The hardest car to drive ? Retro F1 Generation 2

In my opinion this car is one of the hardest to drive in the game right now...

Here is a video of a race I made with this car and trust me you really have to be gentle on the throttle if you don't want to end up in a ditch ! And with a strong AI it is really hard to keep up ....

Am I doing something wrong ? How do you guys handle this car ?

 

I have already too much difficulties to leave the pit box with the Gen 1 front first , so I didn't try the Gen 2

 

Yeah it's crazy ! I found out that shifting up early when accelerating was a good way to control the car when it revs up

 

Sixties cars (at least in some simulators) are very sensitive to rear traction loose. I am driving a Lola t70 in rFactor 2 and you cant push it full throttle in 1st gear or 2nd sometimes if you are not in a straight and contolled line without rear wheel spinning.

I recommend never miss the blip when downshifting and lifting the throttle when upshifting to prevent losing grip when entering and exiting a corner. Also gradually accelerate when you are exiting a slow corner, never go full throttle at once on most cases.

 

These "old" proper race cars were a real handful back in the day just u tube for "lotus 49 Sir Jackie Stewart Brands Hatch" and such old school drivers and see the finesse req to drive fast. (list is too long for here)
Short shifting for example in order to get a less fierce power delivery on a corner.
Personally I find these beasts in any of the sims that have them the most enjoyable to learn to drive fast, no assist just respecting the beast and "feeling what its doing".
Keep at it and your driving will improve.
Stick with cars that have Abs/Tc and electronic aids and it will take longer and vital skills may even be missed. Modern F1 drivers that have had the privilege to drive old school f1 (David Coultard springs to mind amongst others) Have nothing but respect for the beasts and the Old Masters!!!
Have fun

 

Gentle with the right foot.. keep at it

 

Assuming you are using a wheel I think learning to countersteer would go a long way to helping you improve in that car. At the moment it looks as though you lift off the throttle when the wheels start to spin where you could maintain the throttle and just countersteer the slides.

 

That's very true ! I have a Thrustmaster TMX Pro but I'm very scared of loosing the car everytime it starts to spin so I lift off the throttle... Maybe I should work on my FFB setting

 

Learning to countersteer if you aren't used to doing it will probably be a bit of a process to convert it into muscle memory but once done you can put it to use in many cars and yeah I could see really wrong FFB settings making it harder to countersteer effectively. It really is a crucial component especially in older cars. Persevere with it and I'm sure it will help you gain some time. You got this!

 

I guess as someone raised on Grand Prix Legends, I have found the winged Retro F1 Gen 2 in AMS2 appropriately forgiving to drive. These cars were still of the age that included private entrants and journeyman drivers; arguably almost anyone could drive them and keep them on the road per se, but it took a Jim Clark or Jochen Rindt to exploit their absolute limits. This AMS 2 variant is pretty comparable to the winged vintage F1 car in rF2, for that matter.

 

Well, I usually start these replies by reminding people to start with "normal" race cars like the F-Vee or F-Trainers rather than some of the most difficult race cars to master in the history of mankind But you already know what you are tackling.

The reality is that most people are not used to driving RWD cars, but especially not RWD that is also rear-engined! A lot of weight is over or even behind the rear axle, so counter-steering becomes an essential technique.

But the simplest technique you immediately learn in any of these rear-engined open-wheelers (or Beetle/Fusca or Porsche 911) is that you never fully lift off the accelerator when you start to slide or spin--otherwise, you just make the situation worse as the weight at the rear pivots. The lower-powered cars allow you to practise powering through corners and these cars are the source of the racing adage, "slow in; fast out."

 

As The Great Sir Stirling Moss used to say! "Smooth is fast"

 

I find the Vintage Gen II almost as 'easy' as AC's L49 orFerrari 312 67.
And I'm from the GPL generation

Vintage Gen 1 is more difficult than II (because no downforce, only mechanical grip), but after a few laps and tyres are warmer it's 'ok'.

Talking about the really hardest car in AMS 2 at the moment(and probably in any sim) Ultima 720 Street. No contest.

Cheers
Robin

 

Bit of short shifting and gentle throttle. Turbo beast

 

I think a lot depends on the AI with cars like this, if they are suspiciously fast and don't have to contend with that frisky rear end, you can often end up overdriving in order to keep up, and then you end up making more mistakes.

 

Ha I have spent a while on the grass, overdriving one of my many faults but when its right (rare) such a blast!!

 

Yeah it's kinda crazy how they are not impacted by any gear shifting or anything like that, I'm pretty sure this is going to be fixed but sometimes it does feel like the AI is on rails !

 

I've spent a bit of time this afternoon with this F1G2 car. I'm finding something a bit odd about the low speed cornering grip. If you drive in a classic style, doing most of your braking in a straight line, maybe a little brake kept on into the apex, once you are at the apex the car just wants to wash on forward even at very low speeds, like 30mph. There seems to be very little turn in bite to the tyre. To carry more speed through the corner, you seem to have to do more of a WRC technique so that you almost drift the car into the corner and the rotation keeps it pointing to the apex. I've tried quite a few different setup permutations, but that lack of turn in bite still persists. The way the car behaves doesn't to me match up with standard technique as seen in Stirling Moss's video above, if you wait until the car is at the apex and then gradually feed on the power it wants to push out to the outside but not in a natural way, it feels like there is damp on the track.
At higher speed it feels more natural, and you can balance the weight and point the nose pretty much where you want, feels fine.
I realise there's not a single person here who has driven one of these exact cars, but they were the best racing cars available in their time, so they would have been a tool to drive fast for long periods of time. Something just feels off in this one, can't say I found it enjoyable to drive because it didn't feel like it was doing what a real car does in that lower speed area. I may be alone in this opinion, but I guess that's what a feedback forum is for.

 

Hi John, I have yet to try this car properly and in the way you describe. I did however do some TT at kayalami Classic f1 G1 both cars, this afternoon and lack of front end bite (is to me) lacking in a lot of cars, might be just my driving but I need to powersteer corners more than I expect to.
Comparing the Caterham in PC2 (latest superb modified ffb file) to Ams2 at Brands Hatch front end grip and ffb are vastly different. Not just because PC2 tracks have inherently more grip than other sims Ams,Ac/Rf2