- Baseline: 8–10 clean laps, one car, one track, fixed settings.
- Take the free time first: your theoretical best and optimal lap are time you have already driven.
- Pick at most three sections, ranked by what they cost — against your own best corners, then against a faster target.
- Drill one at a time: replay it, change one thing, drive three clean laps, compare the exit.
- Re-measure next session in the same conditions, and keep only what the numbers say worked.
Why tips do not stick
“Brake later” is excellent advice at a corner where you brake too early and terrible advice at one where you already brake too late. “Be smoother” is right until it makes you slow. Tips fail because they are general and your lap is specific: the time you are losing lives in two or three particular places, for two or three particular reasons, and a tip only helps if it happens to land on one of them.
The alternative is to find your losses first and fix those. It sounds slower. It is much faster, because every lap of practice goes where the time is.
Step 1 — Fix the variables and drive a baseline
Pick one car and one circuit you will stick with for a few sessions, and fix everything you can: assists, session type, weather. Then drive 8–10 laps at a pace you could hold for a race. Not a hero lap — a run.
- Why a run: one lap is an event; ten laps are a measurement. You need at least four counted laps before a session can show a trend, and more to see which sector leaks.
- Why clean laps: an invalidated lap sets nothing. Track limits are the cheapest time there is.
- Why fixed conditions: every later comparison assumes the only thing that changed is you. StintLab will refuse to match laps whose car, weather, session type, game version or assists differ — so change them and you lose your baseline.
The eight-lap example session used across these guides is exactly this kind of run, and here is what StintLab's report made of it:
Step 2 — Take the time you already own
Before chasing anyone else, collect what you have already driven. Your best sectors, from different laps, add up to your theoretical best; the quickest you got through each 100 m, added up, is your optimal lap. The difference between those and your best lap is time you have proved you can find.
This is the best kind of target, because the reference is you — same car, same tyres, same evening. StintLab lists where your best lap gave away 50 ms or more to your own quickest pass through each 100 m. In the example, the biggest is 600 m–700 m: 0.092 s slower on lap 8 than on lap 5. So the first job is simple — tick laps 8 and 5, overlay them, and see what lap 5 did through that corner.
Step 3 — Find what a faster lap does differently
Once your own best pieces are in hand, you need a lap that is quicker than anything you have driven. That can be your own best from a better night — StintLab picks the fastest matching lap from your whole history — or a friend's or teammate's lap file, imported as a reference.
The practice plan compares your lap with the target every 100 m and ranks the stretches that cost you. In the worked example, a 1.317 s gap looks like this:
That concentration is normal, and it is the whole argument for this method. About five sixths of the lap is already within 0.020 s of the target in every 100 m. A driver who spends the evening “pushing everywhere” risks the nine tenths to fix the one. See chase a target lap for how targets are chosen and matched.
Step 4 — Diagnose each section
For each section, read the traces from top to bottom at the point where the delta climbs: brake, speed, throttle, gear. Most losses fall into a handful of patterns:
| What the traces show | What it usually means | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| You brake earlier; minimum speed about the same | Braking too early | Move the brake point later in small steps |
| Same brake point; lower minimum speed | Over-slowing the corner | Release sooner, carry more speed to the apex |
| Later brake point; lower minimum; delta climbs after | Braking too late and scrubbing the speed off | Go back to the earlier point |
| Same corner speeds; throttle comes in later or softer | A cautious exit | Earlier, progressive throttle; check the exit line |
| Delta climbs on a straight | The previous corner's exit | Look back at that corner's minimum speed and throttle |
In the example, all three sections show the second pattern: the brake point is identical to the target's, the minimum speed is 10 km/h lower, and the throttle is still at 90% where the target is flat out. One habit, three corners. That is a diagnosis you can drive — not “be faster in sector one”. Comparing two laps and braking points cover the reading in detail.
Step 5 — Drill one section at a time
- Replay the section until you can describe what the target does differently in one sentence.
- Change one thing. Brake point, release, minimum speed, throttle pick-up — one. If two things change and the time improves, you do not know which to keep.
- Drive three clean laps focusing on that section alone. The rest of the lap is at race pace, not at the limit.
- Compare the exit: the delta 100–200 m after the corner and the speed down the next straight. That is StintLab's own drill, word for word: “Replay the braking and release here, then practice this section for three clean laps. Compare the exit speed before changing another section.”
- Keep it or bin it. If the section's blocks go grey, keep the change and move to the next section. If not, go back and try the next idea.
Step 6 — Re-measure, and keep what worked
Next session, same car, same track, same settings: drive the baseline run again. Then check three things.
- The practice plan against the same target — have the red blocks in your focus sections gone grey?
- The session report — has the spread narrowed, did the leaking sector change, did any brake point settle down?
- Your season record — StintLab keeps your best at every circuit and how much you have found since your first session there, in the same car. With the same assists and conditions too, that is the number that says the practice paid. See track your progress.
Then pick the next three sections and go again. The loop — measure, pick, drill, re-measure — is the whole method.
What one evening looks like
| Time | What you do | What you look at |
|---|---|---|
| 15 min | Baseline run: 8–10 laps at race pace (longer on a long circuit) | Best, typical lap, spread, invalid laps |
| 5 min | Review in the lap viewer | Time available and where; the practice plan's three sections |
| 3 × 10 min | One drill per section, three clean laps each, then check | Exit speed and the section's blocks against the target |
| 15 min | Second run at race pace | Did the typical lap move? Did the spread narrow? |
| 5 min | Note what worked for next time | The debrief sentences; the session report if you want it on paper |
What not to do
- Do not change setup and technique in the same session. You will not know which one worked. StintLab does not record setups, so write them down.
- Do not chase a lap in different conditions. A low-fuel lap on new tyres will show gaps no practice can close. Every StintLab plan reminds you: “Fuel, tyres and setup may differ. These are observed gaps, not promised gains.”
- Do not trust one lap. A single fast lap may be a one-off; a typical lap that moves is progress.
- Do not practise corners that are not costing time. If the blocks are grey, leave the corner alone.
- Do not count invalid laps. A lap that used more track than allowed is not a lap you can repeat in a race.
Questions
How long does it take to get faster in F1 25?
Longer than one evening and shorter than most people fear, if the practice is aimed. The honest way to know is to measure: StintLab's season record shows your best at each circuit against your first session there, in the same car, so you can see whether a month of practice actually moved it.
Should I turn assists off to get faster?
Fewer assists usually give you more control once you have learned to use it, and are often slower at first. Whatever you choose, compare like with like: StintLab matches laps on the steering, braking, gearbox, ERS, DRS and racing-line assists, so a lap with an assist is never your target for a lap without it. ABS and traction control are not recorded, so keep those the same yourself.
Is Time Trial or a practice session better for this?
Whichever lets you drive uninterrupted laps in conditions you can repeat next time. The method needs a baseline and a re-measure in the same car, on the same track, in the same weather and with the same settings — the session type just has to stay the same too, because laps from different session types are not compared.
Do I need telemetry to get faster?
No — drivers got faster for decades on feel. Telemetry replaces guessing with measuring: it tells you which three corners are worth your evening, what you do differently in them, and whether the change worked. That shortens the loop.
Does this work on a controller?
Yes. The method is the same; what a pad changes is how your throttle and brake traces look and which habits to look for.
Should I change the car setup?
Later, and one change at a time. A setup change and a technique change in the same session make it impossible to know which one worked. StintLab does not record setups, so keep a note of what you changed, and judge it over a run of laps, not one.