Let's think a little bit about a practical challenge in racing. In the last lesson, we saw how adding a little bit of brakes, low pressures, makes the car turn more. But we're in the centripetal circuit, driving at a constant speed and then adding brakes. That situation is very rare in racing. Generally, we come from a higher speed, we decelerate, and then we start through a braking. How can you feel while releasing the brakes, the effects that we can feel very easily while we add brakes in the controlled environment? That's the challenge.

How can you still feel the way trends are going forward when you're starting to release the brakes? Because as you release the brakes, the weight is still forward. It's just going less forward now. So essentially it's going back, but it's still a lot on the front and you're controlling that release to get the feel that you get when you add brakes in the centripetal circuit.

And why are we talking about this when the lesson discusses steering? Because the only way to really feel that while you're coming from hard braking into trail braking is by doing the steering inputs correctly. And that's what we're going to explore in this lesson.

Understanding Steering Input Fundamentals

At this point, we already talked about how you don't want to use too much steering to try to get the car to point because that only destroys the front tires. So turning in too quickly, steering not ideal, especially if you're trail braking. But there will be situations where you want to steer more quickly. Before we get into the examples, let's put names on the concepts we'll be working with.

Dissecting Steering Concepts

The car tells us a lot through the steering wheel. The steering input is traditionally measured in degrees of angle. You will most likely hear "I turn less than you" rather than "I turn with less force than you." Let's expand the ways we can communicate with the car and think outside the box a little bit.

Gripping the steering wheel: This is how hard we grip our hands on the steering itself. You can, for example, grip the wheel very hard while not turning a single degree. Obviously, this is not efficient. Too much grip means less sensitivity to what the car is telling you, less precision when adding steering input, and it actually could hurt you. The other end of this spectrum would be driving with your pinkies, which is a famous advice from many coaches around the world to induce the driver to use just enough grip, no more.

Steering angle: That is the state of the steering at a given moment measured in degrees, like 45 degrees, 90 degrees, etc.

Steering force: The force added by our hands and arms to initiate the movement of the wheel. Note that this is not the grip. We need to grip the wheel to be able to apply some force, just enough to not slide the hands around it. Simply put, we add angle by using force. You grip the wheel and to turn right, you pull it down with the right hand and up with the left hand. Without force, the wheel does not turn. And more force makes you steer more quickly. Less force, it will turn more slowly.

This may sound obvious, since we're bringing some basic concepts to the surface, but you may figure out extremely important habits on your own driving if you think about it more analytically, like identifying inefficient force applications, unnecessary tension, and that will help you develop better sensitivity to oversteer mid-corner.

Light Hands Technique

Now, let's talk about light hands technique. Basically, you will forget steering angle. Don't think about steering angle anymore. Steering angle, from now on, is a consequence of what you do with the steering. It's not the goal. It's a consequence. The goal, the tool that you're going to use, is going to be the force.

So you grip just enough and you think about how hard you turn against the force it back. Force it back is always going to be there resisting a little bit, and you have to feel it. If you go way too much and you kind of ignore the force it back, then you're not using the light hands technique properly. If you use the force right, then the angle will be correct. That's the magic.

You don't have to think about the angle. You just think about how much grip you want on the front tires, how much you're managing it, and whether you're on the limit or not. Only on that force it back peak, and then your angle will be right. Your steering will be increasing in the right way. Your steering angle will be moving around up and down in the right way, even if you're not actually thinking about how much you're turning, just about how hard you're turning.

That does not mean that you should be extremely relaxed all the time in a way that would even prevent you from being firm and determined with your steering. You can still grip the steering very well in some situations. You can still force the steering sometimes here and there. I just want you to be aware so that you don't death grip the wheel all the time, and you don't feel the force it back.

When Light Hands Technique Matters Most

Now this is only going to be very useful when you have a car that is on the limit. So if the car is super understeering, you kind of don't feel too much the difference if you death grip the wheel or you don't. Like the car is always going to be more or less on that limit of the front tires and the predictable line and it's all good.

But as soon as you get a little bit fast and you start adventuring yourself in more oversteering cars, as soon as you get on that neutral steer, when the car starts sliding a little bit, every degree of steering angle will count. And it's in that moment that the micro corrections are going to make a huge difference. And that is when you go from a top 10 driver to a top 5% driver to a top 1% driver.

