Originally Posted by George Knighton
Since an upshift will keep you on the cam, though, do you think that there's a possibility that being in fourth with room to accelerate might be a better choice than being at the top of third w/no room to move w/out shifting?
I guess you can tell that's prompting the witness.
The feeling I get is that I'm better off at the bottom of fourth because there's room to get faster w/out unsettling the car.
There are two different issues: (a) which gearing setup provides better acceleration, and (b) the TIMING of the shifts.
Regarding (a), there is no doubt that a stock R&P in third gear provides better acceleration than a shorter R&P in fourth gear.
However, regarding (b), the shift points occur at different speeds with the two setups. At any particular track, it's possible that the shift points in one setup or the other may come at the "wrong" time in certain turns, so that it's not really where you want to be shifting (because, as you imply, unsettling the car may be a problem in certain turns). However, this will vary from one track to another; even at a given track, changing the shift points is likely to help at some turns, and hurt at others.