GP2 Forum

Hi All,

Another question, this time setup related. So far I have had good success in creating my own setups and fine tuning them. However, one aspect I cannot really understand is brake balance. I know that in theory, you should set your brake balance so that both rear and front wheels lock up at the same time, front tires a bit earlier than back. But I have big problems identifying this as graphics in GP2 are old enough that I cannot really separate from the animation when one set tires lock.

So, I have two questions:

1) How do you identify which set of tires are locking up?

2) What tracks in the original 94 calendar are the ones where you have to set your brake bias to back and which ones require adjustment towards the front? Are there any key characters of tracks that give an indication for the best brake balance like long straights indicate that you need to set low wings?

Thanks for your time!

Use the wheel-speed traces in the graphs of your lap data.

When you brake at the end of a straight and your speed starts dropping the graphed wheelspeed will go down. Sometimes when a tire locks up you will hear it start to screetch... you can see this because there will be a sharp dip down in the graphs. If the fronts are locking the only downward spikes in the graphs will be the front wheel speeds.

Typically I move my bias backwards to try and prevent and minimize locking the front, but the problem is a I reach a point where the car starts to want to spin loose entering a corner, so I have to stop. On some tracks this isn't as much a problem.

For example in Germany I ran 60/40 without problems. On some tracks (especially with gently-curved braking zones) having the brake bias too far rear will make you oversteer during braking and turn in. You have to make a decision do you want to deal with the oversteer, or have the most "efficient" braking possible. For me, I could not run as far rear bias as I wanted at Monaco because many of the braking zones involve turning- I remember specifically when I was going up the hill towards the 4th gear left hander at the top of the hill (right by the casino) I would always go loose with the brake bias as far back as I wanted it so that I could brake as late as possible coming out of the tunnel.

Thanks a lot, made sense and helped a lot. I managed to cut a whole second off my lap time in Canada.

It doesn't answer the question but what I learned from other sims and now I'm used to doing in GP2 too is after I have a good qualy setup, I will bring the brake balance a bit to the rear so breaking so deep is not that comfortable, then I will drive a little bit like that until I get used to it before the race and as a result, I can drive more consistently during the race by having to brake a little bit earlier than I would naturally do.