When you do get on the limit, you have to correct sometimes because when you get into oversteer or neutral steer, you have to maintain it there. So you're going to start doing a lot of corrections.

Understanding Force Feedback

Self-Centering Force

I decided to create a distinction between the types of countersteer corrections that you can do while driving. If you relax your hands, you're going to feel the force of the back and that's going to help you communicate with the car. But what are the forces? What can we read from the force of the back?

First, we have the self-centering force. So if you just completely relax your hands and drop the wheel, it's going to go straight. If you turn a little bit and drop the hand, it's going to go back to straight. Even if you're doing a kind of a slide and then drop the steering, it goes back to straight. That's the self-centering force.

So it's going to be there. Basically I'm turning this much here, right? So I'm creating some force. And then the force of the back right now is pulling back exactly the same force because the steering wheel is not moving. If I force more, then I'm now adding more force than the force of the back is doing. Why is that? Because the force of the back is telling me just how much the front tires are capable of holding. So that means I'm now abusing the front tires.

So if you feel a force and then as you add the steering, the force is the same, but you're adding steering and the force is kind of like a little bit unresponsive, that's because you're just sliding the front tires. Depending on the car, you can even feel it getting a little bit lighter. Depending on the simulator, you can get like super light. They have like an option where you use the understeer effect or whatever. So whenever you go above what the tires are capable of handling, the steering wheel gets super light.

That's not the case in iRacing. It gets a little bit lighter, but not so light. So it has to be a little bit more sensitive to it. In real life, that's kind of similar. It depends a lot on the car, but mostly I feel that it gets a little bit light, but not so light.

Load Transfer Effects on Force Feedback

Self-centered steering: I'm turning to the corner and the force of the back is forcing exactly the same but opposite amount of force. If I start forcing less, now the force of the back is stronger than me. So that means now it's back to straight. Perfect. That's the self-centering force.

Now, if we keep exactly the same force, but now we start adding the brakes, tiny bit—what is happening? I swear I was pulling the steering exactly the same force. The steering force it back got stronger. Let me explain what happened. I was having X load on the front tires. Right now there's a fixed amount of load on the tires, on the front tires. Now, if I start braking, I add more load to the front tires. So the front tires have more grip. And because they have more grip, I can feel the extra grip in the force of the back and the force of the back gets stronger.

When the forces acting on the front tires are higher, you're going to feel more force of the back. So why am I telling you this? Because what's happening right now is not only the self-centering anymore. We have two forces. The force of the back now has two things. One is the self-centering. It's always going to be there because we're going straight. And then the forces on the tire always want to go straight.

But if I start braking a little bit and the car gets into a little bit oversteer, you can see that the force of the back pulls the steering past the center. And I swear I'm not pulling the car. I'm not pulling the steering to the other side. I'm still pulling it to the left. I'm pulling it to the left and the steering is still going right.

Passive vs. Active Countersteer

Passive Countersteer

This is what we're going to call passive countersteer. So passive countersteer is when the steering itself pulls to the opposite side due to the forces acting on the front tires. So when we get into a neutral steer, we get more grip on the front. The steering itself wants to correct it for you. If you got into a slide and when we drop the steering, it will correct it for you. Like no matter how big this slide—it corrects itself. It does not need human action to correct from a slide. This is passive countersteer. It's passive because it does not require action from a human.

Active Countersteer (Human Countersteer)

Now, what is the opposite of passive countersteer? That's actually human countersteer. It's like the human is pulling the steering to the other side. Now, should you do this? Or should you do a more relaxed approach where the passive countersteer already pulls the steering back? Let's talk about the differences.

Why Passive Countersteer Is More Efficient

Passive countersteer happens immediately, immediately, because it's physics. As soon as the forces change, the reaction is immediate. There is absolutely no delay. So it's going to be a lot more efficient if you compare to a human.

If I had absolutely no force it back, with zero force it back, if I can just slide and I try to correct without the force it back, it's slow. There's always going to be at least two tenths between what happens with the car and your reaction to it, because we're humans. We're slow. So the active countersteer depends on you noticing it—"Oh, I'm losing it"—and then you decide to correct. Active countersteer is a lot less efficient than the passive countersteer.

