin

.
Now what?

In my irl driving days I had a video from the headrest camera overlaid with some data
(Harry´s Laptimer) which gave additional clues, eg driving line.

To fabricate such a video in Z1 is such a pita that I don´t bother

Maybe someone can deduce the driving line from the steering trace??

Oh, and since January I have not found one car/track combo with valid/helpfull laps online.(again, for Z1) How´s Motec in this regard?

MFG Carsten

Twoddle · Mar 21, 2023

I've been playing around with the MoTeC stuff and seem to have it all working. now all i need to do is figure out how to get faster with it.

KFMaster · Mar 22, 2023

stigs2cousin said:
"Data without context is just numbers" is my biggest problem.

Agree. For me, most of what I want to do is to compare my good lap or section against bad ones to see why one is better than others. Below is an example where I think I learned something from the telemetry. The zoomed in graph from MoTeC shows how I did through the first corners at Jeddah in two different laps. Before the next turn, you can see one is over 0.2S slower than the other (top right corner show the time at same spot down the track from first corner - MoTeC has this nice feature to allow ones to swap the a-axis between time and distance). The entry speeds are practically identical, the main difference is breaking point. And to compensate for the later braking, I have to be more aggressive on steering through the turns. This later part correlated with something I had been noticing while driving, which was I tend to be to tentative with steering input, not turning the wheel fast or far enough in many cases. Again, for newbie like myself the errors are gross, so easy to spot. To find 0.2S over a lap instead of one corner is undoudtly allot harder.

In my irl driving days I had a video from the headrest camera overlaid with some data
(Harry´s Laptimer) which gave additional clues, eg driving line.

To fabricate such a video in Z1 is such a pita that I don´t bother

Doesn't Z1 record the xy position of the car which allows one to plot the drive line?

stigs2cousin · Mar 22, 2023

It does.

Still the problem that I have only my own laps to compare to.

So I can figure out my best lap, but in the end I'm still 2sec of the pace.

KFMaster · Mar 22, 2023

stigs2cousin said:
It does.

Still the problem that I have only my own laps to compare to.

So I can figure out my best lap, but in the end I'm still 2sec of the pace.

Z1 does not let you load both your session and the session you brought and let you pick the fast lap from each to overlay on top of each other to compare?

stigs2cousin · Mar 22, 2023

In Z1 I have not found a lap with the Mazda/Formula Agile/Skippy on the tracks we race.

The AC database is just to small.

It may be different in IRacing with a limited number of cars and tracks..

Twoddle · Mar 22, 2023

Due to the car and track combos we do here the only data we are going to get is what we share between ourselves. I'm not sure how many people are really interested in collecting the data and then how many are willing to share.

Kek700 · Mar 22, 2023

The problem is one of status, little point in looking at someones data who is slower than you., like wise, those who are faster do not want to share with someone who is just off their pace.
It ends up as a catch 22.
Michael Schumacher was very keen to look at the number 2 drivers data when it suited him, but did not allow anyone to look at his data.
I would be happy to share my data, but as I am pretty average driver here on this race department forum, I see little point. I have just shared it with one of our new starters, to hopefully give him a helping hand.

KFMaster · Mar 23, 2023

Kek700 said:
I would be happy to share my data, but as I am pretty average driver here on this race department forum, I see little point. I have just shared it with one of our new starters, to hopefully give him a helping hand.

And that new starter is me -- thanks Ernie, really appreciated your sharing the data. I found it extremally helpful

. Made it very clear on what I need to work on, it is literally seeing light in the fog. Thanks again!

Dai

stigs2cousin · Mar 27, 2023

@Kek700

hey Ernie,

I´ve mulled ( and driven) a bit about the "instaspin" sudden oversteer at corner exit you have complained so eloquently about

I for my driving style can reduce the problem (other than coordination cornering g forces and torque hammer) to two problematic situations:

1. I´m way to slow at corner exit and "fall out of aero" then my usual throttle application lights up the rears and BOOM!

2. I actually achieve decent entry and midcorner speed, than my usual throttle application lights up the rears because the cornering G forces use up more tyre grip than I´m expecting and BOOM again.

The obvious solution is to hire a better driver who can slide this bitch car more consistently.
(Shut up, JIM)

Kek700 · Mar 27, 2023

It is one of those cars that after a dozen laps, lulls you into saying, I got this beat, then wham you're gone.
I am much improved now

because I drive and constantly expect the worse to happen. You have to understand that if you drive it like a GT3 car, just nailing it as soon as you can, the rears are going to spin up everywhere except 100mph + and a straight car.
I know that in the next race I will enter it with some confidence, only to find myself deflated and pointing in the opposite direction back to where all this began.
I think you are right, I need to hire a clever bitch to drive my car too.

gearwhine · Mar 28, 2023

Car is actually doing me a favour. I am constantly overdriving cars to get more out of them which of course means i get less. During quali i'm at my most guilty and is probably the reason my race pace is usually better than my timed lap. My point? If ever there was a car that does not reward you for thrashing it around the track expecting to be able to keep moving forward it is this one. The one car that slow in, fast out is the only way to drive it while respecting how far you can push it of course. I like the car and i think it is good for me in a strange way.
Now where do i hire that driver?