Introduction

This guide is intended to help complete newcomers to GPL. Hopefully it will help them come to grips
with the game a little faster than if left to their own devices. It is not an attempt to teach anyone the
techniques or physics of advanced driving, as there is plenty of help for that on the internet and I am
not qualified to teach on the subject anyway. Experienced GPL drivers will probably not find
anything in this guide that they do not already know, and it will not teach you how to set awesomely
fast times.
Mainly I have written the guide as a way of clarifying my own thoughts on GPL, and how I have got
to where I am today (as of September 2014), which is typically around 1% slower than the GPL Rank
targets for each track. I have done some real-world karting and track days in my own car and also
got pretty good at other racing sims but GPL has still taken me a very long time to learn.
I’m not able to race online and so I will cover a bit of ground on the AI but won’t touch server racing.

Setting up GPL
One thing I have slowly realised is that how you set up GPL can make a big difference to how easy it
is to drive fast. Follow the Easy Installation Guide at SRMZ to install the game, Mods and updates on
your computer. Then there are a few things you need to do that will help you in the long run:
Steering
It is tempting to set your wheel up with a very small rotational range, as this makes the car feel very
responsive and ‘racy’. However, it is much easier to have a range of at least 360° as this allows you
to be much more precise with your steering inputs, which makes it easier to make the tiny
corrections that are often needed to hold a car on the edge of adhesion without tripping over into a
spin.
Also, in the Options screen in GPL, you should set the steering to full linearity. Otherwise, GPL
changes how large the steering effect is depending on how far away from the centre position the
wheel is. This can remove some of the ‘feel’ of how the car is driving.
Field of View
The Gem+ home screen has a very useful setting that allows you to adjust the field of view that you
see when you are driving. Some people like to set this quite small, as it slightly increases the detail
you can see straight ahead of you when driving. I prefer to set it to 120°, for two reasons. Firstly, I
find that having a decent area of the track in my peripheral vision allows me to notice more easily
when the car is just starting to slide. As sim drivers we can’t feel anything through the seat of our
pants, so we have to rely on visual clues to tell us what angle the car is at relative to the track, and I
find this helps. The second reason is that I like to have my wing mirrors in sight at all times and also
be able to see other cars coming up alongside me. Some drivers are happy to use the ‘look left’ and
‘look right’ buttons to check either side of them but I find this a distraction, as I need to concentrate
very hard just to drive at a reasonable pace.
Also remember to set the screen resolution setting in the Gem+ Graphics menu to the best your
monitor can handle.
Pribluda
The only dial I pay any attention to on the dashboard that is modelled in the car is the rev counter.
The other dials are too small to see properly unless you are lucky enough to have a huge monitor.
But I still need to see the engine temperature and fuel status, and for that I use Pribluda. This utility
can be set to display all manner of data while you are driving, but this can be distracting and the only
setting I use is the dashboard. In your top level Sierra/GPL folder open the pribluda.ini file (using
Notepad or similar) and change the line “show = 1” to “show = 0” for [tyres], [times], [playerboard],
[leaderboard], [trackpositionboard] and [fps]. Leave it at “show = 1” for [dash].
Setting Pribluda to also display live tyre temperatures using [tyres] can help a bit with setting up the
car, but I prefer to concentrate on driving well and then check the temperatures that GPL shows in
the Setup menu when you return to the pits.

At First You Will Crash

You will have read in many places that the first thing everyone does in GPL is crash. This is perfectly
true, there is no getting away from it, so you may as well get it over with. Jump into a car, load up
Monaco or the Nordschleife and start crashing.
Seriously. As an absolute beginner if you try to tiptoe around you will still crash, so you may as well
jam your foot onto the loud pedal and hoon around backwards, sideways and upside down for a
while. Crashing can be fun, so get it out of your system.
