Some setup tips
Probably won't help anyone, but seeing as there have been plenty of requests for setup ideas in MP, I thought I'd go through the setup options and talk about how they can help you, but also the negative aspects of setup and how they can hurt you and make your job much tougher...
AERODYNAMICS
Front Wing
A good indication you need more front wing will be understeer in the form of drifting wide in fast corners such as the Lesmo's at Monza, the 'S' Curves at Suzuka or the quick turns 7 and 8 at Shanghai. Of course, more wing will hurt you on straights, so you must get the balance right. To give you an idea - Monza is 1 or 2, Spa is 1 or 2, Montreal is 3, Catalunya is 3 to 4, Singapore is 7 to 9 and Suzuka is 8 to 11. What I tend to do is setup the wings according to the fastest corner on a track. At Malaysia for example, I'd balance the wings for the fast left-right (turns 5 and 6) at the start of sector 2. Once I'm going through there full throttle and holding the apexes at the same time, I know I'm pretty much set.
Rear Wing
A good indication you need more rear wing will be the rear of the car wanting to come around in fast corners, especially fast corners with quick changes of direction (Suzuka the prime example). You can do a few things to fix this. You may have too much front wing in comparison to the rear, so the front ends up with great turn-in, while the rear just can't cope and starts to slide. You could reduce the front wing, or you can simply add rear wing. But don't forget, adding rear wing will cause slight understeer and may need to be countered by other areas of the setup. Also, adding rear wing hurts you very badly on straights, much worse than adding front wing. To give you an idea - Monza and Spa should be 1, while the likes of Montreal, Catalunya, Malaysia, Valencia ect... should be no more than 2.
BRAKING
Balance
This can be a pretty tricky one to setup right and requires you to think carefully about the tighter corners on the track you're setting up for. Generally, I've found you want a touch more oversteer into the tighter corners than understeer. The prime example is turn 1 at Nurburgring where you need to at least be close to clipping the apex. For a track like that, I'd go with Front 49/51 Rear. At Montreal you might want Front 50/50 Rear. On a track like Singapore, you may want as much as Front 47/53 Rear. Just think about the tightest corners on the track and whether you are making the apex when breaking at appropriate distances. And of course, if you're locking your front tyres, considering moving the balance towards the rear, and vice versa.
Pressure
The brake pressure determines how sensitive the application of brakes will be. For tracks like Monza and Yeongam with major braking zones after long straights, it's probably best to go with a setting of High. This let's you brake slightly later than a setting of Medium and can gain you a lot of time in braking zones. Of course, if you're having problems locking tyres, you may need to revert to Medium. The only time I'd ever select Low, is in wet weather to help avoid locking the tyres. Turn 1 at Monaco in the wet is Low pressure, that's for sure!
Brake Size
I pretty much always select Small for this one. If we had brake failures in the game, then it would be a completely different story, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The smaller the brake size, the more responsive your braking will be. Larger brakes not only weigh more and are less responsive, but also make it harder to get temperature into the brakes. Although brakes can go red on the OSD (which may require you to start braking slightly earlier than usual), I've yet to hear of any kind of failure or problems with brakes.
BALANCE
Front Anti-Roll Bar
This effects a couple of things. Firstly the higher the setting, the more turn-in you will get in corners. Generally, quick changes of direction are directly effected by the anti-roll bars. Be careful as although it is desirable to have plenty of turn-in ability, you don't want too much turn-in. Firstly, that actually makes it much harder to hold a constant line through the corner, and secondly, may also make the front start sliding due to a lack of front cornering grip. It's sensible to base a setup on a setting of 6, and only adjust if you need to counter another area of your setup.
Rear Anti-Roll Bar
Setting the rear anti-roll bars are slightly trickier, but can be used very effectively, especially to fix setup issues when you don't want to change anything else. A higher setting will result in slightly less understeer at the rear at the expense of general handling responsiveness. As with the front, it's sensible to base a setup on a setting of 6 and work from there.
SUSPENSION
Front & Rear Ride Height
It's a real shame that there seems to be no penalty in using 1/1 settings for Ride Height in the game. I was hoping they would make it challenging so you needed at least 3/3 for the chicane at Singapore, but alas, 1/1 will do you just fine for any track in the game.
Front Spring Stiffness
A higher setting will produce more responsive handling and higher traction, while reducing cornering grip, with the bonus of adding some understeer which helps to keep the front tyres from sliding across the track. You will want to base your setup on a setting of between 8 and 11 for reasons we all know.
Rear Spring Stiffness
A higher setting will produce more responsive handling, but will reduce traction and cornering grip, with a potential side-effect of the rear losing grip and sliding more. You can really use the springs to fine-tune your setup, whether it be a need for more responsive handling, or an issue with the front or rear sliding and losing grip. Again, base your setup on a setting of between 8 and 11, and experiment with front and rear settings to eliminate sliding and find the right amount of turn-in.
GEARBOX
You should aim to set 1st gear for the slowest corner on the track, and set 7th gear for the longest straight so you are only just short of the rev limiter by the time you hit the braking zone. This is hard to explain, and is mostly for those using auto-gears, but keep an eye on whether you are getting good acceleration out of certain corners. For example, at Suzuka after the 'S' Curves, you then go left uphill through the Dunlop curve. I noticed that I was in 6th gear and getting VERY low revs until I got to the top of the hill. To fix that, I lengthened gears 3-5 so that I could then take the uphill part of that corner in 5th gear with high revs which results in better acceleration up the hill. Alternatively, I could have shortened 6th gear to achieve the same result. Also, you need to consider using shorter gear ratios when it comes to multiplayer where you'll have a full tank of fuel. I tend to setup the gears for time trial, then dial down 6th and 7th gears by at least 1 click for multiplayer.
ALIGNMENT
Front Camber
The more negative camber setting (left from centre), the more stable the front-end will be going into corners. The downside is you get less straight-line acceleration which will hurt your top speed, along with increased front tyre wear. I find a default setting of -3.00 does the job on most tracks. At Monza I'd probably use -2.90 while at a track like Suzuka you'd want at least -3.20.
Rear Camber
The more negative camber setting (left from centre), the more stable the rear-end will be going into corners. The downside is you get less traction on the rear tyres coming out of slow corners and rear tyre wear is increased. If you have traction control on, then this won't be much of an issue at all, but if it's off then you need to be careful not to sacrifice too much traction for stability. For a track like Monza, a default value of -1.00 should be good for traction out of the two chicanes. For Montreal where the corners are easy, you can sacrifice some rear stability for more rear traction which is especially useful for the left-right turn 6 at the end of the 1st sector, therefore a setting of -0.90 should work nicely.
Front Toe-In
Toe-In is all about how much the car responds while turning. Say for example you're generally happy with your setup, but wouldn't mind just a bit more turn-in ability without adding wing and sacrificing speed, well, Toe-In might just be useful. As with the anti-roll bars, you don't want too much Toe-In, as the car will be more twitchy on straights and it's harder to hold a smooth line through the corner. A default setting of 0.10 is usually fine for most tracks. Consider trying 0.11 or 0.12 if you need more responsiveness (towards In). But be careful not to unbalance the front and rear or you may get rear tyre sliding.
Rear Toe-In
Exactly the same principle for the rear as the front. If the rear of the car is sliding, consider a less responsive setting of 0.32 or 0.29 (towards Out) which should add a touch of understeer to the rear and help to straighten it out. If the car is not responsive enough in general, a setting of 0.38 or 0.41 might just help solve the problem.
Hope this helps someone, good luck
