Sim Racing Telemetry Analysis for Beginners: How to Find Lap Time

You finish a session, look at your lap time and wonder: where exactly am I slow? Telemetry answers that question. It records what you and the car did at every metre of the lap: speed, pedals, steering, gear, tyres. Laid next to a faster lap, it shows the exact corners where time disappears and why.

This guide walks you through your first lap analysis in Flowix, from opening a lap to drawing a conclusion you can try on track. You don't need any engineering background.

Short on time or patience? Jump to the AI section near the end of this guide. An AI assistant connected to Flowix can do this whole analysis for you and explain it in plain words.

What you need

• A free Flowix account.
• Laps recorded with the Flowix agent running next to your sim. A lap has telemetry once it has been uploaded; you'll see its row become clickable.
• Ideally 10–15 laps on one track in one car. A few laps in, you are still learning the track and the data is mostly noise.

Step 1: Open a lap

There are two ways in:

1. From your sessions. Open Sessions in the left menu, pick a session and click any lap in the list. Your best lap is the natural first choice.
2. From the leaderboards. Open Leaderboards, choose the track and the car, and click a lap. This works for your own laps and for other drivers' public laps.

The lap opens on the analysis page. At the top is the Lap Details & Sector Times table, below it the telemetry charts on the left and the Track Layout map on the right.

Step 2: Add a lap to compare

One lap on its own tells you little. Telemetry gets useful when you compare it with a faster lap.

1. Press Add Lap at the top of the page (on a phone it's the + button).
2. The Add Lap to Compare window lists laps on the same track: yours and other drivers'. Type a name into the filter to find someone specific.
3. Click a lap to load it. Each lap gets its own colour, shown as a dot in the lap table and used for its lines on the charts and map.

Which lap should you pick?

• Your own best lap, if you're analysing a normal lap. This shows where your consistency breaks down.
• A slightly faster driver in the same car, from the leaderboard. Pick someone 0.5–1.5 seconds quicker, not the world record. The differences will be clear but still within reach, and their driving style is closer to yours.

The fastest loaded lap becomes the reference. The Delta column in the table and the time delta chart compare every lap with it. To change it, press Set Ref on another lap's row (on a phone, it's in the ⋮ menu).

Compare laps in the same car and similar conditions. Weather and tyre badges in the table help you spot a wet lap or a different compound that would make the comparison unfair.

Step 3: Find the corner that costs the most

Look at the Time Delta chart at the top. It shows how far behind the reference you are at each point of the lap.

• Line going up: you are losing time in that part of the track.
• Line going down: you are gaining time.
• Flat line: you are as fast as the reference there.

The final value is the lap time gap, but the shape is what matters. Look for the steepest climbs. Often two or three corners hold most of the gap. The sector times in the table (fastest sectors are highlighted in purple) give the same hint at a coarser level.

Move your mouse over the charts. A vertical hairline follows the cursor through every chart and a dot for each lap moves along the track map, so you always know where on track you are looking. On a phone, slide one finger sideways across the charts.

Step 4: Zoom into one corner

The full lap squeezes a lot of detail into a small space. Zoom in on the corner you found:

• Charts: click and drag sideways across the charts over the part you want, from a bit before the braking zone to a bit after the exit. All charts and the map zoom to that section. On a phone, pinch with two fingers.
• Map: scroll the mouse wheel over the map to zoom and drag to move it. The 2D/3D switch appears for tracks with detailed layout data.
• Back to the full lap: double-click the charts, press Esc or use Reset Selection. Reset Map (or a double-click on the map) recentres the map.

Work on one corner at a time. Trying to fix the whole lap at once is the most common reason beginners give up on telemetry.

Step 5: Read the corner

Zoomed into a corner, read the charts in the order you drive it: braking, turn-in, middle, exit.

Speed

The Speed chart is the main story. Every corner looks like a valley.

• Where the speed starts to drop is your braking point. If your line drops earlier than the reference, you brake earlier.
• The bottom of the valley is your minimum corner speed. A lower minimum is very common for beginners: braking too much and then crawling through the apex.
• The climb out of the valley is your exit. If the reference climbs earlier or more steeply, it gets back on the throttle sooner. A slow exit costs time all the way down the next straight, which is why the delta often keeps rising long after the corner.

Throttle and brake

On the Throttle & Brake chart, throttle is solid and brake is dashed.

• Brake shape: good braking is a sharp, hard initial press, then a gradual release as you turn in. A slow build-up to full brake wastes the metres where the car can brake hardest.
• Trail braking: the brake fading out while you start steering helps the car turn. A brake line that ends abruptly before the steering starts means you finish braking, coast and then turn.
• Coasting: a gap where neither pedal is pressed. Small gaps are normal, long ones are lost time.
• Throttle on exit: look for the point where throttle starts rising and how smoothly it reaches 100%. Lots of on-off-on means the car isn't balanced or you're unsure of the grip.

Steering

Smooth, single movements on the Steering chart are fast. Saw-tooth corrections mean the car slides: wiggles near the apex usually point to understeer, quick opposite-direction corrections on exit to oversteer. Using a lot more steering than the reference for the same corner is a sign you're fighting the car instead of letting it rotate.

