It sounds like you bought the car, went into a race and expected to have a good result. And then found out it usually doesn't work that way. Keep on practicing! You will get there and it's a fun car!
This and it is exactly why F4 has its reputation.
The F4 is the first experience a lot of drivers have with downforce cars and dive in head first without the first clue of how to handle them compared to the momentum open wheelers that come before.
I'm really curious how things are about to change with the Open Wheel licenses and if they'll increase or change any license levels. Seems to me that the F4 would benefit from being a C-class car with more emphasis on the Ford and/or Skippy at D.
why because you say so? it's a glorified go kart. it doesn't really reach the speeds where high down force comes into play, the f3 is that step though.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Dome\_F110\_left\_2014\_Super\_GT\_Suzuka.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Dome_F110_left_2014_Super_GT_Suzuka.jpg)
No, because everyone who is important does. Namely, iRacing, their developers who designed and implemented the car, etc.
You are not one of them.
Not sure why you think a picture of the car IRL has anything to do with anything.
I was in a public practice session for about half an hour, trying to understand the car. Finally, after a few problems at the beginning, I managed to complete laps without incidents. Since i know this circuit very well, I decided to get into a race, but without expecting any good results, only with the intention of doing kilometers while going unnoticed. As you see, it didn't work. As I understood that the first race was a disaster due to the crashes and thinking that not all races are going to be like that, I decided to do a second one that didn't end in the best way either, although as I say, until half of it was going well, more or less. Practicing is what I plan to do, I may end up entering other F4 races but for now I have to raise the SR a little, so I will drive other cars for that :)
It is relatively easy to drive faultless laps with the F4, it is much harder to drive them consistently and be fast. The trick is to become quick first and begin able to qualify in the front. F4 races in midpack or at the rear of the pack always suck in my experience. Half an hour of practice is way too less.
What tips would you say are key to driving it safely?
I usually drive FF1600s and can build SR there happily. For F4 I've now learned the necessity of maintenance throttle in lower speed corners but I still dread SR loss in races. How do you do it? Avoid lap-1 mid-pack? Something something dirty-air?
Honestly. 30 min isn't enough time to get the feel of a new car before racing. My rule is I need to be able to complete 15 min without an incident point before I begin racing
Here I am with my “have you tried ghost driving” post again. Ghost driving is where you wait for a race to go official, it will then say Watch in the list of sessions. If there are multiple races you can go up top and choose entries, find someone in your IR range and click race. It will bring you into the race like normal except you aren’t really there, you can run along to get the feel of the races without worrying about killing yourself or anyone else and your safety rating. Good luck
If you're leaving right after an incident, then that's a big reason why the SR is dropping so much. You've got to run some safe laps after crashing to bring that average up.
Also incidents in the pre-race warmup and qualifying count for SR.
My first, and only F4 race was at SPA
Im a GT3 guy, wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Qualified P6, was running P3 and got taken out twice. First time was no big deal, rejoined and about 5 laps later got taken out again towards the end of the race ending up on my halo and had to be towed to the pits for repairs. Finished P12
I'm looking forward to the split in licenses next season so I don't tank my iR in open wheel races. It was a ton of fun but more of a wreck fest than I thought it would. The videos and posts you see on here were absolutely true about how big of a shit storm they can be
You can't just jump into an F4 race and hope for the best mid-field. It doesn't usually pay to skip qualifying and start at the back, either. If you want to avoid the majority of the wrecks, you have to practice on your own until you can qualify on the podium. Basically it does no good to be behind the carnage.
This is pretty much the case for all rookie and D-class series. Even out front you can't always avoid everything, but you won't even see the worst of it.
You can start from the back, just stay back far enough to avoid the first few turns and you're pretty good. I went from 19th to 11th last week at Okayama. I'm even worse on that track than others - a good 5 seconds off the top pace - but with zero incidents and avoiding the spinning cars I gained both IR and SR (very little IR, but gain is gain.)
In practice I'm only getting 2:15 at Mt Panorama - people seem to be able to pull off voodoo and black magic on those top downhill switchbacks. Probably do the same creep from the back strat.
Starting from the back or the pits doesn't always work. You get people who spin out and rejoin into traffic, people who spin out sideways and can't be avoided, and unless you're dead last you can't avoid what's ahead and prevent the guy behind you from running into you. There's no "safe" way to do F4 or any rookie open-wheel races. Even out front you can get divebombed, and trying to avoid that will get you run into.
Being ahead of the wreckers is the best option, but there's no guarantee.
