An "Alien" is someone who is performing beyond what us mere "Humans" are capable of. Even when we all used the exact same car and setup, these people will blow us away. They are "super-human" drivers... or Aliens

Setup doesn't play as big of a roll as the driver's ability. Setup is there to make you feel comfortable at speed, but BEING at speed is all about the ability of the driver.

I am by no means an expert cause I usually make sure things are ok at the back of the field but I would be inclined to say it has to be a little of both. Mainly based on the fact that I have used one of Tim's setups for a Spec Rhez race and due to I'm sure my car control (or lack there of rather) and equipment I could not get within even a 2 seconds or so his posted time.

My 2¢

Tim says it well, Its about 90% driver. The best times in the world require a great setup, but a great driver will be fast with or without the perfect setup. Yet an average driver will be average no matter the setup. Like in all things there is no magic pill and thats what you would be expecting if you thought any setup was going to "make you fast".

Almost more importantly there is no 1 perfect set. The set is so tailored to each driver that what makes one person fast will not even be drivable by another. Thats why Tim's comment on "makes you comfortable" is so true. Sure there are basic things that can hold you back if your setup is just way off, but its like the other saying, "a good setup wont win you a race, but a bad one can sure loose you one"

Diddos to all these comments. There is no replacement for "seat time." Even an alien was human at one point. Its the seat time that makes the alein....along with some natural talent...But there is no replacement for seat time. I guess thats what I like about Sim racing. Its the learning curve. You never stop learning. Even the aliens learn something with every race. If Sim racing was easy everyone would be good at it :-)

I'm a newbie both here and sim racing in general, so I know what you mean by aliens and wondering if it's just their setup.

Here's a story that might help. I was driving Monza on a public server and there was this driver turning consistent mid 1:43's while I was turning low 1:45's. I talked him into uploading his setup which I promptly downloaded. The guy was so cool he waited for me to d/l the setup and get back on the track...we were the only ones out there and he had me follow him around the track and guess what...I was turning mid 1:43's right along with him. But, the real clincher is that if I didn't follow him I would fall back down to the low 1:45's...even with his setup, and I was more likely to lose control. I've gone back to tweaking my own setup and am just working on being more efficient...my speed will eventually get there, but I figure it's more important to build driving skills with a stable drive than try to ride a wild horse and spend all the time trying to keep off the grass.

All of that aside...I did learn something important about setups and speed...especially on long tracks like Monza. You can accelerate faster if you decrease the brake and radiator ducts to 3 and decrease the splitter and wing to 1. This significantly reduces your wind resistance; thus, you go faster. However, without the extra downforce the car gets squirrely when braking and accelerating so you have to shift the brake more toward the front...and you have to be sure to do the majority of your braking in a straight line. Plus, you need to back off on the differential settings and use numerically larger ratio gears, i.e. 25/24 instead of 23/24.

Another thing to consider is that each track is different and each one requires minor and sometimes major changes in setup. Monza has longer straights so reduce wind resistence and use longer gears, Oschersleben B is short with hairpins and tight corners so add wing and shorten the gears. And, each track requires a different driving style with Monza drag racing and braking in a straight line while Oschersleben has a lot of trail braking and cornering...which is why some drivers do well on some tracks and not so well on others.

Setup is a set of compromises to allow you to drive faster at *your* peak; everyone here is right, setup itself will never make you an alien. Darin also has it correctly when he quotes that a bad setup can do more damage than a good one can help! I know from personal experience!
Aliens tend to be alien independently of car, tracks, AND simulators. Gregger Huttu has dominated, orbited in alien galaxies, in every single sim he has run: GPL, GTR,GTR2, rFactor etc.
An important element, imho, which is often overlooked is equipment (obviously not as much as rl lol): I immediately found extra tenths to 0.5sec across the board when I upgraded my wheel about a year ago. Same goes with computer, fps, etc etc. Again, just like setups, having a super rig with all the bells and whistles, the best wheel and pedals, will not make you an alien *but* it can help you run faster or raise your level or how fast you can run constantly.

I feel that the term alien has suffered a bit of an inflation since I started seeing it around in GPL. It used to mean a really, really fast driver. Nowadays it seems to be enough if you're a very fast driver.

So would it be fair to say that it makes more sense to concentrate on a basic setup that suits you and tweak it to make the most of track variances such as Monza / Magny Cours, rather than spending hours trying to develop specific setups for each track?

This mystery was resolved for me when i discovered the "section times" area of MOTEC.

In GTR2 i would endlessly tweak my setups, trying to get my times down. I set targets for myself based on what i think is an achievable (for me) percentile in GTR2 rank and a review of any R2P history available.

Recently, i was preparing for a race at a track i knew pretty well but in a car i hadn't driven there before. And i was getting a bit desperate because the car seemed to be handling well, but i wasn't getting any closer to my target time.

So i started to explore the information available in MOTEC (beyond my usual superficial suspension analysis) and I discovered a chart ("section times") that breaks your session down lap by lap, corner by corner, and straight by straight.

It shows your lap times, of course, but it also gives you a time for your best "rolling" lap (a single tour of the circuit that can start in any place on that circuit), and more importantly, an "eclectic" time that adds all the best times for all the individual sections regardless of what lap they occurred on.

In essence, this "eclectic" time is your perfect lap with that setup. The more laps you run in a given session the more useful this is, because of the greater odds of having done any given section well. It smooths your inconsistencies.

The revelation on this particular day, having run about 20 laps to test tire wear, was seeing that my "eclectic" time was not only a couple seconds faster than my best lap from that session, it also would have put me 5th in GTR2 rank.

So the question was answered for me. After achieving a car that handles the way you want it to, its _all_ about the driver running a good line and consistently working that setup to its limits.

"Section times" has become my most useful tool. When the car feels right and my "eclectic" time reaches my target, i stop tweaking my setup and focus entirely on improving my line and consistency.

Of course, this knowledge hasn't made me any faster. It's just that i can't blame my setups anymore.

Thats exactly what I found Barrett!

So I believe it is possible to develop a BASE setup that suits you, that you feel comfortable with, which should only need altering to meet the requirements of each track, like gear ratio, aero.

Then, the most important element practice, practice and more practice to hit those best sector times lap after lap.

Sounds easy!!