What cheating looks like in Assetto Corsa (lap comparison, read description)

Lap on the left is by the guy who holds the "world record" on the RSR leaderboard. Lap on the right is my former PB. How did I get his lap? He sent it to me when I contacted him and wondered how he was so quick. He also let me upload a comparison video, which this is.
I'm gonna be honest. When I first noticed his lap time on RSR I was suspecious. His 1st and 3rd sectors were amazing, but his 2nd sector was sublime too. With low wings it's definitely possible to match his S1. With normal Spa wings, his S2 is beatable, but you need to be incredibly on it. His last sector is probably the craziest. of course he's quick on the straight from running low wing (lowest according to him) but he's way, way quicker than anybody else in the last chicane. With the lowest wings.
But, I had a hope. Maybe he had found something new (well exploit) in the setup, or maybe he was just absolutely next level alien from a distant galaxy.
Then I saw the lap.
Well, it's not that great, when you look at the details. Take a look at the braking for T1. He's relatively far from the edge of the track when turning in. If you look at any fast lap from Spa on KZbin (Husqu, Mikeblast, Albi, myself etc) you'll see how we are all almost touching the grass to make the entry as wide as possible.
Next you can look at how much track he's using at Raidillon. He's not even touching the kerb! Meanwhile the rest of us touch that kerb with the right wheels to make the first sector as short as possible... In general he takes a very long line in S1, probably costing him around 1 tenth. He's also very conservative with track limits in general. Every other fast time is much more on the edge when it comes to track limits.
What does this mean? Well, it means he has a lot more time in hand. He's not pushing.
Ok, he can go faster. How does that mean he's cheating? It doesn't. It's part of a bigger picture through. Let's look at minimum speeds in a couple of corners. Let's take Bruxelles first. His minimum speed is almost 120kmh, which is faster than any lap I've ever seen before. But what's really impressive is short time he spends at that speed, and how hard he is able to accelerate from there. He also has no issue on the exit, and is able to stay quite far to the right on the track.
Next corner you should look at is the bus stop. Here it's more of the same story, but now the speed is even crazier. On the final part of the bus stop his minimum speed is almost 90kmh. Nobody gets remotely close to this, we're talking over 10% faster than the next fastest I've ever seen. That is not possible without some funkyness going on, especially not when you are running the lowest aero possible, which he claimed he did (also makes sense when you look at the top speed).
Still not convinced? Well, when he set this PB he had set his previous PB 15 minutes prior. That's not crazy. What's crazy is that from his previous PB he shaved off 1,1 seconds in 15 minutes!! Here is the proof: www.radiators-c...
He also only logged 355km on RSR to set this lap. Husqu, who has the legit WR, as an absolute alien and in general super good guy, has logged 30000km. And he's half a second off this guy.
When I first uploaded this video it was just called a lap comparison, yet some comments did point out the funkyness of his lap. When that happened he contacted me. He told me it was a big blow to him, and wanted me to unlink his channel from the description. I did as he asked. But that honestly just confirmed my thoughts. If you're legit, and people accuse you of cheating you've won. That stuff is pretty amazing, it means whoever is accusing you have completely given up on ever beating you. Though I can imagine if you actually cheated, it might not feel so good...
So, how did he cheat? I suspect he played with some files to give himself more grip. I did invite him on multiple occasions to join me and my buddies to race online. Yet he always declined for various reasons. Maybe he was scared about failing on checksum when joining?
Update: I went back and watched the full replay he sent. I did find something I had overlooked previously. On the replay he sent, he included the final part of his previous lap, which he abandoned. I just assumed he had made a mistake and wanted to cool the tyres a bit, but on closer inspection the lap he was on was a flyer. If you pause it, before he backs off, you can see he's 3-4 tenths faster than his 38.1 lap! So why would he quit such a lap? Well, I think it was because it would be way too suspesciuous if he dropped a 37.9 or whatever, which would put him 6-7 tenths ahead of number 2, which also has a super fishy time when you look at the sectors. Once again showing that he is not even pushin. Wanna see for yourself? Here is the replay: • Shuffy full replay

[@ethanbarkerracing2660]

from reading the comments, his minimum speed in corners is astronomically high and his straight-line speed is 12kph faster. imagine cheating in a sim racing game.

