So why is it that the Forza spec race cars are much slower than the real world spec races cars?
Case in point is the #55 BMW Z4 at Sebring in the game does a 2.07.xxx at Sebring while in real life that car is doing 1.59.xxx
The hp difference between the game car and real car is 10hp…Is the Sebring track in the game way too long?
Probably a culmination of these facts:
- It’s a game
- Yes, the track may not be the perfect length
- While they’re comparable, the cars don’t perform EXACTLY like their real-world counterparts
- (Most important) gamers play forza, and race car drivers drive cars at Sebring. The race car drivers are better and will get better times
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I vote for number 1.
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Also, real cars use steering wheels and pedals. The fastest on the leaderboards are using gamepad. Because Forza6 caters to gamepad users. However, top wheel and pedal users should be faster if it was a real sim but not the case. The ol racing adage “Smooth is Fast” should be true in Forza but it isn’t.
Oh please don’t let this degrade into another controller versus wheel thread, there are plenty of those on the forum.
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I think it’s the stock car set up.
Keep the car stock- and tune the set up ( less aero, adjust Decel dif , soften suspension a bit) the car is still stock and I imagine some of the great drivers here would be comparable to the real world times.
Race teams adjust set ups- who says the stock setup of z4 is good for Sebring?
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The laptimes in the game are from the fastest drivers on the leaderboards.
In Forza 4 rival hotlaps for spec race cars like the #3Corvette with stock in game tunes, the laptimes are faster than the real world times. And the Z4 is has a spec challenge event in rivals mode.
I like pacing myself against real world times but if there is a huge gap between the in game times and real world times, it bothers me. Forza 4 was at least on par with the real world times.
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Pretty sure you can not tune in spec class races? Is that not correct? If so I’ve been cheating myself.
Example I HATE the way the c7r diff is set up stock in the game, I spend way to much time fighting the rear end then I need to be.But let me tune the tunable parts and I can race it pretty adequately.
So stock (not tuned) or stock build and tune.
Leaderboards are usually maxed out PI and are not comparable to real times. No idea about fm4 leaderboards as I really wasn’t competitive at the time except on ovals and even then I was slow to the fast guys.
I was still working on TCS, manual / manual with clutch etc at that time.
Just to be clear:
So I’m saying stock build and tune parts allowed in real life to to be tuned. (Aero, suspension, tire pressures, diff etc) pretty sure your not able to do that in a “spec” race in fm6 and I can not stand the diff settings on a lot of the cars and it makes me slower then normal. When you are not having to fight the Decel over steer and just concentrate on apex and throttle out of the turns you are much faster in my opinion. (Granted super fast guys might like it and be able to brake later and use that oversteer to rotate the car - just not my style yet, maybe never will be)
And the R class is dominated by 70 F1 cars or hyper car missiles on speed tracks.
So the fastest. GT time on the leaderboard is not necessarily the fastest time a GT can go.
Deftone, Alex P, Breeze, bear are all awesomely fast in GT cars to name a few so they would be the ones to test out stock/stock tune or stock/ tuned spec GT cars and then compare to real world.
I personally not extremely worried about it as in really not that good and I expect to be slower then real driver in the real track. This is my attempt to get some satisfaction in a passion of mine with out spending the thousands it would take to do it in real life
We’re not actual racing drivers
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You might not be 
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Turn 10 didn’t even get Sebring right! The curbs in the game upset cars WAY too much, and some sections of track are not as wide as they are in real life.
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If you look up fastest lap times for production cars - this gives you a much better barometer in my opinion.
I have a lot of experience at Laguna Seca (real world track time) and like to take stock production cars in game and compare them to randy pobst (he has set most of the track records there in production cars). He also drives for motortrend and the best part - there is video from most of his fast laps so you can see his line, braking points etc.
It’s obvious T10 doesn’t simulate a couple important things - brake fade, drag/aero, tire temps/grip. I realize there is a warm up period for tires but it’s 10 times to short more important is that brief period where tire cohesion is at its best. Regardless, if your interested at how well t10 simulates real world conditions this is your best bet - stock production cars, well documented track, stock setup.
Some cars I am considerably faster than randy (impossible in real life - he’s a demon around Laguna Seca) - and by faster I mean 3-4 seconds (Subaru Sti) for example. It seems the car in the middle range (A and S class) are far more accurate than the slower and faster cars. It appears to work inversely as well - C/D/B are faster than they should be and the things above S are slower. Not always the case but in general this is what I’ve found.
You can find a video of all of the below laps - and 2015 as well.
Nathanw
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even if the tracks are laser scanned it doesnt make them 100% accurate. Also, the way speed is portrayed in game vs real life may be different. For instance mph may not be to scale to an actual mile. So you may get down x straight in a certain amount of time but it does not correlate exactly to how it would in real life. Or there are also distortion etc when taking data from lasar scanning and building it digitally in game. It is still dependent on an artist to depict the data in game.
Also, you say that the z4 gets around sebring about 5 seconds slower than real life, but who are you referring to as a driver in forza? Is this just the best time uve seen on the leaderboard with that car? If this is just the best you’ve seen on the leaderboard and it is not by a known top driver in forza then the track either hasnt been done by them yet or they could have run the track in a much faster car which would override this car’s time. Is this the track record IRL at that track in the car, or is this a qual trim, race pace?
