9 replies to this topic

[SlowDrivr]

During the European GP this last weekend, one of the commentators (Mike Joy?) stated that the Nurburgring is an understeering track or causes understeer. I've heard that from other commentators in F1 and CART that a track causes under/oversteer.

My understanding is that the under/oversteer balance is a property of the car, not the track.

So what's this mean? Is there such a thing as an under or oversteering track and what characteristics cause it?

[fly]

I'm not sure, but I think this makes sense:

If the track is bumpy, then the tyres are loosing grip in a chicane, and you can't turn as much as you'd like.

Allso getting over a bend (happens two or three times at the Nurburgring) the car gets lighter and some grip dissapears from the tyres. Result: Understeer.

I experienced these problems in my f1 Racing Game (Monaco Grand Prix RS2) - so maybe it's the same in "real life" !!!

At Daily F1 they write about the Nurburgring:

Set up :

Medium Downforce settings. The circuit contains a blend of fast straights and high speed corners with a lot of understeer, meaning that soft front springs are required and a lot of front wing.

[SlowDrivr]

That's true but as soon as your rear wheels go over the crest then they become light and the car should be back neutral or oversteer. Still doesn't make sense to me.

[fly]

Well, when the car goes over the crest, it becomes lighter. At that moment the grip of all the wheels are reduced. I think this makes the car understeer (if it turns in that moment), or am I wrong?

[SlowDrivr]

It depends on which wheels lose the most grip. If the fronts lose more, it would tend towards understeer and vice versa.

Based on my own experience going over a crest very fast and trying to turn right after, cars tend to oversteer unless the throttle is applied. I don't understand why oversteer though for the same reasons I stated above.

[Ursus]

When you go over a crest first your front end will get light causing some temporary understeer, but when the rear go over the fronts have gotten the grip back and the rear gets light causing oversteer.Understeering is not anything dramatical, but if the rears loose grip you need to correct by counter steering and/or applying some throttle to make the car 'sit' a bit on its rears.

Don't know what makes a track understeering though, maybe lack of camber in the turns.

[Yelnats]

I am not sure what they mean by an understeering track but I know what and under steering corner is. It usually involves a tightening radius turn that requires the car to be progressivly slowed as the car reaches the exit. This means running around the turn on a trailing throttle and scrubbing off speed with understeer. This is the exact opposite of an increasing radius turn (like the Parabolica at Monza) where the car is accelerated out of the turn and the rear end tries to break lose due to the extra loading on the rear tires.

Perhaps the "understeering track" has a lot of decreasing radii turns that require a setup so that the car performs at it's best while understeering thus the track designation.

[Frank R. Champs]

Hi,

I think I can help...

High speed corners and long, sweeping corners tend to be considered understeering corners.

At a race track with a lot of high speed corners, the driver and team will want to remove some grip from the front of the car, to allow the cars to understeer through the fast corners. Understeer provides a bit of a safety net in those high speed corners, and an oversteering car is much more difficult to control at very high speeds, even for a Formula 1 driver.

Long, sweeping corners tend to cause understeer because of the way the power is applied. Oversteer is caused when the driver suddenly applies power, but a long corner requires a very gradual application of power. The driver will find himself travelling through the corner at a constant throttle, and if he applies a little more power, which he is always trying to do, the car will typically begin to run wide, or understeer.
Also, once a car takes a "set" in its cornering attitude, it is more likely to understeer, and a car takes much more of a set in fast corners.



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Frankie

[bigblue]

wouldn't this also have something to do with the track surface? track surfaces with lots of grip, I think would tend to be oversteering and those with less grip would tend to lead to understeer in the corners as the front tires would not be able to bite and lead to a "push" in the corners.

[HartleyHare]

The track cannot be understeery or oversteery: some cars will responds to bumps/low grip by oversteering, some by understeering. It is ultimately the balance of the car that is exposed by the vagaries of the track and not vice versa.