After a while all the crashing will get boring (although it may be worth saving the replays of a few of
your more spectacular efforts). This is the time to start trying to tiptoe around. You’ll be surprised at
how difficult it is to do this without crashing when GPL is still new to you, especially if you dive into
the 1967 or later cars straight away. I recommend that for most of your initial learning period you
stick to the 1965 Mod cars, as they are much more forgiving but can still be very rewarding to drive.
One important thing to bear in mind is that GPL models the way that tyres got hotter after a few
laps, which gives them more grip. The moment you first pull out of the pits is the moment you have
least grip, and often it really does feel like driving on ice. If you use shift-R to reset your car on the
track, your tyre temperatures are reset to cold, so it really is better just to turn off damage and only
use shift-R or return to the pits when you have to.
I also strongly suggest that you don’t bother to try any racing at all (against the AI or online) until you
have mastered the basics of driving. It will just lead to frustration and distract you from learning
what the car is actually doing beneath you.
The level you need to get to is where you stop feeling overwhelmed by everything that is going on -
what gear you are in, where the revs are, all the sliding about, looking at the scenery, listening to the
engine noise, etc. You need to be able to start blanking some of it out, so you can drive around and
follow the track with some mental capacity to spare, so you can start concentrating on what
matters. This is the point at which you are ready to start learning how to take the car to its limits.
General Driving Tips
Driver Aids
I really wouldn’t use the Automatic Shifting option in GPL for more than the first hour or so. Keeping
the car in the correct gear is an absolutely fundamental part of driving, and you may as well start
doing it as soon as possible. The Braking Help and Throttle Help options can be left enabled for a lot
longer as they don’t stop you from getting a feel for the car. Leave them on for as long as you spend
getting used to the basics of following the racing line, changing gears and learning where you can go
fast and where you need to slow down. When you really want to get down to exploring the limits of
what each car in GPL can do, you will need to switch both off.
Choosing Cars and Tracks
When you are starting out, you really should pick a single car and stick with it for a long time,
certainly tens of hours of driving. If you just want to play around with lots of different cars (which is
always tempting) before you can lap repeatedly without leaving the track, I suggest you treat this as
part of the ‘just go and crash’ phase I mentioned above. If you aren’t prepared to spend several tens
of hours driving the same type of car, I humbly suggest GPL isn’t really the sim for you.
I also suggest that you stick with only one track until you can lap it without crashing at a pace that
isn’t embarrassingly slow. Decent starter tracks are ones such as Zandvoort or Watkins Glen that
aren’t too difficult to learn and contain a good mixture of corners. If you do start to get a bit bored
then switch to another track but I’d stay with the same car for as long as you can bear it. You really
need to get used to the ‘feel’ of the car – the way it handles close to the limit, and that’s very
difficult for a learner to do if they switch between cars.
Sticking with the same car and track also allows you to gauge how well you are progressing. You’ll be
amazed at how quickly you will be able to lap at times that are several seconds faster than you first
thought possible. This will often happen in fits and starts, and as you get further into GPL the
improvements will get smaller, but the satisfaction remains very high.
The Racing Line
The most basic thing to learn is to follow the racing line. There are plenty of guides available
explaining exactly the theory behind the racing line, and as GPL doesn’t have a feature to display the
racing line, this is something you will have to work out for yourself. Sometimes it is obvious and
often the darker patches on the track will indicate where the line is. On some tracks it can be
extremely difficult to work out where the best line is, so find a track guide online if available.
The best way to learn any track is to drive around (crashing from time to time) until you settle on a
line that seems OK. From this point on, you should try to do lap after lap staying on that line. Don’t
worry about exactly how fast you are going, just stay on the line and slowly build up your speed from
there. Every once in a while you will realise that you can improve the line a bit, which is excellent as
it shows you are learning.
Staying on the line and getting faster from there is a much, much quicker way to learn both a track
and GPL as a whole than simply hooning around as fast as you can while crashing a lot. Take it from
someone who tried.
