How realistic are the lap times in GT5?

What clutch? :p

I only knew about it because Plans helped me prep my car.
:cool:

I hope this guy didn't show how to operate the gearbox as well.
 
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The Stig did it in the wet.

Also, watching your video makes my head hurt. I can hear the clutch screaming in agony.

There's a handful of others who took the challenge and bested the times in various models, that's merely one example. And bear in mind, Gav hadn't driven that track before that day either - IIRC, 8 laps total, that's his 7th.

Welcome to the world of the 2ZZ powered Lotus. The gearbox is crap and the clutch is horrible - it's one of the many "add lightness" features.

Point stands, however, that they're hardly driving gods.
 
There's a handful of others who took the challenge and bested the times in various models, that's merely one example. And bear in mind, Gav hadn't driven that track before that day either - IIRC, 8 laps total, that's his 7th.

Welcome to the world of the 2ZZ powered Lotus. The gearbox is crap and the clutch is horrible - it's one of the many "add lightness" features.

Point stands, however, that they're hardly driving gods.

3 things.

1. your only example is flawed. Without other examples, we only have your word of "trust me they beat him". Hell, you don't even have timing results for your Lotus example - I had to count the seconds on the video to get a rough estimate. I have no doubt that plenty of Stig's time can be improved upon. But I very much doubt that any of your drivers are going to be setting vastly faster (1 or more seconds) lap times than he did in the same conditions.

2. a bad transmission/clutch is no excuse not to rev match, which is the most basic driving technique I can imagine. "Gav" is a driving idiot who hurts his car, which explains why he was only able to equal (roughly) Stig's wet time. And without knowing the car, the track or the tires, neither you nor I can say how much slower the wet time is than the ideal dry time. I've driven an F2000 in similar conditions (light drizzle, fairly moist track) with full rain tires and even the best driver during the session was 15 seconds slower than the ideal dry time. With semi-slicks in the same conditions, I would imagine the Lotus lost even more traction. The track plays a part too. Different surfaces react to water very differently. In fact one inconveniently placed puddle on the exit of turn 4 at Mazda Raceway was enough to add a full second to my ideal dry lap time (even though that was my fastest session all weekend, my PB is 1 sec faster). I'll even provide timing results because I like evidence.

Drizzle results

Dry results with puddle

Ideal dry results from the fastest group

For the record we use the same BFG Sport (rain) tires for dry and wet.

tl/dr, water negates any comparison to a dry time.

3. you have no standing point at the moment, except that Clarkson sometimes doesn't drive the car for the camera. Stig (Ben Collins) is not the fastest race car driver on the planet, actually he's probably not in the upper half, but that doesn't prevent him from setting a hero lap or two in a road car. He bested most of the F1 drivers in the hotlap challenge. There are plenty of race car drivers capable of completely smashing track records, but utterly incapable of winning races or championships. Driving road cars is also a different skill than race cars. Some people are better at one or the other, some at both, some at neither.

We all know that "they" ( I assume you mean all the personalities on Top Gear) are not the best drivers on the planet. MY point is that even a novice driver isn't as slow as Jeremy supposedly was at Mazda Raceway in the NSX, much less an automotive scribe of many decades.

Enough of this nonsense. I don't suppose anyone's had any goes at beating one of the Test Track lap board times?
 
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There's a handful of others who took the challenge and bested the times in various models, that's merely one example. And bear in mind, Gav hadn't driven that track before that day either - IIRC, 8 laps total, that's his 7th.

Welcome to the world of the 2ZZ powered Lotus. The gearbox is crap and the clutch is horrible - it's one of the many "add lightness" features.

Point stands, however, that they're hardly driving gods.

That's no excuse to slip the clutch so much between gearchanges and not to rev match on the way down.
 
Enough of this nonsense. I don't suppose anyone's had any goes at beating one of the Test Track lap board times?

I think later tonight I may have a go at this. I'm not an expert on that track, so it will take some time (plus I have to find a car on the lapboard that I haven't modified).
 
