Sim racing setup: the 6-step method for setting up your car

Most drivers approach a setup like a menu: open the settings page, find the line that seems to match the problem you feel, adjust it, head back out. Sometimes it works. More often, you spend an hour going round in circles before returning to the base setup, with the nagging sense of having tried everything and understood nothing.

The problem is almost never the value chosen. It is the order in which it was chosen. A suspension adjustment made with tyres at the wrong pressure is meaningless, because the reference against which you judged it was false. Here is the six-step method we apply at the Academy — in order — and which holds across every simulation.

Step 1 · Tyres, before absolutely anything else

The tyre is the only component of the car that touches the ground. Everything you feel at the wheel passes through it, and everything you adjust afterwards will be measured through it. Starting anywhere else means judging a chassis through a miscalibrated filter.

Two parameters, in this order. Pressure first: set not cold but by targeting the operating window at working temperature, where the compound is doing its job. Too high a pressure reduces the contact patch and makes the car nervous and prone to sliding; too low, the tyre deforms, overheats on the shoulders and falls away after a few laps. Camber next, which determines how the tyre sits under load: the goal is an even temperature across the width of the contact patch, with neither the inner edge cooking while the outer remains cold.

The reference is straightforward: until your tyre temperatures are consistent across three or four consecutive laps, do not touch anything else.

Step 2 · Ride height, the geometry that conditions everything else

Once the tyres are correctly sorted, comes the position of the body: front and rear ride height, and therefore the rake of the car. This sets the distribution of downforce and the behaviour of the chassis before you have touched a single spring.

A car lower at the front than at the rear loads the front axle and turns in more readily. Too low, and it bottoms out in compressions and loses downforce abruptly — a snap that has nothing to do with driving technique and that you would search for in vain in the dampers.

This is also where ballast distribution is set when the simulation allows it, along with any additional weight. These are static adjustments: they define the starting point for all those that follow.

Step 3 · Aerodynamics, to choose your compromise

The wing and splitter are not adjusted by feel — they arbitrate a compromise: downforce against top speed. More rear wing stabilises the car in fast corners and on corner exit, at the cost of metres lost on every straight.

The right adjustment is decided by the circuit, not the car. A layout of long straights and slow corners calls for low downforce; a fast, flowing layout calls for a great deal more. The question is never "what is the best wing setting" but "where on this circuit am I losing the most time."

On a GT3, aerodynamic balance is also a corrective tool: adding rear wing shifts the centre of pressure rearward and settles an unstable rear axle without touching the suspension.

Step 4 · Springs and anti-roll bars, balance under load

You now have a car whose tyres are working, whose ride height is coherent and whose downforce level is chosen. You can finally address balance — that is, understeer and oversteer under load.

The principle is counter-intuitive but mechanical: stiffening an axle reduces its grip. A stiffer front anti-roll bar increases understeer on entry; a stiffer rear bar makes the rear more reactive. Springs play the same role, with the added effect of influencing how the car absorbs kerbs and bumps.

The working rule: address anti-roll bars first, as they act only in roll, before springs, which act everywhere. This isolates the balance problem from the absorption problem.

Step 5 · Dampers, the response over time

Dampers do not change the balance of the car. They change the rate at which it moves from one state to another: the time it takes for mass to transfer when you brake, turn in or get back on the throttle.

That is why they come after the springs and never before. A stiff front damper in rebound holds back the mass transfer on brake release and makes the entry feel sluggish. A damper that is too soft leaves the car floating and delays every reaction.

This is the hardest step to feel, and the one where you are most likely to mislead yourself when driving alone. If a damper adjustment is not clearly visible on your speed trace or braking trace, it probably does not exist — it is an impression, not a gain.

Step 6 · Differential and brakes, the final refinement

We finish with what connects the engine and the brakes to the ground.

The differential determines how power is distributed between the driven wheels. High lock under acceleration stabilises the car on throttle application but adds understeer on exit; low lock frees rotation at the risk of making corner exit nervous.

Brake bias adjusts corner entry: towards the front, it makes braking safer and longer; towards the rear, it helps the car rotate but brings you dangerously close to locking. It is an adjustment that works in conjunction with trail braking, which we have covered in detail in Trail braking: braking later is not enough.

The rule that makes the method usable: one change at a time

This method is worthless if you modify three parameters between two runs. You will know whether the car feels better or worse, never why — and you will not be able to reproduce the result on another circuit.

The protocol comes down to four points. One parameter only changed at a time. A minimum of three clean laps before judging, to allow the tyres to stabilise. The feeling noted before looking at the lap time, so as not to deceive yourself. And a systematic return to the previous setting if the change brings nothing: a setup that accumulates neutral adjustments becomes impossible to debug.

You will notice that half of these points are not about the car but about measurement. That is as it should be: a setup is judged on data, not sensation. Sensation tells you there is a problem; data tells you which one, and where it is costing you time.

Want to read your own traces before touching a single setting? The full method — which graphs to look at, how to overlay two laps and turn data into tenths — is detailed in our Telemetry Guide.

Every Friday, we share a tip, a behind-the-scenes look and the Group's programme in the newsletter — sign up at the bottom of this page. And to compare your setups with other drivers, join the community on Discord.

In brief

Where do you start when you have never done a sim racing setup? With the tyres, and only with the tyres. Take the simulation's base setup, complete ten laps and adjust pressure until you find the working-temperature window. You will already have gained more time than through any suspension adjustment.

Do you need a different setup for each circuit? Yes for aerodynamics, gear ratios and brake bias, which depend directly on the layout. Tyres, ride height and general balance transfer much more readily from one circuit to another.

How long does it take to set up a car properly? Far less than you might think if the order is respected, far more if you proceed by successive attempts. That is the whole point of the method: it replaces a random search with a sequence of decisions.

Does this method work across every simulation? The order is valid everywhere, because it derives from mechanics, not software. Only the names of the parameters and the range of available adjustments differ from one title to the next.

Is a setup shared by a fast driver useful? As a starting point, yes. As a solution, no: it carries the driving style of the person who built it. Use it as a reference to understand, not a setting to copy.