Making a Plan
The only way to get fast at any track is to make a plan. You need to know what racing line you will
follow, what your braking points are and what gear you will use at each point in the track, and you
need to be able to do all these things repeatedly, lap after lap. Just like learning the racing line, the
idea is not to go as fast as possible but to be able to drive a reasonably fast lap time after time
without crashing. If you can drive half a dozen laps within a second or so of each other (at a typical
length circuit) than you’ve found a pretty good plan to work with.
Once you have a plan you can start to improve it – braking a little later here, taking a corner in a
higher gear there, turning in a touch later for a tight corner to enable you to get the power down
sooner as you exit – all these things will start to come naturally but you must have a base to build
from.
In order to create your plan you must find a visual marker for every braking point and turning in
point. Trying to estimate these things will end badly – if you get off line a corner can look very
different and you’ll visit the scenery. Also, once you are racing against other cars they can obscure
your view. The best markers to use are objects by the side of the track – marker boards,
advertisements, sections of crowd, etc. You can also use changes in the colour of the track, for
example sudden darker patches usually denote braking zones, although you will rarely start to brake
yourself exactly where they begin. Marshals can be useful but they aren’t around in Training mode
so you’ll often need something else as well.
Your plan must be accurate enough so that if you wrote it down someone else could pick it up and
drive a lap that looked pretty similar. In fact, writing down your plan for each track can help
crystallise your thoughts, and save time when you come back to the same track later on.
Does crashing help you learn?
If you crash too often you will never learn anything in GPL, especially as you’ll never get the tyres up
to a good working temperature. However, there are times when running the risk of a crash can be a
good way of saving time to work out just how fast you can take a particular corner. If you follow my
suggestions regarding making a plan and building into a rhythm you will eventually make fast lap
times. But we are all only human, and there are times when we just want to find out if we can take
corner X flat out. OK, once in a while try it. Often you’ll fly off the road in a replay you’ll watch over
and over again. But from time to time you may realise that you very nearly made it.
So, don’t set out to crash but sometimes a wisely chosen moment of ‘foot-to-the-floor’ can save a
little learning time.

Driving Techniques
I’ve already mentioned that I’m not qualified to give expert tuition on the theory behind advanced
racing techniques. But there are a few things that I’d like to bring to your attention.
Racing is a Mental Sport
It seems obvious but motor racing is not a form of athletics. It is also not a subconscious process that
just ‘happens’. You need to get used to thinking about what you are doing. That is why I say that the
first step to learning is reaching the point where you can drive around with some spare mental
capacity, so you are aware of what is going on with the car and the track.
Graham Hill said that motor racing is ‘concentration, concentration, concentration’ and Jim Clark
said that when he wanted to go faster he just concentrated more. Don’t take it from me, take it from
them. Think. Pay attention. Replay a typical lap later on in your head, visualise each corner – were
you in the right gear? What was the front of the car doing? What about the rear? I often find that
the biggest improvements I can make occur to me hours after I last drove in GPL, when I am thinking
about what exactly was happening.
Picking up Clues
Because we have no way to actually feel what the car is doing, as sim drivers we must pay close
attention to other clues that are available to us. I have already mentioned the importance that I
attach to peripheral vision, which is vital to knowing if the car is starting to drift or not.
The tyre squeal in the game is also very important. When braking it warns you that the wheels are
close to locking up, which reduces the braking effect. In a slow corner you need to learn to keep the
tyres squealing all the way around, which again warns you that the car is about to start sliding.
The Force Feedback (FFB) in the game can also help. In a fast corner you should feel the load on the
steering wheel increase steadily, which indicates that you aren’t throwing the car in too hard. If the
steering suddenly goes very light, as happens when you go over a crest, then you need to be
extremely delicate in your steering and with the throttle, or the car will lurch sideways.
Braking in a Straight Line
To start with, do all your braking in a straight line. I find the best technique is to quickly build up to
full braking effect, i.e. to almost but not quite slam my foot down on the pedal. Full braking effect is
not necessarily with the pedal flat to the floor, but the point just before the wheels start to lock up,
and is something you just have to learn. Once I have reached (I hope) full braking effect then I hold
this pressure on the pedal until just before turning into the corner, and then gently release it. By
finishing the braking period with only gentle pressure you leave a little in hand in case you get it
wrong, in which case you can hold full pressure a bit longer. You also get used to thinking about how
you come off the brakes, which is one of the most important aspects of driving quickly.
