Driving Technique Discussion

You can watch the under-/oversteer in MoTec on page 5
compare the steering angle (red line) with the oversteer line (yellow)


You should aim to have the yellow line as close to the center as possible. When the yellow line goes up, it is oversteer, which rarely happens and if, only for a brief moment when coming out of a tight turn. But the understeer is way more prevalent and longer. This is because we tend to rotate the steering wheel more than it is necessary in hope the car will turn in more... which is does not. Guilty by myself.

You can also use the page Track report to visualize where you get the understeer and oversteer.
You may have to adjust the scaling (F5 -> Track color-> Oversteer-> edit) to get best visualization:

 

Thanks to both for the replies. Yes, i should look into readings using Motec, which btw i have installed a while ago but never actually put to work as i don’t really know how to read the data correctly and accurately.
But anyway, also lately i started paying attention to my steering inputs more than i used to, trying to adjust my racing line so i would shallower turn in, making my steering less aggressive and reducing speed which allowed me to also reduce steering angle by also reducing understeer. I know the subject was discussed quite in great detail here on the forums, so i tried to also pay attention to my racing style relative to this matter.
But i guess it may just be not enough, i should analyze a few laps with Motec to see just how far the “feeling” of my driving really is from the actual data.
Thanks.

 

I wouldnt worry too much about those ratings, if you are faster and don't ruin your tyres you are doing better!

 

Yeah, i don’t care too much for the ratings (other than the SA which allows me to access cleaner servers), but as i’ve seen my CC dropping more than 15 points, it just raised a few questions ... other than that, i wouldn’t say i’m losing any sleep over it
On the other hand, apart from the rating itself, if it can identify some bad habits and help me improve my racing style, i’d say it can be useful. In the end, this is the purpose of these ratings anyway, right?

 

Without any data reading and lots of numbers you can get real time response for over rotating the steering wheel by APP: ACC Engineer
just set the steer ratio as it is in your setup and listen. When you steer too much it'll beep.

 

Thanks Andy! I remember i saw the app a while ago but didn't pay attention to all the feature set, as in being able to identify and notify in case of US/OS. The work and dedication of these people developing all these tools/apps is really much appreciated, that's really a good indication of a great community!

Thanks to all! I'll give Motec and ACC Race Engineer a try for a while then.

 

Great question I have exactly the same issue. I like a pointy car to help rotation and my CC at best s around 90 although I have decent lap-times. I also wondered if the mildest controlled rear slip was registering as loss of control.
Out of interest what CC do people here have?

 

my CC and CN hover around the mid 80's. I have this thing though if I focus on raising my CN into the 90's my CC drops off....if I focus on CC and get that up then my CN drops..... so I don't really worry about it. I just focus on putting in clean consistent laps

 

Yeah, i got into a few 45 and 60 mins races online lately and my CC and CN ratings went up around 85-87. They previously dropped from around 90 to 75.
I didn’t observe a change in personal racing style while the ratings dropped, but on the other hand it’s usually pretty difficult to self evaluate constantly while not necessarily looking for or expecting a change. The change might just briefly happen without you noticing. Now that i’ve seen the drops and start paying attention to my driving and the ratings, i might have been overly cautious compared to the period that led to the ratings dropping.
Well ... Who knows ...

 

Yeah the main reason I'm interested is because it suggests I'm leaving lap-time on the table and that maybe a change in my setup habits or a driving style change (or both) would improve CC and lap-time.

 

Well, you could be slower (lately) and still consistent throughout a session, but i don’t see that affecting the CN rating. I mean, i’d say it shouldn’t. And being slower would, in theory, also improve CC, not otherwise (due to less slip and less driving on the edge of grip). So, i don’t think CC/CN are good indicators of being slow.

On the other hand, if you’re considering getting slower during a race/session due to getting tired or something, basically not being consistent throughout the session length, than yes, that should reflect in a lower CN.

But there is still, i believe, another case: just being inconsistent but largely getting pretty much consistent lap-times. As i know (but i might be wrong - proved to have happened somehow in the past with other occasions ), ACC measures parameters like speed, acceleration, braking, etc, for each let’s say individual corner and compares those parameters of the same corner across multiple laps in a session. If that comparison yields a delta of more than whatever Kunos programmed into the algorithm to be of acceptable value, that will affect the CN rating. So your CN rating might also drop even if lap-times remain consistent, but your driving gets more chaotic, getting faster in some corners while equally getting slower in other ones.

 

If I remember when you have the CC widget visible it's a blueish colour if you are slow so I think you will also get a low rating for being too slow (not using all the grip available) .

 

Indeed i was not referring to being “too” slow, just slower. I remember the threshold being quite low...

