The first week of July in 1991 saw the papers full of talk about Axl Rose’s displeasure at a camera causing something of a riot in the Riverport Amphitheater.  Injuries were plentiful in an era when, unlike the modern day, cameras were something the rich and famous could control.  Of course, the rage of that one man was small fry compared to the rage in US congress when they granted permission for the first President Bush to send “Stormin’” Norman Schwartzkopf and his fighting force into Iraq only a few months earlier. In Formula One racing, meanwhile, things seemed relatively calm. As long as you weren’t in the Ferrari garage.

The season had started surprisingly well, with team chief Cesare Fiorio opting to run with an adapted version of 1990’s Ferrari 641, itself a development of John Barnard’s stunningly beautiful 640.  Steve Nichols, joining Ferrari after Barnard’s departure for Benetton in 1990, had overseen the design of the 641 and, with reworked aerodynamics and a longer wheelbase, it proved strong enough for six wins in 1990. Prost was challenging for the title that year, until that moment we all remember at Suzuka.

For 1991, Ferrari were confident that they had things in order. The strong finish to the previous season had them convinced that they were in good shape to take the challenge to McLaren in ’91. When they rolled out the 642 at the season opener and Prost took it to the second step on the podium, it looked like they might be right. Except that Senna, in his McLaren-Honda, was some sixteen seconds up the road.

The 642 was not heavily revised from the 641, with a lengthened and strengthened sidepod design being its main differentiator, primarily inspired by the fiery crash that Gerhard Berger endured in 1989.  When it came to genuine performance enhancing design, many were wondering where Nichols’ genius was being spent.  After all, this was the man who had designed the legendary McLaren MP4/4.

Alain Prost, rarely one to be pleased with defeat, had been pressing the team management to accelerate the design of the new car as it became ever more apparent that their 1990-machine-with-a-new-name was fundamentally outclassed by McLaren’s MP4/6 and Williams’ new Renault powered FW14.  Cesare Fiorio, rarely one to be pleased with a driver telling him what to do, responded acrimoniously and the ill feeling that had commenced the prior season in Estoril grew yet stronger.

The second race of the season at Interlagos brought disappointment for the Tifosi, with the two cars coming home fourth and sixth. Prost was once again at odds with the team that had opted to revert the nose to the 1990 configuration without informing the Frenchman, inspiring an acute understeer that killed the front tyres and forced an additional tyre stop.  By Imola, the Tifosi were splaying anti-Fiorio banners in the grandstand opposite the Ferrari pits.  It was fair to say that the atmosphere in the team was getting close to that of the Republican palace in Baghdad.

The engineering squad, however, were still working on the car, and at Imola they brought a wholesale aerodynamic revision to the car and labelled it the 642/2.  A revised underbody and square-arch diffuser, Williams inspired front wing end plates with skirts, longer sidepods, a modified airbox and new front dampers were all introduced.  Prost, fourth on the grid and only four tenths down on Senna, and Alesi, seventh, were both smiling thanks to the upgrades.  There was rain on race day, and as the expectant Italian crowd watched the cars set off on the parade lap they were not hoping either for Prost to slide off the track, become beached and stall, nor were they expecting Jean Alesi’s Ferrari to end up stranded in the gravel trap at Tosa three laps later.   If Cesare was feeling any pressure before…

Monaco dawned, and with it a superb podium for Alesi. Owing more to attrition than pace, it failed to raise the spirits in a team that had become so used to rage and upset as their norm; he was nearly fifty seconds down on the leader.

Shortly before the Canadian Grand Prix, the decision was made to ditch Fiorio and establish a new management structure in a team that had become rudderless.  With Piero Ferrari, illegitimate son of il Commendatore, taking the reins along with Claudio Lombardi and Marco Piccinini, one had to wonder if such a cumbersome structure was going to improve matters.

The Canadian grand prix revealed new front suspension, Penske sourced shock absorbers, and new front wing end-plates; all focussed on addressing persistent issues with high speed understeer.  Alas, no salvation was found, and on the high speed sweeps of Montreal the 642/2 was once again outclassed, and to compound matters, unreliable.  Lacking in power to the Honda and the Renault, Jean Alesi’s V12 let go on lap thirty four, whilst Prost’s gearbox had given up the ghost some seven laps earlier.  Two more DNFs were to follow in Mexico.

Then, as we marched headlong into July, Axl Rose stormed off stage in St Louis and the Riverport riot kicked off,  and three days later Ferrari averted a similar reaction from the Tifosi when they arrived at Magny-Cours with the all-new work of Steve Nichols; the result of three months of intensive work, the Ferrari 643.

This is where we move our attentions to 2015, and to the ever expanding and magnificently detailed work of ASR Formula in the rFactor2 modding scene.  Since the beginning of the year they have released a series of classic Formula One machinery for ISI’s simulator, starting with the Ferrari 643, curiously the car that some would say marked one of Ferrari’s darkest moments.  Early beta releases cut a dash, with superb 3D models and wonderfully detailed cockpits, with perfectly realised liveries for both Alain and Jean’s steeds.

The release of version 1.5 presented a car that felt very nice to drive, but perhaps a little too, I wouldn’t say relaxed, but maybe comfortable.  With 740 horsepower being pushed out of the wailing V12 in the back of a 505Kg motor car, it can never be truly relaxed, but the rear end seemed very well planted and just a bit too easy to keep in check.  A quick look at rFactor 2’s obscenely detailed telemetry output in Motec revealed why: stratospheric downforce levels were keeping things a little more planted than they perhaps should have been, and with correct optimisation of underfloor aero it was possible to match the pole time of Rosberg’s 2013 Mercedes around Barcelona’s aero-centric track.

A few months later, and the final release of the 643 came to pass from ASR with version 1.6, and it is perhaps the finest third party add-on car to grace the sim.  A dramatic, and somewhat more realistic, cut in aerodynamic downforce has been allied to a slightly less grippy set of tyres, lengthier shift timing from the seven-speed semi-automatic gearbox, and a greater pitch sensitivity.  All of this partially goes against what some may find a greater desire to have a precise and smooth drive, because it goes some way closer to replicating the realism of what dear old Alain and Jean had to contend with.  Historical accuracy is trumping the desires of the player, just as it should be.

Running the 643 around aero circuits like Barcelona can be a joy, but the setup of the underbody and diffuser, as with any heavily aero-based car in rFactor2, needs to be precise to avoid a peaky downforce map.  Running around the tighter confines of Estoril becomes a far bigger challenge as balancing braking stability and high speed stability with low speed compliance can be very difficult to achieve.  Quick hands are a must, and it takes some time to truly understand the changes in grip over varying speeds.

Back to 1991, and at Magny-Cours, in a tight four-way battle for pole Alain sticks Ferrari chassis 643/128 on the front row alongside Patrese’s Williams.

As F1’s first race at the French “slot car track” got underway, Patrese’s gearbox refused to co-operate, and Prost took an immediate lead with a voracious Mansell snapping at his heels.  It looked like the 643 was going to win on debut as the race settled down, but on lap fifty-five, Prost was baulked heavily by a backmarker allowing Mansell to sneak around him at the Adelaide hairpin. The Frenchman was then held up for a few more laps by that same lapped runner, who clearly was suffering from blue-flag blindness, and this allowed Mansell to escape into an unassailable lead.  The backmarker?  By pure co-incidence it was the recovering Williams of Patrese…

Still, whilst it may not have been the win that Italy were praying for, second place, and a competitive fourth behind Senna for Jean Alesi, was by far the best result so far in 1991 for the Scuderia.  A glimmer of hope began to shine on Maranello.

The 643, despite being touted as a completely new car, was primarily focussed on aerodynamic modification from the 642/2.  Indeed, the suspension and running gear were mainly unchanged, which meant the car’s wheelbase and other dimensions mirrored the earlier model.  The monocoque, however, was completely new from the steering bulkhead forward, with bodywork fillets on either side running back to the sidepod leading edge to aid front end torsional rigidity under load, and a raised “undercut” nose.

Magny-Cours was to prove (throughout its tenure of the French Grand Prix) a very peculiar track that was very reactive to temperature variation, though Ferrari were not to know this with 1991 being F1’s first visit.  Despite Prost’s podium run to second place, the car continued to suffer an increasing level of high speed power understeer throughout the race.  Testing proved that the 643 worked well enough in high downforce configuration despite this issue, but in low downforce trim the front tyres could not hold on.  Prost believed the issue to be related to poor damping control, inherited from the 642/2, and Ferrari duly brought in shock absorber technician extra-ordinaire Hiro Tememoto to commence a development programme.  A fact that could not be ignored was that, Hungaroring aside, all of the remaining races in 1991 would be run on higher speed circuits.

High speed understeer and the associated tyre wear implications were not the only problems Ferrari had in their new car, as Paulo Massai’s sixty-five degree V12, designated the Tipo 291, that resided in the back of the 643 was also being regularly outclassed by the Honda and Renault motors on track.  Dropping around forty horsepower to the Honda and a little less to the Renault, the engine lacked drivability and torque in the mid-range. As a result, it could match the top-end speed of McLaren and Williams’s challengers, but would fall away on mid-range acceleration.  In an effort to alleviate this deficiency, modifications such as throttle-sensitive butterfly valves and variable length intake trumpets were evaluated, but the gap remained.