Learners often find the car tries to spin every time they hit the brakes. A simple fix is to increase the
brake bias to around 58%, although you’ll need to put it back down again when you learn to trail
brake.
Unless you have Braking Help switched on you don’t have ABS, so if the wheels lock up you need to
momentarily ease off the brakes and then get back onto them.
Trail Braking
Mediocre drivers obsess about when to start braking, but even more important is when to come off
the brakes. Some people claim that you can be fast in GPL without learning to trail brake, but they
must be awesome at everything else because a big chunk of my speed comes through using this
technique.
Once you are happy with braking in a straight line, and can keep the wheels nearly locking up but not
quite, the next phase is to only fully release the brake pedal pressure after you have started turning
into the corner. This is a very subtle thing and the amount of pressure you hold into the corner is
very small. The initial effect of trail braking is to make the rear of the car want to overtake the front
and so you will spend a lot of time spinning when you first try this.
The great advantage trail braking gives is that it helps the car turn into a corner while holding more
speed, producing oversteer instead of understeer. Once you get good at it you can aim the car in
towards the apex using the brakes as much as the wheel, and then you can learn to steer the car out
of the corner using the throttle.
Oversteer
You’ll have learned a lot about the effects of oversteer during your crashing phase. But the time will
come when you need to be able to deliberately induce oversteer and then control it. The easiest
form of oversteer to play with happens when you get onto the throttle too fast coming out of a slow
corner. The rear of the car will step out, and you can back off the throttle, or change up a gear early,
or steer into the slide to correct it, or use a mixture of the three.
Another form of oversteer occurs in fast corners where only a lift off the throttle or a gentle dab of
brakes is required to get the rear loose. The section through the dunes at Zandvoort is a superb
training ground for this type of driving. Turn in a tiny bit earlier than you normally would, while
touching the brakes or lifting off, and the nose of the car will come in towards the apex, at which
point you can start to get back on the throttle through the apex and out the other side.
The most difficult form of oversteer (at least as far as I am concerned) is inducing a full four-wheel
drift through a medium speed corner such as The Loop at Watkins Glen, or Club or Stowe at
Silverstone. Such corners require a combination of trail braking and steering out of the corner on the
throttle to really take them as fast as possible.
Do I Have to Drift?
You don’t have to do a perfect four-wheel drift through every corner to be fast. Expect understeer in
most slow corners and try to provoke controllable oversteer in faster ones or when getting the
power down. You can still post respectable lap times with very little drifting at all, especially in the
1965 cars. (Incidentally, some of my most perfect four wheel drifts are on cold tyres, as the car will
slide more easily then. They aren’t very fast, but they look and feel wonderful.)
Crests and Jumping
A number of tracks in GPL have crests or even outright jumps. It is easy to either crash every other
time you go over one, or else be very slow.
The first thing is to be very sure about what the correct racing line is, and whether you can just point
the car straight down the road, or whether you need to be aiming slightly off to one side so that you
are in the correct place when you land.
For crests that don’t involve a jump, you will notice the engine revs still rise suddenly as you go over
them, which is the rear wheels spinning. Learn exactly when to ease off the throttle slightly so that
the engine doesn’t over-rev, as when you have damage switched on the engine will blow if you do
this too often. An alternative is to change up a gear as you go over the crest, but only if it doesn’t
lose you too much time. If you’re braking over a crest you’ll need to start braking sooner than
normal and slightly reduce the pedal pressure as you go over the crest, or the wheels will lock up as
they go light.
For full-blooded jumps, don’t get right off the throttle. The rotating parts of the engine act like a
gyroscope and rotate the car forwards in mid-air so it won’t land square on all four wheels. Back off
slightly and for each jump learn exactly how much this is. (The fact that GPL models this effect is for
me one of the crowning glories of its physics engine.)

