Is it ever possible that the fastest way through a corner would be by understeering through it? Or any other method ever faster than a normal slow in fast out approach?

 

Understeer = scrubbing speed so no. In slow out fast is a philosophy in which you practice as opposed to oversteer which is a setup or result of technique.

The answer to your question changes depending on type of racing. Preferred setup on a drift car vs road course vs autocross would be different - what style of driving are you refering to?

 

Mainly track, I was just curious if there were ever a situation like that.. I think I remember one article that were testing a couple cars on a course (maybe sti?) that said they actually got faster lap times when they were taking it through the course and understeering through some of the corners.

Also, just thinking about some of the laps the stig ran on the top gear track with the STi makes me wonder (not that he's the end-all for testing cars) but his laps are FILLED with understeer at nearly every corner.. Would it have been faster if he had just went slow in fast out every time? I'm sure he tried various methods and lines before they clocked his fastest lap.

 

In autocross slow-in fast-out isn't always the rule like it is in road racing. There are times where sacrificing exit speed to cut distance is a good tradeoff. There are other times where maintaining a high entry speed pays off in getting to the apex quicker. The reason exit speed is important in road racing is because each turn is followed by a long straight and you get to keep that extra speed down the straight. In autocross a lot of times you don't get to keep the extra speed for very long.

 

I agree. Usually you don't have long sweepers on autoX courses, so falling back on cutting distance on a road course can really help.

 

You may be thinking of the article they compared 3 WRX's (maybe STi's): spec, drift built and road course built.

In slow out fast was the fastest around a road course, the drifter was faster in some tight areas and the spec car lost points fro understeer.

GTLocke brings up a good point that in autox sometimes you just need to keep the go pedal to the floor and risk a little understeer to maintain momentum/rpms.

If you watch topgear a lot, you'll know they often curse understeer. Understeer is 'street safe' but not track friendly for many reasons. We spend a lot of money to give our cars more ability to rotate. The only time we really try to limit reasonable oversteer in an attempt to make a car more neutral is in poor traction scenarios which occur in various ways in racing.

 

Depends on your comfort level with oversteer and also the type of corner.

If you are an entry level driver or prefer a safer, more consistent set-up, a bit of understeer may be beneficial, regardless of corner.

For a high speed sweeper, it is usually better to have a neutral to slight understeer set-up. For a tight, low speed, technical section, it is better to have oversteer to get optimal rotation for quicker transitioning.

So, as usual, it depends.

 

I would add that the saying, "slow in, fast out" isn't really about the fastest way around a track; it's about not killing yourself.

 

Understeer is never a good condition because the only way to resolve it is to lift to some degree.

 

You want just the slightest bit of oversteer, ideally controllable with the steering wheel at full throttle, plus a little bit of lift-off step-out on corner entry. In the last few years I've been a shameless autox car *****, so I've gotten to drive a lot of people's setups. What I've generally found is that people don't drive their car hard enough and don't use weight transfer to make it rotate when they want it to, so they set it up way too loose so it rotates all the time.

 

Well, so I mentioned in an example earlier that a test of a Subaru wrx Sti wr1 or something understeered throughout the entire course. Does that mean that it would have been much faster if a different approach was taken, or was that the fastest way?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG5eRLlbHIU

Like I said, I'm not saying the stig is the final authority on testing cars but I'm sure he tried a variety of methods while they were clocking his time.

 

lol he is not understeering on purpose. sti's have always been known to understeer. Cant you tell by all the times they said o man look at that awful understeer that it is definitely something you dont want.

 

..Yes exactly.. I'm asking, is it definite that the laptimes would have been faster using a slow in fast out method or another method? I would think they would try a variety of different methods, because I remember they were testing one car that was plowing like crazy too and Clarkson said that he spoke with the stig and he said that this (plowing) was the fastest way through the course.
They don't just run the car once and then that's its lap time...

 

the thing is that some cars understeer even with the slow in fast out method. A nuetral turn is what you want. No oversteer or understeer, but definitely better if you have oversteer. When your understeering your not gripping the car right and also most of the time youll have to release the gas to get rid of the understeer which means thats speed lost. Check out the HKS time attack evo videos. You never see any understeer and that thing is the fastest time attack car right now. And once you get into supercar territory there will also be no understeer.

 

I was under the belief that any car won't understeer if it is going slowly enough.
So, is it faster to go through those corners understeering, or faster to go so slowly that there will be no understeer?
If the former, then in this case wouldn't it be faster to corner while understeering than compared to cornering at a speed which there is no understeer?