Silverstone, a track that was going to highlight just about every problem with the 643, was a hit to the team’s confidence after the promising performance in France.  Prost took another podium only after Senna ran out of fuel on the final lap and dropped out of second place. It was a good enough haul of points, but the one minute gap to Mansell’s Williams left only sad faces in the Ferrari garage as the ebullient race winner gave Senna a lift back to the pits.

Hockenheim dawned and with it the curious, and seemingly not very original, rumour that Audi were contemplating a move into F1. “Pure speculation” they stated.  Naturally, the press never mentioned it again.  Tyres were the discussion point as Goodyear suffered multiple punctures in practice, but at Ferrari the atmosphere could be cut with a knife.  Prost had been under fire from the Italian press for failing to win the French Grand Prix, meanwhile Fiat’s Umberto Agnelli publicly stated his preference for Ayrton Senna.  After Prost responded to press criticism, perhaps unwisely but, angrily, the moral tone changed, and the giornali demanded an apology.

On race morning Prost had, it seems, had enough:

“This is the last straw in a ridiculous sequence of events.  I don’t think it is possible to resolve the problems I have with the Italian press.  They are always criticising me, giving me a lot of shit.”

In the race Prost ended up  pitted in a battle with his old adversary Senna. The Brazilian’s typically robust defence causing even more ire from the Frenchman, who ended the race in a run off area with his car refusing to find reverse.  Once again enraged, Alain spoke out about the standard of Senna’s driving and FISA’s lack of curtailing action, to which Senna could only offer a shrug and a patronising grin whilst muttering: “I think we all know about Prost and his complaining about everything.”

On track, Alesi had executed a pit stop free race to bring the 643 to its third podium in three races, a pleasing result at such a high-speed circuit.

In Hungary Prost was issued a suspended one race ban by FISA for his comments in Germany, something that could only further darken his mood, though a private discussion and a public handshake with Senna seemed to suggest a road to potential armistice between the pair.  Mansell now led the championship and Senna was to fight back with pole and a lights to flag victory.  Despite the team’s hope that the Ferrari 643 would perform in higher downforce configuration, they could manage only fourth and sixth on the grid, with Prost once again ahead of his fellow countryman.  Warmup saw Prost at the top of the timesheets by nearly a second, but in the race the lack of overtaking opportunity had him mired in third place until his V12 was to give out on lap twenty-eight.  Alesi would come home a lonely fifth.

At Spa-Francorchamps, where the 643’s high speed understeer would prove particularly painful, Prost put in a momentous effort in qualifying to put his car on the front row for a race where both car’s engines were to fail.  Monza brought a switch to new dampers from Bilstein, the third damper manufacturer of the year, to combat the understeer problems.  Steve Nichols was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the problem was a fundamental aerodynamic issue.  With a rearward centre of pressure taking high speed grip from the front end, and troublesome pitch sensitivity in medium and low speed corners, the front suspension had to be run in an overly stiff configuration.  The Bilstein dampers were adopted for the rest of the season, a season that was looking ever more likely to be winless.

Horsepower was, as ever, king at Monza, and the Ferraris were third best in front of their home crowd; Prost ahead of Alesi on the third row.  With all eyes on Benetton’s newly signed wunderkind Michael Schumacher, the race saw one more V12 detonate while Prost came home what should have been a commendable third.  Not good enough for the Tifosi.

Back-to-back races in Portugal and Spain saw the third row become a familiar place as Schumacher would help Benetton start to get on terms with Ferrari.  Another engine blown for Prost and a podium for Alesi in Estoril was also becoming a familiar story, and the turmoil within the team seemed to be far from over with the rumour mill suggested that both drivers could be queuing at the job centre in 1992.

The Circuit de Catalunya saw host to a number of political wranglings in 1991, not just in the ever political environment of the Ferrari pit.  It was the final race for FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre, a position he had held for thirteen years, and he came under fire in the driver briefing as Senna and Mansell went head to head over on track tactics.  Their words were to later echo for us all as after a damp start, Mansell was dropped behind Senna and forced to pass the Brazilian in a move that has since gained considerable fame.  The two cars, mere inches apart whilst nudging two hundred miles-per-hour on the front straight, sparks flying.

Prost, seeing the damp-but-drying track, had wanted to start the race on slicks.  He suspected it was his only chance at victory from sixth place, given that it was clearly inevitable that the leaders would have to switch to dry rubber relatively early in the race.  Much to his consternation, he was overruled by the top-heavy Ferrari management.  Blocked heavily by his team mate Alesi on the opening lap (Alesi was later to receive a ten second penalty for weaving), Prost came in on lap three, first of the top runners, and ran a consistent race amongst chaos to come home second. Another podium, but still no top step.

As we step back into 2015 and ASR Formula’s superb rendition of the Ferrari 643, I am given loan of Mr Alesi’s machine to drive around Interlagos in a test.  After sustained lappery, and considerable work on setup, I am reminded that this is really a car where you have to think things through.  The likelihood that you will leap into this car and be fast right away is low, as the variable track and weather conditions that rFactor2 offer present a number of challenges.  First you have to get the brakes working; those sensitive carbon discs needing to be up in a high heat range to operate at their best. Then, when you start looking at the aero balance, you could find some difficulty in judging whether brake balance or pitch sensitivity are your biggest issue in some of the bigger stops.

As was found with the real car, the mid-range torque of the evocative sounding V12 is distinctly lacking, but there is a peaky top-end that takes the screaming machine to some fourteen thousand RPM.  To the uninitiated the car is astoundingly quick, and can make ISI’s Dallara DW12 feel rather portly, despite the modern Indycar being faster over a lap.

The fast sweeps through the middle sector of Interlagos accentuate the high speed understeer problems that prove very difficult to quash no matter how much front wing you wind into the car.  However, once the diffuser is sorted out, the rear of the car is very stable in the high speed stuff.

There is a lot to think about with this car, and racing it over a sustained season would be a fascinating prospect.  On some circuits, and in some conditions, it feels genuinely delightful to drive, and the level of historical accuracy and depth of the vehicle modelling almost makes you want to fall in love.  Then you can take it somewhere else where, no matter what you do, you can’t make the thing work the way you want to.  You can pour over telemetry data for hours wondering why.  It’s a car of peaks and troughs, but when you see its beautiful lines and hear its demonic roar, it is hard not feel a warm glow for this virtual machine.

In 1991, the teams arrived in Suzuka to news of a huge earthquake in Uttar Kashi, but Formula One’s ever insular world was more concerned with its own brand of turmoil.  Ayrton Senna’s run to second place behind Berger clinched him a third world title, prompting another post-race monologue from the champion. Here he opted to give us his full and frank thoughts concerning outgoing FISA president Balestre, and openly admitted to causing the 1990 collision with Prost a year earlier.  Candour out of control?

Perhaps, but it was neither here nor there for Prost who, after qualifying fourth, would go on to finish in the same position, some eighty seconds down.  After a few laps of running, it seems, the front shock absorbers had collapsed on Prost’s 643, and this resulted in the steering becoming absurdly heavy.  The Frenchman, commenting on this subject after the race, was heard to say: “It was like a horrible truck to drive, no pleasure at all.”

The comment, innocent enough, referred to the weight of the steering as a result of the damper problem in the race, but went on to be famously misquoted by almost every publication the world over.  The quote was contorted somewhat to imply that Prost had implied that the car itself was like a truck, and this brought even more discontent within a team that was straining to stay in one piece.  Ferrari were in a state of pandemonium and, on the Friday after the Japanese Grand Prix in 1991, Alain Prost was advised that his services were no longer required by Scuderia Ferrari.

In Adelaide for the final race of the season, Claudio Lombardi was quoted as saying: “After deep analysis of Alain Prost’s behaviour during the present season, we had to take the decision [to terminate the contract]. We are always prepared to consider constructive criticism as a team, but Prost made too many critical comments outside the team.”

At the time, with forty four wins over ten years of competition, Alain Prost was the most successful driver in Grand Prix racing’s history.  That none of those wins came during the 1991 season spoke of a frustration that may have hinted that some words behind closed doors were more of a catalyst to his departure than his misplaced truck-based comments.  But still, that was the quote that stuck, and to this day that is the quote that is remembered.

As for the Ferrari 643, its tenth and final race saw entries for chassis 129 and 130, the third and fourth 643’s to roll out of the Maranello factory.  Twenty three year old Italian Gianni Morbidelli replaced Prost in the number twenty-seven car, having impressed many with his performances for Minardi throughout the season.  They occupied the fourth row of the grid and, upon race day, torrential rain saw a red-flag fall after fourteen laps, with Alesi’s Ferrari finishing, like so many, in a crumpled heap in the wall.  Morbidelli, on what would stand as his only Grand Prix for Ferrari, brought his car home sixth, scoring half a point for the team; his first world championship points.

As the sun set on the 1991 season, Ferrari’s tumultuous time continued and, before long, Lombardi was replaced at the head of the team, with Steve Nichols ousted for a returning John Barnard.  The 643 was never going to be remembered as one of the great cars from the Prancing Horse; whilst its tally of fifty-five and a half points over the season helped the team to third in the constructors’ championship, their tally was more than doubled by Williams in second place.