[@Blue_Monkey]

It is more common than people believe in simracing, incl. rFactor 2 (*cough* first McLaren competition) and iRacing.

[@kharba76]

I swear people do this online i just want a experience that I can really race

[@shig.bitz.3205]

Yeah, I'm not the greatest driver, but I can see the scruffiness in his lap. Then you look at the HUD and notice the speed through corners and it immediately gets more suspicious. You're right, those minimum speeds are very unusual.

[@MetoFulcurm]

Eau Rouge/Radillion and Pouhon simple and easy to understand. The car has grip from another universe. He isn't even that good enough to hide it.

[@MetoFulcurm]

Also the minimum speed of last corner is 17.3% faster compared to Albi-M's lap for example and 20.5% to yours.

[@AlbiM1]

Sounds like i'm getting famous🤣🤣🤣i'm joking :D Yeah dude, people that thinks Shuffy didnt cheat most likely never really driven the F2004 at Spa lol

[@shawn197]

Yeah... It's really interesting to compare steering inputs too, especially at T1. He's just over 90°. I'm at full lock. I'll admit I have a bad habit of turning too much at low speed though. So let's look at Husqu, Mike and Albi then. Well, they are either at full lock or close to it as well... I really wonder what would happen if he turned as much as us? Would he drive drive into the pit exit or simply just flip?

[@Blue_Monkey]

To nail him down you would need identical setup & track conditions, because you cannot exclude the possibility of an unrealistic setup exploit.

[@shawn197]

@@Blue_Monkey Well, he did tell me he ran the lowest wing possible and 15 front ARB and 2 at the back. He also said he ran very high FFB because it gave him more "feel" when using low DF. I really wanted him to have found some setup exploit, because then he'd be legit, but no, I seriously doubt that. If he did, he wouldn't be so scared of going online, or getting accused of cheating which is why he didn't upload this lap. (He does have a 1:44 something from a few years ago on his channel though)

[@jackmcauley4078]

Really Interesting watch, thanks for this informative video!

[@shawn197]

Thanks man!

[@dou3r878]

idk but in paul frere's exit looks like if shuffy has constant acceleration from 250 to 320 and suddenly, acceleration decreases like if the torque line in a dyno graphic falls down like a precipice

[@basbass429]

Yes, noticing the same. Checked out the uploads of the guy taking a few, all exos 125 records without efforts.. His driving was ok, nothing stellar, but the rear end of his car is glued to track, making strange quick turn in without rear-end stepping out. Also some tracks really strange high to speeds, like imola recorded 306km/h in his hotlap, which is really suspicious to get the lotus exos (NOT S1 version) to 306km/h and break all records. While on other tracks he ran with strange low top speed like SPA, not even hitting 300km/h. So medium downforce track ultimate high top speed, LOW downforce speed he clocks considerably lower top speed. And Spa is a track where medium downforce really does not work for the non-s1 version, tried it; You loose massive amounts of time on the straights. Checked more out, raking in all records of any car in the sim. Why is this strange, certain combo's i am kind a fast, like really fast Like not even bothering to race. and others cars i am not fast Later on ran into a more blatant cheater who had the same strange effect turn in 20-fold time, explaining it all. I just gave up on AC and Hotlapping, the cheating is very common as in many online games. When you search for it, youtube literarily gets filled up with uploads from people exposing blatant cheating in about any game :-( The worst are the subtle cheaters. Regarding "Shuffy" The complete total wrong line through Les Combos is give away he is cheating, that is he beginners racing line, you loose massive amount of time. On corner exits, "Shuffy" is also not using the entire track, using suspiciously tight lines which compromise the exit speeds. Lately seen more people who are "suddenly" gained 2 to 3 seconds and doing "alien" times. Fun part, when they do it with a mediocre lap on totally worn tires at too high temperatures to do that and conveniently not having CM to share setup. Might be narcism? The compliments, and honoring and amazement of the new guys who have no clue what is going on? To bolster their ego?

[@AlbiM1]

Hey! Can i know exactly who you are talking about?

[@shawn197]

You mean Jakub? I highly doubt he is cheating. He’s fairly quick and knows pretty much every exploit there is in the game and probably is the player who has played AC the most of everyone. But for sure there are some people who put way too big value in these “world records” and even cheat to get them. Probably some ego thing as you say. Oh well, at least they are happy I guess?

