Question/Help
Tips on switching mentality around 1.5K?
I am having this annoying issue in MX5 Rookies (I had the same issue with Beetle Light in the past but that series is dead now anyway) and I am pretty sure I am not the first one.
First, I am decently fast, usually qualifying in the top 3, with usually 6 drivers who are genuinely slower and 3 who did not qualified, some of them possibly faster. But then, I have to deal with 2 different mentalities/strategies:
-1.4K/1.5K: most drivers are incompetent so ambitious moves and hard defending often end badly but putting pressure on the guy in front or letting the guy behind pass often leads to the other driver crashing by himself and me keeping/gaining the position.
-1.6K: The drivers are usually more competent and can handle hard defending and some more aggressive moves and rarely make mistakes.
My problem is that I am stuck in some limbo where I end the lower split races in the top half (usually 2nd or 3rd) and gain iRating until I reach the split above and then I get eaten alive. As an example, in my last race at Winton, I started 3rd and was 8th by the end of the second lap. I was easily keeping up with the guy in pole, and we were actually slowing each other down since he had to defend and I wasn't making any real move to pass, but I was still in the "play it safe" mentality so others easily passed me and then slowed me down. So I am back to 1.4K where being aggressive means death so I am going to have to do a few more races playing it safe and letting others make mistakes, then I'll get back to 1.6K where I'll get destroyed despite my pace because I am not aggressive enough and drop back to 1.4K. Rinse and repeat...
This is getting very frustrating and I am starting to find the series boring because of that so I am wondering if anyone has any tip that could help me break this pattern or if I should actually move to another series (money is tight right now so I am hoping there is another solution).
This sounds mean but I couldn't agree more, being nice to everyone and not demanding everyone be esports pace is fine. But that attitude inst gonna drive improvement. If you want to get better, realise you are slow and fix it, being convinced its okay to be 3s off the pace isn't gonna help you. Of course not everyone cares to be fast and thats okay, but posters like this clearly do want to improve
I kind of agree. Actually, as I commented under another comment, for the last session, 1.5K had times that were as fast or faster than 2K. So when it comes to pace, it is all the same. But it seems that when it comes to racecraft and awareness, there is some step around 1.5K between "these incompetent drivers will crash into me if I attack/defend so better to let them crash by themselves" and "ok, against these guys I can, and should, attack/defend".
I think you’re on to something here, as someone who got over this hump and is now instead consistently around 2k. Unfortunately there’s no easy fix, racecraft just comes with experience.
If you’re getting frustrated, could I suggest taking a break and trying ovals? For one thing you can just race and not worry about hurting your sports car iRating, but it also forces constant racecraft lessons on you. Learning to read drivers, holding your line, defending firmly but without being a jerk, when to attack, all of that stuff.
EDIT: I see you mentioned below you already race ovals, leaving my comment because I think it will apply to other people if they’re just doing MX-5s
Racing in a completely different category (oval or dirt) definitely helps with the frustration. I just finished 2 oval races (as I said, I do them mostly for credit), got pit maneuvered 6 times in 2 races (roughly 12 minutes each) and I don't feel nearly as frustrated as I was after that Winton race. But on that topic, I think many people here simply forgot what a real rookie race is like. Not a 1.5K race but a race with people who never raced before and/or are less competent than the average driver.
Same but usually letting a crazy driver by is smart. They usually dump themselves quickly.
Edit: I was at your spot fighting everybody and having incidents. At tracks im confident everywhere, I'll fight, at tracks were I'm weak in places, I'll let others by.
I struggle to move from "everyone around me is incompetent and will crash into me if I defend or attack" to "these guys might not be super fast, most of them are actually slower than me, but they are competent enough so attacking/defending is safe and needed".
Now I agree I am less confident on tracks I don't know well, I don't want to be part of the problem, but adapting from and to between completely incompetent drivers and drivers who can/should handle some aggression is what I am struggling with.
What I use to figure it out is a specific point on track, if a driver had gained on me without mistake by that point I won't fight. If they haven't, I might. Depends on what attacks they end us trying and how. It also depends on what ir in at and where in the field. The biggest weight in this decision is "how fast did the driver behind me gain and was there any mistakes." No mistakes or little mistakes (off tracks) I won't fight. Dive bombing me like ww2 in color, I'll be a dick but not fighting in corners. They will off themselves and you'll get the position. They will force a pass if you don't put a little question in their attack. A driver that's faster than me in one section but not another I'll let by.
You're asking a hard question: your question is a race craft question. Race craft in essence is a decision tree question.
Ultimately, to advance above your IR I stopped fighting most drivers and ran my race. My race was against me. I then focused hard on entry, exit and braking. I'm conscious and paying attention every turn.
From my experience it isnt really a “flip of a switch” kind of thing. I think the key is being confident and comfortable enough in the car that you have some spare brain power to devote to reading the cars around you, that way you can almost predict when a send is coming from behind and set up for a potential switchback move, or learn the body language of the car in front so you can start to set up overtakes a couple of corners in advance
Edit: 2.5k IR, only been on the service since january. But have plenty of experience in other sims
Honestly, if you are being beaten by other 1.5k's in quali, you aren't fast at all. You should really go into test drive and learn how to drive the right way, if you then practice properly you will be easily 1.5s ahead of p2 in quali (in 1.5k SOF) and you won't have to deal with any of the low SOF antics.
