as a begginer i wonder can anyone advise me please.
have been doin some practice with the megane endurance series mainly northhampton essington and orchad lake road course, but on average i seem to be a good 4 seconds off the pace, for example essington i have seen 139.500 but i only seem to see 143.000.. thats with the fuel dumped the down force off no aids except a little traction control...
any help would be great as the old man would like to improve but does not know how..
cheers phil

must apologise this in wrong section..

Lots to learn, Philip, but I'll try to summarize a few of the things I've learned.

- You may never be as fast as the fast guys around here, so don't focus too much on the laptimes and don't let it get you discouraged. Concentrate on being smooth and improving your technique, you can find a couple of seconds quickly but may never find the rest (I'm still looking).

- One of my big problems as a beginner was trying to overdrive corners. My mistaken concept was that cornering speed is supreme, but in fact one of the more key elements is being able to get on the gas sooner as you exit a corner- that's what gets you the straightline speed you need to make a good lap time. Don't go howling into a corner trying to latebrake as deep as possible, rather go into it under control so that you can get back on the gas as early as possible as you exit.

- Watch your lines. Draw a nice smooth line through the corners, and make sure your apex is as tight as you can make it to the inside of the track. Leaving a couple of feet open on the inside of a corner amounts to a surprising amount of potential exit speed lost, which compounds on the following straight.

- Get your braking under control. You need to be able to brake smoothly, under control, without locking up. Learn to modulate whatever pedal you're using as best you can, and adjust your brake pressure in the pits until you can brake smoothly.

- Check your gearing. Don't worry too awful much about setup at first. You can waste a lot of time in the garage, but until you're better at the rest of the basics, you'd be focusing on the wrong thing. One thing that can make a huge difference, though, is gearing. Check that you're near the rpm limiter in your highest gear on the fastest part of the track. If not, shorten all your gears until you are. You'll accelerate quicker across the board the shorter your gears are.

These are things I still have to constantly remind myself, hope maybe a couple of them help you out.

michael,
thankyou very much for taking the time to write such a lot of good advice, i am very grateful.
just trying to get somewhere near the good times dont expect to be the best, but in time an occasional podium finish would be nice combined with the thrills and spills of the race, i would be happy..
in search of good clean racing, on public servers this hardly exists, this is how i have ended up here at race to play, again in time will sign up for an event and try me luck.
thanx again micheal