lap times with it don't assume your setup is bad or that you aren't good at making setup adjustments - there might be nothing at all wrong with your setup; you just need to work on getting the most out of it. It also means that getting a setup from one of the best drivers will not always be the "easy answer" you might think it is - those drivers are capable of getting the most out of a setup and they can also adjust them to suit their own style. So if you try a setup which someone else has done super fast times with you can often find that you aren't any faster using it than you were with your own - and if this happens it means you need to concentrate more on your technique and less on the setup.

Some of my favourite settings for the F1 cars are usually the simple ones - wings, weight distribution, anti-roll bars, springs, ride height etc. With these settings alone you can normally 'rough in' a decent setup for any circuit and then make smaller adjustments from there.
Using a combination of wing and weight distribution settings I find it quite easy to get the car set up areodynamically for almost any circuit. For example; if you have understeer using 44 front - 38 rear wings with a front weight distribution of 44 you can simply move the weight slightly more to the rear (so you have a front weight distribution of 43 or 42.5) and this single change can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of the setup. If this results in too much oversteer in the high speed turns you can simply remove two or three clicks from the front wing because the extra rear weight bias will mean the car still has good turn-in ability.

I normally find a very soft rear anti-roll bar (between 30 and 50) can really help with rear wheel traction, and very soft rear springs (between 95 and 110) are useful for the same reason - I apply this to nearly all of my setups as it is very useful for driving without traction control.
The front anti-roll bar and front springs are much more difficult to set up as it really depends on the circuit and how fast you want the car to respond (and how stable you want the front of the car to be). As an average I would say my front springs are normally around 175 and the front anti-roll bar is usually around 200 but I can't recommend simply changing your setup to these values and forgetting about them - the circuit and your driving style will have a large effect on what settings you should actually use.

If you were to increase (stiffen) the front springs you would get much better turn-in and much faster change of direction but the car would be more difficult over the curbs and you might not have very good traction from the front end on the exit of turns.
If you want stability and balance in high speed turns you can increase (stiffen) the front anti-roll bar but it will again be more difficult over the curbs and will probably create a 'push' effect (understeer) when turning the wheel at higher speeds. If the front anti-roll bar is too soft it can create a lot more oversteer in every situation but this can be useful for holding a tight line around low or medium speed corners as the car doesn't try to run wide quite so much.

Another setting worth remembering is tyre camber - F1 Challenge models this more accurately than F1 2002 and as a result you don't need anywhere near as much. Front camber should normally be more than the rear setting and you can decide on what adjustments to make to tyre camber by watching your tyre temperatures on the cockpit LCD display while driving. If the inside edges of the tyres are heating up much more than the middle or outside edges it probably means you have too much negative camber on the tyres. For F1 Challenge I've found that a front tyre camber of around -2.8 is useful for most circuits but the rear tyres are much more difficult to set up - If I was driving a circuit such as Spa with lots of fast turns I would probably have the rear camber at a similar setting (-2.8) but if I was driving a very low downforce circuit such as Monza (where traction out of slow corners is very important) I would probably want a much lower setting of around -1.8

Setting the car up does involve a lot of trial and error though - even for real F1 teams; you often hear how they made changes for a certain session (such as single lap qualifying) and the changes didn't work at all. So even the experts make mistakes when setting up their cars.
It's certainly worth learning however as it can give great confidence when you just 'know' what changes to make to improve the car on a circuit (making it faster). I recommend it to anyone who has never tried making their own setups in the past.

Fiddle with the settings, read the guides (RacerAlex Advanced Guide in particular) and learn what works and what doesn't - it's the best way to go if you want to make setups to suit your own style of driving.


9. Driving Techniques.

It's easy isn't it? You brake, turn, accelerate, brake, turn, accelerate... do this a few thousand times and you become World Champion? And how I wish it was as easy as that...

I'll start with a simple piece of advice - think about every corner before you get to it. Think about the braking point, the turn-in point, the downshifts, and exactly what you want to do with the pedals during the turn. And once you are on the exit of one corner start thinking about the next.
You need to be focused for any racing lap but even more so if you are going for new lap records. Sometimes your first sector will be great and sometimes you will drive the perfect line through a very difficult chicane... Don't admire your own driving or you will almost always lose focus and make an error at the next turn.
Finish the lap and if it does turn out to be a great one you can always watch the replay.


9.1. Braking;

You need to learn to be smooth with the brake pedal as soon as possible. Yes you can hammer it when you are doing 200mph if you need to be ready for a 1st gear chicane but you still need to be able to release the brake pedal smoothly.
Lets assume you are going to press the brake pedal fully to the floor when you reach your next braking point - If you brake from 200mph down to 50mph without gradually releasing the pedal towards the end of the braking zone you will lock the brakes badly. This will cause you to either run far too deep into the corner (if you lock the front brakes) or even worse spin the car (if you lock the rear brakes). Which brakes lock up first depends on your 'brake bias' in the setup - if you use 60 front:40 rear you will most probably lock the front brakes under braking and if you use 55 front:45 rear you will almost certainly lock the rear brakes and spin. But you don't want to lock up at all so for the moment don't even think about it - just concentrate on releasing the brake pedal smoothly (and gradually) as you reach the end of your braking zone (and the start of your turn-in point) and there shouldn't be too many problems.
Another popular technique while braking is to use some throttle at the same time to steady the car (and to stop the rear of the car coming around) - this is mainly used by drivers who prefer the 'brake bias' to be towards the rear. As I mentioned earlier; when the brake bias is towards the rear there is a much greater chance of the rear brakes locking and the car having oversteer under braking - using a very small amount of throttle while braking can prevent this.
You might think "why would anyone want their brake bias towards the rear if it simply causes problems such as this?", well that's because a rear brake bias can really help corner turn-in as the car is automatically trying to oversteer, and in the early stages of this 'oversteer under braking' it will normally point the nose of the car in the direction you want to turn. So it can be a useful bonus if you can perfect the technique - you haven't even turned the wheel and the car is already starting to turn into the corner.
Of course this is a very difficult technique, a lot of it is down to timing and a huge amount is down to pedal control (so that you can cause just the right amount of oversteer at just the right time). I've practiced this technique for a long time and I still can't do it perfectly lap after lap but I can definitely see the benefits, and by using some throttle while braking it means you will already have the engine revs up as you start to turn into the corner - this can save you some extra tenths which would normally be spent getting the revs up from a much lower amount if you hadn't been pressing the throttle slightly towards the end of your braking zone. The higher revs during turn-in can also be of benefit at the apex and on the exit of the corner depending on the type of turn you are driving.
If you have your brake bias more to the front then you shouldn't get much oversteer while braking but there is a much greater chance of running too deep into the corner, even if the front brakes don't lock up. Formula One brakes are so powerful that you only have be pressing them slightly (at low speed) for them to have an effect on the car, and with a front brake bias this effect will be too keep the car