Great topic and oh yes the frustrations have been real for me as well. I started sim racing early this year and Raceroom was my first sim apart from Richard Burns Rally and Dirt Rally (we Finns sure love rally).
The main reason why I wanted to answer your post is that I also had the same type of problem concerning underdriving the car. The following is a story how I got on the right track for fixing my driving tendencies and understanding in theory and in practise about the necessary elements of going fast.
After 3-4 months as a total newb in Raceroom I bought a 3 month iRacing subscription. I spent the first month in MX-5 cup and then fast tracked to GT3 with AMG Mercedes I had also driven in Raceroom previously. Shortly after I joined the Virtual Racing School mainly for car setups but also ended up discovering the possibilities of telemetry and driver coaching. As I was practically learning a new track every week, I got invaluable experience how to drive different types of corners fast in a GT3 car. During this time my consistency improved dramatically with 40 minute sprint races including a mandatory pit stop and with the infamous extremely severe 17 point incident system forcing you to learn precision.
The thing was though that after the first 3 months I decided not to renew my iRacing subscription. The problem for me was that I just didn't have the time and commitment to keep practising and learning new tracks every week. The incident penalty system was so severe that you just couldn't join races half assedly. iRacing felt more like a chore than fun. Somehow I just couldn't get the feel of the car right and realized afterwards that the main reason for this was the Force Feedback system of iRacing. The main effect of this "lack of feel" for me was that it almost felt like I was learning the theory of driving instead of actually understanding the limits of the car.
In hindsight of course, these 3 months were a crucial part of my improvement as a sim racer. By coincidence Nordschleife was also included in the iRacing GT3 schedule within those 2 months and I was priviliged to discover this magnificent circuit and its unique challenges during that week with the invaluable help of driving coach videos. After taking a complete 1-2 month break from sim racing I returned to Raceroom looking for more casual atmosphere.
The interesting thing (perhaps not surprisingly) was that I was suddenly faster than ever and also a lot more consistent even without practising or sim racing at all for quite a long while. I kept improving my lap records almost every day and actually still do. I started thinking about the main causes for this sudden improvement and was able to point out some crucial things that for me were the key points in reaching another level of driving:
The main reason why I wanted to answer your post is that I also had the same type of problem concerning underdriving the car. The following is a story how I got on the right track for fixing my driving tendencies and understanding in theory and in practise about the necessary elements of going fast.
After 3-4 months as a total newb in Raceroom I bought a 3 month iRacing subscription. I spent the first month in MX-5 cup and then fast tracked to GT3 with AMG Mercedes I had also driven in Raceroom previously. Shortly after I joined the Virtual Racing School mainly for car setups but also ended up discovering the possibilities of telemetry and driver coaching. As I was practically learning a new track every week, I got invaluable experience how to drive different types of corners fast in a GT3 car. During this time my consistency improved dramatically with 40 minute sprint races including a mandatory pit stop and with the infamous extremely severe 17 point incident system forcing you to learn precision.
The thing was though that after the first 3 months I decided not to renew my iRacing subscription. The problem for me was that I just didn't have the time and commitment to keep practising and learning new tracks every week. The incident penalty system was so severe that you just couldn't join races half assedly. iRacing felt more like a chore than fun. Somehow I just couldn't get the feel of the car right and realized afterwards that the main reason for this was the Force Feedback system of iRacing. The main effect of this "lack of feel" for me was that it almost felt like I was learning the theory of driving instead of actually understanding the limits of the car.
In hindsight of course, these 3 months were a crucial part of my improvement as a sim racer. By coincidence Nordschleife was also included in the iRacing GT3 schedule within those 2 months and I was priviliged to discover this magnificent circuit and its unique challenges during that week with the invaluable help of driving coach videos. After taking a complete 1-2 month break from sim racing I returned to Raceroom looking for more casual atmosphere.
The interesting thing (perhaps not surprisingly) was that I was suddenly faster than ever and also a lot more consistent even without practising or sim racing at all for quite a long while. I kept improving my lap records almost every day and actually still do. I started thinking about the main causes for this sudden improvement and was able to point out some crucial things that for me were the key points in reaching another level of driving:
- Force Feedback of Raceroom can be set up in a way that you get the sense of grip fine tuned to almost perfection. No second guessing, you can learn to drive by feel and trust your car. I was never able to achieve this in iRacing at least with my modest belt driven equipment. Keep tweaking the FFB settings until you get everything you need to feel the edge of grip consistently. Confident driver is a fast driver.
- Upgrading to load cell brake pedal enables you to apply consistent braking force a lot faster and build muscle memory over time. I upgraded just before joining iRacing.
- Dual/Triple screens enable you to see the apex without head tracking software, meaning you get an extra indicator for catching oversteer in time by using static cockpit view for sensing visibly the bodyroll of a car. This is compensating for the absent seat of the pants sensations in sim racing and in effect helps tremendously with countersteering precision and reaction time which are some of the key elements of being consistently fast in my opinion.
- I am a fan of driving just one car and finding its limits first before moving to another. At the same time it's important to make sure that the car you settle for long term fits your personal driving style. I ended up changing from AMG Mercedes to Audi R8 LMS because I realized the weight balance of Audi fits my driving style a lot better with less tendency to understeer and being more rensponsive than stable. Test out all cars in the group and different setups people have shared to find your style. Also remember your driving style might change over time, for example the stability of AMG was more suitable for me in the beginning while I was still working on basics.