so i recently got to try the Caterham F1 simulator.
i was very surprised at the virtually non existent level of force feedback coming through the steering wheel:
- hardly any weight transfer feedback (i.e when in oversteer, wheel was very weak in pulling other way)
- Zero feedback through wheel for locked wheels under braking
- generally very light steering
- ridiculous snap oversteer - no feedback that the rear slipped, and when it did the car would do violent pirouettes at low speed
- they were using Rfactor Pro software
Just as a footnote, I was about half a second off Petrov, obviously have to take into account setup/fuel loads etc... but shows I was in the ballpark - and the only reason I was 'good' was due to playing sim racing games on the PC. I play rfactor and other driving simulation games, and rfactor has the worst of the tyre/physics/feedback models - it cannot cope with slip angles and the physics breaks down. The Caterham F1 simulator drove 100% exactly like a poor Rfactor F1 Mod....(hence why I was good in their sim because I was totally familiar with it!)
the engineers insisted that it was 1:1 with the real car, and based on measurements they'd made to find what steering forces were acting, and explained the lightness of the wheel and lack of feedback by saying that because the car is heavily aero dependent on grip and not mechanical (obviously true) but that this manifested itself in lighter than expected steering.
i dont believe them. yes ive never driven an actual f1 car, but just from common sense, from how the drivers react on tv, and from experience in some decent racing cars, i would expect the driver to be getting some good feedback through the steering wheel, and for the wheel to 'self right' in oversteer situations, as well as weighting at higher speed and some rolling resistance at low speed, and feedback if you were to lock front wheels.
the impression i got frankly was that the caterham engineers have clearly never driven a race car and seemed to be convinced that the data they'd put into their simulation models to give feedback through the wheel seemed to be accurate - to me it felt like a below average Rfactor mod (google it). And, as a footnote, they were indeed using Rfactor Pro.
im of course aware that info coming back to the driver isn't just through the wheel (g forces, through your bum, inner ear balance, visual) but the characteristics that i'd expect to come through the wheel itself were not present.
can anyone here comment on this?
what kind of varying forces would be going through the wheel?
does anyone have any technical knowledge on what kind of feedback the driver might be experiencing in terms of forces?
i just find it very hard to believe that what i experienced in the sim was 1:1 correlated with the car, as they insisted.
If it is 1:1, then F1 drivers aren't driving off feel at all, but visual cues and memory! (of course they aren't!)