ASR Formula have nonetheless brought us a piece of Motor Racing history, a car that, while no pace-setter, was a car that was embroiled in controversy in a Ferrari team that seemed intent on tearing itself to shreds in the early 1990’s. After challenging for the title in 1990, the 1991 season marked an era of darkness for Ferrari that would last for many years until Jean Todt arrived to commence their return to the front of the field.

As we move on through this year ASR have released 1991’s McLaren MP4/6 and have a Williams FW14 in beta. Despite some question marks concerning performance equivalency, this is a breath of fresh air for the motor racing enthusiast in sim racing; the more cars we can gather that have a history and a story to tell, the better.  Let us hope that the Ferrari 643 is just the start of a series that can help breathe passion and soul into the rFactor 2 scene.

The Ferrari 643 is a car which never excelled on track, indeed in many respects was considered a failure, but as a piece of machinery it offers a unique driving experience that brings with it a unique history.  It might not be the flagship car of its era, but in its own right it merits its place in the history books for its real world exploits and history, and merits a place in our sim garages as an opportunity to sample that history and be a part of it.

With increasingly fractured car collections delivered by sim developers, it is often the case that we rarely get a chance to sample some of the “has beens” and “also rans” of motor racing’s past.  But just as they have their place in the history of motorsport, they also have a place as a part of recreating and capturing the essence of their era within sim-racing.

It’s the smells I miss.  The crisp scent of an early morning track walk, the alluring aroma of bacon wafting in the air as the trackside van gets itself started for the day.  And then, when the first motors fire up, the sweet, acrid miasma of two-stroke oil starts to fill the air; a distinctive smell that always gets me in a wistful mood.

These Sunday mornings were part of my routine for many years; first in my teenage years, and then more recently as I indulged in the Club100 national championship for those of a slightly more adult age.  Once the smell had set in, and any additional weight saving garnered via a troublesome visit to the lavatory (fireproof overalls not recommended), heading out onto track for the first practice session remains, to me, the best way to “blow out the cobwebs” of a morning fug.  Two-stroke 125cc karts are simply joyous to drive, direct drive and no drivetrain lag, relatively light-weight, and with the right cogs the motor will sing all the way to 15,000 rpm.  Chugging at lower revs, the driver must develop a technique of feathering the top end of the throttle to avoid flooding the engine before the power band arrives and the kick in the back with it.  Once the engine is on-song, the corners arrive quickly, and the grip level on fresh tyres can be immense. As you crank it from turn to turn, an almost zen-like state takes precedence, and there can be no better meditation.

That is, of course, unless you’re new to it, in which case you can jump into the thing and wonder why you bothered!  Everything is violent, the brakes are snatchy and don’t seem to work when they are cold, if you give it too much throttle at lower revs in a corner it bogs down horrendously and other karts fly past you like you’re standing still, if you take the brakes too deep into a corner it can spin on a sixpence, and you can’t work out why it’s understeer one second, and oversteer the next.

Plenty of times I would see the first-timers in Friday practice, wrestling around, frustrated and angry at the wilful beast beneath them. Many, of course, had run the traditional “let’s do karting” session, with work-mates or friends, down at some indoor hangar where the lawnmower roar of twin-engined four strokers filled the air. Heavy at the rear, light at the front, a centrifugal clutch and the throttle response of a Transit van (if you’re lucky). It was easy to beat Gladys from accounts. Those old lumps pull 40mph at best (usually exaggerated by the overly self-important race steward in the briefing), and respond only to hustling and throwing around.  Winning in these events can make one feel special, and make one think of stepping up to another level.  Then, one Friday, one ends up in a 125cc kart that clocks 60mph in 4.5 seconds and pulls 3-4 G in the turns.  It’s another world.

And it’s a world that has never been convincingly built into a racing sim,  hence why I was rather intrigued to see what ISI made of it with their recent release of exactly the vehicle I have raced more of than any other for their eternal beta of rFactor 2.  With their “Kart F1” vehicle I was able to try something similar to the Birel N35 I knew so well, and with a fixed weight of 158Kg (driver included) I didn’t have to live on lettuce leaves for a week before the race.

My first concern with karts in a simulator is that of the driver feel and balance in the chassis, something that comes very much down to the inner ear.  As with a motorcycle, the movements the driver makes in a kart can affect the balance and handling in itself, the driver is, after all, the heaviest “component” of the vehicle. However, this can be overblown, as it tends to be the case that one may lean a little on a given “cheek” to push a little extra grip to the outside tyres in some turns, but there is no real clambering around to be done.  Karts, of course, have no suspension, at least in a “springs, dampers and roll bars” sense, so the movement in the chassis comes from hubs, and steering mounts, as well as the flex of the tubular metal frame.  As with any four wheeled vehicle, the balance of the chassis on corner entry is crucial, optimally marrying longitudinal grip with the lateral load on turn in is the difference between a clean entry and a messy one.  In the remarkably stiff and unrelenting chassis of a kart, this becomes very clear with more and more laps in real life, as what seem like small errors can amount to a lot of laptime lost.

Whilst a simulator can give you a very good idea of front end lateral grip via the force feedback, understanding the front to rear weight transfer is not as intuitive. When in a kart, you may be working with very short braking areas with a critical turn in point that, if missed, can make for a very different corner and a lot of time lost.  If you brake too deep you risk overloading the front tyres with the amount of weight that is pushed forward or, worse still, unloading the rear so much that the rear axle locks and sends you into the hedge.  Concurrently, if you release the brakes too soon there may not be enough weight over the nose to generate the grip needed for a perfect turn-in, leaving the front tyres scrubbing as the driver increases the slip-angle, and an apex missed.

Seat time in a real two-stroke kart will give a skilled driver a feeling for this delicate balance that allows them to become as smooth as they can be, for it does not take long in these vehicles to realise that smoothness is key and that, as Carroll Smith once said: a sliding tyre is a slow tyre. Once a driver’s perception of this front to rear balance is established, they can start to work out where they may wish to use more yaw on entry, or where they want to keep the kart more planted.  For many it is an almost subconscious relationship, as the man (or woman) and machine meld more than in any other four wheeled vehicle.

Of course, a similar relationship exists in all car racing, but in a kart those balance decisions have to happen far quicker, as the lack of any suspension makes the driver’s feeling the most crucial aspect of the grip balance. This does not come from the steering force, or visual cues, but rather from a combination of the inner-ear and “seat of the pants”.  So how can a simulator hope to relate this feeling using on screen visual cues and, erm, steering force?

Let’s take a look shall we, by taking to the track in the 125cc “grown-ups” kart (the other option is the Junior kart, with a smaller chassis and less beans; it’s what you see 8 year olds driving down at the local kart track!).  ISI have built a track named “Quebec” (bearing a remarkable resemblance to this place) that comes in four configurations of varying length. To get to know the kart, I opted for the “medium” configuration which features a combination of different corners that should give a good idea of the overall handling.

Now, the first rule of thumb with every sim, and every car within a sim, is that it is important to get your driving right before starting to obsess about setup.  The sure fire way to go the wrong way on setup is to have failed to get yourself completely comfortable driving the car before you start to change things.  Once you have settled down to a consistent laptime that you can replicate every time out, then start looking at how to improve the car (or kart in this case).

One of rFactor 2’s biggest enemies as a piece of simulation software is also one of its biggest assets, that being it’s open and customisable nature.  Setting up your own controllers for the optimum feel can take some time, and anyone new to the sim could find it a bit of a minefield.  The fact is that once you have it set, you should not have to play with it again.  One change I would recommend, however, for everyone with a high end wheel, is to ensure to set up the “Steering Torque Minimum” setting in the controller.ini (more information on FFB settings and feel can be found here

If we assume that we all have a good feeling on the wheel, the first thing to notice with the Kart is how stiff the steering is. The steering ratio is very low, meaning that a very small movement will give a lot of “turny”, this technical term is important to note, because if you’ve spent the last few months driving some other sim car the natural response is to be doing far too much turny everywhere for a few laps.  Once you get used to it you should find yourself feeling the force from the tyres more and thus using ever more delicate steering inputs. With a high-enough-end wheel you may find that you’ll need to open a window too, as it can be hard work!

Whilst, personally, immediately at home when it came to steering input, I was having some problems with the brakes. My natural feeling from real-world experience is to use a relatively heavy foot on the brakes in one of these karts, usually with an initial “thrapp” on the pedal that once applied I ease down as temperature builds in the brake pad.  Being delicate with a single disc rear (I was never rich/fortunate enough to enjoy a kart with front brakes) would have it achieve just about nothing, but a good firm kick gets it working and, with enough seat time, achieving ample braking performance with no lock-ups.

Of course, no one wants a locked rear axle, and I do not have a pressure based brake pedal on my sim rig, so my natural feeling to hit the pedal hard is not helping matters.  This is especially true on the big stop into turn four, so I start to modify my driving to a more “sim-like” touch on the brake pedal.  rF2 models the throttle reasonably accurately, however, although the kart never seems to stall when stopped (Presuming that it is a direct drive machine which it may not be), it does bog down notably in lower rev ranges, and a gentle foot to tickle the motor into its power band is required.  Once up there, the throttle is nicely responsive but you sometimes feel that there should be a little less longitudinal grip coming from the axle, as when exiting under power you rarely feel too much by way of yaw at the rear helping the kart out of the turn.  This could be down to setup though. Hmm, may soon be time to have a look at that.

