Understeer 1: Introduction to Understeer Control

Objective of the Drill

For this first sim drill, the objective is simple: induce and maintain an understeer. The practice area features multiple circular reference lines representing different diameters—20 meters, 30 meters, 40 meters, 50 meters, and so on. These lines serve as guides for executing the understeer exercise at various speeds and radii.

Starting with the 20-Meter Circle

We begin with the first line at 20 meters diameter. The initial approach involves selecting second gear and finding a speed where the car starts understeering. Once understeer is induced, the goal is to maintain throttle position precisely to follow the line. If you accelerate a little bit more, the car starts going wide. If you lift, the car starts to turn more.

During this exercise, we're really abusing the front tires just to feel the understeer and to understand that when you do understeer, your pedals matter significantly. The key relationship to understand is: if you release throttle, the car turns in; if you accelerate a little bit more, the car turns less. This drill helps you understand the work between the pedals and the rotation when the car gets into understeer.

Maintaining the Limit

At approximately 55 km/h (or mph, depending on the simulator), the car reaches the limit of the front tires. At this point, the car is scrubbing the front tires significantly, but it's not on the limit of the rear tires. The technique requires keeping the steering fixed and controlling the line through throttle inputs only.

Progressing to Larger Circles

After becoming comfortable with the initial exercise, the next step involves gaining a little bit of speed and attempting the same technique on the next line. With increased speed, you should turn in more steering initially just to verify that you're actually on the limit of the front and understeering, then begin adjusting with the pedals.

Adjustment Techniques

Initially, you may make fairly fast changes to achieve noticeable adjustments on the line. However, if you make too slow changes, the car goes wide when you lift, then goes down, and when you try to accelerate while going fast, it becomes difficult. The proper technique involves:

• Adjust your steering to stay on the line initially

• Gain speed until you reach understeer

• Adjust with the pedals to maintain the line

This technique might take some time at first, but it's super useful to master.

Power Management and Traction Control

On high-powered cars, special care must be taken with throttle application. If you just smash the throttle, you'll engage the traction control and potentially lose control. The traction control may save the car from spinning, but you really want to make sure you're not gaining too much throttle to induce the understeer. Proper understeer happens with a little bit of throttle, not excessive throttle application.

Wide Line Exercise (Third Gear)

The next progression involves selecting a very wide line and executing the same exercise in third gear. The process remains consistent:

• Induce understeering

• Lift to tighten the line

• Choose and commit to a specific line

• Use lift and accelerate inputs alternately to adjust

• Find a constant speed to stay close to the chosen line

Perfection is not required—the goal is to understand the concept of understeer and how the pedal works to allow line adjustment.

High-Speed Behavior

At higher speeds on wider lines, the car's behavior changes. If you accelerate all the way at higher speeds, the car won't spin because it doesn't have enough power to induce a spin in that situation. You only spin if you accelerate too much when speeds are low, because at low speeds there's still a lot of torque and power available to induce the spin.

Speed-Dependent Throttle Control

The difficulty of this exercise varies with speed due to available torque:

Lower Speeds

At lower speeds, there is less room to adjust because there's a lot of torque available. The throttle range that keeps the car on the limit is narrower, making the exercise somewhat more difficult. Smaller throttle inputs result in larger changes in the car's behavior.

Higher Speeds

At higher speeds, the exercise becomes easier because the throttle range you use is much wider. The car operates at higher speeds with less power available relative to the speed, so you have to make bigger adjustments on the throttle to adjust the line. You must play much more with the throttle because the car doesn't have as much power available at these speeds, requiring more throttle movement to execute the exercise properly.

Success Criteria

You can consider this exercise successful when you meet the following criteria:

• You can maintain the line by adjusting only the pedals, not the steering

• You can confirm that the steering is fixed and maxed out

• The tires are actually understeering

• You can adjust the line with the pedals alone

• You can maintain this technique and complete two, three, or four laps on the line by just adjusting and working on precision with your right foot

Once you achieve these objectives consistently, the exercise is complete and you can proceed to the next sim drill.