Controller type:
DFGT
Sensitivity or Feedback: 7
Tyre wear: off
Grip: Real
I will try several BB settings for each car to try to get the best brake / throttle harmony. I will try ABS 0, but only for a few laps.
Ridox:
Best lap:
1:44.818
ABS: 1, BB: 3/1
Notes:
First thought: how can anyone drive like this? If I even look at the brakes wrong (stock) they lock up and I just slide. Only about 7% of my brake pedal is useful, any more and they lock up. Its not even worth trying a complete lap on the stock settings. I can't feed the brakes, it's more like: nothing, somewhere between 20% and 80%, lock. Why not use the entire pedal. I don't mind being able to lock the brakes when I want to, I just want the lock to be around 90% to 100% of the pedal travel, not at 8%. Just for s'n'gs I stopped the car and tried to press the pedal as little as possible. The on screen braking indicator shows a minimum of 20% with a feather light touch.
Adjusted to BB 3/1:
With ABS 0 the car is very difficult to slow down from high speeds. Either I apply to much brake and lock them up early in the corner or pre-corner, which forces me to back off too long while I wait for the tyres to be usable again. Or I overheat them later into the corner just before the apex, either throwing my nose in as the tail swings 'round or, much more likely, my nose goes flying toward the outside of the corner while my tail looks at it stupidly, unable to move.
With ABS 1 the car has a massive amount of under-steer that must be fought at every corner. If I try to go in hot and use the throttle to rotate the car my nose goes flying outside as the back end body slams the front. I would usually just say the front pushes under throttle but that just doesn't convey what this car does. If I go in warm or cool and try to throttle rotate the car my rear doesn't want to over-steer at first, then just as over-steer is initiated the rear tyres go liquid.
I must go into every corner even and measured. No tyre noise is acceptable, because it's far too easy to go from "rrrrrr" to "@#$&!" Only on the tightest (two) corners is over-steer usable and only because over-rotation is usually not hard to recover from and liquid tyres don't matter as much because the next corner is only about 20 feet away. All other corners must be entered cautiously, not so much trying to push through the under-steer as waiting for the car to get straight so I can get back on the throttle.
I can see how this car could work with someone who could use the induced over-steer initiated by trail-braking with ABS 0. I am not this person. When I try induced over-steer (both with and without ABS) either the throttle is too sensitive or the tyres overheat before I can pull back (pre-thermal-ulation?) or the front goes flying toward the outside wall.
After about 12 laps with and without ABS over half my laps are red. My best time so far is 1:44.818. I can't see this car being a contender for the fastest time, corner exit speed is just not there for me. For some reason I like the handling though. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment tonight. I'll spend the rest of the night familiarizing myself with the car and learn it's personality and attitudes. Hopefully I can tame this car and set a decent time before I hit the hay.
The gearing is obtrusive. First is a blip, there and gone, I barely use more than 1,500 rpm before I have to shift back to second. Second is far too long and kills the cars momentum on corner exit. Third and fourth are ok. Fifth is only used once, just as I exit the tunnel and I have to brake feet later.
The massive power disparity between rpm ranges is killing my handling of this car. First gear is very hard to use because it is so short, it's hard not to burn the tyres before I shift up. Even with a properly timed shift when I hit second I'm way down low in the power band and the car takes several seconds (seemingly at least) before I get to third. And before I get there I'll need to lift off or liquidity the tyres with the newly acquired power, the last 2,000 rpm passing in a fraction of the first 2,000. Even in third and fourth I need to pay very close attention to my rpms or risk losing seconds as I wait for my tyres to be usable again.
Because of this power disparity caused by the varying rpm ranges my corner control is $#^&. Every corner I have to judge at every point where I am in the powerband and adjust my steering and throttle accordingly. Repetition and familiarization does not help with this. In most cars, even the stock Cobra, my throttle control graphed looks like gentle rolling hills that plateaus at full throttle. With this car my throttle control looks like a seismograph and I rarely get to use full throttle usefully. I'm usually too busy judging my steering, speed, change in speed, rotation (yaw), tyre temp and environment to worry about trying to ride the 1% line of throttle control between useful full throttle and slamming into a wall suddenly as my tyres go from warm to liquid in 0.001 seconds. This chaotic power control players havoc with my accuracy and predictability is lower than any other car I've driven. In most cars I know where I will be at every moment, or within a foot or two, with this car at corner entrance I have no idea where I'll be at mid corner and corner exit might as well be trying to guess the next bingo ball.
I think the gearing and the power disparity it causes is the #1 problem with this car. The under-steer would be manageable if I didn't have to fight the powerband at every corner.
The car has very little slip range. As soon as the tyres start to heat up they are already red. There is no "ride the slip" in this car. If I ever do manage a drift it is time killing and not at all usable.
Power disparity + no slip at all + understeer = slow car. Any one of these in another car would take it out of contention for the lead. All three makes me think Ridox made the car purposefully hard to control. I promised 80 laps and the rest of the night. After 25 laps I'm done. Best time set on lap 4. I would try more, honestly, but all I would do is find different ways of saying how much I dislike this car and wind up saying something I'd regret the response to.
I want to hear your motive/reasons.
I kept getting installation error, did everything imaginable, deleting game data, reinstalling, rebuild database, all to no avail .. it works fine with 1.07 now, I am tuning several cars already for Best Motoring tuning shootout 