One of the tenets of driving a kart optimally is that we’re told that we should always either be on the brakes or the throttle, and never coasting.  Now, I will be the first to admit that I raced against many people who were much better at this than I am, but it is always something in my mind when I am thinking about how to improve my lines in a corner or where I could be losing speed.  The fact is, that when coasting you can lose half a tenth in every corner; if the space in between being off the brakes and into the throttle is delayed, then that delay costs time.  The default setup, I am finding, is far more aggressive than what I am used to. The kart is too sharp on entry, with notable camber thrust and front end instability under brakes, and this is meaning that I cannot brake as deep as I may wish, or feel confident with the throttle early on; chances are this setup was designed by someone who is a very quick kart driver. I think it’s time to take a look…

You may think that setup in a kart should be a relatively straightforward affair, but in reality it is just as much of a compromise as in a full sized car.  Another area where rF2 lags behind some of its rivals is that setup is not calculated within the engine there and then, thus, where you would find, for example, that changes to ride heights may affect static toe and camber, there is no real time reading from the vehicle “resting” in the setup screens.  This essentially makes for a bit more hard work, as it is inevitable in a kart that, without anything to “soak it up”, the alignment of the front wheels will change with any changes to weight distribution or ride height.  The good news is, however, that any changes you make on these areas are changes you are likely to stick with from track to track, though it is conceivable, given the complexity of the rFactor 2 simulation, that changes to track conditions could result in you searching for a different balance.

When it comes to weight distribution, this setting is usually not something to work with too much. In a real kart there has to be a reasonable amount of concentration on seat placement, as this obviously affects weight distribution considerably, as does the drivers posture in the seat.  In the simulator, we will have to assume that our driver has impeccable posture, and that his hands are in the right position on the wheel.  The default setup presents a weight balance front to rear of 42%/58%, which is reasonable enough. I tended to run more like 43.5% front end, but with a different chassis so the numbers probably would not tie up (not to mention different tyres).  Changes to this setting can adapt the way the front end behaves considerably, as more rear bias gives much more push in the corners, whilst naturally the opposite happens with the weight further forward.  For now, whilst my focus is on making the front end a little less reactive, I am going to leave the weight balance as it is, and look at alignment.

The default setup had the negative camber set a bit too high for my liking at the front, so I dropped that a few clicks, and made the front toe neutral, something I’ve always done for reasons that my memory cannot recall from the distant past. I remember once being told how negative toe at the front end may give dividends on turn in, but it creates drag on the straights as the fronts push against one another.  Where the benefit truly is I’ve never been sure, but I do prefer the steering feel and turn in balance with neutral toe, so that’s what I am doing.  And screw it, I am dropping the tyre pressures a bit too, a bit more than that bit at the front.  The anti-roll bar, as it is termed in the GUI, is a torsion bar that sits in the front grill; wide and flat in appearance, it gives more stiffness mounted vertically than horizontally, usually meaning a tighter and grippier front end when vertical (in case you were wondering). I’m leaving it horizontal.  Time to head back out.

Much better.  Now I can feel the front end more precisely, and can thus play with the mid corner balance a little.  Whilst I still have a relatively sharp turn-in, there is a touch of mid-corner understeer that serves to stabilise things, especially when arriving into the corner a bit too hot.  With more and more laps the kart comes to me and with it the lap times. For areas in real life driving where I may “feel”, in the sim it takes time to adapt to the balance; the feeling comes, but it takes time.  Laps are frenetic and apexes arrive very quickly, flicking from turn to turn, but with every lap I get smoother, feeling the front to rear balance on entry, it may not be seat of the pants but it’s certainly a lot of fun, and before long I am able to “twist” the kart into the corner with minimal steering input, inspiring the kart into the corner on the brakes.

More seat time allows me to slow things down in my head, growing ever more used to the limited steering movement and the tight envelope of performance in the tyres.  Delve into too steep a slip angle and the tyres catch too much lateral grip and things start to get out of shape, shedding tenths in every corner. But get it just right, and the as the rear comes around on entry you get back on the throttle and smoothly carry speed though the turn.  Since build 494, rFactor 2 has calculated the force feedback directly from the modelled steering column force; it makes a notable difference and really allows the driver a much more tactile feel in the steering. At the same time, the throttle sensitivity is dependent on available engine torque, making smoothness ever more important.  It’s no use just banging the throttle down on the exit of corners, as at lower revs the motor will bog down, so when getting back on the throttle mid-turn one has to take into account the current rev range that the engine is in, slowly applying more throttle as the revs rise; it’s tricky, but still much easier than it is when you’re trying to do it in a real kart, where your feet are being bounced around constantly by the various G forces and bumps.

Modern racing simulators are very complex, and model vehicle controls in such detail, that I find it imperative to put in the time to learn a car.  Anyone that thinks they should be able to just jump in anything and be fast and clean and perfect the first lap out is deluding themselves.  Even the most talented driver has to put in time to come to terms with the delicate balance of each and every race car without the inner ear and “through your arse” feeling that, in real life, allows one to adapt so much more swiftly to a vehicle.  This is exacerbated in a kart, where the tolerances are so low, and the speed penalty for getting out of shape so high.

It’s time to race the AI. rFactor 2 has, I believe, some of the best AI available today; it really allows you to feel like you are racing against different personalities, and they can be real trouble to deal with at times.  Having run practice for an hour with 22 AI at 100% and aggression at 75% I decide, after setting the fastest time by five tenths, that I will start from 18^th place and see how everyone gets on in a thirty lap race. By lap ten I am sweating, and still only in seventeenth place; I’d managed to climb higher but then an over ambitious move on an AI chap, that I had rashly assumed would be much nicer to me, had me pushed onto the grass and I lost three positions.  Running in the middle of the pack in kart races like this is frenzied, and almost feral.  You can easily end up lapping three seconds slower than you could manage on your own, as the defensive position of the kart in front of you slows you up, in turn allowing the inevitable pack of karts behind you to close up and start snapping at your heels.  Finding a way past can be a real struggle, and an attempt to make up one place can go wrong and see you losing three.  One thing is for sure: if there is one place to develop racecraft, this is it.

Once I find a gap I am able to put in two fast laps and rapidly close the gap to the four karts battling ahead of me. The back two are side by side as I arrive upon them, slowing me down through the final complex of corners as they slip through the chicane side by side.  I drop back a little, take a clean run through the final turn and pass them both, dispatched.  That’s it Denton old son, strike while the iron’s hot, and all the other clichés you can think of.  By the exit of turn five I am up on the next victim, kart number six.  He’s slow through the long radius of turn six, so I try to line him up into seven but the door is closed, he baulks me through the turn and I lose speed by avoiding a rear-end bump. I glance back; those two are still dicing with each other and there’s a bit of a gap. Okay, breathe.  I’m fairly sure number six just brake tested me into the chicane, but maybe he just likes to brake early.  Either way, he screws up my run and I get a bit sideways on entry to the final corner. Chasing him down the start finish straight, I whip through turn one and I am right on him, he covers the inside into two and I dart to the outside. I should have him here, the bastard. But hang on, he’s compromising his own apex to push me wider; he’s hanging me out to dry, ARG!  I drop back in behind him and a glance back realises that the lads behind me are now right on my tail. DAMN YOU NUMBER SIX!

WOAH! I am sure he could have braked later than that, he’s trying to destroy my mind. By once again being caught out by his early brake test I am compromised on the exit and the red kart behind me ducks up the inside coming out of the hairpin at turn four. I’m having none of it; I hold the outside through five but he hangs on into turn six, where the green rear bumper of kart six is filling up the inside, red is coming around me and I have nowhere to go! I have to yield to red into turn seven, then he is alongside green number six as they approach the chicane.  Six pushes red up onto the kerb and he slows, I pass him, then end up on that damn green bumper again through the final turn.  By now the next kart is a few seconds up the road, I have no idea what position I am in, but I doubt it is within the top ten.  It’s not fair! I am the fastest kart on the track in clear air but these guys are, well, far too realistic.

I eventually pass kart six; he takes his now standard defensive line into the long right hander at turn six, I dive to the outside and carry the speed though, then block pass into turn seven. This time he’s the one with nowhere to go.  I pull away by a second a lap on the swine, and eventually finish the forty minute race in thirteenth place, sweat dripping from my brow.

I am working on Eliot to get a server setup for some racing online, which hopefully should be just as much fun once everyone is used to the vehicles.  The splendidness of rFactor 2’s racing environments cannot really be doubted; the sim gets a harsh press due to its graphical style but, for me, when you are in the cockpit it looks superb.  The lighting and shadows are perfect, the “real-road” technology has been refined and gives a great feel for the changes in a track over a race weekend, the weather can be adapted in any direction you please (I ran another 30 lap race in Quebec that was interspersed with two rain showers, the track becoming moist, then a dry line emerging throughout), and racing the AI can be truly rewarding.  It’s only a shame that the karts don’t come with the “visor mod” that can make the view from the various single seaters in this sim so pleasing.  Regardless, this is the best example of two stroke karts I have tried in a simulator. There  are aspects of reality that it cannot replicate, and it will  never be quite the same as being out there on track for real, but one thing is for sure: it’s a lot of fun, and a lot less bruising to the ribs.

