Lesson 8: Baseline setups

The baseline recipe

A baseline isn't a fast setup. It's a sane, balanced starting point that lets you feel what the car really wants, so every change after it means something. Without one, you end up tuning around a single bad number for an hour.

The order matters, because each step depends on the one before it. Tires decide how much grip there is. Springs have to match that grip. Dampers control the springs. Alignment and bars fine-tune a platform that already works. The diff then decides how power and braking load reach the tires, and aero and brake balance are the last trims.

Start from the class and the tires

Grip level is the biggest single input. A road car on Sports tires generates modest cornering force, so it needs soft springs that let the tires follow the road. Put the same car on Racing tires and it pitches and rolls much harder, so the springs go up. Gr.4 and Gr.3 cars add downforce, which pushes the car into the track at speed and needs stiffer springs again. GT7's own manual anchors this: road cars on Comfort or Sports tires sit at roughly 1.1–1.5 Hz, race cars on Racing tires at roughly 3–5 Hz. The course starts road cars a little firmer than street comfort, because you're driving on a circuit.

Pick the column that matches your car, then start in the middle of each range. Keep Natural Frequency and both damping ratios the same front and rear for now. The balance work comes later, from the drivetrain tweaks below and from driving.

Why each column moves the way it does:

• Raise Natural Frequency as grip and downforce rise. Too soft on Racing tires and the car wallows on entry and bottoms out over crests; too stiff on Sports tires and it skips over bumps mid-corner.
• Keep Damping Ratio (Expansion) above Damping Ratio (Compression). The body settles calmly after a big weight shift instead of bouncing back. Damping ranges on most cars run about 20–40 % for compression and 30–50 % for expansion, so these starts sit inside them.
• Run more Negative Camber Angle at the Front than the Rear. The front carries more load while you turn in and steer, so it needs the contact patch held flat under roll. The rear needs a flatter tire for traction and braking.
• Toe is a tiny final setting. A touch of Front toe-out sharpens turn-in at entry; Rear toe-in keeps the car straight and stable at speed and on exit.

Then tweak for the drivetrain

Where the engine sits and which wheels it drives give every car a personality. Your baseline should lean against that personality just a little, not fight it. Each tweak below is one step on one setting, applied on top of the class numbers.

FR: exit traction without entry push

The front steers, the rear drives. On exit the rear tires have to steer and push at once, so the classic FR problem is the rear stepping out as you squeeze the throttle. Soften the Anti-Roll Bar Rear by one step: the inside rear keeps more load and puts power down. Watch entry instead of over-correcting the rear: if the nose pushes as you brake and turn in, lower Braking Sensitivity first.

MR: front grip on entry, careful at the limit

With most of the weight near the rear, an MR car has a light nose that can understeer on entry, yet a heavy tail that swings hard once it lets go. Soften the Anti-Roll Bar Front by one step for entry bite, keep the Anti-Roll Bar Rear in the lower half of its class range so the heavy tail keeps its exit traction (lesson 4 makes the same point), and move the Toe Angle Rear into the upper half of its range (toward toe-in) so the rear stays calm mid-corner and at speed.

RR: front response on entry, no snap on lift

An RR car brakes and drives brilliantly, but the nose is light and the tail can snap when you lift mid-corner. Do the MR tweaks (front bar one step softer, rear bar in the lower half, rear toe in the upper half), then start Acceleration Sensitivity lower, at 20 instead of 25. GT7's manual warns that a high value "can make the car unstable when the accelerator is released", which is exactly the RR weakness.

FF: rotation from the rear

An FF car asks the front tires to steer, brake and drive. It naturally understeers, so the rear has to help it rotate. Stiffen the Anti-Roll Bar Rear by one step and move the Toe Angle Rear into the lower half of its range (less toe-in) for more rotation mid-corner. Set the Body Height Adjustment Front a few millimeters lower than the rear: it adds front grip on entry and counters the nose lifting under power. This is the one place the course builds rake into the baseline, because GT7’s magazine names it specifically for FF cars; on every other layout, start level. For the diff, think one-way: FF cars often use a One-Way LSD, and with Fully Customized you get the same effect from a low Braking Sensitivity.

4WD: help it turn in

A 4WD car has traction to spare and tends to push on entry and on power. Soften the Anti-Roll Bar Front by one step, run the front diff milder than the rear, and send more torque toward the rear with Front/Rear Torque Distribution. The further the split sits toward the rear, the more the car behaves like an FR; toward 50:50 it gets more stable but pushes more. If it still pushes mid-corner after that, Lesson 4's next move is one step stiffer on the Anti-Roll Bar Rear; both changes shift the balance the same way.