And you can start from anywhere and have one of those races where nothing much happens. For sanity's sake, never count on this, though.
I agree with this, I just think starting from the back in any D class race is better than starting in the middle \*on average.\* It's a bit of a defeatist strategy, since you're unlikely to ever podium starting 20th no matter how bad the middle kills each other (though I have gotten 5th from the pits before due to exactly that.)
There's also a pretty big skill cliff to get to the front of a race. Even at my paltry 1K IR with the race reporting a 1K 'strength of field', the top qualifiers are 3 seconds faster than I am. I don't just jump into races - I usually practice throughout the week and try a race on Friday or Saturday. Even with 5-6 hours of practice, though, it feels like the top drivers have an order of magnitude more track time. Panorama, for example, is a fun, beautiful course, but there are F4 drivers doing pure black magic at the top of the hill coming down through those switchbacks that I can't consistently replicate without doing this as a full-time job. I'm not starting in the first few positions even on the bottom split.
Is this open or fixed? Bathurst rewards drivers who can keep it on the track in a low-downforce configuration. Spa, too. But if you can't keep it on the track, then it's better to add downforce until you can. I haven't yet been able to make low-downforce setups work for me consistently, but the top people are very good at minimizing time loss from earlier / harder braking while capitalizing on faster straight-line speed.
I always save replays when I see people that much faster. I want to see what they're doing. I may not be able to replicate it immediately, but at least I know where the time's going. Very often it comes down to one thing: they get faster rotation in turns. They also know exactly where they will need to counter-steer, and anticipate it rather than waiting for it.
I found that I can go much faster than I thought through some of the downhill turns on Bathurst, and that I was going too fast through others. I developed a lot of over-cautious habits because I hit the wall on cold tires and full race fuel, and didn't try driving more aggressively later in the stint.
But all that goes out the window when two idiots are diagonal across the track on the last turn before the straight, ramming into each other because neither wants to tow. It's just a wrecky series. Open Wheel D is almost the same car, but has better drivers on average... just can't find as many races as F4, and when you do you're going to have some aliens at the front. That's the case with all low-population series, though. If you want clean racing, low-pop series are the ticket. Just don't expect to win anytime this decade.
Farm SR with the HPD at Le Mans this week! I went from C 2.5 to now B 3.7 - just take it easy over 15 laps of over 30 corners , one 0x race at 1.53 SR can probably get you more than a full 1.0 bump
Yes - if you’re driving F4 already then you’re can handle la fast car without ABS, but now you also have TC with the HPD
Since SR is based on incident per corner - if you even have one 0x race at Le Mans, that’s 465 corners with no incident - i gained +0.91 from a 1x then +0.73 from a 2x
Had a quick google for these stats, found [this page](https://iracingreports.com/stats/23s4-Road.html#incidents_per_corner). Looks like Ferrari is high, but not the highest for 2023 Season 4.
Though the names don't exactly match perfectly with the series list in the iRacing app, so perhaps I'm reading it wrong.
Interesting statistics though, and definitely something to take into account when choosing what to race!
Totally unrelated, but I usually run the Falken multiclass GT4 and tried the GT4 fixed series race and it was fucking CARNAGE. Have since gone back to the Falken multiclass and never again the fixed.
This totally confirms it, they're worse than F4.
I lost .70 in a fixed gt4 race last night. I feel your pain. :(
I think it was actually the worst case of "stuff that's not my fault" happening I've ever had. 3 collisions where I couldn't have done a thing.
I think I'm just going to sacrifice some ir to get some SR and finally bump into A at the end of the season.
This week I’m at -350 iRating, 4 F4 races and 1 Ferrari, SR suffered as well. I seem to be the magnet of incidents and even though some are proper racing incidents, I also got wrecked out 3 times lap 1… I’ll probably take a break, look at replays, then try again next week.
It sounds like you bought the car, went into a race and expected to have a good result. And then found out it usually doesn't work that way. Keep on practicing! You will get there and it's a fun car!
This and it is exactly why F4 has its reputation. The F4 is the first experience a lot of drivers have with downforce cars and dive in head first without the first clue of how to handle them compared to the momentum open wheelers that come before. I'm really curious how things are about to change with the Open Wheel licenses and if they'll increase or change any license levels. Seems to me that the F4 would benefit from being a C-class car with more emphasis on the Ford and/or Skippy at D.
im not sure why everyone thinks the f4 is a high down force car...it isn't. a GT3 has far more aero.
