The High Groove - Cornering 101

[mwjr]

So...
1. Coming off the straightaway, I've got the throttle floor. Lift off the throttle.
2. Ease down on the break to slow down to cornering speed.
3. Coast through turn, at apex ease into the accelerator?

Is that about right?

[Bahnzo]

Quote: Originally Posted by mwjr

So... 1. Coming off the straightaway, I've got the throttle floor. Lift off the throttle. 2. Ease down on the break to slow down to cornering speed. 3. Coast through turn, at apex ease into the accelerator? Is that about right?

I'd say you ideally want to combine 1 & 2. While you are coming off the throttle you want to be coming on the brake. This keeps the car balanced and helps avoid any sudden shift in weight. Works for both oval and road racing.

Most times you never really want to be coasting through a turn. You are always fastest when you are braking to the last moment and then accelerating immediately after. This isn't always possible, but that's the idea anyways.

[CMH]

This is why I try to give every sport some respect no matter how much I dislike it. The size of this article and it's all about racing and not only that, but one small aspect of racing. Wow. Great job here, Terry. This is sports video game coverage.

[mwjr]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bahnzo

I'd say you ideally want to combine 1 & 2. While you are coming off the throttle you want to be coming on the brake. This keeps the car balanced and helps avoid any sudden shift in weight. Works for both oval and road racing. Most times you never really want to be coasting through a turn. You are always fastest when you are braking to the last moment and then accelerating immediately after. This isn't always possible, but that's the idea anyways.

OK, was trying this out yesterday, and I think I'm starting to get it.

But here's my dilemma: you and Terry mention the idea of braking vs. decelerating, with the former being a faster option to get you in and out of turns. But if I'm on the gas full-bore, and I come to a corner, I have to lift off the gas (i.e. decelerate), right? So does that mean I should wait until the latest moment, decelerate and squeeze the brake simultaneously?

[Hellisan]

Great article.... Love to read stuff like this.

[kennytomson]

Quote: Originally Posted by mwjr

OK, was trying this out yesterday, and I think I'm starting to get it. But here's my dilemma: you and Terry mention the idea of braking vs. decelerating, with the former being a faster option to get you in and out of turns. But if I'm on the gas full-bore, and I come to a corner, I have to lift off the gas (i.e. decelerate), right? So does that mean I should wait until the latest moment, decelerate and squeeze the brake simultaneously?

i'm a little confused on that as well. so there is a point during the lap that the driver will be pushing both pedals at the same time? it always seems during qualifying on TV that the HUD never has the red and green lit up at once. usally the driver will let up entirely off the gas and then brake (example below).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LvWWlAI6F8s&feature=related

[TCrouch]

It really depends on the track, and the driver, obviously. The basis for the entire thing is to keep the car's weight centered. Bahnzo and I disagree completely on the style. He thinks that there should never be a time that you're off both pedals, and I think that pushing it in way too hard leads to inconsistency and tearing up the tires unnecessarily. I tried to explain the safest and most consistent method for cornering, and I used to be of Bahnzo's mindset as well. It wasn't until a hardcore simracer buddy of mine showed up a few years back and turned faster laps on everything using my setups, my PC, and my equipment, that I was open for the explanation. He explained the "rolling through" concept, where you decelerate and coast through the corner, and it made perfect sense. If you drive it in as deep as possible, and overshoot the brake point the smallest bit, you're going to have to overbrake and lose time. If you are constantly going back and forth between gas/brake, you're going to be less smooth. Any time you have drivers with identical setups, the "roll through" method will beat out the late-in, hard brake setup with drivers of equal abilities. It's just too tough to save tires through an entire fuel run pushing a car so hard, but it can be done. The margin for error is just miniscule, and it's more of a hotlapping/qualifying style than actual racing.

As for trail-braking, where you have both feet working, it will vary from track to track. At a track like Phoenix (as in the Youtube vid) where you're going to dip into turn three pretty quickly, you don't have a ton of time to get happy with the pedals. There's a fraction of a second at the end of the backstraight where you'll see Jr. still on the throttle and applying brake, as with almost any graph that you'll see. If you spend too much time trying to balance the ratio of throttle-to-brake application, you're going to lose time anyway. The trick is to just get the car down to cornering speed as smoothly as possible, and not tearing up the rubber in the process. My method will vary from Bahnzo's (obviously), and tons of other people out there.

But for the people who would get the most out of the article (meaning newbies), it was based around keeping the car stable and smooth into and through a corner, and learning very simple practical applications for double-footing it help immensely for tracks later where they're needed. Even then, we're talking about a fraction of a second here, not a long, drawn out process that lasts forever.

[Jeff_Downey]

That's a catchy name for a racing column.