We wrote previously on telemetry, and despite our best efforts to try and simplify it as best as possible, it still isn't easy. Poring over graphs showing tons of data just to try and figure out why you're slow isn't easy for most people.
Sometimes, all you want to know is what I can do to go faster. The answer may be in telemetry, but it can take a while to learn what to look for, never mind figuring out what it even means.
What if there was an easier way?
PitDelta.co
PitDelta.co caught our eye recently via a Reddit post where user DeltaOnSolstice posted that they "built a tool that explains where you're losing time in iRacing". This new online tool aims to take your iRacing telemetry and automatically analyse it, and give you feedback in a very simple way. Instead of figuring out what the hell damper velocities mean or why load transfer can affect traction, this tool will just tell you what to do to go faster. The image below is an example of a session summary at Road America, driving a Corvette GT3.
The tool gives you multiple reports, like the Quick Debrief below or a full Engineering Report PDF.
Pricing
PitDelta has three pricing tiers, with the first tier being free. This tier gives you a Quick Debrief that focuses on your major errors but misses out on finer, turn-by-turn details.
Tier 2 will give you a corner-by-corner report, which is more or less what you'd want if you're looking to make big, overall improvements and comes in at 3.99€ a month. This includes 8 sessions' worth of data over 30 days.
Tier 3 costs 11.99€ a month but includes 25 sessions' worth of data across 90 days. Analysis is more granular and is what PitDelta.co recommends.
What do you actually get?
Right now, PitDelta only works off driver input. This means that it takes your best laps and analyses your mistakes in terms of throttle and brake application and advises you where to change those inputs to achieve better stability, rotation etc that in theory, should make you faster but also more consistent.
The problem is that comparing yourself against yourself also has the potential of making things worse by maybe creating a negative feedback loop. This is, of course, unlikely but not impossible. We would have preferred a comparison to faster drivers as well as feedback on car setup,p but those features are currently not yet available
We also don't see the point of having 25 sessions over 90 days if you get a report that you can keep as a totally offline document.
For example, if you practice at Watkins Glen in an F4 car and, after a couple of sessions of driving, you upload your telemetry and get a report, you don't need to pay to keep that stored data online for 90 days since you already have a report. A week later, you're going to be on a new track anyway on iRacing.
We're aware that this service must be using some sort of AI to perform the analysis, and we see this as a good thing in terms of providing an easily understandable report. It also seems like the developer is working towards improving the service based on this Reddit post.
Final thoughts
We like the idea of PitDelta in terms of providing easily actionable data with the aim of making you faster. We also also apreciate their free tier and recommend this tier for anyone who wants to test the service before moving to a paid tier, if needed.
However, we think that the top tier is overpriced and doesn't provide good value. We base this, firstly, on the fact that a standard monthly subscription to iRacing costs not much more than PitDelta's top tier. Secondly, the feature set of this tier comes up woefully short in terms of what you actually get for your money in terms of what we consider to be critical features, like comparing your data to faster drivers and car setup feedback. We also think that going straight to a paid subscription model this early in the development of PitDelta is not a good way to go about encouraging new users to join the service.
Still, we think that there may be some merit here and suggest you try it out on the free tier and see for yourself if it makes a difference or not.
