Well observe drivers like Fisichella and Button, afaik, they're silk smooth, thats the kind of smoothness I'm talking about. I think Hamilton would be a smoother driver than Alonso because in qualifying at Hungary, Hamilton felt comfortable using the super softs for his laps while Alonso wanted to stick with the soft prime although it could of been a case of setup, so Alonso might be smoother than Hamilton but its just his setup wasn't too tire friendly. I haven't read much into Hamilton's style but I know for sure that Alonso is quite rough with the car.

Quote from Shotglass :

if hamiltons driving style is so smooth ... why was he the one with the totaled tyres ?

If you're talking about Shanghai, that wasn't a case of Hamilton having scr*wed tyres, it was a case of the wrong tyre at the wrong time, much like what happened at Nurburgring.

Anyway, sticking to the topic, something I thought I should mention as well which I feel is an advantage of rough driving is throttle input.

Lets say for example that there are 2 drivers ,who are both driving the LX6 with the same setup, going through Baileys at Blackwood (medium speed right hander after back straight). One driver is silk smooth, he likes to use throttle modulation a lot, he turns the car gently to the apex and gradually applies throttle exiting the corner. The 2nd driver, throws the car hard into the apex of the corner, straightens the wheel, and puts in quite an amount of throttle to exit the corner. The 2nd driver may have a 60%-75% chance of having to do corrections and maybe not while the first, the probability would be between 10%-25%, clearly a much lower percentage. So according to those statistics, it may seem like the smooth driver is the one that has the advantage but if you were to look at it in the way that when the smooth driver is 3/4 out of the corner and has reached 75% throttle, the rough driver, just because he wasn't using much throttle modulation, could've been using between 85%-90% throttle at the same point which means that the 2nd driver is maximising the car more efficiently than the first because he gets on full power earlier than the first, giving him more engine power out of the corner.

So looking at it, I guess maybe each style has its purpose. Smoothness is much more logical to use for races and roughness for qualifying.

Quote from Leprekaun :

If you're talking about Shanghai, that wasn't a case of Hamilton having scr*wed tyres, it was a case of the wrong tyre at the wrong time, much like what happened at Nurburgring.

alsonso was out on exactly the same tyres since the start and came into the pits later than hamilton (well technically he didnt as hamilton never made it to the pits) with the tyres still nice, black and fully functional

Throwing the car in and using the throttle aggressively will, nine times out of ten, unsettle the car and demand a lower entry speed (though the velocity may be higher due to a sideways (i.e. useless) component). The smoother driver will be able to get on the power earlier, waste less of it in slip, and have a higher speed at the end of the following straight.

In 99.9% of cases, smoother is simply better.

Only driving Gods like Senna were able to make exceptions. You or I will ALWAYS be better being smooth. Always.

I'm convinced there are a few corners in LFS which - in the higher power:grip cars - are quicker sideways. Admittedly I'm not the best judge, but that's just how it seems to me.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I'm convinced there are a few corners in LFS which - in the higher power:grip cars - are quicker sideways. Admittedly I'm not the best judge, but that's just how it seems to me.

define sideways
~12° (iirc) were the underinflated tyres we use in lfs peak is very sideways but still a perfectly normal "smooth" 4 wheel drift

Quote from Shotglass :

define sideways
~12° (iirc) were the underinflated tyres we use in lfs peak is very sideways but still a perfectly normal "smooth" 4 wheel drift

Well... I did a long race at AS Club Rev. in the LX6 once, and sometimes I messed up braking for the final corner. So I had steering on practically full opposite lock on the way in. However much that is. I'd try to make the best of it and have the car pointing at the exit by the time it slowed down enough.

Each time I did that, I was a tenth or two quicker than on "normal" laps. Maybe I was just taking that corner all wrong on "normal" laps, but it's a pretty straightforward corner and I didn't feel like I was losing time there. I did set a few fastest laps during the race too.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4nJKy_tWXoc - Have people actually watched Alonso this year before commenting on him being so aggressive? Ever since we've seen him drive that McLaren he hasn't found the need to turn so aggressively. Considering the Renault always looked liked it wanted to understeer I'd hazard a guess and say that's why he was so aggressive on entry and probably why he was about 20+ secs ahead of Fisi most weekends.

