SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Ralph Hummerich 2004 Season: A Few Words on Setups

Now back to the garage for some serious discussions with my race engineer for some more tuning. I deal with the items in the order that I prioritize them, so the most crucial and biggest adjustments first, the least crucial or smallest at the end. Please note that this order makes sense to me at this point in time.

Power-train: The good old differential. This is another place to go to in the search for that perfectly balanced car. There's a power side which you'll feel when you're going on the throttle and a coast side which will come into play when you're removing your right foot from the throttle.

I notice that they're mentioned in opposite order to what I'm used to from GPL. In F1C you have your deceleration first and then your acceleration. Most confusing when you're used to it the other way!

In the default setup they're set at 0:5. Try changing the decel side to 60, then hit the track and see what happens the first time you let go of the throttle and touch the brakes! Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows (perhaps I should readjust the brake balance as well?).

The accel side is less twitchy.

For the time being I've settled for 20:20, the theory being that decel side will liven up the rear under braking (but not too much) and the accel will help me steer more with the throttle. I know, It's very likely not the fastest way round Melbourne, but it sure is the most fun!

As mentioned, this setup business is time-consuming, so when you read on, I had had a break lasting a couple of days and when I came back to RH 2004 Season to continue the work on my setup, I found that I couldn't keep the car on the road with the brake balance at 38:62, so I changed it to 50:50.

I also changed the anti roll bars to 170:120 and the power-train settings to 10:25.

Yes, this setup business can be very frustrating, but it's also a great learning process.

Aero: Now I think it's the time to look at those wings front and back.

The wings generate grip by pushing the car down towards the track. They work just like inverted aircraft wings. In a modern Formula 1 car they also influence the balance a great deal. More wing at the front, possibly combined with less at the back will result in a car that turns in better. Unfortunately it can also lead to the car becoming prone to spinning out, when exiting turns. It also has the slight disadvantage that the diffuser (two vertical plates near the ground are the visible parts of this device, please see the image below) will not be pressed as close to the ground as it would be with maximum wing angle. Then again; Lot's of rear wing generates drag and drag slows you down. By now you see that it's a trade-off between fast cornering or lots of top-speed.

Note the verticals.

You would probably not be wrong if you started your setup development with the wings, they really are very important to the overall handling of the modern Formula 1 car. Why I didn't take my own advice and start with wing adjustments, is in all likelihood a bad habit I have carried over from GPL.

At Melbourne, I've adjusted the front wing to 50 and the rear to 40, going from the RH setup which had 40 / 42. The changes at the front help me turn in better, the changes in the rear wing help combat understeer. And in my opinion, if there's one thing that's worse than sour milk, it's understeer.

Springs: The springs support the weight of the car and to some extent ensure a more comfortable ride as they compress and uncompress with the undulations in the road surface.

Rear spring rates I have changed from 90 to 100. Again I'm looking for something to help getting the rear-end of the car to respond a bit more. Understeer is safe but it kills speed because you cannot get back on the throttle early enough and stable setups are understeery.

With stiffer springs, the rear will be less stable. Actually stiffer is less grippy and I want the rear to slide a bit. The trick is not to go overboard as the line between better and worse if a very fine one.

Shocks: Without shocks, the springs would compress to the point where there would be no spring movement left, so shocks are needed to absorb the energy that the springs are dealing with from bumps in the road.

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