[@BarikYT]

Grip level is off the charts. The car doesn't even seem to yaw at all in the corners 😅 Correct me if i'm wrong

[@dou3r878]

No, you're right, he is not pushing at all

[@shawn197]

Yeah it's crazy. Looks like he's trying to keep it well under the limit too, the speed he's carrying is quite inconsistent. Sometimes he's pretty slow compared to everybody else, sometimes he's way faster.

[@BarikYT]

@@shawn197 that's another thing that gives it out Braking points are also sus And steering angle through corners is also kinda weird. He seems to always steer with the front. There's no real weight to the car

[@shawn197]

@@BarikYT Yeah, T1 in particular is very weird.

[@basbass429]

@@BarikYT Exactly what i noticed with other guy ranking up all the current RSR records, just turns in and rear end of car follows like unlimited grip on rear side.

[@rampant5139]

If you watch Pouhon, he is slower than you at the apex, you're both full throttle, and he gains speed much much quicker. Blatant.

[@shawn197]

I'm not sure he's doing anything to the power to be honest. He is running minimum wings, which does give a nice acceleration boost above 250ish. Makes corners very tricky though, especially with the minimum front wing. You will understeer off to the Nurburgring if you try to enter the corners at the same speed as him with the minimumfront wing.

[@CdH94]

If this isn't satire then I'm really fucking disappointed in Shuffy man. Big time holy shit. On a related thought, how do you feel about that existenz guy who's already been banned once, topping just about everything?

[@shawn197]

Yeah for the longest time I really wanted Shuffy to be legit. When I first saw his time I had my suspicion (not gonna lie, before I saw Husqu's lap and got to know him I raised an eyebrow too, since the 40.2 record had stood so long). But I really hoped Shuffy was some next gen alien, and that he found some crazy setup exploit that nobody had found. But, when he sent the replay, I saw the lap and explained the setup, my hope quickly vanished. Then when people started pointing out his lap made little sense (it was called a lap comparison in the beggining) he doubled down and played the victim card. Said this was the reason he didn't post laps, because people came out and called him a cheater. Regarding Existence, I don't really know him, or the details of his ban. I haven't really looked at the details of his laps, but at least he uploads them, so I assume he's legit. Though I know about some people that take RSR VERY seriously who considers everybody who sets times with content manager/csp as not legit, so if you ask him you'll get a different answer lol

[@paduano8774]

Hi Shawn, seen you alot on rsr :). I saw some comments on another vid, it seems now that Shuffy was cheating right?

[@shawn197]

Yeah it'a quite obvious he cheats... He knocked off over 1 second on his pb from one lap to the other in 15 min, and he's clearly not pushing in this lap either. And when you look at his minimum speed at the bus stop for example, it's simply not possible when you look at every other legit lap. When you also add in how he reacted when people started questioning the lap (super defensive ) it was pretty clear he wasn't the greatest F2004 driver in AC by far..

[@vyangrundler860]

Yeah it does look weird… He has higher minimum speed in corners but also top speed

[@shawn197]

Yup, and when you look at how much faster he is, it makes no sense.

[@doot6516]

lol the spa open lobbies you see 1-2 people run low 20's and they claim they dont change anything in the files. funny thing is its the same people who spin in turn 1

[@shawn197]

Personally never seen that, though I only race on servers with checksum enabled as far as I know. To put it this way, there is a reason the guy above never “had time” to race when we offered him to join…

[@Concodroid]

Goodness, I'm still more than four seconds slower

[@shawn197]

Well, I have no idea how to make up 1.7 seconds to the other guy either hehe

[@AlbiM1]

@@shawn197 I have! ;)

[@tofuloword2829]

Goodness, I'm still more than nine seconds slower

[@Concodroid]

@@tofuloword2829 You might be using the wrong setup then!

[@tofuloword2829]

@@Concodroid having a look into that rn, and half decent driving

[@alexisbeuve99]

Nah… he definitly cheating… his lap wasn’t great at all compare to pro simracers

[@AlbiM1]

:) so i'm not the only one that noticed it! He is not even pushing!

[@AlbiM1]

Look how Shawn is really pulling the neck of this car, using every centimeter of track available, thats a great lap! This is what pushing the car looks like!

