Solved

Drivers Weight

What did you try to do?
Ive recently discovered drivers Weight affects laptimes, but I cant train my driver to a high enough level to match my competitors driver weight, meaning the ballast system is useless at levelling the playing field

What happened instead?
Higher levels just drive past despite extra 'ballast'
My driver is 18kg heavier than my rivals and they only have 5kg ballast

Did the problem happen while using wi-fi, mobile data, or both?
Both

Did the bug happen in the app, on PC, or both?
Both

What is the model of your device?
Phone

What is the operating system?
Android

What is the version number of the operating system?
Unknown

What operating system is your PC?
Windows 95

Which browser did you experience the problem in?
Internet Explorer? Either way don't look at my history 😆

Can the bug be reproduced?
Bug ongoing, cars should either be equal weight including drivers plus ballast or ballast needs to be higher

Additional comments:

I hear that but it just doesn't make sense, and leaves new drivers with very few skill attributes to reach desired weight. The issue is that if a driver is 19-20kg heavier but the ballast for level 20 is only 5kg then it's pointless having the ballast system. Obviously higher level cars will have better development and better tech but if their cars are also lighter it makes them impossible to catch.

Yes I was concentrating on Driving Ability until I learned the Drivers Weight affects the total weight of the car (unlike Real World) then switched to Physical attributes. Up until level 8 I was concentrating on all attributes equally, but wasn't aware different attributes train at different rates.
Like you say it's too late to change that now, but had I concentrated only on physical I would be well behind my rivals on driving Ability so still slow overall.


There is an issue with the ballast system to be honest. As you've pointed out with the Tech, higher levels can blast past anyone with their DRS. At Russia for example the DRS zone is short, and having led for the majority of the race by 1.5 seconds the level 20 in second place picked up DRS from a backmarker and breezed past us both. At another race I was leading by 4.6 seconds and the same driver boosted into DRS range. I used all of my boost to try stay clear and using just half of his boost he caught up and then blew me away with DRS. This is not a problem as higher levels should have better tech, but 5-6kgs is not enough to level the playing field.
Again with development, higher levels can develop quicker and improve their fuel economy. If the ballast was higher it would level this out, but currently at a maximum of 7kgs this can be mitigated by having better fuel economy and carrying 5-6 litres less fuel for the same number of laps. This means even at maximum ballast the higher levels are actually lighter than everyone else on the grid, making ballast superfluous. Realistically you need at least 10-15kgs of ballast to make any real difference

That's interesting, although I'm not the only one saying ballast should be increased. Perhaps just removing the 'ballast' on drivers would be a middle ground solution? Like I said before, in RL Racing all car and driver combos are weighed and minimum weight is set by the heaviest combo. Teams do get a slight advantage from having a lighter driver because they can decide where to place ballast for best weight distribution, but all cars weigh the same overall. Then ballast is added to level the playing field throughout the season.
Another suggestion is to cap the design points and remove the ballast altogether. This would even the playing field massively and no one can moan that it's the ballast causing their poor performance. For example, we're at the mid way point in the season and the level 20 car is almost maxxed out on 4 attributes, meanwhile the rest of us are barely at halfway. At each race a Level 20 gets 100% more points than a level 10, meaning they have double the points to upgrade their car for the next race. If it was capped at 15 that's only a 50% advantage on points which is manageable and fair enough when they already have double the boost and DRS power.
If I'm honest I agree with the opinion that if your car is that much better, but you can't get into the top 6-8, then you probably don't belong in Elite 🤷

45 for research? Maybe in Elite but not in Pro. I had 5 Red Stars for Research at the last race and still only gained 25 points overall. Same amount I was getting as a Level 9 with 5 Yellow stars. 8 races in the level 20 has had minimum 80 Upgrade points more than a level 10 and even more than the majority of the field (8-9)

He said ‘doing it right’.

So what should I be doing differently to increase my research points?

Aha I see, so yh I'm getting 34-35 in total atm. That's good news if he's getting less on research and already maxxed I should start catching up from this point. We were around equal this race and I just about managed to outfox him and take the win 😎

Yh I don't really bother with cooling or reliability just gotta hope nothing breaks 🤞 😆

Yh doing that already, got a new driver off a friend and started training him up on physical first so should have him ready in a couple of races. Stamina now at 20 and weight 56 so I'll work on the other attributes next. Does Mental matter much or should I just focus on Driving?
Plus if weight doesn't matter that much what's the harm in increasing the ballast? 😉😜