I know its been gone over before but even tho nurburgring was laser scanned the length ends up being different than irl due to the artists interpretation of the data.
Also, there are many times the irl track record will be broken in forza even in stock form due to the fact that there is no fear of crashing, no g forces, we always have optimal weather (unless rain is chosen) and grip is subject to the games physics not rl. Plus many of the players are sitting in their home with a controller easily doing lap after lap after lap with no cost to them. Race drivers are often limited to the amount of time they are allowed on track, plus as stated earlier in the post, tires are optimal only at a certain point within its lapping time frame. In most cases in game tyres are optimal for stints of 10+ laps. Many of the qualifying tyres (softest available) wont even last that many laps, nevermind be in optimal range for setting quick laps.
Also there is no effect of rubbering up a track in forza, irl it is very dependent on the conditions of the track on that day as to what the driver is able to do. Track temp, air temp, barometric pressure, elevation (doesnt change on track, but changes effects track to track in real life), amount of rubber on the track, even what kind of tyres are on the car at that point in time, how rich/lean the fuel mixture is. Is the person alone on the track? See how many variables there are.
As far as i can tell in forza, track temp makes little difference on the car across tracks, we have no variable weather. Elevation appears to make no difference. We have no clue what the barometric pressure is for each track. We have no ability to adjust fuel consumption.
Some things just dont translate, maybe this will give you a better understanding of why.
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Interesting.
I did the same at the track “Hockenheim Short”.
Its a real life test track in Germany for the magazine “sportauto”.
You can see the timetable here (also the Nordschleife).
It is a german site but it should be understandable 
I noticed, that the laptimes are most accurate when i use the stock cars + racing wheels + wings.
When i drive the cars complete stock, they are too slow in Forza 6.
But, as mentioned, with better tires and wings, in some cases i matched the times almost exactly (using gamepad).
I do the exact same thing (all cars stock) and my experience was that the times were quite accurate. I could manage the times mostly. When something was inaccurate I was faster than the real life time.
It’s no matter of the tracks the complete GTE, GTLM, GT3 and GT 2 Cars are to slow because they have not enough grip in corners. This racing cars are not competitive in the R Class and even inside the GT Classes are hugh differences. This racing class is very popular under players and online you can use them only in league races. It have only to do with testing and balancing the class. It’s no magic. Project cars done a great job. There are the cars very similar near to real world laptimes. Turn 10 should rebalance this class. Forza is no sim thats right but the performance of the cars should be realistic. With stock setup the cars are unbelievable slow. GT3 Cars run in GT Masters 1:38.5 times. This GT Race Cars in fm6 are very disappointing for me.
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In-game default setups are one factor, but a more important one may actually be the tyre compound.
A McLaren P1 for example can have Pirelli Corsa or Pirelli Trofeo R tyres fitted. The Rs are a more track-focused tyre and in a straight comparison are a few seconds a lap quicker than the Corsas. Also, a car like that also has multiple “modes” which alter its suspension setup. Without knowing what tyre compound the stock Forza tyre represents, or whether the car is in Race Mode or not, it is difficult to draw any laptime comparisons between the car in reality and the one in the game.
There’s also the fact that we have a static environment in-game (in terms of weather/temperature), and I suspect also that the track doesn’t “rubber in” over time like a real circuit would.
All of that is true but 4 was somehow close in spite of all this. Personally it doesn’t bug me that much, but it’s interesting pondering what changed, and I think the biggest change is the tire model so that’s probably what’s causing it.
A lot of these unknown variables should in theory result in faster times as well, like not modelling brake fade, and typically street tires only achieve max grip for a lap or two before they drop off a bit. Over all it’s pretty hard to simulate all of this and fudge a few numbers here and there and still end up with accurate times so to me being 10 secs off at the ring or whatever isn’t that big of a deal, but 6 does seem to be the farthest off the mark so far. That said it has the best feel so far this series something I think is more important which compared to 5 also comes down to the tire model.
And when it comes to tires there’s always a bit of voodoo going on even in the real world, toyabaru’s and subarus are hitting better times in autocross events with over inflated and over heated tires because they don’t roll to the outside edge as much, and if they accurately modelled that I think the complaints would pile up, and the casual racer would call it unrealistic and not care to see that modelled. In fact most of the cars that here are hitting the closest times to real life would all shred the outside edge of their tires within a couple of laps running the stock setup, so in reality they are the least realistically modelled. I think they have hit a fair balance but if they can improve it without removing the more complex feel I’d be ok with it, but at the end of the day they are fudging a lot of this.
Over inflated to manufacturers specs which are low to begin with to give a better ride and keep some flex so they are less prone to a blowout, doesn’t mean that the manufacturers specs actually give u the optimal operating temperature. I’ve always run my cars at a higher pressure than manufacturers spec. They just don’t want people to blow them out on every pothole and be labeled as a poor quality tire. Most people rarely push street tires anyways so they don’t even pay attention to optimal pressure.
Well I see a lot of people taking that to the extreme so they can get a set of tires to last more than one weekend. This is especially true of people running stock cars that don’t come with sway bars, although I think they are allowed to equip them on the rear. In any case the vast majority of tires and that get junked at autocross events and track days are perfectly fine except for that outside edge.