Driving Technique Question

[Laurent Boutinaud]

Hi guys !

Here is my question:

I often see people in videos turning in a "weird" fashion. Lets say they have to turn right, instead of putting the wheel at the right angle and leave it there, and putting it progressively back in the center (like most people suggest to), they go Right/center-right/right/center-right/right.

Is there any explanation as to why someone would do this? Let me know if I do not sound clear I will try to rephrase or show example !

 

[ouvert]

just bad drivers or strong FFB kicking midcorner? do you have example video?
I know people who do this in real life ..

 

[Laurent Boutinaud]

I will look for that when i hit home after work

 

[Turk]

I've noticed that too, I call it sawing at the wheel. I wondered was it a technique to slow the car down that little bit by not having a smooth turn in.

Sometimes it can just be about controlling oversteer, if you can catch the car before it goes into oversteer by just centreing the wheel a bit rather than letting it go a bit further and having to countersteer.

 

[Tim Meuris]

maybe they just drive with a controller?

 

[Chris]

It could be a multitude of things, like, using a controller/keyboard, having a poorly balanced setup, or simply just getting the corner wrong.

 

[Fritz Anker]

I had an instructor talk to me about using this technique to gain/maintain grip through constant radius turns. I'd say it did help get more speed through the corner, but I just kept thinking I can't afford another set of tires. He actually called it "sawing the wheel."

 

[Nathaniel Dwayne Hale]

I really really doubt this will make you go faster around the corner. Upseting the car, and the car's balance is seldom a good thing when you are looking for a clean corner.

 

[ouvert]

well sawing the wheel, as I understand it, happends when you pushed too much, loose traction on front so you quickly let go the steering to regain the grip and than corect the steering to loose the grip again and so on ...so basically you are intentionaly trying to drive little bit over the limit of a car and you are sawing steering it to save it .. but I don`t think it is faster than knowing the limit of a car and keeping it on the edge .. definitelly not best for tires and potentionaly less save

Stilll not sure if OP is talking about sawing, "fighting the car" or just bad judgement of the steering angle vs corner angle ..

 

[Requiem84]

Sawing: hard to know exactly how much grip there is, so some people anticipate a bit and constantly try to find the maximum grip. Overdoing it is just a waste of effort however.

 

[Marian Zelenka]

I've seen it in plenty of real life videos too.

 

[Laurent Boutinaud]

I am not talking of controling oversteer, I didnt find again a good video that shows this. In my memory i think they were trying to fight against understeer on corner entry. But I just don't understand how it can affects it. And no it was not because they were playing with controller but maybe I am wrong If I stumble on this again I will definitely post it !

 

[Andrey Varlamov]

Look at some onboards. It's driving on the edge like in real racing .

 

[Cristian Haba]

This type of driving happends in all professional motorsport and it is faster. I dont actually think its 'over limit' driving but driving at the limit. The sawing to centre is exagerated, and only happens when you are trying to save the car from extreme sudden oversteer. The actual motion is quick movements at the begining and mid corner, the exit should be smooth or with less movement to let the car hook up well.

My two cents, I've been out of the simracing scene for 5yrs.

 

[Boby Kim]

I never saw while racing until my last mp fiat 500 race at Magione. Because its a frontwheeler i tried to fight understeer going into the corners, trying to get the car around the corners. With rearwheelers (Tim) i only saw hard when trying to catchup heavy oversteer, which in most times lead into oposite lock andca uncontroable spin.

 

[Fernando Deutsch]

Mainly by moving the steering wheel to the center you are setting the front wheels back to an slip angle range where grip is back. Once it is back you turn it again to the turn direction trying to make it through. Basically you are playing with slip angle limit.

 

[Frank]

If done correctly it does make you faster, like many said above it is sawing, it is driving at the edge of your cars capabilities. It is quite normal for fast car setups to feel less stable but be quite a bit faster than a stable setup. These less stable setups usually have a lot of sawing going on and aren't used in races as it destroys your tires.