More oversteers equals quicker setup

[Caito]

In this article we can read the following:

The more oversteer a driver is comfortable with, the quicker the setup he can run.

I've been thinking for a while, but I don't understand why is that.

I know that the optimum setup can't be run (as said on one of RBR videos) because the car would be undriveable, unpredictable for the driver. But why would a setup with oversteer tendency would be faster than an understeer (or neutral) car?

[Jersey Tom]

I'd say you aren't interpreting the comment as the author intended. Slightly better description comes later...

“A lot of the performance limit of a car is set by stability; if your driver can't hang on to it, you have to introduce understeer in that zone. If you have a driver better able to deal with oversteer in zones that induce it, you'll have a less understeery car elsewhere and therefore more total grip over the whole lap. The great drivers – Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Michael Schumacher – all had that ability. Like-for-like, compared with other drivers, they wanted more front end.”

Few things you have to think about. First, it's ridiculous to just describe a car as just "neutral" or "understeer" or "oversteer." Balance and feel are a function of speed, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, and even vertical acceleration. You could be understeer on the brakes, neutral in pure steering, and oversteer on throttle. Or even in pure cornering you could be neutral, even understeer in slow easy maneuvers and oversteer in quick transitions. Beyond that, what drivers call "understeer" or "oversteer" is open to interpretation.

Second, a truly "neutral" car to many drivers probably won't feel "neutral." I could write a paper on this but in short, the driver's job is to poke and prod at finding the limit. On a RWD car a good bit of this is feeling corner exit out with the throttle... and on a "neutral" RWD car with a lot of power it will be VERY easy to provoke it into stepping the rear out or spinning. "Neutral" can very much feel like an "oversteer" car, and to get a "neutral" feel you will probably need to dial in some amount of understeer.

For that reason, drivers who can cope with a car that's very finely balanced and easy to piss off, will have engineers get the car closer to a theoretical max. A virtual driver, as the article implies, can be tuned to be ridiculously good at such things, moreso than any human.

Then you have certain cases where you need heaps of understeer to go fast just because it's the only way of getting power down on exit.

[strad]

My take is..
Bottom line is that the more push you have the less confident the driver will feel.
The more understeer the more he has to lift or hit the brakes to maintain control.
I kinda liken it to the old saw:
Understeer scares the driver, oversteer scares the passenger. Obviously we only here have to worry about scaring the driver,
just my opinion and that from a guy that really doesn't like much understeer.

[raymondu999]

I think it's basically just acknowledging that it's generally impossible to have a balanced car through every corner of the entire lap - and that it's better to have a neutral car in some corners; oversteer in others rather than having understeer in some and neutral in others.

Not a view I necessarily personally subscribe to - mind you.

[marcush.]

JT really knows the job.

My personal take:the quicker the corner the less you want oversteer as you simply are limited by the opposite lock in the speed you can go.
In slow corners you want a bit of oversteer as it makes for a more agile car with less lock needed to make the corner ,but of course if your oversteer is hurting forward traction you are lost again...

[raymondu999]

JT - if you have understeer; wouldn't that just mean you go on the power later? I don't get why understeer allows you easier power out.

[strad]

My personal take:the quicker the corner the less you want oversteer as you simply are limited by the opposite lock in the speed you can go.
In slow corners you want a bit of oversteer as it makes for a more agile car with less lock needed to make the corner ,but of course if your oversteer is hurting forward traction you are lost again...

Well put =D>

[raymondu999]

the quicker the corner the less you want oversteer as you simply are limited by the opposite lock in the speed you can go.

You don't want understeer too though - that would scrub speed off. You probably want a (quote unquote) "neutral" car.

In slow corners you want a bit of oversteer as it makes for a more agile car with less lock needed to make the corner ,but of course if your oversteer is hurting forward traction you are lost again...

Yep - entry oversteer; used correctly; could probably accelerate the car's rotation; allowing earlier power out; if you can regain traction that is.

[Roland Ehnström]

A neutral car is fastest, but impossible to achieve in all corners on the track. Oversteer is faster than understeer, because to a degree oversteer can be corrected by a skilled driver without losing much time, while all you can basically do if the car understeers is back off the throttle.

Hence, a setup that oversteers more often than it understeers, is faster than a setup that understeers most of the time.

[raymondu999]

Jenson said a while back that the way Rubens deals with oversteer is to slap on a lot of lock - though he didn't say if it was opposite lock. The front loses bite as it understeers; and the two kind of cancel out - I wonder. could you "counter" understeer as such? Maybe rotating the car by having a heavy right foot and actually INDUCING power oversteer? Not on the exit; mind you - the traction would suffer too much, most probably.

[Just_a_fan]

JB said that Rubens whacked on a whole lot of lock to make the front understeer. Must have been additional lock rather than opposite lock because opposite lock is the normal thing to do and something JB would at least have been able to do successfully even if he's not comfortable with it (as he's said in the past).

It's an interesting technique from Rubens and possibly one indicator of why he never quite managed to turn his early raw speed in to more wins. It's not a normal reaction in a powerful rear wheel drive car and not one a team which also runs Schuie would have necessarily dealt with too well (as he was a real loose tail guy).

It's reminiscent of the FWD touring cars which bang in a footful of throttle if they start to get sideways as this can then pull the car out of the slide. Again, the usual reponse is opposite lock but that is very slow in FWD cars as you're off the power for so long.

[Just_a_fan]

JT - if you have understeer; wouldn't that just mean you go on the power later? I don't get why understeer allows you easier power out.

In a powerful, light, RWD car, understeer can be countered by using the throttle to get the rear end engaged. So you can neutralise the understeer as you apply throttle and you're less likely to have the back end come round on you. If the car is neutral, or worse, oversteery on exit then you're already closer to the limit of what the rear tyres will give you so you need to take some of the lateral load off before applying lots of throttle. So you're later on the throttle.

That would be my simple understanding anyway

[mahesh248]

The article talks about over-steering drivers putting in a lot of steering and happy to do so, but I have seen Alonso doing the same with an Under steering - Championship winning Renault in 2005 and 06 .

[raymondu999]

I always thought Alonso used the understeer to "counter" his steering - if he didn't have that understeer the car would spin out from the aggressiveness of his input

[timbo]

The article talks about over-steering drivers putting in a lot of steering and happy to do so, but I have seen Alonso doing the same with an Under steering - Championship winning Renault in 2005 and 06 .

That's different "lots of steering". In an oversteering car you have to be ready to work with the steering a lot -- not in amplitude but in frequency, putting a lot of correction as you go. OTOH if you have understeer you have to turn wheel more for the same response.
And as far as Alonso goes, he seems to prefer a little more steering ratio than other drivers, so a lot of that impression is simply cause he's having a slower steering.