I've been asked for some tips to improve by a few drivers now.
So, here are my 2 cents (again) - maybe that will help:
Tips (even some weird ones) to improve your personal best lap:
Step 1: create good conditions
- optimize your settings (internet, ingame), so you
reduce the amount of warps and serverdiff in a way, it nearly matches a local recordhunt
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get rid of distractions (reflecting lights on the screen or in your view range, a dirty screen, animals in the room, sound sources from elsewhere, maybe put on a certain music that helps you not getting distracted by thoughts that have nothing to do with racing)
- create a location to play that suits your "record hunting style" well. Examples: under my laptop i put something to better the grip, so it does not slide so easily. My chair and table allow me a
sitting position, so that the position of my feet and my body work together in a balanced way to improve my pushs of the driving keys in terms of timing and strength. Easier than driving in the bed, with the laptop on your knees, dede might agree. Also: something like a towel for under your ellbows. And if you can't sit long on your chair: put "more" on it, unless it does not comfort your "balanced position".
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gfx settings: high resolution and a low zoom. I use on a somewhat small screen: fullscreen 1920x1080 and zoom 1.0. The main thing is: the car may not be too tiny, so you can still aim well in curves, but you should be able to see far enough ahead in order to hit breaking points more frequently and avoid crashing in front crashs in races. Also: i recommend at least trying to
use predictive camera mode for a longer while. I use it and for me it is a great help.
Step 2: chose your driving style
- in qualification it does not matter if you hit the acceleration key 100% of the times or not. Anyway, in order to learn to
get comfortable with fuel saving and breaking/gas releasing points for the upcoming race(s), i can only recommend to keep the "fuel-saving" style.
- chose your driving keys and hands. Some players can drive with just 1 hand, many might drive with 2, many might also drive with only 2 or 3 fingers, i personally prefer to
drive with 4 (2 fingers from each hand). My advantage is the faster reaction time here. A disadvantage, depending on the key binding, is: in some curves or curve combinations in some tracks, your fingers might actually be in the way of each other. Also the possibility of hitting the wrong key or an additional key, that might lead to a keyboarderror, is slightly higher, maybe. In 100 6 lap races, i get like 5 wrong key hits and 0,5 keyboard errors in average, maybe - and then i end up driving offroad, usually.
- just for races or really long tracks: you can either choose to "chicken fight" and play it safe, driving constant safe curves or you can
start trying to beat the lap record (or sector record, or curve combination record) every single time. You will end up driving offroad more often and even crash some times, but in the end you can easily drive way more than 0.2s/lap faster that way, in some tracks maybe 0.5 sec or more. In the end your racetotaltime will be faster and also your personal best laptimes. Unfortunately that does not work for races in every tracks. A crash in Elementerekejfe in curve 3 can cost you 4-9 seconds, often. So: i suggest special careness in curve 2, mainly in curve 3, and a decent amount in the last curve as well.
Step 3: math in driving lines
- Tijny already had some strong tips here!
Release the gas early and/or break early and make sure you do not miss the apex, costing you over 0.05sec per car width.
- hairpins or not in 180 degree turns? Actually, with F1-Genesis, i do not know. You want to build up speed for the long straights, that's for sure. But you have to keep in mind the low turning speed of the car. I suggest: make sure that, if you start accelerating in the middle of the curve or a little bit earlier, that you can keep pressing the key and do not have to release it in order to avoid getting offroad. If you then did not miss the apex and your car ends up at the very outside of the road, you've usually done pretty well.
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watching the top3 merged videos can give you a good idea of where you can save time. Example: entering the lap, you can already win over 0.02sec by driving a tight first mini-curve and then drive straight to your 1st breaking point, instead driving a long curve to it. Also, you should enter the lap with a maximum of speed. Actually, if you already ruined your lap, you can
start your next lap from a certain "speed 0" point before the last curve, which lets you end up in entering the start/finish line in a high amount of cases with a somewhat optimized speed. Let's say i get that in 80%, while getting a fast outcome of last curve in only 60-70%. But if you keep practicing the last curve, you will at least improve your timing there, which is maybe more important in order to not mess up your super fast lap, once you get one.
A little information, i probably did not shared until today, in order to show the importance of the entering speed (Tijny/dede might like that): i once won a weekly hotlap cup 3 times in a row or so, where one of it was with EasySlider. I entered the track with a ridiculous high entering speed, because i started from a weird point of the track, giving me a slight advantage, even the slightly stronger EasySlider players could not make up.
Step 4: adjusting the driving line
- my favourite tip:
use the environment for breaking/gas release points! If you want to approach your improvement period as a method, you can try this: start ridiculously early with breaking, so you will not miss the apex and will not drive offroad. Remember your breaking points and start breaking lap by lap a bit later, until you find the perfect break/steer/accelerate combination for each curve. While breaking points are easy (start of curbs or trees next to the road or the middle axis between 2 trees), it is way harder to find out how long to break and when to accelerate. Can't really help you with this, yet. Also: in Elemterekejfe curve 2, and partly in curve 5, i suggest to test a stepwise breaking (hitting the break key fast many times, releasing it in order to not overheat the tyres). In the middle part there is a tree to your left, you could use as "gas release point". Knowing the amount of time i have to release it (under a second), i came out nicely into the loooong straightish curve in nearly 100% of the times, without seeing the apex coming yet in my screen. Later i tested to release gas earlier, so i have more time spent on high speed in that section, due to earlier acceleration. But then i started to be too tight to the left side very often and end up offroad left or right. Tough lucky middle part still for me, if i try the more optimal line.
- sometimes it helps to
drive close behind fast drivers in order to get an idea of a good line or breaking point. But please try to avoid irritating them with your ghostcar by driving inside them right during a curve in one of their strong laps!
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watch the laprecord videos (tsr files) by downloading them or from your autosave folder (make sure you have permanent recording activated)
Step 5: keep the focus!
- my 2nd favourite tip: once you drove a good lap already and are fine with your breaking points,
try to drive optimal every curve (yeah, i basicly already said that yet, but anywayz)! That means: if you crashed or drove a slow curve 1, don't think you have to drive almost 2 laps now in order to see your next fast laptime. Use it as practice for when you are in a hot lap. Or use it as study, to see how much you lost in that curve - you will have to drive a very fast rest of lap in order to have a good comparison. Or use it as improvement of the way you drive your curve - because sometimes you drive it faster than you ever did before.
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don't lose focus! The other day i had like 36 6-lap races within...more than 5 hours. At some point, like so often, i lost focus and although i happened to drive a fast lap from time to time, here is something which happened ridiculously often: i started to focus again and really tried to "attack", trying to drive a strong lap, approaching every curve with high risk. And then, i drove a sick lap immediately in the very next lap!
But, from another side, Jormeli took the chance to get his first podium. Congrats for that! 