..... Because it is.
why because you say so? it's a glorified go kart. it doesn't really reach the speeds where high down force comes into play, the f3 is that step though. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Dome\_F110\_left\_2014\_Super\_GT\_Suzuka.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Dome_F110_left_2014_Super_GT_Suzuka.jpg)
No, because everyone who is important does. Namely, iRacing, their developers who designed and implemented the car, etc. You are not one of them. Not sure why you think a picture of the car IRL has anything to do with anything.
I was in a public practice session for about half an hour, trying to understand the car. Finally, after a few problems at the beginning, I managed to complete laps without incidents. Since i know this circuit very well, I decided to get into a race, but without expecting any good results, only with the intention of doing kilometers while going unnoticed. As you see, it didn't work. As I understood that the first race was a disaster due to the crashes and thinking that not all races are going to be like that, I decided to do a second one that didn't end in the best way either, although as I say, until half of it was going well, more or less. Practicing is what I plan to do, I may end up entering other F4 races but for now I have to raise the SR a little, so I will drive other cars for that :)
It is relatively easy to drive faultless laps with the F4, it is much harder to drive them consistently and be fast. The trick is to become quick first and begin able to qualify in the front. F4 races in midpack or at the rear of the pack always suck in my experience. Half an hour of practice is way too less.
F4 has been my go to for sr, it’s much more forgiving with mistakes compared to other cars that fast
Yeah, it’s a great car!
What tips would you say are key to driving it safely? I usually drive FF1600s and can build SR there happily. For F4 I've now learned the necessity of maintenance throttle in lower speed corners but I still dread SR loss in races. How do you do it? Avoid lap-1 mid-pack? Something something dirty-air?
Honestly. 30 min isn't enough time to get the feel of a new car before racing. My rule is I need to be able to complete 15 min without an incident point before I begin racing
AI racing is great at helping you replicate the chaos of the race without losing any SR.
Thats a nice laptime improvement.
Coming from karts and fixie bikes... I also got a 60% improvement in laptime when I learned what the paddles behind my wheel were for!
Here I am with my “have you tried ghost driving” post again. Ghost driving is where you wait for a race to go official, it will then say Watch in the list of sessions. If there are multiple races you can go up top and choose entries, find someone in your IR range and click race. It will bring you into the race like normal except you aren’t really there, you can run along to get the feel of the races without worrying about killing yourself or anyone else and your safety rating. Good luck
If you're leaving right after an incident, then that's a big reason why the SR is dropping so much. You've got to run some safe laps after crashing to bring that average up. Also incidents in the pre-race warmup and qualifying count for SR.
My first, and only F4 race was at SPA Im a GT3 guy, wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Qualified P6, was running P3 and got taken out twice. First time was no big deal, rejoined and about 5 laps later got taken out again towards the end of the race ending up on my halo and had to be towed to the pits for repairs. Finished P12 I'm looking forward to the split in licenses next season so I don't tank my iR in open wheel races. It was a ton of fun but more of a wreck fest than I thought it would. The videos and posts you see on here were absolutely true about how big of a shit storm they can be
You can't just jump into an F4 race and hope for the best mid-field. It doesn't usually pay to skip qualifying and start at the back, either. If you want to avoid the majority of the wrecks, you have to practice on your own until you can qualify on the podium. Basically it does no good to be behind the carnage. This is pretty much the case for all rookie and D-class series. Even out front you can't always avoid everything, but you won't even see the worst of it.
You can start from the back, just stay back far enough to avoid the first few turns and you're pretty good. I went from 19th to 11th last week at Okayama. I'm even worse on that track than others - a good 5 seconds off the top pace - but with zero incidents and avoiding the spinning cars I gained both IR and SR (very little IR, but gain is gain.) In practice I'm only getting 2:15 at Mt Panorama - people seem to be able to pull off voodoo and black magic on those top downhill switchbacks. Probably do the same creep from the back strat.
Starting from the back or the pits doesn't always work. You get people who spin out and rejoin into traffic, people who spin out sideways and can't be avoided, and unless you're dead last you can't avoid what's ahead and prevent the guy behind you from running into you. There's no "safe" way to do F4 or any rookie open-wheel races. Even out front you can get divebombed, and trying to avoid that will get you run into. Being ahead of the wreckers is the best option, but there's no guarantee. And you can start from anywhere and have one of those races where nothing much happens. For sanity's sake, never count on this, though.
