Reference Setups

My Latest Philosophy
Using the Reference Setups
Adapting a Reference Setup to a Given Track
Rules of Thumb
FD Setups

My setup philosophy has evolved in the months since I wrote GRE Help and last published my X-Files setups. I've found that I almost never use my existing setup when I go back to a track; I always make a new setup based on my latest philosophy.

Also, I've tended to focus on F2 cars since then, and I think my new philosophy works better than what I was using before.

Finally, the explosion of new tracks available for GPL (with several more in the pipeline) plus the release of the GPL Engine Manager makes it impossible to publish setups for all possible cars at all tracks.

Therefore, as a supplement to GRE Help, I've decided to post a set of Reference Setups for most of the F2 cars. These Reference setups contain my latest thinking in terms of handling for each chassis (except, at the moment, the Honda and BRM).

My Latest Philosophy

I'm using pretty much the same settings and the same philosophy for each chassis, adjusted only for each chassis' wheelbase, weight, and weight distribution. These setups differ from each other pretty much only in spring rates, anti-roll bar rates, rear camber, and steering ratio.

My goal is always to make setups that resemble what I think the real teams would have used in 1967. I don't take advantage of loopholes in GPL's physics implementation or its track models. For me, exploiting loopholes ruins the experience and reduces the relevance of my sim racing to my real-world track driving.

For this reason, I avoid configurations which are often seen in setups posted by other GPLers on the Internet. This includes such things as low ride heights and ultra-soft rear spring rates that would have broken the real cars' suspension or sent them flying off the road, and the extreme toe angles which would have scrubbed the tread off the tires in a few laps.

Perhaps the most important change in my setup philosophy in recent months has been to move toward slower steering ratios, especially for the short-coupled chassis like the Ferrari and Lotus, which tend to be rather nervous. A slower steering ratio allows me to be smoother, especially in corner entry, and thereby keep the tires closer to the slip angle peak.

You'll find that my reference setups use very little toe, have ride heights very similar to those actually used in 1967, and use rear springs that are stiff enough (and front springs that are soft enough) to keep the chassis and suspension from bottoming.

Careful adjustment of the anti-roll bars and brake balance delivers a very forgiving car that can be balanced on the brakes during the turn-in phase and balanced on the throttle during corner exit, but with a minimum of mid-corner understeer.

In general I avoid asymmetrical camber or tire pressures, in order to avoid instability under braking and to help keep things both simple and realistic. I avoid tricky damper settings for the same reason.

All of the Reference setups use my standard 85/30 ramp angles with 4 clutches. I've experimented with various other configurations, including Steve Smith's excellent 60/45 ramps with 1 clutch, but I find that I always come back to the 85/30/1 configuration. It's both flexible and forgiving, and by simply tuning the anti-roll bars and brake balance, I can adjust the car's balance in corner entry, mid-corner, and corner exit.

Not only that, it's a configuration that appears to be used by some modern racing teams that compete in the Indy Lights series, which uses cars of similar size and weight to GPL's cars. There's that authenticity angle again!

Using the Reference Setups

Download the F2 Reference Setups here.

I suggest you put the Reference setups in your F2 driver's setup folder, under a track near the top of the alphabet (Brands is good). This way, even when you're inside GPL, you can quickly grab the appropriate one and copy it into the track for wherever you are going to run.

Adapting a Reference Setup to a Given Track

Typically the only changes I make to adapt to different tracks are to gearing and ride height.

Simply copy the Reference setup into the appropriate setup track folder. Then, using GRE, just copy the proper gearing for the current track into that setup and go. For gearing, you can use any existing setup, including setups from my X-Files.

With appropriate gearing, the Reference setups should be good for most tracks with moderate bumps and/or vertical loads, such as Silverstone, Zandvoort, etc. For smoother tracks I'll go a little lower, to maybe 3.5", and for completely flat tracks like the CART tracks I'll go as low as 3".

You can also use the anti-roll bars to fine-tune the balance of the car, and you might want to tweak the brakes.

Rules of Thumb

Here are some rules of thumb for adapting the Reference setups to a given track and to your style of driving:

See the Quick Reference section of GRE Help for more details about the individual chassis characteristics and suggestions on adapting setups to a particular track.

If you're not sure if the suspension is bottoming, see How Do I Know when It's Bottoming?

For detailed explanations of what all the adjustments in GPL's Setup menu do, see the Race Engineer's Handbook in GRE Help.

For convenient access to GRE Help when you are offline, you can download the entire GRE Help as a Windows Help file from the Component Update section of the GRE Download and Install page.

FD Setups

I haven't done a lot of FD setups yet, but so far they seem to be fairly straightforward. Since the FD cars are F1 cars (i.e. tires) with F2 engines, the best solution would be to copy the F2 gearing for a given track to an F1 setup.

F1 cars have wider tires than F2 cars, and the F1 rears are extra wide compared to their fronts. This means that F1 cars can use anti-roll bars biased more to the rear (softer front bars, stiffer rear). This is especially true of the Lotus, which has extremely wide rear tires.