Car Set-Ups
I’m very sorry but there are no silver bullets in the learning process for GPL. Fiddling with set ups
before you can lap consistently will just stop you learning car control. The default set ups are fine for
learning, so get within 3-4 seconds of the GPL Rank target times for a track before messing about
with anything (except perhaps brake bias to help prevent too many spins).
When you do start changing settings, you must have a very clear idea in your head of exactly what
the behaviour is that you want to change. As already mentioned, you must be able to visualise a
typical lap, and understand what the car is doing at each corner. Only then can you decide what to
do about it.
Make one change at a time and do at least six laps so everything is fully warmed up. Don’t try to do
your fastest ever lap, instead lap at a pace you know you can repeat. Remember that a set-up
change may mean you have to change the way you drive, for example you may need to turn in later
or more sharply to get the rear of the car to step out more coming into a corner.
I haven’t yet played with asymmetric set ups, I suspect any gains would be wasted on me as my
ability currently stands, and as they weren’t used in period it feels somehow a little wrong to use
them, but some people do.
Gearing
The first thing I work on is the gearing. It can be overlooked, but it’s a really easy way of improving
your lap time without having to improve your driving at all. Start by evolving your plan for the circuit
– braking and turning in points, etc. Then drive it for at least half a dozen laps, so that the tyres have
time to come up to temperature and you start to get a feel for how fast you will be able to go once
you really get down to work. This should give you an idea of what the gearing needs to be.
The most obvious thing is to set top gear so that you are just about at maximum revs at the fastest
part of the circuit. You may want to leave a few revs in hand so you don’t overheat or blow up the
engine, or to allow for the extra speed you will get from slipstreaming other cars. The best way to
adjust this is to alter the Diff Ratio as that keeps the spread between gears constant, which allows
the car to accelerate smoothly.
Now you have to start really thinking. Are the engine revs quite low coming out of some corners,
reducing acceleration? At others, are the revs very high forcing you to change up in the middle of a
corner, or producing wheel spin? Alter individual ratios accordingly, bearing in mind you may end up
with a bit of a compromise for some corners and gears.
Be prepared to go back and fiddle some more as you find extra speed on the circuit, whether
through other set up changes or just by improving your line or rhythm.
Tyres
Tyres are one aspect of the set up that is easily quantified, as the calculations GPL carries out are
well understood. There is an optimum tyre pressure and temperature for the front and rear tyres of
each Mod – these are available in chart form on the SRMZ GPL forum at
http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=9696&st=30#entry101107. Each tyre generates most grip at
exactly the optimum combination of temperature and pressure, and the grip drops away either side
of this. The temperature for each tyre is taken from the single highest reading taken from that tyre.
Once the tyres are up to temperature it doesn’t go up or down very quickly unless you have a big
lock up or spin. For this reason I don’t bother to have Pribluda display the temperatures as I drive
around, I prefer to concentrate on my driving and then pop back to the pits to check the
temperatures, as they won’t have dropped off enough to make a difference, as long as I don’t
dawdle. Usually I just use ESC-return anyway.
My approach to tyres is to check them after I’ve done my initial dozen or so laps that I use to check
the gearing. This should also give me a good idea of where I will be on tyre temperatures. I set the
pressure so that it is optimum for each tyre, or at least the outside front and rear tyres (i.e. the ones
that are doing most of the work) if the pressures on each side of the car are different.
I then go back and do another dozen laps, looking to check the gearing and also hopefully to improve
my plan. After this I check the tyres again. If I’ve found some extra speed the tyres will be a little
warmer and may also be running at a higher pressure, so I’ll adjust the pressures if necessary. I also
check the spread of temperatures across each tyre, and alter the camber to try to get them roughly
even.
Each time I come back to the pits I have a quick look at the tyres again. Usually I struggle to get the
temperatures as high as the optimum value, as I’m not going fast enough to really get heat into
them. If I do ever get them too hot it is usually time to reduce the appropriate roll bar stiffness.
