Advanced Steering Tips: Understanding When to Turn Slowly vs. Quickly

In this lesson, we'll explore the nuances of steering application—specifically when to turn slowly versus when to turn quickly. We'll examine real-world examples that demonstrate some of the less intuitive steering techniques used by professional drivers and explain the reasoning behind these approaches.

Analysis: Hamilton's 2018 Silverstone Pole Lap

Let's begin by examining a pole lap from Hamilton at Silverstone in 2018, focusing on Brooklyn corner. In this section, we'll identify places where he turns the steering more slowly and places where he turns more quickly, and understand why these differences occur.

Brooklyn Corner: Progressive Steering Application

In Brooklyn corner, you'll observe Hamilton increasing the steering progressively: more and more and more until reaching the lowest point of the corner—the apex. At this point, he reaches peak steering input, then begins to unwind: less, less, less, less.

The brake trace for this corner follows a specific pattern:

• Hard braking initially

• Trail braking phase

• Light throttle application

• Return to brakes briefly

• Final power application

Because he's not braking hard at the turn-in point and is transitioning straight to trail braking, his steering doesn't have to be as progressive as it might otherwise be. Instead of a slow, gradual increase, he can execute a quick change of direction.

Since he's coming from another corner, his steering isn't starting from center (the white line represents center). He's turning in one direction, then turns to the other direction very quickly to a value that is already higher than zero, building up from there. You'll see a change of direction, followed by increasing steering input with some corrections—passive kind of steer—then power application with the steering unwinding: open, open, open, open.

Flat Corners: Immediate Steering Application

For flat corners (corners taken at full throttle), the steering technique differs significantly. In a flat corner, you can go straight to the steering angle that the car is capable of handling because you're already at speed. The driver turns straight to the cornering limit immediately.

An interesting phenomenon occurs with high-downforce cars in flat corners: when you reach the limit of the corner, the cornering scrub from the slick tires combined with the downforce and grip actually slows the car down slightly, even though the throttle remains flat. As the speed decreases, the driver becomes capable of turning a little bit more, so you'll see the steering actually increasing ever so slightly. When reaching the end of the corner, the driver goes back to straight pretty fast, and the speed increases again because the car is no longer cornering.

You can hear this in the engine note—the engine RPM drops slightly during the corner. The car reaches minimum speed by the exit because there's no brake-turn-accelerate sequence in the middle of the corner. Instead, the driver is turning flat, and the corner itself is slowing the car down.

Critical Principle: Fast Turn-In for Barely Flat Corners

This principle is most important for corners that are not comfortably flat—corners like Blanchimon at Spa or any fast kink where it's only flat if you get it exactly right. For these difficult corners that are barely possible to take flat, you must turn in fast initially to be able to use the available grip on entry.

If you turn in slowly as if trail braking, you won't get enough rotation from entry to mid-corner, and on the exit you'll run off track. The fast initial turn-in is essential for making these limit corners work.

Complex Corner Sequences: Multi-Directional Changes

Now let's examine a more complex sequence that involves multiple direction changes with varying characteristics.

Sequence Breakdown

The sequence begins with a flat left-hand corner that isn't particularly challenging, followed by a quick change of direction to the right—which is the actual corner and is also flat. The steering pattern follows this progression:

• Turn left relatively slowly (not on the limit)

• Quick change of direction to the right (the actual corner)

• Go straight to the limit in the right-hand direction

• Maintain or slightly increase steering if speed decreases

• Quick change of direction to the left again

• Trail brake slightly, allowing more steering to be added

• Another quick change of direction to a right-hander

• Trail brake again, with steering reaching the peak of the sector

• Begin accelerating and decreasing steering

The steering decrease during acceleration follows an interesting pattern. Rather than a smooth, gradual unwind, the driver maintains near-maximum steering as speed increases until reaching the exit curb. The driver stays on the cornering limit until the very end, and only when reaching the curb does the steering go straight back to zero quickly.

