Indianapolis Tips

Ok guys and gal Some tips about Indy.


First off, Indy is...Different.

Secondly, Indy is all about Speed. Jerry Grant was the first driver to turn a 200 mph lap in an Indycar and he did it in 1972 at Ontario, At the first race of the year in 1973 at Texas, Bobby Unser sat on Pole with a 212 mph lap, Michigan it was 204, Ontario was 201, Michigan again was 204, and at Texas Mario set a World Speed Record qualifying on pole at 214.xxx mph. None of that mattered, the talk all year before Indy was would the 200 mph mark be beaten. After Indy it was J.R.'s 199.xx MPH Lap. It would be another 4 years, Tom Sneva in 1977, before anyone would turn a 200 mph lap at Indy. Nevermind the fact the Indycars had been going well over that at other tracks since 1972!


Thirdly, and this part is the key to everything, Indy is about Precision. You have to be precise every lap, lap after lap for 500 miles. Even more so during Qualifying. The 4 laps you run in Qualifying are the 4 hardest laps you will ever run. I've heard drivers say Qualifying is harder than the actual race! You CANNOT just throw the car into the corner and hope it sticks, you do that and the wall WILL find you! When you turn into a corner you want to turn the wheel as little as possible.

So, how do you drive Indy then? Simple, you want to apex each turn right on the White line, maybe even a little over it. Let the car flow out to the wall and then begin turning in to the next turn, then again, flow out to the wall and run there down the straight. It's almost stupid in it's simplicity, but don't be fooled by it. It will bite you if you lose focus.

You found out first hand last year. 

Biggest tip I can give is make sure you are comfortable with the car. You want the car to work for you, not against you. You need to be able to push without much effort as Indy is a tiring race, especially without yellows.

Richard hit the nail on the head.  Comfort is key.

You can't be fast if you are fighting the car, or at least not consistently fast.

And comfort over 500 miles is absolutely critical.

This reminds me, I wanted to setup during the month some coaching sessions for those interested. The idea is to use TS and drive together, practice overtaking and letting quicker cars by, side by side, awareness, give some tips, correct the line to those used only road racing, etc. 

I recommend driving different lines when trying different setups. A proper line vs improper line with the same setup will cause a speed difference of over .150 in the lap. Sometimes worse. The "best" line varies with setup. I try a late and early turn entry line with each setup change.

Do not tempt fate and get close to the wall. If you touch it chances are your qual engine will explode.

For me, smooth = speed. If the car jerks .1xx flys out the window.

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

This reminds me, I wanted to setup during the month some coaching sessions for those interested. The idea is to use TS and drive together, practice overtaking and letting quicker cars by, side by side, awareness, give some tips, correct the line to those used only road racing, etc. 

I would be interested in being a TS coach

looking at the time tables the Eagle 72s are having a hard time being competitive...not getting under 46 seconds with my 2015 Q setup

Does anyone have a supergreat Eagle 72 setup to share? I would be willing to share it if I had one lol!

The cars are slower now Peter, laptimes will be closer to the real thing.

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

The cars are slower now Peter, laptimes will be closer to the real thing.

ive read that but there is a gap of 1,2 secs to Mike and I can tell you I'm already on the limit of my 1000 bhp setup

The VPJ2 and your Eagle 72 have exactly the same downforce and engine (You can compare the files), but the VPJ2 has a worse chassis and more inertia. Whatever Mike can do, you should be able to do it also 

Last year's setups will not work this season and be competitive. All my setups were tossed in the garbage with the new higher drag physics.

and since the race is 200 laps wrong, not fighting for pole is not a big deal. Making the race is prio. #1.

Look at me last year.

I had no idea how to make the car really good but I was able to make it comfortable, I got into the race on luck but well in the race I finished 12th or 13th I believe by just staying clean and out of trouble for the most part

But indeed, make sure you are comfortable, speed will come at the same time.

Peter Blom wrote:

ive read that but there is a gap of 1,2 secs to Mike and I can tell you I'm already on the limit of my 1000 bhp setup

Peter,

When I reach this point, I always turn to my tried and true method. Do something Stupid!