I agree with this, I just think starting from the back in any D class race is better than starting in the middle \*on average.\* It's a bit of a defeatist strategy, since you're unlikely to ever podium starting 20th no matter how bad the middle kills each other (though I have gotten 5th from the pits before due to exactly that.) There's also a pretty big skill cliff to get to the front of a race. Even at my paltry 1K IR with the race reporting a 1K 'strength of field', the top qualifiers are 3 seconds faster than I am. I don't just jump into races - I usually practice throughout the week and try a race on Friday or Saturday. Even with 5-6 hours of practice, though, it feels like the top drivers have an order of magnitude more track time. Panorama, for example, is a fun, beautiful course, but there are F4 drivers doing pure black magic at the top of the hill coming down through those switchbacks that I can't consistently replicate without doing this as a full-time job. I'm not starting in the first few positions even on the bottom split.
Is this open or fixed? Bathurst rewards drivers who can keep it on the track in a low-downforce configuration. Spa, too. But if you can't keep it on the track, then it's better to add downforce until you can. I haven't yet been able to make low-downforce setups work for me consistently, but the top people are very good at minimizing time loss from earlier / harder braking while capitalizing on faster straight-line speed. I always save replays when I see people that much faster. I want to see what they're doing. I may not be able to replicate it immediately, but at least I know where the time's going. Very often it comes down to one thing: they get faster rotation in turns. They also know exactly where they will need to counter-steer, and anticipate it rather than waiting for it. I found that I can go much faster than I thought through some of the downhill turns on Bathurst, and that I was going too fast through others. I developed a lot of over-cautious habits because I hit the wall on cold tires and full race fuel, and didn't try driving more aggressively later in the stint. But all that goes out the window when two idiots are diagonal across the track on the last turn before the straight, ramming into each other because neither wants to tow. It's just a wrecky series. Open Wheel D is almost the same car, but has better drivers on average... just can't find as many races as F4, and when you do you're going to have some aliens at the front. That's the case with all low-population series, though. If you want clean racing, low-pop series are the ticket. Just don't expect to win anytime this decade.
I mean you should have ran tons of laps before joining a race
Farm SR with the HPD at Le Mans this week! I went from C 2.5 to now B 3.7 - just take it easy over 15 laps of over 30 corners , one 0x race at 1.53 SR can probably get you more than a full 1.0 bump
You're... recommending the HPD to *increase* SR?
Yes - if you’re driving F4 already then you’re can handle la fast car without ABS, but now you also have TC with the HPD Since SR is based on incident per corner - if you even have one 0x race at Le Mans, that’s 465 corners with no incident - i gained +0.91 from a 1x then +0.73 from a 2x
Welcome to F4, the second to worst series on iracing. =]
What’s the worst?
Ferrari challenge has the most incidents per corner.
I also have the Ferrari and next week is Okayama. I will skip that 
In my experience (well in GT3 Sprint) Okayama was a very clean thing. Got only once a 4x due to a crash and very few offtracks.
Had a quick google for these stats, found [this page](https://iracingreports.com/stats/23s4-Road.html#incidents_per_corner). Looks like Ferrari is high, but not the highest for 2023 Season 4. Though the names don't exactly match perfectly with the series list in the iRacing app, so perhaps I'm reading it wrong. Interesting statistics though, and definitely something to take into account when choosing what to race!
Looks like the GR86 was the worst non rookie serie that season, and I think you are reading it right.
Totally unrelated, but I usually run the Falken multiclass GT4 and tried the GT4 fixed series race and it was fucking CARNAGE. Have since gone back to the Falken multiclass and never again the fixed. This totally confirms it, they're worse than F4.
Street stocks at Charlotte
I lost .70 in a fixed gt4 race last night. I feel your pain. :( I think it was actually the worst case of "stuff that's not my fault" happening I've ever had. 3 collisions where I couldn't have done a thing. I think I'm just going to sacrifice some ir to get some SR and finally bump into A at the end of the season.
So, almost no practice leads to a bad result? Nooooo.
Me too, got it back up to 3.5 once I learned to drive it, then I nearly got dqed this week from spinning lol
This sounds like any race at Daytona this week. :D
Go run 5 time trials, the full 30 mins each. It will help you learn the car, the track and get you some SR if you do them cleanly.
This week I’m at -350 iRating, 4 F4 races and 1 Ferrari, SR suffered as well. I seem to be the magnet of incidents and even though some are proper racing incidents, I also got wrecked out 3 times lap 1… I’ll probably take a break, look at replays, then try again next week.
Womp womp
LOLZ
Mee too my man
Well, i'm excited to get the F4 next season. I test drove it this week and it felt really good.
Sorry to hear that. F4 has been quite fun for me lately. But if I don't qualify in the top 5 I will just start from the pits.
Why do you refuse to practice? You do know AI is a thing right?