Time Trial League - 2022 Pre-season Test Report @Fiorano

Welcome to Fiorano in sunny Italy, host of the pre-season test for the 2022 Time Trial League. 

We're using the 2015 release of Fiorano for GP4, beautifully created by the F1Virtual team. 

We have seven participants at this test session, with nine in total having signed up for the season so far. Newcomers, JCaranti and Hinyaldee joined the action alongside returnees, Gildoorf, Prblanco, 32bobo32, Carl_Gpgames and me, Fongu. Check out the link to the league on the menu bar at the top for more entrants. 

The Fiorano track is a tricky little track. You start off with the longest straight on the course, and you break heavily into turn 1, but it opens up on the exit allowing you to pick up speed for the fast S bends, not quite flat out so quite challenging. Then you are back on the brakes in a turn for the tight turn 4, which leads you up hill, over the start/finish straight in this figure of 8 configuration. There's lots of room on the exit kerb. Turn 5 is another tight right hander, that leads you downhill into the tightest hairpin, it's difficult to get the car slowed down. Flat out, with a slight feather in turn 7 before a long sweeping turn 8 that leads you back to the finish line. A fairly short lap, but lots of different kinds of corners, as you'd expect from a dedicated test track. 

Rule Changes

New season means a tweak to the rules. Instead of finishing a lap with 1 lap of fuel remaining this was switched to starting the lap with at least 2 laps of fuel onboard. This sounds a minor change, but it caught out 32bobo32 who started his fastest lap with 1.9 laps of fuel. Thankfully it didn't affect his position, and this is only testing after all. 

There's also a change in the track limit rules this year, with the white lines all around the track defining the boundaries, as it should. Last season the boundaries included kerbs, so this will be quite a shift (certainly in my approach on the wheel). The main test in Fiorano for this is on the exit of turn 7, where there's plenty of kerb to run wide on, but now you have to keep at least one wheel on the white line. 

Setups

For the first time, we have access to everyone's set up data, thanks for Prblanco for compiling and sharing the data. These are the setups used on the fastest, submitted laps. 

We can see there's a fairly equal spread of inputs, with the four 'switched' drivers using the keyboard, whilst the analog drivers are all on wheels. 32bobo32 did do a few laps on the wheel, but still needs more practice as he couldn't match his pace on the keyboard. 

FW/RW are the wing levels, the majority of us running more front wing than rear, with Hinyaldee being the only exception. Gildoorf is running the lowest downforce settings, whilst I'm running the most wing, as I explained above. 

RB/FB are the brake balance settings, are you can see how much further rearward Gildoorf and my setups are. Carl_gpgames is running brakes extremely near the front. 

1G-7G are the gear ratios. Everyone is running seven gears, and the seventh gear ratio is really based on how much rear wing you're running. For me, I went for quite small differences in the lower gear ratio range, as I say, I felt this helped me out of the slower corners (whether it actually transpires that way or not I'm not sure!). 

The top speed is at the end of the start/finish straight, with Gildoorf having a good advantage on that front, with Carl_gpgames and myself some 7 kph slower. 

Fongu's notebook

For me personally, being pre-season, I was looking to shake off the cobwebs and just enjoy driving again. I was on the a keyboard, thinking a mid-downforce setup with a good balance would be a good mix between the high speed corners and the low speed ones. I also tried a very rear-ward brake balance as Gildoorf used to good effect last season to help with those pesky slower corners. I was happy to set a lap under 1 minute with that set up, as I found the limits of the car, learned good lines, good braking points, trying different techniques at different corners. I also experimented a bit with my gear ratios, helping me accelerate quickly out of the slow bends, and that gained me a few tenths. As I discovered last season, I can't simply translate my setup on the keyboard straight to a wheel, so I was interested to see Jcaranti trying out my setup on his early runs. I then went pretty much full downforce, I wanted extra braking and grip in the tight corners, and more speed through the higher speed ones. For me, this gave me much more confidence around the corners and I found around half a second. Overall I was happy to concentrate a bit of time on setup work and understanding how that affects my driving, and ultimately pace on track. 