Gear and RPM

Compare which gear you use at the slowest point. One gear too high and the car bogs down on exit; one too low and the rear may spin up. Upshift points that differ from the reference can also show where you're losing a little time on every straight.

More channels

Configure Charts adds more data such as tyre temperatures, tyre pressures, brake temperatures, suspension travel and ride height. Leave them hidden at first. They become useful when you start working on car setup (see below).

Turn what you see into one change

Write down one conclusion per corner, in plain words, and try it on track:

What you see	What it means	Try this
Speed drops earlier than the reference	You brake too early	Brake a few metres later, using a marker at the side of the track
Lower minimum speed, same braking point	You over-slow the car	Release the brake earlier and more gently
Throttle comes in later	Poor exit	Get the car turned earlier, then go to throttle sooner
Delta grows on the straight after a corner	The exit was slow	Look at the corner before the straight, not the straight itself
Lots of steering corrections	The car is sliding	Smoother inputs first; if it persists, look at setup

Best practices from race engineers

• Analyse clean laps. A lap with an off, a big moment or traffic will show huge differences that teach you nothing. Laps marked INVALID are usually a poor reference.
• Compare like with like. Same car, same track layout, similar tyres and weather. A different car turns the comparison into car differences, not driving differences.
• Biggest gain first. Start with the corner where the delta climbs the most. Usually that's a slow corner before a long straight.
• Distance, not time. Charts in Flowix are plotted along the lap distance, so the same point on the x-axis is the same place on track for every lap. That is what makes the comparison fair.
• Inputs explain speed. The speed chart tells you where you lose time; the pedals and steering tell you why. Always look at both.
• One change per run. Change one thing, drive 5–10 laps, then check the delta again. If you change three things at once, you won't know which one worked.
• Consistency before speed. Compare your own laps from the same session too. If your braking points jump around by 20 metres, fix that first; a consistent driver improves much faster.
• Don't copy blindly. A faster driver may use a different line or setup. Use their lap to find where time is, then work out an approach that suits you.

How car setup shows up in telemetry

Driving technique is where most lap time is for beginners, and it's worth sticking with the default setup until you're consistent. But once you are, the car itself starts to matter, and telemetry is how you tell the difference between "I made a mistake" and "the car is doing this every lap". A few examples:

Brake bias

Brake bias sets how braking force is split between front and rear. With too much towards the front, the front tyres lock or the car won't turn while you're still on the brake: you'll see the brake line ending early and lots of steering at turn-in. Too far back and the rear gets unstable under braking, visible as quick steering corrections in the braking zone. If your sim reports it, the Brake Bias chart shows the value, which is handy if you adjust it from the wheel during a lap.

Tyre pressures

Each tyre works best in a narrow pressure and temperature window. On Tyre Pressures and the tyre temperature charts, a tyre that keeps rising through a stint was started too low; one that never warms up won't grip. Compare Inner, Mid and Out temperatures: a hot middle usually means too much pressure, hot edges too little, and a large inner-to-outer difference points to camber.

Anti-roll bars and understeer

Softening the front anti-roll bar (or stiffening the rear) helps the car turn in. If you consistently need more steering than the reference in the middle of slow corners and your minimum speed is lower, the car is understeering. After a bar change, look for less steering and a higher minimum speed in that same corner.

Rear wing and downforce

More wing gives grip in fast corners but costs top speed. Comparing two setups, look at the Speed chart: the low-wing lap is faster at the end of the straights, the high-wing lap carries more speed through fast corners. The delta chart tells you which trade-off wins at this track.

Gearing

If the Gear & Engine RPM chart shows you hitting the rev limiter long before the braking point, top gear is too short. If you never reach top gear, it's too long. A corner where you're stuck between two gears is also a sign the ratios could fit the track better.

Ride height and suspension

Ride Height and Suspension Travel show how the car moves over bumps and kerbs and under braking. A car that runs out of travel or drops very low under heavy braking can bottom out, which feels like a sudden loss of grip. A car that's too stiff skips over kerbs, visible as spikes in suspension travel together with steering corrections.

Every sim and car reacts differently. Make one setup change at a time and confirm it in the telemetry, just like a driving change.

Let AI do the reading

Reading telemetry is a skill that takes a while to build. If you're new to sim racing, an AI assistant is often the easier way to start: connect it to your Flowix account, ask a simple question and it reads the telemetry for you, then explains what it found in plain words. You can keep the charts open next to the chat and check what it tells you, which is a great way to learn reading them yourself.

Questions you can start with:

Which corner costs me the most time?

What does the time delta chart actually show?

Is my braking too cautious?

Is my car understeering? Should I change the setup?

Set it up with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini (free plan works) or a private local model in LM Studio.

Quick checklist

1. Open your best clean lap.
2. Add a slightly faster lap in the same car.
3. Find the steepest climb on the time delta.
4. Zoom into that corner.
5. Read braking, minimum speed, exit, in that order.
6. Pick one change and drive 5–10 laps.
7. Come back and check if the delta got smaller.