The key takeaway is that steering isn't always slow application and slow release. In many situations—especially in fast corners or changes of direction—your steering must transition quickly from being on the limit in one direction to being on the limit in the opposite direction.

Low Downforce Car Example

Let's examine how these principles apply to a car with low downforce, where the characteristics differ from high-downforce racing cars.

First Corner: Traditional Hard Braking

The first corner features hard braking with very slow, traditional steering application. You'll see a progressive increase: more and more and more steering until peak, then power application, followed by gradual release: less, less, less.

Direction Change Without Hard Braking

For the next corner, there's no hard braking, which allows for a quicker change of direction. After a small correction for oversteer, the driver commits to the turn with a relatively quick steering input—much faster than the trail braking scenario.

The sequence looks like this:

• Slow initial turn-in (traditional trail braking)

• Quick ramp up past center to the left

• Adding more brakes, which allows adding more steering

• Trail braking phase with increasing steering

• Power application marking the peak steering point

• Immediate steering release upon throttle application

There may be some corrections—passive kind of steer, extra steering input, forcing a bit more, then submitting to what the car wants—but if you average out the ideal line, it shows a very straight decrease after the peak.

Pattern Recognition

The pattern becomes clear: whenever there is hard braking, steering application is very slow and progressive. In quick changes of direction with just a little bit of braking involved, the steering becomes much more agile. This is an important distinction to understand and implement in your driving.

Common Mistakes: The Slow Turn-In Error

Let's examine a corner where many drivers make a critical mistake. This corner is taken flat or with only a slight lift, yet many drivers turn in slowly, creating a steering graph that increases gradually, holds, then releases—as if they were trail braking. But if you're not braking, why would you add steering slowly?

Correct Technique for Non-Braking Corners

If you're doing a corner flat, your speed is increasing, which means by the time you start turning, you're already at or near peak speed. Therefore, you should turn quickly to near-maximum steering, then only decrease the steering from there as speed increases.

In cases where you must lift slightly (because the corner isn't quite flat for your car), the technique adjusts slightly:

• Turn in quite fast to the limit

• Lift throttle, causing speed to decrease

• Add a little bit more steering as speed drops

• Get back on power

• Begin releasing steering while still on the cornering limit

• When you hit the exit curb, unwind quickly back to straight

The initial turn-in should be fast—going straight to peak steering. While the telemetry graph might show this happening over a tenth of a second rather than instantaneously, relative to a trail braking corner, this is turning as quickly as possible.

One caveat: you don't want to flick the steering as violently as possible in a slower car, as this would overload the front tires. Instead, apply the steering quickly but smoothly so the car can rotate properly, then manage the cornering limit from there with adjustments as needed. When you finally reach the exit curb, you can unwind the steering more quickly.

Fundamental Principles Summary

Remember these core relationships between speed, braking, and steering:

During Acceleration

Steering is immediately inversely correlated to speed. If your speed is going up, you must steer less and less and less, whether you want to or not. Your limits of cornering will be decreasing as speed increases.

During Light Braking

Steering is immediately inversely correlated to speed in the opposite direction. If your speed is going down, your limit of cornering is actually increasing. You can add more steering according to how much the car is slowing down.

Important Clarification: Steering Force vs. Angle

When discussing steering in these contexts, we're talking mostly about steering force, not necessarily the angle. If you have a very oversteer car, you might need just a little bit of force to get the car to rotate into a bend-neutral state, then carry that through the corner. If you blindly add steering angle just because your speed is going down, it might work most of the time, but it might also not work. This is why ideally we should think about the force we're applying to the steering rather than just the angle.

During Hard Braking to Trail Braking Transition

Steering should be slowly added, correlated to the brake release, as mentioned in the advanced steering theory lessons.

Before progressing to level three, we'll complete some practical exercises and challenges to ensure mastery of these level two concepts.