Drop everything on the Left Front to the bottom of their settings, except Tire Pressure. Drop the WHOLE Left side down like that, etc.

I don't think that Peter needs much more advice anymore, he is in low 45 s already

Why are there no yellows? So when should i pit in the race?

Jan Kowalski wrote:

Why are there no yellows? So when should i pit in the race?

Pit when you are out of fuel! lol

I suppose there's no yellows because of the intricate yellow system that was in use at Indy during the 70's (a bit like the "virtual safety car" in F1 today). You were to hold distance, no safety cars entered the track, etc. Some drivers liked to cheat the system, Bobby Unser was infamous for that for example.

From 1971-78 at Indy (And only at Indy, not at the rest of the USAc tracks) a peculiar yellow flags system was used, the "electro-pacer".

It implied that no safety car would go to track, but instead there were panels all around the track where lighted numbers cycled 1-4 in a timed sequence. The idea was that, as the yellow is thrown by race control, the drivers would check the number on the next panel they went by and reduce speed to 100 MPH. If they held a steady speed, the next time they would go by a panel they would see the same number. If they did instead see a higher one, they were too slow, if they saw a lower one they were too fast. 

The good thing about the idea is that the order was freezed and the distance between the cars kept, while travelling at the same speed (Cars did no longer bunch behind a slow driving pace car). The bad thing is that it was very easy to cheat on it, both because it was difficult for the USAC officers to control that all cars were effectively going through the panels at the proper time, and because there was still no speed limit at the pit lane -which is why Bobby Unser figured out that going for a quick splash of fuel and storming through the pits in and out would allow him to gain track positions. It certainly did, until the caught him. Also, when you are going 200 MPH if you take some seconds to react to the yellow you will gain hundreds of meters to the car in front, so it wasn't effective in that regard either.

We debated for long if we could find an alternative for this, but it required at least one admin dedicated exclusively to police it with rfactor monitor, plus the race director, plus the broadcaster. And it was going to be a task boring as hell, and as easy to cheat on it as it was in real life. So we had the option to either do normal cautions as in the other races or only local yellows as in road courses. We opted for the second so as not to make the race even longer, and because the spirit of the electro pacer system was to keep the distance between cars during yellows (Which also happens when you don't cut gas at all).

Here is a screenshot of the real system at Indy 1973, right after Swede Savage's crash:

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

We debated for long if we could find an alternative for this, but it required at least one admin dedicated exclusively to police it with rfactor monitor, plus the race director, plus the broadcaster. And it was going to be a task boring as hell, and as easy to cheat on it as it was in real life. So we had the option to either do normal cautions as in the other races or only local yellows as in road courses. We opted for the second so as not to make the race even longer, and because the spirit of the electro pacer system was to keep the distance between cars during yellows (Which also happens when you don't cut gas at all).

Thank you for the explanation as i´m only familiar with Formula One history  Looking forward to the race, especially because i got caught by the big restart crash last race

regarding the local yellows,
does that mean you will get a penalty by the system when you overtake some during a yellow flag?
or is the server set to "black only" means no penalties

I am not sure if there will also be local yellows in the end, as it could interfere with our peculiar "Standing start three wide rolling start behind the Cadillac" , so Jason will confirm that.

If in the end there are local yellows, then yes rfactor would give you a stop and go if you overtake on the track sector that has a yellow flag thrown in that moment.

If you see a crash in front of you, don't cause another one by doing something stupid.

Jacob Fredriksson wrote:

If you see a crash in front of you, don't cause another one by doing something stupid.

We will be enabling the instant escape-out function for the race, so you won't have to come to a complete stop after a crash to get out. This will hopefully head off chain reaction accidents

François Remmen wrote:

regarding the local yellows,
does that mean you will get a penalty by the system when you overtake some during a yellow flag?
or is the server set to "black only" means no penalties

As long as we can set flag rules to "none" and still get local yellow warnings, we will do that.

Alberto Ibañez wrote:

I don't think that Peter needs much more advice anymore, he is in low 45 s already

He got some advanced help.