There’s nothing better for blowing out the cobwebs.

I wrote some time back in detail on the variance in track conditions that can prevail in on-track sessions in rFactor 2 (here), but that piece only touched on what is probably the biggest new addition to ISI’s new sim, that is, the variance in track grip afforded by cars leaving rubber behind on track.  Or, as it is now named “Realroad.”

Build 118 of the rFactor 2 beta inaugurated this name and provided new functionality to manipulate the technology.  Pleasing features, but one has to wonder if this is an area where a lack of education led many to turn away from early beta builds.

You see, when things started out with this technology, every time you started a new session, or dived into a quick race, the track was green.  As fresh as the driven snow (though slightly more grippy) and lacking in the usual visual cues that many a simracer had come to appreciate.  Since the days of Papyrus’ Indycar Racing (which was 1993 for those of you not quite as old and grey as me) we’ve been treated to hints painted on our race tracks in the form of skidmarks.  Not dynamic, in those days, but usually enough to tell you that it was about time you stepped off the loud pedal and jumped on the brake pedal before you end up completely crashed and dead.

These cues were very useful.  I was running IndyCar Racing at a resolution of 640 by 480, this made corner entries, braking zones, anything at all, largely impossible to make out.  Without those black marks it wasn’t that easy to even know there was a corner coming along, not until you’d done seven hundred and nineteen laps and disregarded a term’s worth of homework, anyway.

However, these days racing sims are realised in resolutions higher than the eye can see, with more colours than a Mantis Shrimp can see; so a few missing skidmarks should not mean the end of the world.

What happens with RealRoad is that as one does lap, after lap, after-lap-after-“what happened to October?”-lap the rubber from your virtual tyres departs the carcass and drops itself onto the track.  Every skidmark is left behind, and, slowly, but surely, those visual cues arrive based on your own driving.  This process, naturally, is accelerated if there are more cars on track, and if there are twenty or so AI cars punting round, the track can be rubbered up within half an hour’s running.

This, pleasingly, is carried on to the next session, and the race. So a suite of Practice – Qualifying – Race will have an ever evolving track throughout.  Great stuff, and very consistent with real life; we see it all the time in Formula One that the fastest times in qualifying are always right at the end of the session.  Similarly, in NASCAR we hear of the teams working out setups to work best on the track towards the end of the race as reasons why their driver is languishing in the midfield in the early running.

rFactor 2 is still very much in development, and this technology is not perfect yet, but I do wonder how many people who downloaded the early releases spoke out about “no grip” or “slippery tracks” before they had given the track any chance to get any rubber down on it.  The early builds, I would say, overdid it a bit.  The “green” track was a little bit more like a green track at 5 degrees centigrade on a crisp January morning, scrabbling to get grip on a track that is used once a year.  Getting heat into the tyres, as the rubber bedded into the track, felt glorious, and laptimes fell to the tune of four or more seconds.

More recent builds seem to have calmed this down, both in terms of how much grip goes down, and how quickly, but also in its visual representation.  There seems to be a gentle change in “green” grip, and less of a huge swing in laptime on a rubbered track.  Another new feature is the ability to save the “state” of the track for future use. So you need never have to start out on a slippery, green track again.

What we have here is a truly dynamic simulator. As mentioned in my other article, the track grip levels can vary considerably based on track temperature.  In future releases, this can be due to the shadows being cast on track at the given time of day.  The vehicle’s engine performance can differ based on the air temperature and humidity levels, and the vehicle’s behaviour will vary based on wind direction and power.  So, as well as all this, Realroad gives us another variable and it is a constantly evolving one.

What this means, for the budding simracer, is that setup has to be addressed on nearly every run. Not only might you need to monitor brake and engine temperatures, adjust ducts or radiator openings, but also constantly play with tyre pressures and cambers to find the optimum tyre performance envelope.  All of this, at the same time as all the usual adjustments to wings, gear ratios, springs, dampers, roll-bars and whatever else, to find a feeling that suits your driving style.

As a result, one can find oneself in the situation that many a real world club racer finds themselves in over a race weekend, that of “chasing the track.”  Sure, sometimes things will be more settled, as is often the case in many online rFactor 2 servers right now, sessions might be at the same time of day, temperature and weather, which can help you find a baseline, then you can fine-tune as the rubber builds up.  But all too often, in the real world, you find yourself running practice sessions on a cool morning, only to race in late afternoon a day later.  Thus, half of every session could be taken up with short runs where you tickle your pressures and cambers for the given conditions, nudging brake balance gently backwards as the extra grip being found by the rubber on track aids the braking performance at the rear.  This doesn’t leave much time to be playing with dampers.

Of course, in simracing we have oodles of track time, more than could ever be imagined by a club racer.  Historically, setups become an exercise in working to an optimum point, then saving it, and using it next time you race at the given circuit.  In simracing it seems setups get contentious, partly on this basis. Those with less free time decry the setup time that their more time blessed peers can indulge in, and many simracers would say that a good setup makes for what can be the only reason that any other driver could exceed their incredible on-track skills.

The truth in either statement is dubious; many can play with setups for hours on end and not necessarily find any more laptime than they would have done if they had not made any changes. At the same time, a bad driver cannot achieve miracles with setup alone.  Nonetheless, we have websites dedicated to setup databases, providing those that choose to avoid this deep and rich aspect of our hobby with a place to save on the “work.”

rFactor 2 is forcing players to re-think this design.  Gone are the days of a “perfect” track that never changes, where the sun always shines and ample grip abounds across the whole track surface.  Now we have a new challenge, and one that grants us much more realism.  This results in an approach that means that those with the time may not get such an advantage, as a baseline can be established in lone-practice sessions that can cover wing, gear and basic suspension settings, but any serious fine tuning of the setup could be a hiding to nothing if you are not certain of the approaching race conditions.  As well as this, running alone will not give you the grip on track that you will see in more populated sessions.

To an extent this levels the playing field. It means that, provided not every race is run on the default settings, every driver has to chase the track through the practice sessions, and as long as those sessions are not too long, no-one should arrive on the grid for the race feeling like they have got everything perfect.

Regardless of your feelings about car setups in simracing, they are a feature that has been around for over twenty years, since the very birth of the genre.   The products we race in are simulators, and as such are there to replicate the feeling of the real-world vehicle. Many racing simulators have strived to accurately portray what can, or cannot, be adjusted on the fly in the racing vehicles they represent, and in my mind this should be celebrated. But many current simulators do not bring the whole package, they bring a superb simulation of the physics of the vehicle, but no simulation of the environment that the vehicle functions within.

Vehicle simulators are about learning; learning the vehicle being simulated. No flight simmer would jump into a Concorde and expect success without some serious reading and experience, though they may try a Piper Cub with less difficulty and learn their art.  The complexity we see in setup between a high-end single-seater and a Renault Clio is reflected in this. Learning the car, and how to make it work best for you, is part of the art of being a good race driver.  Maybe Michael Schumacher hasn’t had his hands dirty for a while, but you can rest assured he knows what every part of his Mercedes does when he takes it on track, and he knows how to make it work for him.

At the same time part of the race driver’s art is knowing how to understand a track as it evolves through a race weekend.  It’s about time us simracers got the chance to learn a little more.

Since opening the doors to their open beta back in January, ISI have been relatively quiet on the development of rFactor 2.  The sim, pushed to a beta at quite an early point in development, has come in for mixed reception, with division in the community as to whether it is the next “sliced bread” or not.  Meanwhile, development has plodded on, and with each new build released to the baying public there are improvements in almost every area. Sure, sometimes those improvements are subtle, sometimes you have to really dig, but for the attentive, it is clear to see that rFactor 2 (rF2) is developing into a vehicle simulation of quite some scope.

One area that until recently has remained limited for rF2 is in licences for real world tracks, cars or series. Naturally, some feared that this may persist, and then the Brabham BT20 was announced, and a little sigh of relief was heard. Still, much of the content in rF2 is a familiar picture named with an alias, and you get the feeling that ISI may not have as many dollar bills to throw at licencing as some other sim developers can muster.

This made it very welcome news to hear of the agreement signed by ISI to licence the FIA Formula Two series within rF2.  Formula Two (F2), in its current guise, features a field of young, up and coming stars, trying to make their mark on the motorsport world in high powered single-seater racing cars developed to specification by Williams F1.

The original brief for Williams F1 when developing the JPH1B for the revived F2 championship in 2008 was to find a balance of performance somewhere between Formula Three (F3) and Formula One (F1).  Other series, such as GP2 and Formula Renault 3.5 were proving too expensive for many F3 graduates, and so the FIA sought to bring in a more affordable alternative, that would still provide a valid stepping stone for drivers to be able to make the jump to the top category.

The JPH1B (named after MSV’s Jonathan Palmer and Williams F1’s Patrick Head) began production in 2009 with a carbon fibre composite monocoque chassis, full length underbody venturis and many safety design features dripped down from F1.  The aerodynamic design, based around allowing close racing, but not at the expense of solid aerodynamic grip, pushes 40% of total downforce production on the underbody “ground effect”, allowing over 900kg of downforce to be produced at around 150mph without too much focus on the front wing. Thus, the cars should be able to run closely in a race without fouling their airflow and losing front end grip.

