Community Question | Front Wheel Drive / Rear Wheel Drive or All Wheel Drive?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Race cars come in all shapes and sizes, and one of the most distinctive variations are the driven wheels - but which format is your preference?

Some of us loath front-wheel drive machinery, claiming RWD is the only way to go (and frankly, that does have merit), while other sim racers really enjoy the different set of skills needed to peddle a tin top with all the power coming from the front of the car. Throw into the mix the exceptional grip of 4WD and the seemingly endless ability to throw it around even the tightest turns, and you have yourself a pretty wild and different collection of driving styles from which to choose.

With the joys of sim racing presenting players plenty of opportunity to take a pick from pretty much every type of car... ever, each of us has the chance to get behind the wheel of our favoured type of racer...

... which one is yours?

 

[LeSunTzu]

How about having another button like "all of the above"? One of the nicest things about Assetto Corsa was to learn to drive efficiently cars with different drivetrains.

Mod-edit: done

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I can drive them all but my heart lies with FWD cars as they always provide me great online racing...

 

[Kyle Constable]

I prefer RWD but I'm better in FWD's

 

[Jan Larsen]

Anything but FWD. If it had 6 wheels and were mid-wheel drive, it'd still be better than FWD.

 

[Kompressor]

The unreal wheel drive
and real too

 

[melanieuk]

The unreal wheel drive
and real too

Yea Paul must be drunk celebrating Christmas early, thought it was funny seeing Real wheel drive

 

[gamer19]

I'm a big open wheel fan, so, yes.... front

back I mean

 

[Wilko Jones]

It depends, so I picked all the above.

 

[IceColdBeard_24]

I like it tight not loose so FWD cars for sure

 

[Zuffenhausen Weiss]

Unpopular opinion: FWD is good for driving to the mall and driving to your unremarkable 9-5 job
modern FWD, though may be as fast as RWD but modern cars lack the soul of older cars - I do drive a 'unremarkable' FWD car and am a 4th through 6th gen Civic fan, including the EK9

 

[BeliacosGR]

To be honest i enjoy driving all type's BUT
RWD's has to be somehow kind to me through their feel as i don't like and don't feel comfortable driving squashy RWD's ... And to be precise i SUCK at DRIFTING...

 

[Michael Payne]

Anything but FWD. If it had 6 wheels and were mid-wheel drive, it'd still be better than FWD.

Sounds like you would have loved driving the Tyrell F1 Car

 

[Jan Larsen]

Heh yeah, but technically thats just a rear wheel drive car. Great idea from an aerodynamic point of view, but everything else front-end wise was terrible on that car

 

[Ben Lee]

I think for a pure racing car, it has to be RWD, however I have to say what I find the most interesting is FWD, mainly for how much technology has been developed for them to not drive like FWD cars. If you read some of the development of the S2000 and Super Touring cars, they devoted millions of pounds of research into developing suspension and special diffs that would eradicate power understeer to a large degree.

 

[Nick Hill]

All can be fun, but I think, logically, RWD is the best. You can get the best handling balance in a RWD:

- Fronts do the bulk of the braking, rears do the accelerating. This lets you get a nice heat/wear balance.
- Under accel, weight transfers to the rear wheels, so it makes sense to have the power there.
- In powerful enough cars, you can use the throttle to help rotate the car at corner exit.

 

[Ghoults]

Typically awd is almost like fwd. Rwd is generally the most fun, as long as it is not a gt3 car

 

[ivanalesi]

All, because you learn a lot about driving with all of them.
I.e. Rob Wilson coaches even the F1 & Indycar drivers in a freaking Opel Astra!

 

[NR The-Boss]

I prefer the qualities of a No Wheel Drive.

It takes a while to learn how best to use gravity, but you'll complete a lap in no time! (Won't be fast, but hey! you did it!)

 

[amsterDAN]

I enjoy it all but the WTCR cars in R3E are straight-up my favorite content in all of sim racing, so I'll pledge my vote to the FWDs so they don't get trounced too badly in this poll.