5 Ways To Make Your Lap Times Faster On Forza
Last month I spent an afternoon with McLaren GT racer Adrian Quaife-Hobbs at Pro Sim to find out how professional racing drivers prepare for race weekends - that’s me in the hot seat, above. Over the course of a couple of hours, my performance was picked apart and everything that was losing me time was pointed out. This meant that each time the lights were switched off and I went back out on track I was improving.
The interesting thing that I’ve noticed since leaving Pro Sim is that each nugget of advice that was given to me has become lodged in the back of my brain, and has resulted in my Forza Motorsport and Project Cars lap times tumbling. With this in mind, I’ve decided to impart on to you the information I found most useful:
1. Use minimal steering lock
Over the course of a lap, you want to be using as little steering lock as you can get away with. The main benefit of this is that you can get on the power earlier - I’ll expand on that below - but that’s not the only advantage.
First of all, the more you turn the wheel, the more load you’re putting on the outside of the tyre. At slow speeds in hairpins this isn’t as much of a problem, but if you’re carrying a lot of speed you’re increasing the risk of understeering. Aside from losing you time by making your line unnecessarily untidy and making the car’s weight transfer trickier to control, it’ll also increase wear on the tyre. That could mean that by the end of a long race you’ll struggle to maintain pace as front end grip will be limited.
To get around a corner, you obviously need to input a certain amount of steering, but as you do so, that swings the car’s momentum towards the outside of the corner. The more you accelerate with the wheel turned, the more weight you’re pushing to the outside of the tyre, meaning you’re pushing the limits of grip - go too far and the wheel will lose grip, losing you turning and accelerating ability.
But how do you conceptualise where the limit of grip is? Watch the video above, and visualise this friction circle whenever you’re turning. It’ll help you make sense of the fact that you can accelerate hard in a straight line, but the more you’re turning, the gentler you have to be with the throttle. Remember, keeping the car’s weight under control is vital.
3. Avoid kerbs in low race cars
If you watch the video at the top of the page, you’ll see my GP2 lap went down the drain when I span out after turning in too early and running over a kerb. If you’re driving something road car based, you’ll probably be fine, but when you get up into the really serious kit, the cars are so low to the ground and have such hard suspension that clattering kerbs simply unsettles the car.
Your times will improve drastically if you keep it on the black stuff, and avoid any raised kerbs, keeping the car flat and planted.
We all know the basics of the racing line, but sometimes you have to sacrifice your speed in one corner to improve it in the next. In basic terms, you want to prioritise the corner that’s faster on exit. For example, while at Pro Sim racing at Silverstone, I would take the fastest line through the right-hand turn three before trying to get back across the track to take the left hairpin. Instead I should’ve taken a slightly slower, tighter line through three to set myself up better for the hairpin, since that exited on to a long full throttle zone.
By ensuring my speed was higher at the exit of the hairpin, my speed would be higher all the way down the straight. That’s far more beneficial than saving a few hundredths in a corner.
5. Accelerate smoothly out of the corner
Patience is key. A car should always be doing something - and no, coasting doesn’t count as something. If you’re not braking, you should be getting on the throttle. The key reason for this is because switching between the two upsets the balance of the car, which makes it harder to accelerate smoothly out of the corner once you do decide to go for it. It also kills your mid-corner speed - while you’re hesitating, your opponent will already be smoothly applying more and more power, and their balanced car will be able to put that power into the ground.
Comments
That friction circle was in the back of that little manual you got with Gran Turismo 1 and 2!
These are great tips. The only problem is I like pushing my an my car limits an I’m usually going into a corner way hotter than I need to be. Mostly to retune if my car needs it. I’ll try these tips. It’s getting kinda hard tuning for my aggressive driving style. I don’t crash into people I’ll go of the track first before I mess someone up
I just ease the brakes on a turn and try to hit the apex. I get above decent times.
My main problem in Forza 6 is braking way too early and coasting through the corner, then applying gas gently out of the apex and then hammering it on and generally roasting the back tires, but whenever I try to go between the gas and brake only I generally go too wide or spin out from too much brake. Any tips other than constant practice?
Best advice I can give is be more smooth, don’t hammer on the gas or the brake, try and do most of your braking in a straight line. Generally when starting out it is not a good idea to do any deceleration during turn in and especially not thru the corner, instead try and keep the car gently accelerating thru the corner, smoothly applying more power as more grip comes available. The reason behind why you spin when you decelerate and try and turn is because all of the weight transfers to the front outside wheel, making it a pivot point for the cars momentum to swing on.
Two things to remember “Slow in, Fast out,” and “smooth is fast,” if you were meditating these would be your mantras.
Don’t focus on braking as late as possible, especially on tracks you are unfamiliar with, focus on getting thru the corner clean and getting the power down sooner(and doing so smoothly). Getting the power down sooner is where the majority of the excess time will be trimmed off a lap, not late braking. Once you have mastered getting the power down however, then shift a bit more focus on braking later with more pressure(smooth pressure that is), till you have “no fat” lap times. If you end up under steering off the track just remember, even Stirling Moss admits it took him a long time to master braking really hard and late, and brake a little earlier for that corner the next lap. Also watch your replays, for some incite if you keep mucking up in one area.
Above all learn the track you are driving, having too focusing on the map will only make you overshoot braking points, use it to learn the track then do some laps without it, shifting that focus to driving the car, once you complete a number of clean consistent lap time, you can turn it back on for monitoring the cars around you, since most games lack a race engineer to do so.
alex be like: im basically a pro racing driver bro
Smoothness is key to all racing. Not harsh violent control. As for corner brake / throttle. I got faster by simply taking on what I heard Jackie Stewart say one time, “Don’t put the throttle on in a turn until you know you’re not going to have to lift it off.” Gently applying it more and more through the turn after doing all your braking before the corners means the car remains stable and faster
Agree. “Slower is faster.” If you’ve tried sim racing, you have for sure heard that. I’ve also heard your quote quite a lot of times.
“If you watch the video at the top of the page, you’ll see my GP2 lap went down the drain when I span out after turning in too early and running over a kerb.”You know, if you’re Alex Day from Failrace, simply spinning out is the least of your problems.
the thing on Forza that took me forever to learn is that a smooth acceleration out of a corner not only tends to give faster laps but also more consistent laps since when you just slam full throttle on the car can wheelspin or in some cars the differential causes the car to actually move to one side when you are accelerating meaning you countersteer and this just costs you time.
Since my main track is LeMans La Sarthe ive found in a wierd way, in the stock R18 i can do 3:28’s i say 50% of the time but in my X class R18 i actually do 3:32’s, this is with tunes which suit the circuit and i what i learned is that the stock R18 with low downforce doesnt get the super torque so benefits from low downforce on the straights but doesnt suffer on mulsanne corner and arnage. The X class since it needs to run higher downforce doesnt see significant speed increase on the straights and struggles on corners due to the torque. basically, the R18 stock is pretty much the best version.
Wish i wanted to play other tracks but everytime i load up forza La Sarthe it is
slow is smooth, smooth is fast - old saying from who knows…