The powertrain, derived from Audi’s 1.8 R4 20v turbo engine, produces some 425hp as 8250rpm, in race trim, with an overboost that temporarily raises output to 480hp for short bursts.  Tuned up from the road car base by motorsport engine specialists Mountune Racing, the unit differs considerably, with lightweight crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons, valves and camshafts as well as a dry sump configuration that allows a lower centre of gravity.  Mountane also fitted a Garrett GT35 turbocharger unit with roller bearings for improved response, and an external wastegate with high speed closed loop pneumatic valve boost control, for absolutely precise automatic boost control.  All this contributes to turning the engine from a family hatchback into a rip-snorting, fire breathing, racing engine.  Power is delivered via a six-speed wheel mounted, sequential paddle shift, and hand operated clutch, helping to prepare a driver for F1 technology.

I had the chance to test ISI’s upcoming new mod for the rFactor 2 beta, which introduces the JPH1B into the simulation, to get a feel for the driving technique, and to bring you guys a little preview of what is coming up.

In the pit lane the JPH1B sparks into life with a gratifying bark. This car carries with it a unique sound, with a snorty, rough and ragged bustle, as the revs “hunt” to find a suitable idle while the turbocharger spins up and starts to whistle, you really get the feeling that this is a four cylinder lump tuned to the very peak of its capability.

Pulling onto the track the JPH1B feels very stable as the speed mounts, with a tendency towards understeer inherent in its base setup, the car slices into apexes on turn in but has a tendency to push mid corner.

The ground effect makes for a rearward centre of pressure on the car’s downforce points, so the rear end can be very stable and malleable at high speed, as considerable aero grip is generated, making it possible to be more aggressive with the steering and throw the car into corners – not so easily done at low speed.  The tendency towards understeer, as such, at high speed is still present, as the front wing is not as effective as one might wish and the ground effect really comes into its own, sucking the rear of the car onto the track.  Naturally, setup work could well change this balance, but with such a rearward bias of aero grip, it’s going to take some engineering.

Where the F2 car differs from F3, Formula Renault 3.5 or GP2 considerably is in engine performance is in the lower range. The turbocharger gives the engine a much flatter torque curve than is conventionally seen by the highly tuned in-line four in an F3 car, or the higher output normally aspirated engines seen in the higher Formula series.

The below video shows a “driver eye view” of a few laps in the F2 car.

The Audi powerplant is not the tamest of beasts. With a huge delivery of torque arriving from the turbo at very low RPM, getting out of corners cleanly can be tricky, with a kerb weight of only 570kg the punch of the engine can make for a very challenging drive indeed, and modulating the throttle on exits becomes a key factor when it comes to staying on track.

As a result the driver has to wait until the car is nice and straight before really putting in big throttle inputs, this makes for a smooth, clean style with the car and reduces the amount of mid-corner “playing” you can get with some single seaters to balance out the inherent understeer of a mid-engined car, instead you can find yourself dancing on the throttle pedal, keeping the opening very small to keep things spooled up for the exit.  When the power does come, allied to that almost terrifying turbo shriek, the car is very fast, and can build a head of speed in no time, with the overboost button giving another 80bhp to aid overtaking moves. Thankfully, the lightness of the car, and its carbon brakes, mean it can bleed off speed even quicker, leaving braking distances sometimes shockingly short as the Yokohama tyres chirp and squirm in protest.

With a very positive initial turn-in bite, the tyres respond well to being heavily loaded on entry and mid-corner, but harsh and fast inputs can cause the grip to ebb away rapidly. This makes the tyre more suitable to a more precise driving style, drivers preferring to brake deeper into turns will find the tyres less tolerant of combined loads, causing the rear end to come around and ruin their day. As outlined, this is similarly apparent on exits, where the tyres are far more tolerant of longitudinal forces when the lateral force has started to die down.

Below is a video of an awesome race in the F2 car.

As a single-seater in rFactor 2, the F2 car goes up against the established Formula Renault 3.5, which comparatively is very different in feel as the cars differ in almost every dimension, at the same time; they arrive at similar lap times. Whilst the Formula Renault’s engine is more usable in the lower rev range, it becomes a handful at higher revs, which is quite the opposite of the Formula Two car. However, with both cars employing ground effect to generate a significant amount of downforce, they are both similarly skittish on the limit, and can be very wilful on bumpier tracks.  Overall, I feel the Formula Two is a more enjoyable car to drive, as the turbo “kick” presents an interesting new throttle technique that makes for a more adventurous lap, while the normally aspirated car becomes all about being precise and smooth, the Formula Two car can be hustled more, and time can come from really pushing.

It won’t be long before all rFactor 2 beta subscribers will get their hands on this car to try out, here’s hoping for some packed online servers for us all to enjoy.

When I saw the announcement for build 85 of the rFactor 2 beta a few weeks ago, there was a small re-awakening within me.  It had been some months since I had done much driving in rFactor2 (rF2), as Alex Martini had lured me into machismo fuelled contest during iRacing’s first season of 2012 which had more or less consumed all of my simming time since the rF2 beta surfaced around Christmas 2011.

However, Alex’s assumptive attitude that virility, courage, strength, and being able to do fast laptimes in pretend racing cars, are concomitants of masculinity was soon assuaged, and the season fizzled to a unremarkable end like a squib that had been left in a toilet bowl.

The result of which was that all involved felt it was time for a change. It often remarks me in the simracing community how many people stick to one sim for their simracing times. Sure, we all have limited time to spend with our hobby, and chopping and changing can really affect competitive performance, but there can often be an attitude that one sim is the greatest and all the others are somehow hugely flawed. Partly propagated by the tendency for exaggeration and questionable literacy on online forums, this attitude is more or less common to all sim communities, and it’s a saddening reflection on a genre that, in reality, is provided for with some very strong products across the board.

What remarked me on the release of the rF2 beta, was how many people there were that decided it was no good (and demanded a refund) within what surely could not have been more than an hour after download.  The rF2 forum was alight with people saying “it’s a beta, it’s not going to be perfect” which rings some truth, but at the same time, how can anyone truly judge any sim without getting some serious laps under their belt?  I’ve been doing this a pretty long time, and I would say it still takes me a good few hours, sometimes per car to assess how good or bad a given sim’s various simulated components hold together. Sometimes this can be an even longer process if one’s mind is attuned to another simulator, where hours and hours of gameplay leads one to adapt to the foibles of a given product.

The early builds of rF2 were a blend of good and bad. the graphics were not top notch in the first public betas, and certain hardware configurations had strange problems here and there.  The driving model itself felt good, much of this feel came from the superb force feedback, but it was not without its faults.  The tyre model, whilst a clear improvement on rFactor 1, still felt very “WIP” (as it, quite rightly, still is), and so there seemed to be a rather severe drop off sometimes in rear tyre grip, and combined loads were not being dealt with very well by the physics engine. At the same time, temperature modelling and slide recovery, allied to the high speed controller response, felt natural and very drivable.

It varied per car, and in the first builds I would say the the above characteristics were more apparent on lighter cars, and on the Formula Renault, which was slick shod, it was far too apparent.  In recent builds, this has been greatly improved, and the Formula Renault has become very much a joy to drive fast.  No longer does it feel on a knife edge in the fast stuff, and spin like a top in the slow stuff.  Now you can push the tyre, especially under heavy aero loads, and whilst is sometimes skips over the bumps in the surface in a rather gratifying way, you never feel like the car is barely under your control.

In a brief return to the aforementioned overly competitive nature of our hobby, I promptly start to get questions from friends who are planning to try out the new build, the first almost always being “What laptimes are you running?”

As was alluded to in my rF2 article in the December 2011 issue of AutoSimSport, such a question is not so easy to answer any more.  You see, running laps in rF2 s not the same as most other sims. To simply say “I did some laps at Sepang” is not enough, this could mean any number of varying track conditions that could bring a similar number of different potential laptimes.  If you want to tell someone about how you popped out for a spin in rF2, you have to write a little story.

“I arrived at Sepang International Circuit as the sun was just cresting over the top of the palm trees to the east beyond turn four. The track was clean from the previous night’s rain. At 8 am the oppressive Malaysian heat was rising up from the overnight lull and it was already 27 degrees as I peeled onto the circuit, with a mere 12kmh northerly breeze to take the edge off.”

Of course, the story above made for clean, fast laptimes flowing nicely, tyres keeping themselves tidy and in a good heat zone. But then, as the day progressed and the Malaysian sun beat the temperatures up to a hearty 36 degrees, setup changes became inevitable, my on-board HUD telling me that brake and engine temperatures were nudging into the red, and with each passing lap keeping the tyres within their performance envelope became a chore. In I came: “Bigger brake ducts, adjust radiator opening, to hell with the drag, and drop a few PSI out of each tyre, my good man!” I bellow at my non-existent race engineer, imagination on overload.

