Lotus 79 is Finally Here!! First Impressions, Discussion etc

[Ap0c]

I've been up since 5. Finally the site decided to behave and i signed up for a lotus race with 25 entrants. countdown went to 0 and it just sat at staging and the session never started :/ So i withdrew and joined a testing session so i could eagerly give the car a go and boy oh boy.......wat a car. I loaded watkins classic boot, jesus this car suits this track. Put the high downforce setup on and changed the caster to +4 and started turning some laps. To me the car seems fairly easy drive around here with the iRacing setup. No one has loaded a setup yet and i am clueless when it comes to setting up a car. Managed to turn a 1:36.739 with the Base Sets, cant wait till we get some proper sets uploaded and bring this beast to life

Seriously guys, do yourselves a favor, spend the $15 US and get your butt in that seat asap, awesome fun

[Exar Kun]

I've only run it at Silverstone so far and have mixed impressions - felt great in the high speed stuff but was an understeering piece of junk in the slower corners. I'll just have to wait for some setups and replays to see how the quick guys drive the thing as they were already 4 seconds a lap faster than me around Silverstone. Towler called it the worst car ever in sim racing hehe. He was doing 1:30s when I left the practice session so they'll be down into the 1:28s before too long i'd imagine. Which leaves my 1:34 looking pretty ordinary!

I felt I couldn't attack the brakes but at Silv classic there's not really any extreme braking zones to get a handle on and, as I mentioned, the slow stuff in the final complex was horrible. I found it odd how much speed I could carry through bridge but had to back right off to get around copse and stowe - there's got to be something in the way this car drives with its ground effects to make it work properly.

[DarrenM]

I've only run it at Silverstone so far and have mixed impressions - felt great in the high speed stuff but was an understeering piece of junk in the slower corners.

Having ground effect plus wings means you get an even greater discrepancy between high and low speed grip. You need a bit mechanical oversteer for the low speed and balance it with wings, ride height in the high speed.

Everything sucks as far as Towler is concerned, so no surprises there.

[Exar Kun]

Yeah, most cars out of the box feel rubbish to me and I'm also rubbish at making setups so i'll just have to wait until some setups pop up that make the slow speed stuff feel a bit better. I'm going to have to play around with some settings to get the front end feeling right too. I've already upped the caster a little but I think I might need to add a bit more.

I love the "Grand Prix 1979" logo - looks pretty familiar...

[NeilPearson]

Towler is just a idiotic wrecker. I seen him deliberatly take out that many people in nr2003 races it's not funny. I'm looking fwd to driving this car! Will get it tonight

[Bauer]

This prolly says it best for me

[youtube] [/youtube]

[KNAPPO]

FUCK ME, I think i just creamed myself.

Got the 79 tonight and finally had some time after tea to give it a drive.
Did a open prac on the AU server (first time on the Aussie server and it was a great to have no warping going on), lots of Aussies present, including Boxhead & Olddog

This car is pure awesomness.... its trying to kill me all the time but what a joy it is to ring its neck!!!!! One of the most rewarding cars ive driven in a sim!
We were at Sebring and my first lap was a 2:07..... by the time the session had finished I had it down to a 1:54,508 on the default high downforce set, which didn't handle the best, but I didn't care. I left the server after the session finished with 18 laps completed and a massive smile on my face.

Off to find some good setups now

[Santaria]

I followed Neils advice and grabbed the Lotus. I bought it begrudgingly thinking: "It's gunna be fuckin shit house and it's gunna be a waste of money, just like my subscription to iRacing.

1st go: It sounded great, I read Knappos post and grabbed the high downforce set. 2nd turn, ploughed into the wall. Already had the shits by then.

2nd go: Peeled out of the pits, snapped 2nd gear and spun it into the pit wall. Slowly getting shittier and shittier I went looking for a set and came across 1 from Purdy (I think).

3rd go: Still having handling issues. iRacing has never been kind to me so I wasn't expecting anything much more than another frustrating car. I then went looking about FOV and other stuff. I changed my FOV and it all clicked... like everything in iRacing. The best part? FUCK ME DEAD THE LOTUS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never been so happy to drive a car and it was all to do with the FOV. The sound is awesome, the handling is awesome. It has so much room to 'race' it. I'm in love... can't wait for my first race. I got down to 53's (I'm not terribly fast to start with) but if I can get that first turn down pat, I reckon I could get low 52's.

[Exar Kun]

Grab Volker's setups from the forum - they're gold. I had my first run at Sebring in the session you were in Santaria. Was running 53 and 52s the whole time and couldn't get any faster. Exited, watched a Purdy replay, jumped back in and knocked a second and a half off my best time. Reckon I could get down to mid 50s but probably not much better. Need more seat time me thinks.