Subscribe to download
McLaren Canada Season 1

Thank you, GodSpeed! Your tips are definitely going into my "FAQ file", hehe )) Mind, ballast should usually be adjusted AFTER suspension and other stuff, as a fine tuning tool, but, of course, in this arcadish game it might be different. Wish one could at least see tyre temps gradation from inside to outside of the tyre to adjust camber and pressure properly, as tyre temps are soo important IRL. But, well, maybe next year they'll sort this out

Good rule of thumb for you.

The lower the downforce the higher the ballast. :)

2) I found having to much of an agressive rake doesn't work that well and really upsets the car under braking. I generally always run with the rear a TEENY bit higher than the front as I normally run such a low downforce setting on most tracks, but this also helps with how the car rides the curbs and help stop the rear getting loose when you clip them. So no, I wouldn't say it works exactly like it does IRL, even most F1 teams don't run a high rake unless they are generating enough downforce through the floor and diffuser (Red Bull have nailed it the last few years and build their cars around that whole idea)

Hope that answers it (ish) for you :)

1) Having the extra click on the rear can help keep the rear end planted and more stable on direction change but the suspension settings are even more important to get right to compensate for the unbalance, getting the car to be stable under braking. This is when I would normally add quite a bit of front tow to "straighten" the front of the car under braking whilst also increasing turn-in response.
So the trick is to only add as much ballast you need to the point of the car being loose in the corners then I would look at the suspension to counteract it.

As for the questions:

1) I've probably tried every sensible approach. different wing settings + odd ballast so I have seen the difference. and my answer...
Depends on the track ha!

Generally I always run 6-8 ballast as I find ths helps with turn-in but that also means I can run a MUCH lower downforce setup with the right suspension and geometry settings. Wing settings fluctuate between balanced "3-3" or and unbalanced "3-4" for example. Balanced wings I would run on a circuit that had hard breaking zones, more slow corners and not long flowing bends (Canada/Baku). An unbalanced wing setup I would use on tracks that have fast sweeping bends or corners where quick changes of direction are needed (Japan/China).

Glad you sussed it dude!
Yeah I have the same in practice sessions sometimes. It would show me as 17th fastest for instance then I'd qualify in the top 5, just a weird game thing I think that the AI isn't effected by track conditions throughout the weekend until qualifying, fuel is always a factor too.

Also, I've come across a couple good questions in the comments to TRL Limitless' video on setups, but there was no answer. I wonder if you have an opinion: 1 - Have you tried comparing the difference in stability and turn-in between running a combination of 6-5 wings + 6 ballast and 5-5 wings + 7 ballast (or something like that)?

2- Does running an aggressive rake like in real life work better? (2/5 or 3/6)

BTW, strange thing: AI is fast enough (compared to me) in practice, but too slow in Q and Race. Or is it just me being lazy in practice sessions? :/

Wow, thank you for the tips, mate! I actually did a full length race in Canada today. Qualified 2nd (never been higher than 7th in a McLaren before) and managed to win even though it rained (I overcame the tricky wet handling by tweaking my brake pedal settings, lol, so thanx there to you, too, cuz otherwise I would still be using the same poor calibration settings :) So now Baku, and I've already did P1 with the same Canadian setup (different braking balance though) which actually works fine here too. Gonna see if your Baku set is even faster :) And, also, guess I'll have to crank up the difficulty a bit (currently 87%), cuz with your setups it's become a breeze!

Hey man thanks for the feedback! Normally if I was going to pit onto the hardest tyre I would add a couple of clicks of front wing and lower the diff with the MFD to around 65-70% just to help get the front into the corners and tighten the traction up a little. Same in the wet as well really. But tyre wear is never really an issue anymore so I found the gains I could make on the ultras outweighed the small adjustments I would have to make to my driving style whilst on the Super softs and hardly ever used the hardest compound. Generally with all my setups the only thing worth tweaking to taste is front wing if under-steering, Ballast (a click or 2 towards the front) if over-steering and lowering the on throttle diff a little if lack of traction through bends. These are the things that are always going to be driver specific but 1 small tweak at a time can make all the difference to get it how you like it :). Thanks bud!