Much like real life, running a laptime in rF2 is very much about the time and the place. On a nice, rubbered in track, under light clouds and favourable breezes, a 1.55s lap at Sepang may be a doddle.  On the same track, not rubbered in, on a 38 degree midday sun and a heavy southerly wind making the direction change in turns five and six more of an adventure, you may struggle to get into the 1.56’s. But this is how it is, and anyone else on track at the same time has it the same way.  This, in itself, becomes the antithesis of the simracers laptime quoting urination contests, as finding the right wind and track conditions, and having the AI punt around for an hour to rubber things up, can produce times well above what you may be able to run in a race session. And let’s remember, its how the track is when you’re all on it that matters.  The fact that the track is oriented correctly for the sun, and that shadows move in exactly the same patterns you see on the TV, only adds to the experience (How long will it be till someone creates a mod to automatically update to real world weather every 15 mins, MS Flight sim style?).

What this does contribute to is atmosphere.  rF2 oozes atmosphere, especially after the graphical changes brought with build 90. The colours so deep and involving, the shadows, in the right place at the right time, it feels right, believable and not at all static and pre-engineered. It gives the driver more to think about than just finding the fastest time, it makes them think about how the circuit is behaving, where the grip is, will that part of track be cooler in the shade? Will this part still be damp from the rain half an hour ago?

For me, atmosphere has been something lacking from many of the “online only” brigade of sims that have propagated over the last ten years. Crammond’s GP series was lush with the kind of detail that really got you involved in the moment, and GPL made me both despise and respect the AI version of Jim Clark, for his unerring pace, immeasurably.

Build 90 of rF2 introduced the officially licenced 1966 Brabham BT20, and with it the Brianza historic track, which to the uninitiated is a representation of Monza from an age before chicanes. This track, filled with so much history, and passion from the annals of motorsport is a joy to drive. Beautiful in almost every detail, powering through the trees, in side-by-side slip-streaming battles with good friends almost brings a tear to the eye.

With a highly accomplished sound engine that almost allows you to place braking points using the ear alone as you “whoosh” past heavier trackside objects, an ever growing portfolio of tracks and cars, and flawless netcode, rF2 is shaping up into what looks like a very promising package in the long run.  After the over-serious and dry atmosphere seen in some racing sims, rF2 is a breath of fresh air where, in recent days, for me, the fun has really been put back into simracing.

In the distant future, when someone decides to step from their hover-car contemplating writing a book about sim-racing in the 21st Century, there will undoubtedly be a large chapter devoted to rFactor and its gMotor2 engine.

Back in 2005, the sim-racing market was sparse with three titles dominating the scene. Grand Prix Legends, even then almost a decade old, enjoyed a large following—particularly if you were into road-racing—while oval racers were a little better catered for with Papyrus’ seminal NASCAR 2003. And then there was the sim that made SimBin, GTR. Aside from that, there was only darkness, and it’s ironic to recall that the community was never closer than in those grim days when all could unite behind a single sim—the one that no-one had ever made. When Papyrus went belly-up, and Crammond was sucked off the earth by a UFO, the darkness seemed complete.

Michigan-based ISI, back then, was but a blip on the sim-racing radar. Yes they had developed various F1-derived titles in the years before 2005, mostly for EA Sports, as well as the superb (and largely ignored) Sports Car GT, and yes, it was on their engine that GTR (both the mod and the game in the box) was bolted, but it would have taken a brave man to suggest ISI was about to challenge the Kaemmer/Crammond stranglehold on the sim-racing community.

And then ISI released rFactor.

Fast forward to 2011, and it’s remarkable what rFactor has become. Developed as an open framework that provided a playground for modders of all abilities to create content, rFactor maintains a healthy player base to this day along with a head-swimming library of mods delivering every race car and every race track any sim-racer could ever want (or dream of): Want to race 1979 F1 cars at a modern Thruxton? Caterhams around Monaco? Huge, lumbering UPS trucks around Melbourne GP circuit? You can do it all with rFactor. And that’s not to mention the engine that was developed for rFactor (gMotor2) that has powered a plethora of other sims in the intervening years, everything from ARCA to Game Stock Car: Indeed, ISI’s gMotor2 went on to become the ubiquitous sim engine, the Ford Cosworth of the sim-racing world.

The good times, though, were not to last. rFactor’s longevity (and ISI’s stroke of genius) was the engine’s open nature, and the craft that it brought to modders’ desktops. This, at first, unveiled an astonishing array of tracks and cars and series before, ever so gradually, the promise of utopia began sinking into a dystopia of mismatches, poorly rendered mods, a modding community who, by and large, refused to allow any oversight, and a tyre model that, though very accomplished on release, was soon overshadowed. But it was the lack of coherence in the structure of mod delivery that resulted in sim-racers’ precious racing time being taken up by finding the right version of this track or that car. Anyone who was around rFactor in 2009 will have experienced that sense of frustration as they hunted the net in search of the ‘right’ version of a track (for which there existed perhaps a dozen versions made by a dozen modders) only to install and discover that it had been updated, and the update was available on a site that had gone down three months earlier. This, along with the notably varied quality on display in the mods, resulted in a growing exhaustion with rFactor, and many abandoned it to opt for more ‘pick up and play’ sims where mismatches never occurred, and racing was simply and cleanly delivered.

It was around then that we first heard mention of rFactor2, and as luck would have it, and as I tend to write about this sort of thing, I’ve been given the chance to try out the beta to ISI’s latest and greatest, their first full-blown sim in half-a-decade and a beta that you will experience soon. So, let’s dispense with this grinding and dull introduction and get cracking with the answer—is ISI back in the game with rFactor2?

Releasing a new sim these days is not the work of a moment; the marketplace is replete with a number of titles that do many things well. rFactor’s USP has always been its sandbox framework, and the design brief for rFactor 2 (rF2) is to continue on this tried-and-tested model by offering an open framework where the community can put-out whatever content they want. But ISI have learnt their lessons too; they know they cannot restrict development or babysit content (that was a battle they—and the more sober elements in the community—lost years ago) and, instead, have opted to embark on a modular design that you can see upon starting up the software where, before entering the sim, you are presented with a feature called ‘Mod Manager’. From here, you can manage which mods are installed via ‘packages’; mod files are now easily managed as one file that simply needs to be dropped into the package folder. This makes it far simpler to keep track of what is or is not installed, and means that you will no longer have the problem of the sim being broken by a mod since installation or uninstallation now takes place outside of the main core executable. Once into the sim, you can also manage mod installation and removal, as well as implement GUI customisations and modifications to in-sim aspects such as HUD elements. Whilst these elements could be modified in the original rFactor, within rF2 this kind of modification to the core sim is managed through a GUI interface, making this a wholly more user-friendly environment.

For this beta, I was given the chance to try out the three mods which will be the components that’ll ship with the core build: Formula Renault 3.5 (a medium-to-high-speed single-seater), a Renault Megane Trophy Cup car (which is a heavier, rear-wheel drive hatchback), and the mod we’ve all been waiting for, the ‘1960s World Class Racing’ pack which not only gives us some fine ‘60’s racing machinery, but also comes packed with two splendidly realised tracks from the era in Monaco and Spa-Francorchamps. This will form the backbone of the beta release.

Tim Wheatley duly sent me the Formula Renault mod first, ensuring I didn’t immediately drive the historic cars, which was either a wise move or a fiendish ploy since this gave me some time to try out the new tyre model that has been developed for rF2 on a recognisable car before doing what most of you will probably do first—fire up the Ford Cosworth powered 1960s single-seaters.

Getting strapped into the car feels similar to rFactor, and any seasoned player of ISI-based sims will immediately be familiar with their virtual surrounds. Controller setup, however, is much improved, and whilst I did some fiddling with steering lock and force feedback settings, it wasn’t long before I was content with the wheel’s feel in my hands.

Gone is any need for the RealFeel mod, replaced by some of the cleanest, most communicative force feedback I have experienced. Lacking the confusion of some sims, the road is translated into your hands in a wholly convincing manner. The slick tyres of the Formula Renault provide an interesting starting point into the physics of rF2; where a road tyre will feel lacking in precision and be forgiving on the limit, a typical slick tyre, particularly on such a high-downforce car, is all about precision and directional stability. Loading up the front tyres on their stiff sidewalls into a turn allows you to feel this, and they stick on gentler slip angles, allowing the car to laser its way to apexes with minimal fuss. Be too aggressive with the steering, and the fronts can easily be overloaded, building up too much heat and minimising the precision in future corners as the tyres build up a waxy sheen that needs to be cooled in the upcoming corners. Hang on… that sounds like something I would write about real slick tyres … It was then that I took a break and tried to work out why things felt a little off. The answer was the feel of this sim; the graphical style, the menus, the in-car menu-screen, all of it shouts ISI, and consequently my first response had been to drive it as if it were an rFactor-derived sim. Turns out that’s not a wise thing to do: Yes, the look of it is ISI, but under the hood is a whole new engine that demands a more realistic way of interaction.

Firing it up again, I began approaching the experience as one would driving an actual car rather than driving a sim, and instantly I was transported into that sweet, special spot that happens so rarely in sim-racing. The car feels so much more connected than before, direct and a part of your input; after a few fast laps, things began to switch to a more intuitive driving experience. Peering into the middle distance, my consciousness of the steering-wheel in front of me began to fade as the combination of tactile force feedback and a precise weapon of a motor car pushed me into a sim-racing trance. When was the last time that happened to me in a sim?