Enough of this nonsense. I don't suppose anyone's had any goes at beating one of the Test Track lap board times?

I just tried to match the GT-R lap time using this method:
My Lounge, TGTT, Single Lap Race
The GT-R I used is the recommended car from the Premium list for online mode, so it's unmodified and does not have any extra power from a worn in engine.
Tires: Sports Hard (It's the stock rubber for the car and it's also what Polyphony limits you to for the GT-R trophy)

Since I ran it as a race, I had a standing start from the line regulated by a timer. I was able to get, on my first (clean, but a little too drifty) attempt, a 1:19.983. The Top Gear official time was 1:19.7. I think that's pretty close.

EDIT: On my 3rd try, which was still not totally perfect, I pulled a 1:19.446. That's <1% away from the official time. I think the car itself can probably produce a time in the 18's without too much trouble (17's may be pushing it, but I don't think it's too far out of the realms of possibility.)

EDIT2: I wanted to get a second reference for realism with a different car so I chose the IS-F and ran the same setup. On my first (sloppy) attempt I pulled a 1:24.595. The official time is 1:26.9. My time is still within 5% of the official time (and the official time was set around the end of November while the track in the game is most likely set in the middle of summer).
 
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3 things.

1. your only example is flawed. Without other examples, we only have your word of "trust me they beat him". Hell, you don't even have timing results for your Lotus example - I had to count the seconds on the video to get a rough estimate. I have no doubt that plenty of Stig's time can be improved upon. But I very much doubt that any of your drivers are going to be setting vastly faster (1 or more seconds) lap times than he did in the same conditions.

You didn't check the other videos Plans posted.

2. a bad transmission/clutch is no excuse not to rev match, which is the most basic driving technique I can imagine. "Gav" is a driving idiot who hurts his car, which explains why he was only able to equal (roughly) Stig's wet time. And without knowing the car, the track or the tires, neither you nor I can say how much slower the wet time is than the ideal dry time. I've driven an F2000 in similar conditions (light drizzle, fairly moist track) with full rain tires and even the best driver during the session was 15 seconds slower than the ideal dry time. With semi-slicks in the same conditions, I would imagine the Lotus lost even more traction. The track plays a part too. Different surfaces react to water very differently. In fact one inconveniently placed puddle on the exit of turn 4 at Mazda Raceway was enough to add a full second to my ideal dry lap time (even though that was my fastest session all weekend, my PB is 1 sec faster). I'll even provide timing results because I like evidence.

They're DOT-R tires: Yokohama A048. They're A048-LTR, to be precise and are specially constructed tires for the Elise/Exige (basically an A048 in Lotus sizes with a stiffer sidewall and bespoke compound). It's the only tire Lotus "authorizes" (aside from a bespoke AD07, as seen in the episode with Gav Kershaw show Clarkson the cars can be drifted). It's the same tires the cars leave the showroom with and Lotus considers it suitable for wet.

3. you have no standing point at the moment, except that Clarkson sometimes doesn't drive the car for the camera. Stig (Ben Collins) is not the fastest race car driver on the planet, actually he's probably not in the upper half, but that doesn't prevent him from setting a hero lap or two in a road car. He bested most of the F1 drivers in the hotlap challenge. There are plenty of race car drivers capable of completely smashing track records, but utterly incapable of winning races or championships. Driving road cars is also a different skill than race cars. Some people are better at one or the other, some at both, some at neither.

My point is Clarkson is no driving god.
 
His point is that you can't do something for 25 years and not become somewhat good at it. Matcat also says his time would be slow for a novice around laguna.

My point is, you can. There's plenty of evidence of that in every field, including driving.
 
And you're citing a video of a dry lap of an exige being faster than a wet lap in an exige? I don't see how this at all proves your point, if anything it shows how much slower your guy is when you factor in a wet lap is anywhere from 4 to 8 seconds slower than a dry, according to the tg team.
 
Wasn't the old exige tested by black stig?
 