Quote from tristancliffe :

less adaption to rain...

Totally disagree. In the wet the cars natural tendency is to understeer and you're always going to find yourself trying to stop the car from understeering. If your aggressive on turn in this: A) Works the front tyres harder and thus bring them up to temperature and B) Makes the front tyres dig in and bite. Ala Hungary 06 - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_Le2IHC3UXU

I don't think there is such thing as an `efficient` driving style. Sure being smooth is going to be easier on the tyres, mechanical parts on the car but then being aggressive isn't exactly going to make the car fall to bits. The 3 championship contenders in F1 Kimi, Alonso and Hamilton all have their own driving style yet at times are only separated by a few tenths. It just comes down to what lets you extract the most from your car.

Being too shooth isnt fast at all! Look at G.Fisichella, he is way too smooth and h sucks, every real life racer is steering wheel like maniac and we do same in LFS too... Also we blip throttle out of corner etc.
To be smooth is only good with braking

so i vote for roughness

IMO neither's really all that much of a style. In the past year of league racing I have become a much smoother driver because of the need to take care of my car/be more consistent over long distances. But, I'm not really any faster/slower and the root of my driving style is still the same, I've just taken a different approach to it. Style should be something that's inherent in the way you drive and would take a very long time to unlearn/relearn. But smooth vs. rough, smooth wins in non-pickup race situations. I would kill my tires and actually compromised a few races before I started smoothing out my driving. Now I'd say I've gone from only getting ~85% of other people's tire lives to usually making my tires last a little longer.

Quote from N I K I :

Being too shooth isnt fast at all! Look at G.Fisichella, he is way too smooth and h sucks, every real life racer is steering wheel like maniac and we do same in LFS too... Also we blip throttle out of corner etc.
To be smooth is only good with braking

so i vote for roughness

Well, the wheel juddering you see most drivers "suffer" from isn't because they're not smooth but can be because of bumps which some can be difficult to deal with.

For your information, in the late '90s, there were rumours that Fisichella was in fact a better driver than Schumacher so Fisichella isn't all that shit. Something to consider as well is that a driving style can sometimes be compromised because of the characteristics of the car. I know that I usually have to put in quite a lot of lock with the BF1 when entering a corner to get it to bite in while with cars like the LX4 or LX6, I usually put very little lock when entering a corner and just balance the car on the throttle so afaik, the Renault was more in tuned with Alonso's style than Fisichella. I'm not saying Fisichella is amazing but he certainly doesn't suck.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Well... I did a long race at AS Club Rev. in the LX6 once, and sometimes I messed up braking for the final corner. So I had steering on practically full opposite lock on the way in. However much that is. I'd try to make the best of it and have the car pointing at the exit by the time it slowed down enough.

Each time I did that, I was a tenth or two quicker than on "normal" laps. Maybe I was just taking that corner all wrong on "normal" laps, but it's a pretty straightforward corner and I didn't feel like I was losing time there. I did set a few fastest laps during the race too.

Yeah, that corner (and other 180 degree ones in Aston aswell)
felt (patch V?) too weird with LX6. I'm not a good driver, but no matter what I did, the fastest way for me to navigate through it was very sideways.

Well, I know that going sideways into some corners is in fact faster. I remember hearing about how Keiichi Tsuchiya (for those who don't know him, he was the guy who properly started up drifting and is known as the "Drift King") used to go sideways in a particular corner at a track where all the others went round normally but apparently, he was gaining a lot of time over them, just through that corner. I don't really understand how it can work but I'm guessing its something to do with entering the corner faster and basically maintaining that speed throughout the corner while drifting.

I may try it with the LX6 to compare.