Roll Bar Stiffness
These settings alter how easily either the front or rear of the car will start to slide when cornering,
and also (for the rear) when power is applied. An easy way to practice controlling oversteer is to
increase the rear setting by 20 – 50%, and perhaps at the same time reduce the front by the same
amount. The car will now start sliding at lower speeds, and will be more controllable when it does.
I personally find that I have to run the rear settings at least 20% higher than the usual defaults as I’m
not a good enough driver to control the rear of the car otherwise, as the oversteer tends to come in
quite suddenly when the stiffness is low.
One effect of increasing roll bar stiffness is that because it causes the tyres to slide more it also
increases their temperature. This can improve the grip the tyre generates, returning some of the grip
lost in stiffening the roll bar. In theory reducing the stiffness increases grip, but if it is at the cost of
tyre temperature then grip overall can be lost in the same way.
Once I am happy with my gearing and tyres I tend to play around with the roll bars a little bit, to find
a happy medium between tyre temperature, controllability and grip.
Brake Bias
This is a very simple adjustment to make, but can have a big effect on handling.
The basic fact is that as braking effect is highest just before the wheels lock up, in theory the brake
bias should be set so that all four wheels start to lock simultaneously. It is possible to check this by
waiting until the tyres are up to temperature and then doing a few full-bore stops in a straight line. It
may be necessary to view your efforts on the replay as from inside the car it can be difficult to know
exactly what is going on with each tyre.
A problem with this approach is that we don’t just use the brakes for stopping, we also use trail
braking to help us into the corners. Altering the brake bias changes how the car feels when it turns in
and transitions from straight-lie braking to trail braking. How this feels is unique to each driver but it
seems that experienced drivers typically set the brake bias to around 53%. I usually have it around
56%. You will need to work out what feels comfortable to you, but be aware that by increasing the
bias you are reducing the total stopping power of the car.
As already mentioned, learners of GPL often find that the car wants to spin every time they touch
the brakes. This is because the brake bias is set rearwards but they haven’t yet learned how to
modulate the pressure they apply to the brake pedal as they slow the car down. An easy fix is to set
the bias closer to 60% while learning how to stop the car in a straight line. It can then be gradually
decreased as you get more comfortable on the brakes.
The Differential
Some people view the differential as a scary black box buried deep in the car and some view it as a
possible silver bullet that will magically improve their lap times, and of course both are wrong. There
are excellent guides available online to cover differentials both in the real world and in GPL, and at
some time you should read a bit of both.
For now, as a beginner, you may as well just use the default differential settings and forget it even
exists. If you play around with some of the other differential ramp angles that are available on each
car, you will probably find (as I did) that they just slow you down. To get the best from these other
settings you will need to be able to make major alterations to both the rest of the setup and your
driving style to get the most from them. I advise they are best left alone until you are very
comfortable in GPL and have gone past anything I can teach you here.
If you must play around, the most useful thing to change is the number of clutches. In basic terms,
adding more clutches increases the effect of the differential and taking some away reduces it. I have
found that taking one or two out can help make a difficult car to drive (like the Lotus 43) less twitchy
but this is not always the case.

Qualifying
Qualifying is not training and should not be used as such. You should already have a plan and some
settings that enable you to drive to that plan and you should have an idea of what sort of lap time
you hope to get down to. To get to this point on any circuit you should run at least several dozen
laps in Training mode to avoid distraction by the AI – I used to do all my driving with the AI on track,
but they can prevent you settling into a rhythm and so it wastes a lot of time you could spend
developing your line, braking points or set up.
You should also have checked your fuel consumption. Ideally you want to finish the race with just
under one gallon left – any lower and you will get pick up problems and the engine will stutter on
the last lap. Once you have settled on your gearing, the next time you drive half a dozen or so laps to
check your tyres etc., also make a note of how much fuel you use and then calculate how much you
need for the race. If you are using separate race and qualifying setups, make sure you always have
enough fuel in your qualifying setup so you can do at least the 6 or so laps needed to get the tyres
up to temperature. Trying to do 3-4 lap bursts on very low fuel is a waste of time in GPL.