[@Pig_Man06]

he has way high acceleration/top speed/slow speed

[@shawn197]

The top speed and acceleration does make sense if you run minimum wings, like he said he did. The cornering speeds make 0 sense with the lowest wing though.

[@Andy420]

could you go faster on straights by putting a tailwind

[@shawn197]

Yes you can actually! But since the track is a circuit you'll also have to endure some headwind. Though here at Spa some wind from the right direction can be beneficial, and the fastest legit times use it.

[@Andy420]

@@shawn197 ok cool, I do 1:41 lows in the f2004 server, how much time do u think can be gained with all ideal conditions in single player hotlap

[@shawn197]

@@Andy420 well it depends a bit. The ACS UK server sometimes run really great conditions, like sub 10c temps, which is the biggest factor when it comes to lap time. Offline you are limited to 10c if you run RSR. So my server best is 1:39.1 at 0c and good wind, offline it's 1:39.6. The offline lap was much better technically though, so the difference would be bigger if the laps were equal.

[@chrisco0108]

I'm very new in sim and found your video by chance. Would it be suspicious if a race host is sooo fast (1-2 seconds) and requires you to download his mod track?

[@larreization]

Not this suspicious. AC offers a lot (and I mean a LOT) room for modding your own content into the game. It is also very easy to work on specific parts on preexisting tracks. Many communitiys use their own modded versions of original tracks like Spa, that require certain files to be downloaded and added to your original installation. In general, this allows more cars in the grid, different sponsors, alternate cameras, etc and is madatory for many competitions to participate in. So not suspicious at first glance. But it also gives you the opportunity to fiddle with griplevels, cutdetection and other cool stuff. Thing is: It is not so easy to cheat due to the checksum-mismatches excluding you from a session online. When you are trying to enter a server, the content you have on your behalf is compered to the checksum of the version, which is on serverside. If you alternated your files, the sum will mismatch and it is not possible to enter the track. This leads to the conclusion, if the (in example) griplevel is higher in the specific trackmod you're downloading, then in the session online, everyone has a higher level. So nobody really suffers from unfair disadvantage. The problem shown in this video is another problem. Call me out, if I'm wrong about this, but iirc, RSR's leaderboard only requires RSR's app to be activated ingame. It is not able to check, if a track was fiddled with. That's because it is not tracked by any ingame-server to tell the difference. So in competitive onlineraces this is not a thing at all. Disclaimer: Yes, I do know how to alternate a tracks' griplevel in any direction I want, and it is freaking easy to do so. Sometimes I do it for fun, to get a real blast on the Nordschleife. But I never took part in any "offline" hotlapcompetition like RSR's, nor do I plan to do so. And no, beside my communitybubble, I do not intend to tell anyone how to. ;-P

[@basbass429]

Saw in other vid/post how Shuffy pulls this off. Simply tampering with the track file values. All is needed is notepad.exe 😞 Guy showed after tampering he was instant 1.5 sec faster, but it is really hard to tell something was off. Due to tampering, speed loss due to friction with track is reduced, gaining a lot of corner speed. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mF7NZZeNmsx7lbM&ab_channel=PICKUPSPEED

[@shawn197]

Yeah it’s a damn shame. Even online it seems like it is very easy to bypass checksum, and seems quite widespread nowadays. AC online/hotlapping feels pretty pointless for me these days because of it.

[@3.0tdi]

I am not really in sim racing but can you follow his line and gain time advantage aswell without cheats?

[@shawn197]

His line is quite poor in places actually. He could easily improve like 3 tenths just by using more track, wich is huge at the top of the leaderboard.

[@TurboAfterlifeRacing]

you can use mod menus on assetto corsa

[@samirsalesi3453]

Nah, I don't think he's cheating, I think he just went mad with the setup. You cannot underestimate how much time you can save from a carefully and methodically crafted setup, like, really. I can't remember time sheets as I used to play AC long time ago, but I do remember gaining like 10 seconds in SPA when I would practice it (sometimes for weeks), study every small detail and architect the perfet setup... Edit: like, for real man, I'm sure you well know how much a powerful setup can make the difference, but a PERFECT setup is another level Edit edit: and yes, if you spend enough time trying different approaches on both your driving style and your setup, you can definitely gain both on the straights and on the corners

[@AlbiM1]

For real dude, just couple of questions: 1) Have you ever driven the F2004 at Spa on AC? 2) Do you even know who Shawn is? 3) Have you raced him?