 

That is correct.

Now to the stuff I'm not 100% sure of but still quite sure.
I remember getting some orange sector marks for having a lot of understeer.
I like a bit of a slower rear too, that follows me trough corners so I need less steering lock. And if you overdo that without the need for heavy opposite lock the sector can still end up quite yellowish.

 

I feel the CC is pretty spot on. Most of the times mine will drop whenever I'm trying to reach a pace I'm not comfortable with. When trying to catch or stay with faster drivers, I will often overdrive without actually realizing and my CC will drop. Trying to brake later or applying throttle sooner will often do that. It feels like the most important factor is how much understeer you induce while pushing too much.

The one revelation I had not so long ago, I started a quick online race without changing fuel level, therefore I had to lift & coast and shift early but I pushed like hell at the beginning. Well to my surprise, I wasn't slower at all when saving fuel, in fact I got even faster. Made me understand the importance of driving relaxed and within your own limits before trying to get faster. Pretty obvious I guess, but it's quite hard to put in practice I feel.

 

So curb your enthusiasm then, if you'll excuse the pun.

 

I may got it wrong about what u said or about how i understand CC, but when u go slower it shouldn't by any means give u better CC. In fact i think it lowers it way more than when u pushing harder.
For the CC go up u need to be driving on the( near) limit, if u feel u have your car under control u not reaching near the limit, let me just trow some numbers as an example (not accurate) of how i understand it works.

So the limit is 100%, and u feel u dont have control of the car between, lets say around, 85% and 115%, so everything between this numbers its u driving on the limit ( where u should feel u don't quiet have total control of the car).

So if u drive slower or more under control, u don't quiet reach the 85% to be on the limit, your CC goes down, on the other end if u push to hard trying to be on the limit and u go above the 115% mark u pass over the limit and your CC goes down as well.

So the sweet spot should be from my understanding, the point where u feel u don't have total control of the car, but u not driving it slow, neither u are slidding all around. What this means for me is, you should drive in a way where u feel the car above the limit but u don't allow it to go out of control, for example exiting a corner u feel the rear end slidding and u allow it to slide as much as u can handle before it snaps and u lose the car.

Aris once said ( if i do remember correctly), Some aliens have really high CC whille driving a understeer car, and some others with a very oversteer car,

So i think CC must be kind of a average of what u have been doing so far with the car ( just like CN), but with some extra things that u have to be able to do to get it up.

So if u for example have been driving around the mark of for example 75% for about 3 months( not really time but more KLM), and your CC was lets say 85, and now u realize u weren't pushing the car as u should, and u change your driving style to be driving more on the limit. Now u are driving more the way u should be doing, above the 85% mark and under the 115%, but your CC for a whille will get lower until it starts to get that u are driving better, and then it will go up and more than before.

I may have all this wrong, it just the way i though it works.

Whille CN is just purelly u being a robot and replicate the best u can several laps in a row, not only by lap time, but position of the car on track , braking marks, accelaration marks, how much braking , how much throtle, etc...

 

And by the way, if u want to make a DEV ( the one that takes care of that) lose his sleep for a night and release and update on the system a few days later, show a recent screenshot of 99 CC and 99 CN.

 

Well, you might be right, i don't know, but if you are ... then that's quite unintuitive to me.

LE to your second post: i don't have any expectations for such high ratings, i'm pretty noob and ... "uninspiring" in my sim racing , i was just referring to the variation of the ratings relative to my racing, not their absolute values. I'm more of a ... mediocre racer, but a comfortable one nonetheless, so i am not whining over it but rather curious fella "by design" .

 

Its not unintuitive, it just didnt made that click on u, but it will. ( if is the way i think).

So instead of reading CAR CONTROL, u have to read it as DRIVING LIMIT or maybe even better TYRES LIMIT.
Try forget about CC and look at those letters as TL ( tyre limit), as long as u feel u have the car above your control but u dont lose it, the CC (TL) should go up ( kind of).

For me the car as an impact on that too. For me the LAMBO its way to understeer on the agressive setup, the car doesnt want to turn into turns, and on exit the rear slides, and i think its because me forcing the car so much on turn in, that the front, mid to exit corner grabs and the rear goes, for that reason my CC went down. As soon as it made me that click that was understeer, i change the way i drive the car, and trying to setup it up for the entry to be much faster , so i feel the rear end faster and have better control of what the car is doing.

But this last part i may got it all upside down and is not any of that. Im not a guru in any of that by anymeans lol
But CC went down when i pickup the lambo, and after i do those changes it went up again quiet a lot to 94 already ( before was even higher, but i think after that they changed the parameters of the way CC and CN work)