Speed Secrets: How Do You Sense The Limit?
Know whether you’re driving the car off the front or rear tires
Sim racers, because they can’t feel yaw (the rotation of the car as seen from directly above the car), tend to “drive the car off the front tires.” They initiate understeer so they can sense the car’s limit. They create that limit, then drive it. They sense the limit through the steering wheel.
Many, but not all, real-world drivers who have not used sims, “drive the car off the rear tires.” Rally drivers, sprint car racers, drifters... definitely drive off the rear tires, but so do many road racers. They sense the limits of the car more by the car’s yaw angle than by what they feel in the steering wheel.
As always, there are exceptions to these “rules,” but I’ve seen the data. Those drivers who started by driving sims tend to release the brake pedal quicker, generating a little understeer. That way they can sense what the car is doing through the steering wheel. Those who began driving karts or cars and then moved to using a sim, tend to want the rear of the car to initiate the turn to rotate the car — with a slightly higher slip angle than the front tires, so they feel and use the yaw angle to sense what the car is doing.
Which is best? Yes, it depends! They can be equally as effective, especially if you realize what you’re doing, and deliberately use it to your advantage.
A question that comes to mind is, “Can I sense understeer if I’m used to oversteer, if I drive the car off the rear tire?” In other words, without yaw, can you feel whether the car is understeering?
You can look at understeer as the lack of yaw, or possibly even “negative yaw” (I just made that up, but I think of it as I’m expecting the car to rotate/yaw — it’s not yawing, but it actually seems to yaw slightly in the opposite direction). From a vehicle dynamics perspective, that may never be possible, but a bad understeer (“pushing like a pig!”) can feel that way to a sensitive driver. Again, theory and textbooks may not agree one hundred percent, but what I’m talking about is what the driver senses, what they feel, what they perceive.
If you “drive the car off the rear tires,” with understeer, you’re going to feel as though the car is heading straight ahead — the rear tires are driving the car forward and the front tires have lost the “slip angle competition.” The front tires have a bigger slip angle than the rears (the front tires are sliding more than the rears).
Most top drivers prefer a hint of understeer in fast corners, and a hint of oversteer in slow corners. That’s certainly not a rule, and there are many exceptions to that thinking.
Immediately as you turn into a corner, do you prefer the car to have a hint of understeer or oversteer? Do you prefer to feel what the car is doing through the steering wheel, or with your internal gyro that senses the car’s yaw angle (many people talk about this as butt feel, but I know your sense of yaw is centered more in your head, with balance and proprioception, as well as changes in your visual picture)? Do you understand how you can influence this by the timing and rate of release of the brakes combined with the timing and rate of turning the steering?
Understanding how you sense the car’s limits is the first step in understanding how to manage it, and then drive it. Consider spending time on the track solely focused on feeling where you sense what the car is doing.
Ask yourself if you feel the changes mostly in the steering wheel, or in your body? Oh, and it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a simulator or a real car.
Great analysis and long overdue. I agree about slight understeer in fast corners and slight oversteer in slow. I can relate. I also find that as I gotten older that I have a greater need to reduce overseer in fast corners for self preservation!
That's interesting, certainly the first thing I do in a sim is try to make it oversteer. If it doesn't feel right, then I'm not interested any longer. I guess I'm more interested in an oversteer simulator than a car simulator!