You should only need to make small set-up adjustments in qualifying. If using separate qualifying and
race set ups remember to make changes in the race set up as well if you want them carried through
into the race.
Once you get out onto the track, spend the first 2 to 3 laps warming up. Your only goal is to get to
the start of the 3rd or 4th lap with the tyres warm and a reasonable gap in front of you clear of traffic.
You can then start to build up towards some very fast laps. There is no point trying to race the AI or
blitz a lap until the car is ready to go. Slipstreaming is vital at some tracks (e.g. Monza), but less so at
others. If you want to slipstream, find a car to follow, drop back 2 to 3 seconds and then go for it.
You must have some self-discipline in qualifying and be willing to abort a good lap if you’re going to
hit traffic. Just drop back again to create a gap, and that way you may also get a good tow on the
next lap. Always try to do last few corners of the lap at full speed to get the tyres fully up to
temperature, so if you need to drop back do it earlier in the lap.
Qualifying is a also good opportunity to learn where you can and can’t overtake the AI at each track.
On some corners they will drive into you even if you seem to be clear through, so take care, although
generally they aren’t too bad.
One last point – usually my best lap times come not from trying to exceed my plan (by braking later,
etc.) but simply by carrying it out more accurately and smoothly than before.

The Race
Keep calm.
Concentrate.
Remove any distractions from the room like mobile phones and children.
The AI can be pretty mindless at the start so to avoid frustration be prepared to abandon some races
and re-start them (using the saved qualifying results) when you get crashed into. Remember to save
the qualifying results before you exit the race.
It can be tempting but don’t jump into every gap you see. Remember what you learned from
qualifying about where you can and can’t overtake the AI. Sometimes the AI do make mistakes or
get a bad start so be ready to take advantage but don’t assume a small mistake will allow you to sail
past. The AI are very good at getting back onto the correct racing line very quickly.
Following a slower car can be difficult but you must exercise self-discipline to get past. Never look
directly at the other car, look at the track as you normally would and just be aware of where the
other car is in relation to you.
Run at a pace you know you can sustain. For the first few laps your tyres are cold and your car is full
of fuel, so only push if there are places to make up or you feel really confident in what you are doing.
Only take risks in terms of running at full qualifying pace when the tyres are warmed up. Sometimes
I get to the end of the race and find my fastest lap was better than I managed in qualifying, but this
only ever seems to happen naturally, not when I force it and take silly risks.
If a faster AI car is catching you from behind, and makes an overtaking move on you, if you try to
block there will almost certainly be a crash. Often the best thing to do is leave just enough room for
the AI to come past while still taking a corner as fast as you can, and if the AI gets through then
that’s fair enough. Sometimes they overdo it and you can nip back past.
In short races (less than 10 laps) you won’t have time to recover from a spin. In longer races you can.
Change up early through the gears if the engine is getting hot or if you need to save a bit of fuel.
Taming the AI
There is nothing wrong in altering the behaviour of the AI if it increases the fun you get from GPL , as
long as you are aware of what you are doing and don’t allow it to limit your development as a driver.
Adjusting AI Lap Times
There are several ways to do this. On the Gem+ home screen you can adjust the AI Speed setting.
The default setting is 1.0 and increasing it makes the AI faster, lowering it makes them slower. This
alters the AI lap speed for all tracks and Mods. The top speeds they run on the straights isn’t
changed, just their speed round the corners.
I find that the lap times of the AI relative to mine changes from track to track, sometimes but not
always as an indicator of how good I am at that track. To allow for this, I prefer to adjust the AI lap
speed from the .ini file in each track folder - look in Sierra/GPL/tracks and find the track you are
using. The name of the .ini file changes depending on which Mod you are using – for example
track.ini for the original 1967 cars, track66.ini for the 1966 Mod, etc. In the file you will find a line
called “dlong_speed_adj_coeff”, set to a value of around 1.000. Increasing the value makes the AI
lap faster and decreasing it makes them lap slower. As for the adjustments made in the Gem+ menu,
the AI top speeds on the straights isn’t changed (this is governed by “dlong_speed_maximum”), just
their cornering. As a rule of thumb, change the value by about ±0.02 for a one second change in AI
lap time.