By the way, yes, in this situation, it is a big advantage to have a strong direct drive wheel. In my case, I'm doing all these examples with 11 Newton meter. But if you have a two Newton meter, then the passive countersteer is going to be very difficult to achieve. So you're going to have to do a little bit more actively.

Benefits of Smaller, Quicker Corrections

With passive countersteer, as soon as the car starts to lose the rear a little bit due to trail braking, due to everything, the steering tells me, the steering corrects itself. And if you allow this to happen, your corrections are going to be smaller and quicker, which means you're not going to get into a bad slide and then correct it. As soon as you get a small slide, if you allow the force it back to tell you what's happening by relaxing your hands, then the passive countersteer is going to happen when necessary. And that's the magic of it.

Keeping the Front Engaged

In these situations with the active countersteer, I pull the steering to the other side. That's terrible because we want to go left, right? So with the passive countersteer, I start braking a little bit and then the steering corrects me just enough, but I'm still focused. I'm still like, that's the direction I want to go. That's where the forces should be pointed. So with the passive countersteer, the front tires correct just enough.

There's a big problem with over correcting. Whenever you start pointing to the outside, for that fraction of a second where my tires were totally pointed to the opposite side of the corner, 50% of the car is working against you. 50% of the car is pointing towards the outside. But if you do a smaller correction, you can correct the balance of the car while still having the front tires working for you pointing the car towards the direction where you want. And that's what I call keeping the front engaged.

You need to keep them busy. You need to keep all four tires pointing to the direction that you want. So as soon as you do a big correction, you're way, way under the limit to correct an over the limit situation. So basically here, too much, 50% grip, now back to using all four tires. But if you do a correction like this, then you're doing small corrections, but the front tires are still pointing very close to that direction.

And sometimes you're doing a countersteer if you use the passive countersteer. Sometimes you do it without actually pointing to the outside. You're still pointing to the inside. You're just controlling it a little bit more, but you're still pointing to the inside. You always want all the four tires to be pointed to the inside.

Avoiding Snap Back

The problem of the active countersteer is that if you do it too much, the car slingshots to the other side. But if you do that passively, it's not going to happen unless you got into a really bad slide. Then this can happen even with passive countersteer. But if you get a bad one and then I drop it, you see, it comes back before it's slingshotting to the other side. If you do a big correction with your hands being relaxed, you're a lot safer from doing this, from throwing the car straight to the other side.

Of course, the passive countersteer is not going to do miracles. So you still need to be careful with the trail braking, with the engine braking, everything else that we're working on. You still need to nail everything. The passive countersteer is going to help you. It's going to be one more thing that's going to make your drive better.

Practical Application: Combining Multiple Concepts

This corner shows how light hands technique actually work. We can see a bunch of passive countersteer in this video. We can see the engine braking playing a big role. So a lot of lessons that you've seen in this course so far, they all happen simultaneously. Let's go through it very slowly bit by bit.

First thing, downshifting priority, lots of engine braking. Because of that, we have lots of trail braking, lots of engine braking. This car is already oversteering on entry, so we really don't need the steering. So what you see is just a tiny bit of steering. Just a tiny bit of steering is enough for the car to want to gain rotation on its own. So I don't want to force the steering too much. So I'm going to use light hands.

If you want to really nail this, get this car, do a few laps, make it oversteer with 1% steering and feel the car still wants to turn to the inside of the corner as the force it back corrects itself. If you can learn that finesse of just maintaining the countersteer while still pointing the car, while still forcing the steering a tiny bit to the inside even when the steering is actually pointing to the outside, that finesse is going to give you the edge.

Steering Speed: Trail Braking vs. Flat Out Corners

Now it's time to talk about how fast or slow we turn into corners and the best way to describe this is by showing you examples. Let's compare Sir Hamilton's lap at Silverstone in 2021. Initially I want to show you what he does with the steering when he's braking hard before the corner. Then I'm going to show you what he does with the steering when he's doing the corner flats.

