Ok, a lot of people tonight were basing their theorys on what they *think* an F1 car would handle like. Well, I've been chatting to my dad (who drove an F1 for the best part of 30 years on both surfaces, regularly) for the last 45 minutes or so about various things on driving an F1.
This is what he told me about driving on Shale racing:
The cars, in general, handle difficultly, with a back end that constantly wants turn round on you.
The art of driving on shale is to:
Feed throttle on from 3/4 of the way out the bend to full throttle when completely out the bend, slowly left into the straight from a full opposite lock. Then *dab* (nothing more) the brakes into the corner and steer left slightly to bring the rear out before turning right into full opposite lock again. The stagger is so great that the back end wants to turn in for you. You only bab the brakes to bring the revs of the engine down to allow more grip for a controlled slide around the corner, not particularly to slow the car down. Using full throttle on the bend at ANY point before 3/4 of the way round would almost definately spin you out.
On certain tracks ie Bradford, no brakes were needed at all, just steer in. Smaller tracks with tighter bends, brakes are used but very very little, just a dab.
If you feel you are losing control at any point, and the rear is coming around on you, as a general rule, power off and the rear wheels get more grip and it straightens up.
Contact on shale:
It is difficult to way up exactly what happens with contact on shale as stock cars is by no means an easy sport to judge or predict and contact varies greatly but generally:
Contact results vary depending on speed, where you hit the car where you are on the corner and weather conditions.
To try and explain this as simply as possible, lets say car 'A' is pushing, and car 'B' is being pushed and this is at racing speed (40 - 50 mph):
If car A's front right end hits car B's rear left end going into the corner and both are sliding with weight on the rear, both will spin out virtually every time, depending on amount of contact. If there is a lot of contact, both will spin out. Not much, car A will spin out and car B will get loose, but will probably save it.
If car A while not in a slide hits car B whilst in a slide, just car B will spin out.
It all depends on where the weight is on the cars at the time. If the weight is on the rear of the cars ie. sliding it will probably spin out. If the cars weight is mostly on the front, ie not sliding, the cars won't spin out. It doesn't take very much contact to spin an F1 car out if weight is on the back.
Tosh asked me about nerfing in chat. If cars are nerf to nerf (side by side) they wont spin out. If one car slides into another with a square hit on the nerf, mid-corner, they won't spin out, but car being hit may slide up the track a little. Generally when cars are in contact, side by side, square on they wont spin out, in fact they are more liekly not than when on their own as the car has something to lean against.
However if the cars are not square on the car doing the pushing is always more likely to spin out than the car being pushed.
The best way of ensuring a clean hit with guy in front, and to take him out if nescassary, is to make sure you are not sliding at all, so this is before you turn into the corner and make contact with the driver in front using your front bumper on the driver infront's rear bumper or rear wheel area. If you hit his front rear bumper his car will probably understeer towards the fence. If you hit anywhere from the centre of the nerf to the rear wheel his car will spin out. If you hit anywhere from the centre of the drivers' nerf to the front wheel the front of his car will turn towards the fence.
I've not had time to ask him about how tarmac varies to shale as he has to go to bed now, but hopefully this is enough to give the developers something to do for now, hopefully i'll get time to ask him about tarmac sometime this week. If anybody has any queeries about anything regarding the driving of an F1, be it set-ups, contact or the actual driving art itself, my dad will be glad to help. Please just ask.
Cheers
Kruiz