Before you leave the .ini file, check towards the end for a section called “[ DEFAULT:GP ]”. If it exists
this also contains a value for dlong_speed_adj_coeff, which you must also change to the same value
you used above if the AI lap times are to change.
In the .ini file, the text on the right hand side after ‘;’ is comments that do not affect GPL at all. It is a
good idea to add the original value to the comments to allow you to go back to it later if you wish.
Once you have made a change, start a qualifying session and don’t drive it yourself, just tick the
‘Accelerate Time’ box and let it run to the end to see what lap times the AI now do. There is an
element of random variation so it is worth running a couple of sessions to make sure the times are
where you want them.
If you are racing using the Basic or Advanced Trainers (e.g. to simulate F2 cars in 1965 or 1966), the
AI does not respond to either Gem+ or track.ini file adjustments. You must instead edit the driver.ini
file (or driv66.ini, etc.) which are in Sierra/GPL. The values you need to alter (for each driver!) are
‘hype’ and ‘qualifying’. This is pretty long winded but the only way to make the change. Make sure
you save copies of the original, unaltered files.
Adjusting AI Braking Coefficient
A problem I find is that even if we are lapping at around the same overall pace, the AI often drives
straight into the back of me under braking. This could just be because I’m not very good on the
brakes, but anyway it ruins some races for me so I will explain a fix.
In Sierra/GPL open the gpla67.ini file (or gpla66.ini, etc.). Very near the bottom there is a line called
“braking_efficiency_coeff”. Reducing the value by 0.1 or so makes a noticeable but slight difference
to how hard the AI brake in qualifying and the race.
Adjusting AI Breakdown Rates
The default AI breakdown rates are set to be realistic over a full GP length but not for shorter races.
The rates can be adjusted in gpla67.ini (again), in the section [ mechanical ] about 1/3 of the way
through the file. It is governed by two values, called “mechanical_failure_chance” and
“mechanical_failure_interval”. The first is the chance in 1000 that a failure occurs on an AI car, and
the second is the interval between checks for a failure. Either or both can be changed, and the
results should be checked by starting a race, not driving yourself, but using the ‘Accelerate Time’ box
again to see how many AI cars retire.
Note that this method can be used to create historical rates of retirements in races shorter than GP
distances, but it does not affect your own car. The rates of breakdown for the human player are set
in the gpl.exe file and cannot be altered. If you increase the rate of AI retirements you are giving
yourself an advantage as you will have easily the most reliable car in the field.

In Summary
Come to terms with the fact it will probably take many tens of hours practice before you are able to
drive GPL cars at a consistent, reasonably fast pace – even if you are already an experienced driver.
Give yourself the best chance possible to learn by setting up GPL to maximise the feedback you get
when driving.
Concentrate hard when driving, and be conscious of exactly what the car is doing at each point on
the track, both when driving and when you are thinking about your laps later on.
Learn how to trail brake and drift the car, getting used to the subtle wheel and pedal movements
that are required.
Understand the basics of setups but only make alterations that should lead to a change in car
behaviour that you have thought through. Never just fiddle in the hope that something will get
better.
In qualifying, warm the tyres up before going for a really quick time, and don’t try to reinvent the
way you drive the track. Just do what you already know, but better.
In a race, keep calm and concentrate. Don’t over-drive: get into a sustainable rhythm, and pick and
choose the best time to go for an overtaking opportunity. Make allowances for the fact the AI is not
a human driver and will not always react to you in the way a human driver would.
If it increases your enjoyment, alter the AI lap times but don’t let yourself off the hook in terms of
how much you still have to learn.

Jonathan Abbott