The slicks, however, I found not the most forgiving of tyres (only natural on such a stiff car). But we know, from experience, where the problems with modern sims arise, and the car, at low speed, never felt too out of control; on the limit, over-exuberance was punished with the odd spin here and there, but I didn’t feel any sort of disconnect between result and provocation. The Renault Megane Trophy car, whilst being just the sort of car I would never touch in a sim, felt surprisingly communicative, too. Its slick tyres feel just as connected as the single-seater, and fiercely loquacious in their responses as you start to push the car into corners, its rear-end getting light on brakes and yawing on keen entries but being picked up with a smooth throttle application. Heavier cars like this often fail to feel connected in sims, feeling softer and floatier than they should, but this car feels like a race car on its grippy tyres and stiff suspension.

I was naturally keen to let Tim know how much I had enjoyed the experience and how, really, I was ready for something new. Something a little more challenging …

Many of the ‘old school’ sim-racers grew up on GPL and have been seeking a replacement for that seminal sim ever since. Ultimately, though, GPL was about more than just the cars and tracks—it was the box, it was Steve Smith’s manual, it was the self-enclosed world that seeped history and oily overalls. But having said all of that, there is still the little matter of the cars, and for some, historics will be all that matters in rF2. For them, the package for the soon-to-be-released beta contains a smattering of generically named (licences are still in the process of being procured) F1, F2 and F3 cars from the mid-to-late 1960s. Once booted up, the first thing I did was to remember that I am a superb driver and GPL veteran and despite Tim’s warnings, I knew I’d have no problems leaping into the F1 cars and searing in some sizzling laptimes …

I should begin by saying that adapting to these cars will not offer the same kind of ‘this is fucking impossible’ reaction we all got from the initial moments with GPL. The tyres give-up very little grip, it’s true, but the delightful force feedback is still with us, and as a result, the spongy, cross-ply, treaded tyres can be felt through the wheel in much the same way as in other cars. This still leaves one forgetting quite how little grip and braking bite these cars had in comparison to their power output. Once one begins to brake early, though, and avoids using full-throttle even when it feels safe to do so, one can start stringing together the odd lap or two without spinning or drifting wide into some gravel. Unlike the days of GPL, the tyre modelling and feedback is so much more advanced, and that means catching small slides and sometimes even big ones is intuitive and grin-inducing. The tyres respond to your input and—provided you calm down and treat the controls with respect—it won’t be long before you find laptimes coming down and driving becoming a purely visceral experience. The trance comes back, and then the thing ran out of fuel.

The Formula Renault and Megane were tested at Mills Motorsports Park, a fictional track that shipped with rFactor and has been given a graphical overhaul for rF2; it’s a fine test track but it does lack for flow, with too many fiddly second gear corners. It was time for me to branch out; it was time to take to a track upon which these cars were destined to compete, and this meant one of the two historic tracks that will come with your beta. Monaco? Hmm, tight confines, no grip, 400BHP? Perhaps not. Despite feeling more comfortable with the car, I was still finding myself in the midst of some startling and unexpectedly lurid powerslides, and re-learning 1960s throttle-control would take a little longer, and probably needed a little more open space, than Monaco.

Spa, anyone?

Many will remember the full, eight-mile Spa-Francorchamps as quite a challenging and ultimately fast track with some not so challenging corners meshed-in with a few bits that literally scare the shit out of you. I remembered it as ‘the easy one in GPL’. Oh dear.

Thus follows the transcript of my first runs at Spa in the historic F1s:

—Denton sets off, lights up rear tyres in pitlane, and smashes into a parked VW Beetle.

—Denton is away and into fourth gear on the Kemmel Straight when the car snaps on power oversteer, tips two wheels onto the grass, and proceeds to fly up the inside bank and spin into the trees, ending its trajectory with no wheels and on fire.

—Denton exits Les Combes and understeers wildly on the fast chicane at Haut de la Cote, proceeding down a bank and dies.

—Denton indulges in a dramatic tankslapper on the exit of Malmedy, spins at around 150MPH into some catch fencing, and comes to a serene rest in a field next to a cow. The cow remains nonplussed.

—Denton plunges off the road at the Masta kink which results in an aerial accident of grandiose proportions until a concrete post abruptly halts the car’s progress.

—Denton almost completes an outlap but then pushes wide onto the grass at Blanchimont, coming to a rest in a mangled wreck with a horse laughing at him.

You get the idea. It was these numerous excursions, before achieving some semblance of competence, which allowed me to appreciate the sheer detail of the racing environment. One very notable thing about the way rF2 feels is that it is fast; the sensation of speed is considerable, the countryside tears past you at phenomenal velocity to the degree that your heart starts to race, made the more astonishing by the wheel that churns and spits wildly in your hands. But when your smouldering wreckage comes to rest in, say, the doorway of a hotel in Stavelot, you begin to realise quite how beautiful this rendition of Spa is. Motion blur is superb, and that, added to this rich environment, facilitates a feeling of speed that is rather adrenaline-inducing as you squirt about in squirreling slides and counter-locks. Another piece of the fabric of rFactor 2 is experienced when you pull your roaring DFV into the pit and kill the engine; swallowed in the sudden silence, you become aware of the atmospheric ambient sounds that accompany the splendour. Whilst I felt that Mills was cluttered and had a rather airport-approach-path feel about it, Spa feels alive, like a place where you, in your insane metal cigar-tube, are not alone. Like a sim-racing Skyrim!

 

Meanwhile, back at Spa, more and more heavy and violent crashes made Denton note more and more movable objects; hay bales, fence railings, cows that wander about chewing on grass, and all of it makes for a believable environment in which you can gently sink into and explore both in simulated reality and in your imagination. There you are, in this rich textured environment, trying to handle a car that feels so very alive as it skips over bumpy Belgian roads through villages and barns, focussing two hundred metres ahead, trying to stay alive, and you’re thinking—this is brilliant …

This dynamism doesn’t just stop at the visual, either. As we all know and have been anticipating for some time, weather is a key ingredient to the rFactor2 universe, and it = functions to make the race circuit a living, breathing beast. Subtle changes to temperature, or the time of day shrouding parts of the track in shadow, bring gentle changes to grip. As a pilot, you negotiate the grip instinctively, and the final result, the lap time, is no longer defined by those staples of sim-racing speed—setup and talent. Simple testing reveals that a grey day at 16C makes for lap times considerably slower than sunny days at 26C. No doubt each track has a sweet spot, but these changes to the circuit mean setups need to change along with those grip levels as the balance can easily be upset, making the process of racing in rF2 a constant learning process as each practice session counts towards understanding car and track. Not only do you start to feel where the cambers and bumps make for the best lines, but you also start to sense how the track changes with the temperature, the wind direction, the time of day, and this is before it has even started to rain. One could easily dedicate hundreds of hours to running with just one track in various different conditions as the weather makes for alternating lines and speeds.

This, again, brings us an accuracy that steers us away from what we have learned in previous sims—that everything isn’t just about having a great setup to set that definitive lap time. The dynamic nature of the track means that the personal best lap time you set in one ‘sim day’ may never be repeated, as the conditions on the next ‘sim day’ may never tie-up with your setup, just as it doesn’t in real-life. One can hope that this helps to swing sim-racing away from its infatuation on ‘killer setups’ and world lap time rankings and becomes more about the driver adapting to conditions.

The more laps I completed in the F1 car, the more I began to feel at home in it, and the tyre model, allied to the superb force feedback, continued to astound me as I felt more and more a part of the car. I built in some understeer to the setup to make for a car that was a little less lively, and really started to push. Then I started to run laps at Monaco, playing with the throttle in first and second gear, and finding myself in glorious slides and drifts through the principality. Delving into the tunnel on a cool morning, so dark I couldn’t see the dashboard, I felt the yaw in the car as I powered through, and correcting instinctively to the oversteer, I felt the edge in the steering.

Two key areas have become something of a bête noire in most sims over recent years; the ‘low speed issue’, in which traditional Pacejka-based tyre models ran into trouble as speeds get lower, exhibiting curious loss of grip at very low speeds and, in some cases, lateral movement when stationary; and the other, more complicated issue that deals with what happens when the tyre loses grip and then regains it.

Anyone that has driven on-track or too fast on the road will have had this happen, and the common theme in racing sims for years now is that a tyre can feel as good as good can be up to the point that it breaks grip. What happens after that is a grey area, and the area in which all of the last generation of sims broke down. Many forum posts have been made stating things such as ‘it’s not right’, and ‘I spun out in a totally unrealistic way’, and this is usually on the basis that, as drivers, experienced or otherwise, the feeling of ‘losing’ a car at speed and ‘catching’ it is a largely intuitive and instinctual process. Whilst it is a truism that many an inexperienced driver will say similar things in real-life, the experienced racing driver will always seek answers to these questions, and those answers are usually out there in the telemetry.

In sims they aren’t, and so people often tend to blame the physics modelling for being at fault. More often than not, this is actually the case. What astounded me in what was admittedly a relatively limited running of rF2 is that at no point did I feel as if I lost control of the car for no reason; spins, understeer moments, scary Spa-based 150MPH tankslappers, all had a basis in the vehicle and tyres responding to my control input in a feasible fashion. That, for me, makes me want to keep driving rF2 until the virtual fuel runs out. ISI have claimed rFactor2 will be a big step forward. In terms of physics and tyre modelling, I believe that their claims are born out by this beta—a beta that will become reality for many of you in the next few days.