Results

There was an air of excitement at Fiorano, looking to see if there was any change in the pecking order, trying to catch a glimpse of the new cars and new helmets. But as always with testing, there are those struggling to get run time, whilst others were pounding around fine tuning their cars. It's difficult to know whether the times are truely representative of the competitive order or not, or whether some teams were sandbagging. We'll only truly know when we get to the first competitive round. 

Purple times are fastest of anyone. 

Green times are personal best times. 

For those who uploaded more than one lap, the yellow times means that there was a faster sector time in one of the other laps that were slower overall. 

Quickest in all sectors is Jcaranti, who sets a blistering pace on a wheel, over half a second from the rest of the field. This is surely a warning shot to the rest of the field for the start of the season proper. Congratulations to Jcaranti.

I'm pleased to get a time in the 58's on the keyboard - I wanted to use the test session to understand set up a bit more, and maximising it for my driving style. 

Gildoorf sets the third fastest time, struggling a bit with the final sector. Prblanco, on the wheel, is just slightly behind his fellow compatriot, with only the top four able to set a sub 1 minute lap time. 

32bobo32 was also in the 59.7s with his disqualified lap, but he'll be pleased with with his 1:00.00 lap time. 

Hinyaldee ran with no driver aids on the keyboard (you can't turn off steering aid on the keyboard easily (though it is possible in GP4Tweaker)), a brave decision but a lot of his time was spent controlling the car. Spectacular indeed, but unfortunately not particularly quick. 

Carl_gpgames was able to set a time on the wheel, but with a lack of on track running time is confined to the back of the field. 

Reactions

Prblanco: "Congratulations @JCaranti for the win and the three best sector times!"

Jorge: "Massive admiration to @Fongu understanding his control of driving. Many of the tracks i havent raced nor tested in years and others are brand new to me like Saudi Arabia. Thank you very much for everything."

Fongu: "Congrats @Jcaranti on your impressive preseason pace. I look forward to future duels ad the season commences." 

Hinyaldee: "I need to up my game!"

Prblanco was able to offer some helpful advice to Hinyaldee's interesting driving technique...

Prblanco: "Two things seemed very unusual to me about your laps, first is that you drive without F7 Traction Control with a non-analog control scheme, which seems very difficult to control; second is that you use more rear wing than front wing, which induces understeer. Maybe try playing around with these?"

It's good to see the banter remains strong going into the new season... 

32bobo32: "Why am i fast in S3 😂😂😂?"

Fongu: "New season, new rules, new @32bobo32 habits 🤣!"

Gildoorf: "Amazing S3 @32bobo32, wish I could be that fast, I simply had no idea how to draw the best line at last turn. Rear brake bias make the car bounce so agressively to the left"

We hope Duffer will return, we haven't seen him since the middle of 2021

Duffer: "For me the motor isn't in the car yet 😀"

Personally I was just happy to get a clean lap in, but watching the replay back, it just seems like a leisurely Sunday drive, not really braving the limits, just smooth and serene. It certainly didnt' feel like when I was setting the time, as 32bobo32 shares the same sentiment:

32bobo32: "Very smooth drive! All replays give me a smooth drive feeling, It seems so easy to reach the time... When in cockpit the feeling is the opposite 😂"

Testing Photography

With no official TV available during the test, some car liveries remain a mystery. However there was some leaked images from the test that I can present to you.

Carl_gpgames running a message of support for Ukrainians

Fongu in his new car on his way to the second fastest time

This is reported in Autosprint magazine as a possible picture taken inside PinnaGP factory 🤔

We look forward to the new season starting up in a few weeks time. It's certainly whetted the appetite of some of the competitors. There's still time to sign up if you're interested, full details are available on the GrandPrixGames forum thread: https://www.grandprixgames.org