Understeer

 

Understeer

 

Understeering is the lack of responsiveness of the car's front in turning into a corner. That is, the car doesn't want to turn. Generally, Forward Wheel Drive and 4WD cars exhibit understeering characteristics.
Our aim is to get rid of understeer and oversteer as much as possible, since it ruins lap times and add to tire wear. Although in real life, a slightly understeering car (very slight) is always faster than an oversteering car. Adjusting more front wings on F1 car, born with to much understeer can reduce it to minimum, but adding drag value. Same, reducing rear wing angle can reduce understeer, but reducing drivability and downforce of the car.
Understeer an oversteer problems can be best fixed with fine tuning of suspension elements or changing the ballast position.

Oversteer and understeer are vital to understanding the way a car corners.
Understeer is inherently stable - once the car reduces speed sufficiently grip will be restored, which is why almost all road cars are set up to understeer at the limit of adhesion. But it also slows down a car, which is why Formula One chassis engineers try to avoid it. Oversteer is, by contrast, highly unstable. Unless a driver acts to correct it quickly with skilful use of steering and throttle it can result in a spin. But an 'oversteery' chassis helps the driver to turn into a corner and, at the limit of adhesion, it enables a skilled driver to carry far more speed through a corner than understeer. Which is why, to a greater or lesser extent, all Formula One cars are set up with an oversteer characteristic.

 

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Some useful links:

- f1technical.net, , a great site with a lot of technical information’s and explanations. Site is updated daily with news from F1 word.

 - autosport.com, This site is a legend. A bible for racing lovers. News from all around the word. Unfortunately, to get access to all news, interviews and to open the site completely you should be subscribed to Autosport magazine. Anyway, great read.

 - f1network.net, Good read. Fan’s from every team can find his team forum. For me, like Ferrari fan, forum is the best Ferrari forum, very visited, with great threads.

 - Ferrarif1forum.com is another great Ferrari site for Ferrari fan’s like me. Site is relatively new, but great fun, with great discussion, news and Ferrari F1 car Development topic. Twitter and Facebook are also there.

 - f1.gpupdate.net, Site with fresh news from Formula 1

 - planetf1, another site with many different articles, news and statistics. Biased toward British teams, but anyway good read.

 - gurneyflap.com, Great history site. You can learn a lot from this site. Pictures, cars and many many more. Great.

 - fia.com, La Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, representing the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users. Head organisation and ruler in auto sport.

 - wikipedia.org, I don’t believe that I have to tell you anything about this site. It’s not about Formula 1 technology, but you can learn a lot about that too.

 - suttonimages.com. source of great images from autosport

 - carbibles.com, a great site for normal car users. Here you can find explanations of almost everything about your car and how it works. Technical reviews and explanations of some in-car gadgets.