How to drive front-wheel-driven (wtcc) cars?

[RoboCop69]

Hello,

What is a good technique for the front-wheel-driven (wtcc) cars?
Have the experienced drivers some tips?

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Try Reverse, that way you get power to the right wheels, though you'd have steering on the rear wheels too, now that's a bit tricky to drive! Hmmmm, sorry, not of much help am I?

 

[Sean Kenney]

I certainly struggled with one on a controller....haven't tried a wheel with them yet

 

[James Cook]

I wouldn't call myself an experienced driver but I'm probably in the minority that enjoys FWD cars!

Dealing with oversteer when the rear of the car starts to slide is kind of the opposite to how you deal with the same situation in a RWD car. You need to accelerate out of a slide (floor it!). The front wheels will work to pull the car out of a slide.

Also you need to be wary of lift-off oversteer when cornering. Just try and be smooth coming off the throttle in long, sweeping corners to avoid this. Keeping the throttle in as much as possible helps (which sounds obvious!).

 

[Jay Ekkel]

my tip would be to coast as little s possible, always give a certain amount of throttle to keep the car stable.

 

[Niki Đaković]

Bump up some coast to diff and consider 20%-35% throtle imput as 0 base. Last Resort is reducing rear spring stiffness.

 

[Peter]

I wouldn't call myself an experienced driver but I'm probably in the minority that enjoys FWD cars!

It's the frist time i like the FDW more than the BMW.

 

[Niki Đaković]

It's the frist time i like the FDW more than the BMW.

Second that. This particular BMW feels floaty and ffb of it is a bit unconnected imo.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

Well, haven't tried them in rre yet, but if they are like real life fwd racecars (i would hope they are), you should master brake balancing with your left foot. Try to shift the balance by left foot braking, especially mid corner. If you hit the accelerator too soon, you will understeer.

Imagine a line through the corner where you "flick" the car at the apex. Brake hard and late to fix weight at front, then throw the weight of the car hard towards the apex. This should rotate the car around a more forward point, this gives you looseness, at the rear wheels, so as soon as you have the car lined at the apex, counter this by accelerating and let the front wheels pull the front back in line. If it starts to understeer, stab the brake with your left foot, while keeping full throttle, to balance the weight.

Instead of sweeping arcs, throw the car at the turn, to make use of the ability to pull the front back outwards, and to counteract the often massive understeer when on throttle.

 

[Sean Kenney]

I tried with my wheel last night. Good fun and different! Certainly slide a bit more. Still slow as molasses on suzuka

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

R3E Driver Academy anyone?

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Keeping some throttle on and trail braking these cars when you do not want the car to rotate is the key skill with these cars, also if you tight (increase) the coast side differential setting the cars will have less tendency to get loose off the throttle, winding your brake bias further forward is a good idea as well, the dilemma arrives when you need to slow down but the rear gets light, because you also need to power out of oversteer to save it correctly with a FWD, but you also want to slow down, thus braking as much as possible when in a straight line is preferred until you get used to the way the chassis works, this can of course be used to your advantage when you become skilled, lifting or tweaking a dab of brake while still on partial throttle can create some extra yaw when you need it.

Whilst I am firmly a RWD kind of guy, I do love the different challenge FWD creates.

 

[Dan Allen]

Well, with FWD, you wanna ease off if you go into a slide or if feel like you're about to go into a slide, not like RWD where you keep the power on a bit more. Whatever you do though, come off progressively, otherwise you'll end up with lift-off oversteer.

It's pretty poor advice compared to Richard Eriksson (apologies if it's spelt wrong Rich), but I find it works.

 

[Hal Burns]

Thanks for the tips...I was spinning my new Cruze everywhere, but after reading this and referring to "Ultimate Speed Secrets" by Ross Bentley, I am getting the idea. Had a great online race at Zandvoort last night. I put it in the gravel at one point, but my pace was good and I didn't spin it...even got a couple of nice slides going, which I got out of without spinning. These cars are fun and make for close racing.

 

[Peter]

With some practice these cars are exciting to drive.

 

[RoboCop69]

Thanks for the many good advices.

From what i have read here and from my driving impressions i would say that the basic setup of the front wheel drive-wtcc cars is oversteery (contrary to street-FWD-cars which are designed to understeer).

Does someone know if FWD-racecars are designed to oversteer under coast?

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Well that depends on driver preference, but given most race drivers will want a chassis they can control they will generally have a FWD chassis with a little instability in the rear as a minimum, well, the quick guys anyway, else by the time the car has done some laps and the car has some wear on the already stressed front tyres the car would be a wreck of understeer.

Most road cars are designed not to kill you........and if you jump on the brakes mid corner or lift sharply you don't want your wife and kids heading towards the next truck head on screaming "yyeeeehaw, lift of oversteer for the win baby..."

 

[etiienne]

Here is the actual fastest Time Attack lap on Suzuka I hope it help you

Mod edit: videos go here http://www.racedepartment.com/media/

 

[Connor Caple]

I love FWD cars - they're what I raced on tracks years ago. I also usually buy FWD as my runabouts and race them in Sims where possible.

Hence the love for Minis, Clios and other smaller cars.

 

[Arthur Spooner]

I was having a hard time with the FWD cars in RRE myself. I loved them in Race07 but I just couldn't get them to run the way I like them. IMHO their tail-happiness is far beyond reality. I more or less slide through every corner.

At first I didn't see what was the problem since I always got them to be right for me in Race07. But I just saw what's missing. It's the caster. You cannot set caster in RRE. I always reduced caster in Race07 a lot from the default setting to make the cars more stable.

So the question for me is: will we get caster back at some point? If not the FWD cars are obsolete for me.