Adapt for the track and the weather

The class and drivetrain give you a balanced all-rounder. Now ask what this track demands most. Official GT7 tuning advice splits tracks into two families, and the wet is its own world.

High-speed tracks

Long straights and fast sweepers reward stability and top speed. Run the car lower and stiffer, but keep enough travel for compressions. Pair the stiffer springs with slightly softer bars, so the car stays settled over bumps at speed. Move Rear toe toward toe-in for straight-line and high-speed stability, keep camber modest so the tires stay flat under braking, and trim Downforce down for top speed.

Technical tracks

Tight corners reward rotation and front bite. Run as low as the curbs allow. Soften the Front springs and stiffen the Rear springs so the car turns in and rotates mid-corner. On rear-drive cars do this gently, because a stiffer rear also costs exit traction. Add a small Front toe-out (slider left) for sharper turn-in, keep camber moderate, and raise Downforce, since slow corners don't punish drag much.

The wet

In the rain every tire has less grip, so the car generates less roll and pitch and needs less stiffness to control it. A soft car also keeps the tires in contact through puddles and over curbs. Lower springs, damping and bars, the Rear bar by a lot, so the rear can put power down without snapping. Run slightly less camber, because the tires rarely load up enough to need it and a flatter tire brakes better. Raise Downforce front and rear. Fit Intermediate tires on a damp or drying track and Heavy Wet tires in standing water.

Keep the Anti-Roll Bar inside the car's range (1–10 on most cars); if a change would take it below 1, stop at 1. The wet Acceleration Sensitivity trim is optional: try it if the rear still lights up on exit after the softer springs and bars, because less lock on throttle calms the layout's oversteer tendency.

When the fix isn't the suspension

Some problems look like suspension problems but come from somewhere else. Fixing them at the source keeps your baseline clean.

Tires

GT7 lets you choose front and rear tires separately, and the compound changes grip far more than any slider. If the whole car feels slippery, check the tires before you touch the springs. A softer compound at one end adds grip at that end, so mismatched tires shift the balance too; most race regulations will decide this for you anyway.

Downforce

Downforce adds grip at speed and costs top speed. More at the Front reduces understeer in fast corners; more at the Rear reduces oversteer. If the car is balanced in slow corners but pushes or snaps only in fast ones, the aero balance is the culprit, not the springs. Remember that springs and downforce work together: if you add a lot of downforce, the car may need a step more Natural Frequency to avoid bottoming out.

Brake balance

Switch Brake Balance Selection from Normal to Brake Controller to unlock Front/Rear Balance. The physics is standard: moving the bias toward the rear helps the car rotate on entry, and too far makes the rear lock or step out under braking. Moving it toward the front makes braking more stable, with more entry understeer. Community guides report a scale of about −5 (front) to +5 (rear), but the official manual's wording reads the opposite way, so verify the direction on your car with a quick test (the drill below does exactly that). Use it for entry problems that appear only under braking.

Ballast and power for PP

Ballast adds weight; Ballast Positioning places it, with negative values toward the front and positive toward the rear. GT7's manual calls 50:50 generally ideal. Power Restrictor trims power. Both normally lower PP, which makes them the right tools to fit under a PP cap, rather than softening your suspension to lose performance. Players report that PP doesn’t always fall smoothly as you add ballast, so check the PP after each change.

PP limits, BoP and saving your sheets

PP is a simulated rating built from things like top speed and acceleration, and it can change with game updates. Suspension edits count too: GT7's own guide names stiffening the suspension as a PP-relevant choice. So after you build a baseline, always check the PP before you enter a PP-limited event.

Balance of Performance works differently. With BoP on, Gr.1, Gr.2, Gr.3, Gr.4 and Gr.B cars get their weight and power adjusted and their installed tuning parts returned to stock, using one of three BoP types for high-, medium- and slow-speed tracks. Other cars are restored to their default state. Which settings stay open varies from event to event, so read the regulations screen before you start tuning.

Save one sheet per track and condition

Name sheets so you can find them in a hurry: "Base dry", then "Suzuka dry", "Suzuka wet". When you adapt a baseline, use Duplicate Sheet first and change the copy, so the clean baseline always survives. Add a version number when you're iterating ("Suzuka dry 3") and delete the dead ends.