Solved

Should we trust drivers?

Hello!

I've been struggling to understand some aspects of car setup in igp manager. For instance, in Bahrein tests I got faster lap results with a soft suspension (while firm is recommended):


In this picture "Macio"="Soft". This driver has knowledge attribute 7.

The same happened with my other driver. However, the drivers keep complaining about the suspension being too soft.

I had similar results in another situation, when setting up for rain (3.4mm). In this rain case, I used lower values than what the drivers suggested. For instance, the driver wanted ride height=14 and wings=10, and I used 12/10 and training results were considerably better.

I wonder what is best for the race... should we trust the driver's opinion at all, or should we just try to get better raw lap times disregarding the drivers opinion?

The driver is always right. 
In practice, the results are those of just one flying lap. In race trim he will not replicate these laps if he's not comfortable with the car. The other thing is, perfect car influences tyre usage and fuel usage, if you choose a different configuration tyre degradation and fuel consumption might be higher than the expected rate, thus resulting in bad performance overall. 
I hope this helps. 
(espero que tenha ajudado) 
BC 

In addition, keep in mind that the only thing of value here is the driver's setup and tire/fuel ware/use. The lap times mean nothing as far as the race coming up.

Get the setup your driver is comfortable with and life will be good.

Thanks for the answers, Ben and Memo. How do I mark this as resolved?