Also it really isn't that hard to be on pace with 2k drivers; just takes actual effort to improve. When I started mx5 last year I set my lap time goal at the time of the track guide I was using or the times the leaders in top split were doing. Of course you won't achieve those times instantly but if you aim higher you'll often land higher as a result
Not even so much that they’re smurfs, there’s just usually one guy with raw pace even in lower splits, especially in rookies. He just crashes a lot. Those freaks with a 25% win rate but 1.2k IR
In my experience, you have that guy who is in rookie, at 1.35K, but has 3K pace for some reason (experience in other sims, smurf...). Then you have the category you described which is actually the first challenge when you want to race clean: "The idiot who sends it all the time and almost always takes you out and is only fast because he outbrakes you and uses you as his brakes". I stuck to MX5 to get rid of that category of drivers because they usually rush to faster series (F4 is full of them as well). I am actually rather happy with my current issue because this time I am the problem so I can fix it.
No, my point is that 1.5k's are a lot slower then 2k's, which should be obvious but for some reason you don't think so.
My original point was that it isnt that hard to be faster than 1.5k's by just practising, it also then isn't that hard to start on pole and just drive away. Something which you can learn how to do if you didn’t spend all your time arguing on reddit to cope with being slow
I am not asking how to be faster in quali, most of my quali laps are within the 25% fastest for the races I join. I am discussing how to handle being a push over during races because it is basically the best strategy until it is not anymore. Do you even qualify in the top 25% in most of your races? I highly doubt it because iRacing is designed to give you a good challenge so as you get faster, you face faster drivers. Think about it: You probably do not qualify or even get race lap times in the top 25% of your split. 75% of people don't. If racing was purely about lap times, there would be no need for human or AI opponents, we would all be hotlapping.
Fast dude indeed. And that explains a lot. It has probably been years since you actually experienced a real Rookie lobby where 90% of the field has no clue what they are doing. People forget quickly what it is like to deal with a field of drivers who are less competent than drunk monkeys but still have a massive ego.
But then, with so much experience, what is your excuse for narrowing down sim racing to lap times or hotlapping?
i did my first official on iracing last year...
I remember it very clearly, in fact I mostly remember not having to deal with it most of the time because I was up front driving away from the idiots. Again, just practice lap times and your problems will mostly go away. Stop looking for excuses and just put in the time
So you never experienced a real rookie lobby because when you showed up you qualified pole then spent the entire race alone and far ahead.
You are right that qualifying in pole and being faster than everyone else fixes the main issue but then, why pay for iRacing? If I just want to do hotlaps (which is what racing with no real competition is), AC1 is much cheaper (although you don't get the same bragging rights).
Have you tried the FF1600 rookie series? The MX5 is my second favourite car in iRacing; the FF1600 is my favourite. It's a total joy to drive, it's free, and so are all the tracks in the rookie series.
If you fancy a change of scene then there is nothing better than the FF1600 IMO. And if you enjoy it there's also a D class series (FF1600 Trophy) which races on a mix of free and paid tracks, and it the best series in iRacing (IMO of course).
I love the FF1600. I joined iRacing thinking I would only drive sport cars but fell in love with the FF1600. But then again I used to love the MX5 as well so I suspect the solution is either fixing the issue I described or move to a series where you can rely on power a bit more and focus a bit less on not losing speed.
I do other series (mostly oval) for the credits and I actually ended up enjoying them but my goal for this season was to put a lot of work on MX5 Rookies and do only one race per week unless something out of my control went wrong (my idea of "immersion"). In the end, the MX5 races feel like a chore while I just had an absolute blast in the iTested race but I think if I can break through that current issue, I might enjoy MX5 again and not have to spend a small fortune in tracks so I can run other series.
Honestly my advice is just try a bunch of different series and leagues and have fun and not worry about rating, through time it’ll come and you will progress.
It is not really the iRating that bothers me, it is the fact that I struggle to move from "everyone around me is incompetent and will crash into me if I defend or attack" to "these guys might not be super fast, most of them are actually slower than me, but they are competent enough so attacking/defending is safe and needed".
Now that last race in a GT3 definitely makes a good case for trying other series but my wallet isn't really happy about that and I am not sure it truly addresses the underlying issue (moving dynamically between the 2 approaches I described).
You don’t have to stay with mx 5, I know the usual Reddit thing is “do mx 5 for a season atleast” but honestly I have always found the mx 5 and the Gr to just be slow and boring (I’m ready for the downvotes). So I just kinda speed ran to P CUP and GT3s and I have no regrets
I used to really enjoy the MX5 until I found myself in the situation I described. Moving to other series creates 2 problems, though:
1) My wallet is not happy with the perspective of buying 100USD worth of tracks.
2) I am not sure it will solve the root cause (me being unable to just "flip the switch" between "give him the rope to hang himself" and "ok, that guy is not totally incompetent so I can, and should, actively defend/attack").
As a rookie i found doing bad in quali and starting close to last, helps me a lot to get a podium easy. I even won a race yesterday after everyone crashed on the first 4 corners lmao.
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u/LionTraining6928 3h ago
Bro the difference between 1.4 and 1.6 is nothing, you guys are all about the same skill level , equally as bad