This Friday, I'm riding up to Nelson Ledges with my Champcar team to drive the all day practice and try and make some adjustments to the car to make it faster. We want to mess with damper settings, tire pressure, and down force to see what we can come up with and improve. Though we've completed several races, we've never really done any testing outside of green flag racing. I think at least 4 drivers are attending Friday, so what's a consistent and accurate method of testing? I know the stop watch won't lie, but one of my concerns is that we make a small change, and 4 drivers have 4 different opinions about it. Also, prior to being on this team, my mentality was always to make my own cars look cool and be fun to drive, and any shortcomings they had I would just try to "drive through." Therefore, I'm not sure I trust my own opinions on what makes the car feel optimal.
Would it be wise to use one driver for each variable, for example one of us tests down force settings while we record lap times, then another driver for tire pressure etc? Honestly I think the seat time and a relatively uncrowded will be most beneficial aspect of this test for all of us, but it would be nice to get the car leveled up a bit. Any road racing veterans here with some insight? Our next race is Mid Ohio.
Don't use one driver for each variable. That'll be worse than trying to order pizzas for an entire office and going around trying to figure out what toppings everyone likes.
Since you have limited time, I'd suggest having a "lead" driver who is responsible for generating lap times and initial opinions on all changes, then cycle the other drivers through to confirm or rebut the initial findings. It doesn't necessarily need to be the fastest driver, but it should be someone who is good, consistent, and capable of communicating esoteric concepts of car feel.
Also, this lead driver should not focus on driving 100% all the time. More like 98% and minimizing variance. A few 100% and even 100%+ laps are necessary to get a handle on the car at and past the limit, but the most repeatable and reliable data is usually generated fractionally below the absolute limit.
Like JG said, pick the most consistent and/or most sensitive to changes driver and have them do most of the testing, with occasional check ups from others to confirm the changes. Also, depending on the extent of what you're testing, start with aero first because that's going to drive the other variables. If you get the shocks and pressures set perfectly and then increase downforce by 25%...all that other tuning goes out the window.
Make a written plan of what you want to test, in order of importance.
After a baseline is established test one change at a time, document thoroughly.
Just one driver for actual tests - consistency.
Interesting, thanks everyone!
Invest in a tire pyrometer if you don't already have one.
