Bathurst – Mt Panorama setup guide

Mount Panorama is not a track to mess around with. It is long. It is fast. It has major braking areas. It has massive elevation changes. It wants to launch your car into the air in multiple locations. The walls are always lurking, ready to grab you at the most minute mistake. The only places you can relax as a driver are the same places you are going to be attacked by your competition – the straights.

Starting setup

You will want a low downforce setup for those straights – sacrificing some of your comfort in the corners to ensure you have the speeds down the straights to fend off an attack, or for you to make an attack. Your car will need to be able to transition left and right quickly (those Esses go on for ever), settling on it’s own suspension before each new turn. It will also need to pickup and go after each of the three big braking zones.  Lastly, it will need to power up a very imposing grade while cornering at the same time. Some of these demands are in direct conflict with another, so sacrifices will have be made.

Use the Setup Developer Tool to build your own baseline setup. Select the “High speed road course” when prompted for track type.

How low to go?

Before I go on about which corner is most important, let’s discuss the aerodynamics. The easiest way to gain top speed is to lower those wings as much as possible. How do you know when they are low enough? For Bathurst it is pretty easy, as only one corner is taken at high enough speeds to largely use aerodynamics for grip, and that is turn 20, just before you mash the brakes for the chicane. Go as low as you can on the aero but high enough to still safely navigate turn 20 at maximum speed. I guess I should throw turn 19 (Forrest’s Elbow) in there as well. You must do everything possible to navigate turn 19 without lifting as it leads onto a straight.

Follow up with Virtual Race Car Engineer‘s Lap Wizard to re-balance the car over the entire lap using springs, anti roll bars, etc. By now you should be running consistent lap times. How fast that lap time is doesn’t matter yet. Focus on consistent, safe laps first. We go faster next…

Priority corners

As is customary for my guides, I immediately put my sights on the most important corners on the track. If you have read any of my guides in the past you know which corner I am going to go with; the one corner leading onto the longest straight – turn 18, “The Dipper” (at 1:20 in video above). Once you have your baseline setup, use Virtual Race Car Engineer‘s Corner Wizard tool to focus on this corner first. Thanks to the Esses, you are not going to be getting the best entry into The Dipper, but it is vital to get to your apex – right up to the inside wall. Get your entry nailed so you can hit that apex (toe-out, caster, dampers, and differential settings are your friend), then tune the corner exit (again, caster, dampers, and differential settings) so you can be on the throttle before your competitors. Not only must you be the first one on the throttle, you need to be able to stay on it without understeering into the outside wall, and the Corner Wizard will get you there. This will give you an advantage all the way down the longest straight on track, and can fend off attacks from behind, or attack the drivers ahead.

The next most important corner is turn 1 (“Hell Corner”) as it leads onto the next longest straight. We are lucky here as it too is a left hand turn, so much of the adjustments you just tuned for The Dipper will help you here too. The exit is more important than the entry, and if you have to sacrifice a phase of the corner, make it the entry. Hit that apex and get on the throttle harder and faster (with focus on corner exit phase of this turn) than your competition and you will be faster down the next longest straight on the track.

Obviously the last turn on track (“Murray’s Corner”) is the next important corner as it leads onto the third longest, and only remaining, straight. Again we get luck that it too is a left-hand corner. The problem here is that the entry to the corner is likely the most active passing zone on track, so you have to nail it just as much as the exit. The straight is not as long as the others, so find the car’s setup balance to ensure both entry and exit phases of corner are better than average.

Now we have a low downforce setup, and we are even pretty fast through the most important corners and down those straights. You should be consistent and somewhat comfortable through the corners and fast where it matters. That’s good! You are 90% of the way there. This setup will get you through a race with a good finishing position. However, with focus on some additional subjects you can probably knock another few tenths (or more) off your lap time and climb up the finishing order.

Alien advice

The entry to turn 2 is important in the sense that it is one of only a few passing zones. Making up lap time here is not important. Reducing loss is the goal. You will eventually come across slower traffic and if you can’t slip past that slower car under braking into turn 2, you can be be stuck behind him for miles – literally. The Corner Wizard in the VRCE app will help you trail-brake (braking while turning in) your way past those slower cars. Use care to not slide too far out as the off camber at corner exit will put you in the wall.

The next five corners (3 – 8) throw something at you that no other corners on track do; an entire mountain. The grade up this mountain is extreme. Every blip off the throttle, for any reason, will cause your car to stop accelerating (duh), but on top of that, gravity will cause it to begin slowing down at a rate faster than normal.
Part 1 fix: Momentum is one part of maximizing speed (or minimizing time) in this sector. Momentum requires smooth driver actions, and those actions must be made with conviction. There is no time to be second guessing your car or your self. Each action must be intentional and exact. Only practice, and a little bit of tuning, will get you there.
Part 2 fix: Minimize your blips by setting up your gear ratios to take advantage of smart shifting – shifting to a next gear at a time you were already going to come off the throttle. In the video above, at 0:50 time, listen to his well thought out up shift at a time he was already breathing off the throttle. That puts him in the right gear for the next few corners without an added blip off the throttle. That was no accident. He did that on purpose.

There are a few dips, rises, and crests that you car must transition on track. How your setup deals with those could make the difference between pole or mid-pack. The exit of turn 9 (“Sulman Park”) is a great example (see 0:55 on video). We really do not want to have to come off the throttle when the rear of the car goes light here. Avoiding that moment off throttle is as simple as the rear dampers rebound setting. A lower rebound will allow your rear springs to more quickly uncompress, in turn allowing the tires to stay in better contact with the track surface. The same theory applies to the uber-important crest-while-braking at “Skyline” too. We all know how easy it is to spin under braking there, right? So if we can resolve some of that risk, there is a better finishing position to be had. Be warned, this will have an effect on your car’s entry into other braking zones, so you may have to revisit them.

Lastly, I want to discuss “The Chase” chicane. Specifically exiting the chicane. Sacrificing the exit of the first corner in the chicane (turn 21, left hand turn)  will set you up for a better entry, apex, and exit in the right hand turn (turn 22). Why do we want to sacrifice one part of a corner for another? Because there is passing to be had braking into the final corner of the track. Using the Corner Wizard in VRCE again, focus on getting on the power by the time you reach the apex, and carry that full throttle all the way through the exit. Once again, dampers, and diff settings will go a long way here. Either you can make a position, or fend off someone trying to get one over on you. Either way, it equals a better finishing position.

Some of you may notice that I did not mention the Esses at all. That is because they are not all that important to lap times. While you may gain a tenth or two by hustling through the Esses, all it takes is one mistake to end up missing a wheel here. Plus, you can pretty much crawl through these corners without anyone being able to pass. Let your competitors take all the risk pushing through the Esses, then pass them as they sit in the pits getting repairs. Good luck in your future races at Bathurst.

You can find more setup guides here