[@mintyCS]

read the description you obviously dont know who shawn is lol

[@shawn197]

As I stated in the description, I was hoping he found some setup exploit. But no, his setup is just minimum wings and very high anti roll bar according to what he told me. You can try that, but you won't get close to his speed in the bus stop. Heck, you could make a setup only for the bus stop, and you couldn't match his minimum speed there. And yes, I do know how important setup is. With a good Spa setup you can match the cornering speeds of the stock one, but running 1/3 of the rear wing I also know how close to the limit you need to go to set a WR around a GP track in the F2004. It is very clear that Shuffy is nowhere near that limit when looking at his lap. If he did go to the limit, he'd be going much faster, and he's already half a second clear of Husqu, who is THE F2004 alien.

[@thesucker2002]

Or corners or straigths, you cannot be perfect on both, and also by the way he is driving and the telemtry i can say that lap is fake AF

[@francescoparmitani6359]

@@mintyCS who is

[@Nobbi_Habogs]

that is no cheating, its called racing and skill. With 5 years of active simracing in the past i can say that shuffy is driving way cleaner what is possibly the reason he (definitely) drive with less wing. Also he showed his class by NAILING the first corners of Sector 2. Also he redirected his cars momentum with acceleration at the end of Sector 2, which also shows that he have much experience with hot laps, because its shredding the tires hard. If u do that, thats your only round that can be good, the round after that have to be at least ~0,3 sec slower than possible just because you are overheating the tires etc. I dont think he is cheating at all. And of course he just gains already 0,7 sec out of the last full throttle sector. Just get better.

[@GTChucker86]

mate, look at the racing lines the guy on the left took. No way he could be faster with those lines, the guy confirmed in the video description that the guy on the left did in fact manipulate some files to get more grip

[@AlbiM1]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣well youve just set an absolute world record of bullshits, bullshittometer hand went out of scale, broken the limiter, started spinning at fucking millions rpms until the whole instrument exploded lmfao

[@AlbiM1]

Okay seriously, clearly you never driven Spa with the F2004, if you did you would know there is no absolute fucking way to make t1 with that line and that steering angle, like never in a million years. Regarding Bus Stop i dont really need to tell again what Shawn explained countless times about the minimum speed there. On top of that, the lap itself is quite scruffy anyways, track usage in general is quite poor and conservative, and looking at the car behavior its pretty evident there is not even the slightiest sign of oversteer or understeer at any stage. Which means, as Shawn said, hes got plenty of time in hand still with that car. He even lifted quite a lot out of fagnes, thats the last thing you do on a corner exit especially if you have "THAT MUCH EXPERIENCE". Namasté!

[@shawn197]

I do suggest reading the description. It goes into detail about why his lap is so fishy. It's also really interesting that his previous lap was on track to be 3-4 tenths faster than the one in the comparison here, but he abandoned it before Blanchimont. I wonder why? You can see the full replay btw, it's linked in the description. And yes, I'm working on getting better. I have done for many years now. But I think Shuffy can get better too. His lap was far from the limit, which is very obvious to see.

[@Nobbi_Habogs]

@@AlbiM1 Only bad guys focussing on others, good drivers focussin on theirselfes. i already got banned on 2 complete different private league systems because of "cheating", one time at NFS World, the other time at an rFactor DTM Simracing League. Just shows me how bad others are or how good i am. Stupid people say everything is cheating if they dont understand it, especially sad when they have access to telemetric in rfactor but dont use it. There are much more things to explain which is particulary not possible to explain to you, like i would try to make a monkey understand maths. Also its not my duty to to protect others from their own stupidity. instead i read some true bullshit like "he is not using the kerb, so he cant be faster than me!", laughing and asking myself how some people really can be "pro" and one dimensional in the same way.

[@kooswerkloos69]

I dont think he is cheating, the right one has allot of trouble with oversteer

[@shawn197]

Eh, I didn't really have any moment were I lost time due to oversteer. I overcooked it a bit into Pouhon, but apart from that it was really clean, and very close to the limit. The left one though, he's not even smelling at the limit... Just look how little track he uses. He could have easily improved like 3 tenths just by being more aggressively with track limits...

[@coachperez4x]

what is this game !

[@shawn197]

Assetto Corsa, like it says in the title.