Actually, I think there is a lot of uncertainities when you setup a car. I do not want to seem condescendent, so I apologize in advance if the following seems to be a patronizing comment.
I always try hard to assume
eeeeverybody here knows as much as everybody, that I am the less knowledgeable in this site
and that everybody races at least once a month in a racetrack (if you don't, you should try: it's better than
almost anything!).
To begin with (based on extensive karting experience),
the driver must learn to drive, no matter how stupid this phrase seems.
What I mean is that a "fast" setup is hard to drive if you're a beginner: you must start with a setup that allows the car to be forgiving with your mistakes. Before "graduating" to a fast setup, you need quite some "seat experience". So, my advice would be:
hit the same racing line, lap after lap, with an easy setup, before trying to improve the car.
I haven't driven a simulator for ages, I'm more into the real thing, but perhaps some of the "simulating guys" around can tell you more about the previous paragraph. I would add, in advance to their comments, that some drivers tell me that the kart simulator standard setups are terrible (because they are trying the "fast setup" and they spin out of control).
I just answer: "man, take some time to learn the basics before you start 'arguing' with the simulator developers about setups: when you can use the fast setup and the AI is at 100% AND you can drive 100 laps without spinning, come back and tell me about your lap times: you will be surprised".
Now, suppose you have already enough experience to "hold the line" in a car with a fast setup. What happens next?
One of the most forgotten aspects of "seting-up" a car is the driver himself: you need (I repeat as emphatically as I can: you
need) to be consistent. What good is to make a setup change if you take a different racing line? You'll never know if the lap time went down because of your driving or because of the change in setup.
So,
being extremely consistent is a virtue. It's the most necessary virtue: when setting up a car you are not trying to break other people's times, you want to learn about the car.
Now, when you move from karts to fast cars, the ones with enough power to spin the wheels when exiting a curve, some people feel terrified. There is a real danger of killing yourself if you go for the record. All the professional drivers I've know are crazy as a goat in spring time using LSD. Being consistent in that frame of mind is
very hard. To be as cool as coolness is.
Most of the rational persons, me included, have a moment of doubt when taking the entrance of a fast curve at 200 plus kph.
Professionals are totally crazy: they do not hesitate for a moment. That's the reason why I am an instructor for KIDS. I like racing, but I love life more... if you get my drift. So,
another virtue is to be brave to the point of stupidity.
That's why I get upset sometimes when I hear comments about the relative value of the people in the grid of Formula One. I'd say 99 out of 100 drivers have the consistency, the seat time and the valor you need to drive a "medium" professional race car. Perhaps 999 out of 1000 people in a racing driver course couldn't drive a powerful car to the limit.
So, to argue about the relative "driving skill" of Räikönnen, Alonso or even Yuji Ide, people that have skills and seat time that only 1 in a million drivers have, is borderly moronic, from my very particular point of view.
Most of the time the difference is in the car. I'd say that F1 is
a fair of parts, a competition of money and resources:
you need money to go fast. Blaming the driver for a particularly bad year is a "naiveté of the first degree".
You all saw Jenson Button winning the WDC this year, didn't you? Is he better than, I don't know, Kobayashi? I'd answer: "well, I'm not sure: better for what?".
So, blaming Alonso for being some tenths of a second (that's like 1 part in 1.000 in a 1:30 lap, for the love of Pete!) slower in a particular car is kind of stupid (sorry, guys, nothing personal).
Finally, the engineers, no matter how much telemetry they have, know dick about the car behaviour. Yes, you keep your setup logs. You know the weather, the temperature, the camber, whatever. However, you need a more important thing: not the brain, but the
soul of the driver. I really don't know how a human being does it, but inspiration is very important. Somehow a person, a very good driver, is able to "integrate" everything and give you clues about the car behaviour that a computer cannot give you.
Even then, if you are professionals, as I assume you're totally crazy, as I assume that your mind and your worries go beyond this world, I won't believe even professional drivers criticisms.
In my experience, professionals don't criticize, they try to learn from the competition. Even the worst driver in the grid have some particular quality and you can learn things from the guy in the last spot, even if you're in the first place.
Nobody is so bad that is not useful for something.
Once you stop learning from others, you could stop racing that very same day. Now, you try to tell me you don't have anything to learn from Alonso (or even Ide?).
Well, I would like to continue, but that's enough, this post is very long and nobody will read it. Anyway,
please, try to look intelligent: criticizing Formula One drivers because of their skills is a little... noobie. And you all race, don't you?
However, please, by all means, go on. Keep critizicing Kimi Räikönnen or Fernando Alonso to your heart contempt. I won't believe your points, anyway, unless you are a professional driver in disguise and then, as I said, I will believe your mad as goats on LSD.
