How to "catch" over/understeer on the steering wheel?

[Daniel Zanella]

Hi guys,

I'm relatively new on sim racing world and I'm trying to improve my skills. I know it's not from a day to another but I am really worried about the basics and I guess my question barely has an answer or some of you maybe laugh why it's a dumb question but here it goes...

I know it's more about how fast you can feel and react to it, but since I'm using a steering wheel I notice that I often loses car control entering or getting out of a corner, but is there any procedures (a step-by-step recommendation) or even a way to train it in order to improve it?

I'm not considering here some variables like different car behaviors, the type of the road or even the steering wheel I'm using, just because some cars looks impossible to drive even in a straight line LOL...(Scion FR-S Rocket Bunny from Project CARS).

I'm know the basics about it and the theory itself but I'm looking for some thing more practical.

There's a lot of videos on the internet we see some fast movements on the steering wheel correcting but I can't catch it by the car response through the wheel (a G29).

BTW...It's an idiot question from an idiot rookie sim racer, but it is what it is...lol

Appreciate your help guys.

 

[ouvert]

Basically: counter steer, modulate throttle, strighten or counter-counter steer just as you tyres are gaining grip again ..

Maybe you are forgetting to counter-counter steer ... as you are countersteering you wheels are pointing oposite way you turned, but as you regain grip, you start turning to the other side and you need to straighten them up or even counter steer again

With some cars or before you will feel confident enough to do so, don`t lift off/brake and turn at the same time and learn the relation between throttle and steering (basically as you are straightening steering progresively go on throttle) ..

If you are braking, brake harder at first and than ease of brake pedal progressively as you are slowing down.

Some cars don`t need too much input to steer and are steered by throttle and often you need to put little counter steer to overcome the mass transfer after turn ..

Step by step (very general):
1. slowing on straight with braking, easing of brake as you are slowing down
2. turn in
3. on apex, start turning out and go on throttle (how fast depends on car, setup, temps, surface grip level, assists, tyre wear)

If oversteer happens in turn in (you either locked up rear or lighten rear so it has too little grip, or forget to blip throttle) than:
1. counter steer
2. modulate throttle
3. as you feel rear is getting grip back, counter counter steer /straighten ...

If it happens on exit (you probably lost traction due too much throttle aplication)
1. ease of throttle and modulate it
2. counter steer
3. counter counter steer/ straighten

In FWD cars it is different, than counter steer, add throttle, and counter counter steer car will follow where your wheels are pointing (as long as you have grip on front tyres). Also if you oversteer in FWD car, it is probably lift-off oversteer ..

Feeling is limited but eventuelly you`ll get feeling for that car and somehow know what to do even if you turn of FFB ..
Also check if your FFB strength is not too high so you are clipping it (loosint info) and also than it is harder to fight oversteer and mass transfer is too interfeering with your steering .. find a sweet spot between information and comfort ... but that is a personal preference

 

[Skazz]

I think there's one thing you need to start off with, and that's listening to tyre noise.

Pretty much every sim gives you audio cues when the tyres are starting to lose grip, and those cues should trigger you to be alert. The second stage is that the car stops travelling in the direction it's pointing, and you feel changes in the FFB. But if you try and react just to the FFB you are probably going to be too slow, because the car was telling you what was happening earlier.

Correcting slides is always about reacting quickly enough. Reacting quickly is easiest if you know it's coming, isn't it?


P.S. Assetto Corsa has a known issue that if you don't set prerendered frames to 1 there's quite a lot of latency. Some guys have found that it was impossible to use without that change. I suggest you look around on this thread on the AC forums for how to do that: http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/fps-and-perceived-lag.1481/
Same thing applies to pCARS but less likely to go wrong. Make sure you have vsync disabled and max prerendered frames is set to 1 in game.

 

[Daniel Zanella]

Thank you very much @ouvert and @Skazz. At least for me the theory is a bit clear now but it still difficult to put it in practice and I guess my english isn't good enough and that making it all even more difficult LOL.

I used to read some amazing websites like DriveFast and search for some videos to see it more clearly, but I didn't found a single video that could help me.

Sometimes I think it's all about talent. LOL

Yesterday I was doing some career events on pCARS and I tried to be more accurate when noticed the car slip and I was slightly better than before, but it's not consistent as I want to be.

By the way...Thank you all...I still searching for some practical tips on Youtube...=)

 

[Ho3n3r]

Thank you very much @ouvert and @Skazz. At least for me the theory is a bit clear now but it still difficult to put it in practice and I guess my english isn't good enough and that making it all even more difficult LOL.

I used to read some amazing websites like DriveFast and search for some videos to see it more clearly, but I didn't found a single video that could help me.

Sometimes I think it's all about talent. LOL

Yesterday I was doing some career events on pCARS and I tried to be more accurate when noticed the car slip and I was slightly better than before, but it's not consistent as I want to be.

By the way...Thank you all...I still searching for some practical tips on Youtube...=)

Sounds like you just need to do way more laps tbh. It comes with time, and it becomes more and more intuitive. Most of the time you don't have time to even think about it.

 

[Daniel Zanella]

Indeed I agree with it too but sometimes I feel like no matter how many laps I complete, the errors are the same...Even when the objective is improve my lap times. 10, 20 laps without any improvement...It's not the motivation I need LOL but I also know that 100, 200 laps sometimes isn't enough to master a circuit, a car or both.

