Percentage Driver / Percentage Car / Percentage Setup ?

[James]

Its that time of year when a number of people change chassis, interested to hear your views on what makes you go fast!
Im not talking broadly, im talking as you get near the top and are getting the last bits of performance from yourself and your car.

Im sure many beginners/people looking to improve would be interested to hear views from the better drivers and any tips..
Assuming there are no reliability issues personally i think its about 80%/10%/10%...

[col300]

I reckon 91 / 6 / 3

[GRIFF55]

70 / 10 / 20 i was very close to saying 65 / 10 / 25 but then i thought of the likes of craggy, lee, ellis etc and i think they could put almost anything in the 'A'. Practice and tracktime plays a large percentage i think also

[Chrislong]

90 / 8 / 2 for me, but it depends on the driver. Some can stroke around a lemon fast, some can't.

[pugboy]

right you F1-ers have had your say..So my excuse that I can't get my car to handle right is hogwash essentially!

I think it's a little more than 5% set up, more like 15-20, that's from a shitish driver's perspective anyway.

Chris Robinson (king of the shit drivers)

[PaulUpton]

Some people could drive with a not so well set up car.

But a badly setup car would be more apparent in someone of less ability than the top guys

I would say setup is quite crucial, anycar setup well, will go well

Mine would be 70/10/20

[njc11]

Originally Posted by PaulUpton

Some people could drive with a not so well set up car.

But a badly setup car would be more apparent in someone of less ability than the top guys

I would say setup is quite crucial, anycar setup well, will go well

Mine would be 70/10/20

Totally agree with this one

and you of course pugboy lol you need to go back to sticks mate... give up on the steering wheel...

[Stu]

80/1/19

[Northy]

It depends on soooooo much, but assuming the following:

• The car set-up is something close and suits the car, i.e. the 'standard' XX4 set-up on the XX4.
• You have been to the track before, or it is a new track for all.

Then I'd say:

80/10/10

BUT

If you know the track really well, and have pounded round it a lot, I would say this would change to something like:

96/2/2


If your close on set-up and know the track, I really think set-up won't affect the laptime much at all, it will just affect how it is achieved

If you don't know the track, and set-up is close, I think small tweaks just give you more confidence and then again, most of the improvement in laptimes comes from your thumbs

G

[pugboy]

Originally Posted by Stu

80/1/19

..It's probably true that there isn't one of the top level cars that couldn't win a National A Final in the right hands. It does seem however that some cars are more consistent in whoevers hands though, for example the X6 which nearly always looks good whoever drives it, whereas a xxx CR can look dialled or undriveable. It would be interesting to swap cars for a race with bottom of the pile and TQ car/driver. I'd be happy to take part!

[sosidge]

80/10/10 is about right.

The difference for me between a really badly setup car (ie major over- or understeer, unpredictable bump and jump handling) and a good setup is 10% at most.

Difference betwen cars is even finer - I don't think I have ever made a difference of more than a couple of percent to my times by changing car - but that's because I usually have competition cars anyway. Give me a Tamiya Sand Viper and the difference might be 10%. When I run my Tamiya TT-01 at club touring meetings for fun, I am only about 15% off the pace of competitive 10.5/19T cars, with a car that is arguably much worse and has a lot less power.

So that leaves 80% (at least) for the loon behind the sticks.

[Nick Goodall]

I'd say 85 / 10 / 5 - Purely in some cases that a BAD car can't actually be set-up, some cars will simply not work and go well no matter what you change on them.

I think the driver is obviously Very important, but when it comes to that final important 2/3 tenths the Set-up becomes critical, even minor details...

As Northy says though if a driver knows a track really really well they're skill almost becomes the most important thing too.... if the car is working "ok" they will probably still get round well just by knowing the track.

[Richard Lowe]

It's different the further up the order you get IMO, for the F3/4/5's I'd say it's almost all down to the driver; so long as the car goes in a straight line ect.

In my experience as you get faster the car matters more, there's only so much you can do to drive round problems. eg If your car just won't go through some bumps as fast as someone else, there's nothing you can really do about that as a driver. For me I'd think getting the car right is at least 25% of the work

[bigred5765]

50/20/30 depending on the car and the track

[Stu]

No way that skill is 50%.

Assuming that we are talking current race kits (even those a few of years out-of-date), with a set-up that is not intentionally rubbish, skill is never less than 80% of the score - no way boss.

[bigred5765]

ok re think

79/10/11

[ashleyb4]

80/9/11

[Welshy40]

Percentage Setup 50%

Setup is the key as without a good setup you cant push hard for a great round time.

Percentage Driver 35%

Driver comes into it after the setup has been perfected, so if the driver is any good the setup should make the driver not have to really do that much to keep it on the track.

Percentage Car 15%

Car is the last and if its designed with a good layout the car helps in certain instances but mainly a good driver with a great setup can put a brick into an A.

[niggs98]

has to be 80/5/10/5, the last one is the little bit of luck you need to get in that top 10

[MatJohnson]

Interesting one this. The top drivers (rightly) can say its 80%+ skill because they can qualify a badly setup car towards the top of the sheets. Lower drivers its got to be more about setup since they don't have the skill to drive around the setup issues. But then, the chances of a lower end driver getting vastly up the time sheets is remote.