They're DOT-R tires: Yokohama A048. They're A048-LTR, to be precise and are specially constructed tires for the Elise/Exige (basically an A048 in Lotus sizes with a stiffer sidewall and bespoke compound). It's the only tire Lotus "authorizes" (aside from a bespoke AD07, as seen in the episode with Gav Kershaw show Clarkson the cars can be drifted). It's the same tires the cars leave the showroom with and Lotus considers it suitable for wet.

The ADVAN:

2elise-tire-advan-a048.jpg



The BFG on the F2000:

4073620444_c730369f3d_o.jpg



It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the top one is not a full rain tire, it is an intermediate. Full rain tires are not required for DOT certification. In fact, they don't even need to pump any water. These BFG R1s are road legal.


IMG_2286.jpg



Not that anyone'd be crazy enough to try. They probably wouldn't even last 2000 miles.

I'm not really sure what your point is with the tires.

I'm also not going to go watch a bunch of videos. You're the one championing the prowess of these drivers, how about you pick the one you want to show us that proves Stig's incompetence? I don't care one way or the other, I just like disassembling people's arguments. Not that I'm good at it, I just feel compelled to.

I could see a track day novice with zero experience and zero talent being as slow as Jeremy claims he was, during the first session or two. Maybe even for the entire first day if they're really thick. But once your mind has a chance to sub-consciously go over what you did, you get faster. You can't stay completely incompetent for years and years, no matter how hard you try. I have no doubts any serious racer could best him. But especially after watching him drive in the historic race, he's not as bad as he makes himself out to be.
 
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Here is the thing, Clarkson was trying to prove that you can learn a track by playing it on a video game, meaning he most likely made no attempt to really learn the track when he drove it in real life to see if the theory held up.
 
Here is the thing, Clarkson was trying to prove that you can learn a track by playing it on a video game, meaning he most likely made no attempt to really learn the track when he drove it in real life to see if the theory held up.

My first time at Laguna Seca ever in my Miata I merely followed the lines I developed using a similarly setup car on Forza 3. The instructor that was with me said my line was fantastic with exception to some minor tweaks to a couple of turn in points.
 
You're not a stubborn, middle aged, balding man. Also, were you driving in Forza using a wheel?
 
As proved by Greger Huttu, it is completely possible to learn a track and be fast at it from driving simulators. And that is driving simulators, like Live for Speed, rFactor, iRacing, RBR etc, with a good wheel and screen setup. Not sitting on a couch with a PS controller playing in a TV like Clarkson showed (I even doubt it was his lap that fast one in Gran Turismo for some reason).

As far as GT5 laps, if you do get the exact same car with the same engine, the same tyres, the same outside temperature and track conditions, wind... everything exactly the same... I think the laps would be pretty similar. But until someone does this experience, we can all throw our opinions for days without reaching any conclusions.
 
You're not a stubborn, middle aged, balding man. Also, were you driving in Forza using a wheel?

Controller. I never said times were consistent, just that the lines were close. Close enough you could claim the same variance in just modifying the line for different cars. I'm not a balding middle aged man though. I am however, stubborn as a mother fucker.

To say something like GT5 or Forza won't help (assuming the tracks are accurate) would be like saying the Recon runs rally drivers do of a course in a rental car at speeds never exceeding the speed limit don't help them when doing their actual runs in their race cars.
 
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Controller. I never said times were consistent, just that the lines were close. Close enough you could claim the same variance in just modifying the line for different cars. I'm not a balding middle aged man though. I am however, stubborn as a mother fucker.

To say something like GT5 or Forza won't help (assuming the tracks are accurate) would be like saying the Recon runs rally drivers do of a course in a rental car at speeds never exceeding the speed limit don't help them when doing their actual runs in their race cars.

That's a good analogy. If nothing else, the track layouts are very close to accurate. You'd certainly be better off than having never seen the track before.

I'd like to believe you can learn a bit about car control too, but I don't have the real life experience to back that up.
 
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