Steering During Trail Braking

He starts turning quite slowly. He's braking here. Then he's starting to trail brake and he's starting to add the steering progressively more and more and more and more and more and more until he gets back on power here. So that's his maximum rotation point. Then he starts unwinding. That means he's doing the transition. He's doing the transition brakes and then starting to release the brakes, starting to add the steering.

Steering During Flat Out Corners

How should you steer though if you're on power? I wanted to see how fast he's going to turn into this corner because he's doing it flat. Right away. Look at how fast is his initial steering. Immediately goes like this. Why is that? Because the grip is already available.

If you're doing a corner flat you don't have to do it super slow. If the car has a soft suspension it has to be a little bit more slowly but it's still going to be a lot quicker than if you're trail braking. If you're trail braking it's like that slowly, but if you're not trail braking, if you're on power, then you can just load basically at the speed of suspension compression. So if the suspension is very soft then a little bit like this, but never as if it's trail braking.

What I'm trying to say here is that even if the car is super soft you still want to turn in quite fast compared to trail braking. But this is a Formula 1 so he has immediate grip. He has a very stiff suspension. Very fast steering application. But then if you go back here, a lot more progressive steering and adding and adding steering as the speed goes down.

I'm showing you this to say if you're trail braking to the corner, if you're coming from a hard braking phase, threshold braking phase, your steering should be very slow.

Steering Trace Patterns: Linear vs. Exponential

Now let's talk about how your steering trace should be. I want to create three scenarios here.

Scenario 1: Fixed Radius Circle

We have one scenario where we have a very thick circle which is of course you already know non-optimal and how the steering would look in this scenario. In this case, mathematically speaking, the steering in this scenario would be something like this, and then if you were to continue on a straight line after, just shoot out of the corner like that, the steering would look like this. So if you were to do a fixed circle then you would do literally like this because that's exactly how the car would turn at a fixed radius.

Scenario 2: Closing Spiral (U-Shaped, Linear Steering)

Now let's try a different scenario. Instead of doing a fixed radius circle we're going to do closing spiral, ellipse right. Now in this situation, the steering would look like this because we're gaining rotation and then we reach the peak rotation here and then we start spiraling up again on the exit.

Scenario 3: Aggressive Ellipse (V-Shaped, Exponential Steering)

Now let's make a third scenario with an even more aggressive ellipse. So instead of having a circle here we're going to have it very aggressive like this—ultra V-shaped line. Now in this third scenario here, the steering shape to match this line is not like this anymore. It's actually like this.

Linear vs. Exponential Steering

In this U-shaped line here we have a linear steering trace. In this V-shaped line here we have an exponential steering trace. So we're going to literally call this linear steering and exponential steering.

A lot of people don't really talk about that, but if the car does not have any downforce and it needs to build up the rotation so slowly and you really need to slow down a lot more before you really get the rotation grip, then your steering is going to look like this initially. So if you're driving a car with high downforce, formula car, maybe a GT3 is already closer to this, then you're going to have a more linear steering where you turn in a little bit faster compared to how slowly and progressively you build up the steering if the car has a low downforce.

The cool thing is that if you look for the peak resistance of the force feedback using the light hands technique and feeling that peak and staying there, not abusing the tires, you will see that the car will eventually want you to do that trace on the steering. So there's a lot of people out there who reach the steering trace, a very exponential steering, without having ever thought about it because they're doing other things right that eventually lead to this trace. It's good for you that you know that there is a trace and you have many tools now to achieve that more quickly, so use that to your advantage.

Turn-In Point Considerations

I don't want you to forget this: there's a big chance you are doing a linear steering even in a low downforce car right now. But now if you want to even try the exponential steering, you shouldn't do just this, because if you're just adjusting this you're forgetting the turning point. The turning point is earlier when you try the exponential steering approach.

This is a high downforce line here, we start turning in at this point. But when we do an exponential steering, when we do a V-shape line, we turn in way earlier. It's considerably earlier. That means your line when you try this V-shaped approach with an exponential rate should look more like this instead. Just don't forget that the turning point is going to be affected as well if you're trying it.

In the next lesson we're going to talk about how to deal with elevation changes and grip changes and what to do with all those things when you find more or less grip.