Adjusting the ride height : not a detail !

I made a habit of neglecting the height of the box. Why ? Because I've never really felt its beneficial effect on the car, on my driving, my time. Was a time though when I took great care of this step, but as this was apparently useless, I ended up dropping. It nevertheless appears that it's a super important setting in the setup.

What does the tutorial written by LMS explain?

"Touching the ride height, it affects the attitude of the car and thus the ground effect formed by the air depression under the car. This ground effect aerodynamics involved in your grip, you should ensure that it will always be ensuring that the rear ride height is greater than 10 to 20 mm ride height at the front (we are talking about the height measured by the Motec, no the static height of the setup). In addition, the ground effect is all the more important that the space is small between the front of the car and the track. You should therefore make sure to minimize this space. However, you will also need to ensure that the car touches the ground as little as possible because each ground contact can result in an immediate loss of control. "

Until a recent run, made in a Viper GTS on the Brno circuit, I had not really realized the significance of these few lines. And yet!

I could not bring down the clock. All settings were seen and reviewed, tested, modified, re-tested. But nothing worked: I was not able to go as fast as my opponents especially in the first right turn before Frantisek Stastny. And I felt good, as in my experience in Catalunya , that it was where I lost more time.

So my interest went back to the ride height. Short tour in the Motec, evaluation of flexibility, setting adjustment and test ... 1 second won. I can not tell if it was acquired during the first corner. It would be more reasonable to say that this time was saved on the entire circuit. But it is true that I could finally stick to other cars at the first corner. Apart from this effect, I have not really felt improvement on the rest of the round. Perhaps a finesse that still escapes me.

The Rookie