Sometimes you need to be a millisecond better to motivate the next 10 laps. =(

BTW it's a really worth advice too...Maybe I'm being a bit rushed on my improvement...

Thank you again guys! =)

 

[Skazz]

When you are looking for more time, it's all about learning to take more speed through corners. Which means learning how to keep the car balanced so that you maximize grip, so that you carry more speed.

I know many people start off thinking faster cornering is about braking as late as possible. In reality braking late puts too much weight over the front wheels, causes you to understeer, which causes you to have to slow down too much and not take the ideal line through the corner. Slowing down earlier, turning in from as wide as possible, and just spending lots of time on steering accuracy will ensure you can take an ideal line through a corner and keep the speed up.

 

[Slalom823]

A couple thoughts to consider for both improving lap times as well as car control. Start off with a slower rwd car that doesn't have too much grip or any downforce. Stick with the same track for a little bit. Start slow and ease into things. Try to be consistent, increase speed, and then let the car slide a small amount from either lift off oversteer or power on oversteer. Sliding the car and catching it, or even moreso controlling it while sliding is done by controlling weight transfer through the throttle and steering. Ultimately improving should be the fun part, it is challenging, but enjoyable. I would suggest that you learn more about car control theory. A very good video is going faster by skip barber. It has a lot of good info, is enjoyable to watch, and has a section where they go over sliding then countering and recovering from a slide.

 

[Daniel Zanella]

Another great tips above, many thanks to you guys...

I will put some practical example that I've been experiencing last months LOL.

I will be in a championship (Should I? LOL) that will begin just in February...Then I started to train early because we all know the race schedule.

It will happen onto pCARS in DTM (Mercedes AMG C-Coupe DTM). The first race will be in Monza.

Since yesterday I did at least 50 laps. Some of them running on PC, some in PS4 with the saaame configuration, including force feedback features. I've tested some setup changes of course but I was more interested in understand the car behavior.

Some laps I could record the lap data. The last session I recorded THAT:

The selected lap is the fastest lap. Some guys that will run with me did 1:41...

50 laps and not a single sign of improvement...LOL...I tried some different breaking points, different cornering styles, more downforce, less downforce, more tyre pressure, less tyre pressure...anyway...

50 laps isn't too much but I guess it's enough to improve a millisecond.

Yesterday I was running and strangely I made "some mistakes" then...no wait...1:45.96...But today as you can see above, I'm not even close to that. Sadly I did not recorded that lap, but it would be useless, because I saw some hot laps into Youtube and I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong...

=(

BTW...Thank you again guys...I still reading all tips you gave over and over again.

 

[Slalom823]

If you can upload some video that shows one of your better laps I'm sure some folks could give some pointers. Something that shows the outside, maybe fixed from behind, and then an inside view or view that shows steering throttle and brake inputs.

However I would suspect you could probably work on corner exit speeds and using all of the track. (Watch the skip barber video, I bet that will help shave some time down)

 

[Daniel Zanella]

I will try to edit some key points of laps to optimize it and I will upload it for sure. It would be nice to have its analysis from you guys.

About the video I was already watching it and it has an amazing content indeed. Sadly I'm Brazilian and because of my intermediate english level I will miss something (maybe some important things) but it still a worth video with useful information. Thank you again for that.

I rarely pay attention in my driving style and if I doing something wrong even knowing it's obvious (LOL)...I was never been in a racing school or had some basics lessons about it and considering that I could be worse (I hope so).

One more time...Thank you @Slalom823.

 

[Ghoults]

It is not just about the steering. Oversteer can be caused by many things but the usual suspect is usually too abrupt power input.

On corner exits it is easy to make the car hard to drive and easy to spin if you go too hard on the throttle. This usually results in very very fast oversteer moment that is hard to predict so you are left to react to it just by your reflexes. Racecars are not driven by reflexes but by by feel and prediction. Going on the power smoother allows you to feel the car better during the transition from mid corner to exit and also makes the oversteer happen less sudden.

There are also differences between sims. Current version of assetto corsa is very forgiving in this regard and most of the time you just need to countersteer to save a slide.

On the other end of the spectrum you have iracing where counter steering as a technique doesn't fully work due to the extremity of the tire physics. In iracing saving a slide requires very fast but precise steering movements to counter the first slide and the tank slappers that always follow the initial slide. Due to the extremity of the tires you can't really save the car by feel but you need to learn to counter counter steer at the right moment to succesfully reduce the oscillations. If you start to counter counter steer when you feel the change in car rotation you are too late.

One technique that works really well in extreme sims like iracing is to use 100% of both brake and throttle at the same time. This will keep the rears of the car somewhat rotating while the fronts are locked. Due to the extreme drop of at high slip angles this will create very powerful moment with the car rotation which usually straightens the car out to the direction of the travel. Doing this when there are other cars behind you is of course risky but in the grand scheme of things will more often save your car than the more realistic countersteering method.

Another thing to remember is that you need to learn to cope with the car yawing and rotating. Not all oversteer requires to be instantly and forcefully corrected. Sometimes it can even make it worse. But the key is to avoid abrupt power inputs. With slow spooling turbo cars this is somewhat unavoidable but with na cars treat the throttle pedal with respect and the car will respect your inputs.

 

[Daniel Zanella]

Hey guys,

I don't know if I should create a new thread or if I can still posting here...anyway...here it goes.

Here's one of my laps e the "reference" lap from someone (not me of course LOL) below.