I guess all these questions that I have can be answered in a very simple way, F1 Performance Viewer to see telemetry

Quote from Leprekaun :

I don't really understand how it can work but I'm guessing its something to do with entering the corner faster and basically maintaining that speed throughout the corner while drifting.

my best guess is that it comes down to nailing a perfect trailbraking maneuver by going sideways into it ... going in with a conistant angle is probably much easier to do than to get the braking perfect

Well, I'd guess the problem lies mainly in the incomplete longitudinal grip model LFS uses, which provides too much traction with spinning wheels. Once that is fixed, drifting should get a bit trickier and less effective as well.

But even with the current physics, if you're driving through a corner where you'd usually struggle with understeer (fast long corners that you accelerate out of, for example), it can help if you go sideways so you use the rear wheel's full grip potential, rather than holding back to prevent understeering off the track.

Smooth = Consistancy. End of story.

No good if you're consistently slow.

There is no best way. It depends on the car, the track and the individual's driving traits and abilities.

If there was a right way to drive then everyone would drive like that. Look at it this way:

In the high jump event in athletics (or track and field) there is one clearly superior technique - the Fosberry Flop. It is so superior that you must do it that way or you cannot compete. There is no superior style in motor racing . Some situations may favour one style over the other, but the best solution changes according to the situation.

While we're on the subject: Can someone who knows stuff explain why the old GP drivers used to four-wheel drift through corners? I'm guessing it was something to do with old tyre tech.

I wondered if it might help explain why the LX6 seems to take some slow corners faster if it goes in sideways. Something to do with having plenty of power but not a lot of grip?

AFAIK the most grip is with a little slip (ie a small amount) - with those cars the "optimum slip angle" is alot bigger, and as such the slide is more obvious.

I think it's something to do with the tyre ply or the sidewalls or something.

Partly because crossply tyres of the day were more accepting of high slip angles, because the narrower tyres had a more square contact patch, and the lack of aero devices meant grip wasn't lost in yaw. Look at modern FFords - they slide a lot!

The LX6 thing is simple, basically if your setup is slightly understeer biased, as most are - then you will naturally understeer in most slower corners. Rotating the car earlier just means you can drive it through and out of the corner earlier (compared with waiting for the understeer to stop, the front to grip, the car to point down the next straight). So in essence with a slight drift you can enter at a speed which would normally cause an understeer that would delay your exit to the corner.

I would have to say sinbad that if a driver suffers from large amounts of understeer upon entering a corner, he is simply going too fast. This doesn't mean that just because the car understeers, its the driver pushing too hard but it just means that the driver has a role to play as the setup does.

Quote from Leprekaun :

I would have to say sinbad that if a driver suffers from large amounts of understeer upon entering a corner, he is simply going too fast. This doesn't mean that just because the car understeers, its the driver pushing too hard but it just means that the driver has a role to play as the setup does.

Not necessarily even large amounts of understeer, and remember we're talking about slow corners. It's about completing the rotation required to be pointing down the next straight as soon as possible in a car that will just gently understeer in a steady state of cornering. Point and squirt. It's not even oversteer really, just what is required, which is why it's faster than simply trying to drive around the corner.

If you go into a corner too fast it doesn't have to understeer remember -although of course too fast is always too fast, but that isn't the discussion.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Well... I did a long race at AS Club Rev. in the LX6 once, and sometimes I messed up braking for the final corner. So I had steering on practically full opposite lock on the way in. However much that is. I'd try to make the best of it and have the car pointing at the exit by the time it slowed down enough.

Each time I did that, I was a tenth or two quicker than on "normal" laps. Maybe I was just taking that corner all wrong on "normal" laps, but it's a pretty straightforward corner and I didn't feel like I was losing time there. I did set a few fastest laps during the race too.

That corner has on-camber entry and off-camber exit. Not much but enough to force you to turn in a bit earlier and carry more speed into the corner. If you turn too late the on-camber makes you feel you are going a bit too slowly and since there actually is more grip the car tends to push. Plus what sinbad said.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

While we're on the subject: Can someone who knows stuff explain why the old GP drivers used to four-wheel drift through corners? I'm guessing it was something to do with old tyre tech.

Another thing was that the tire compounds were harder and tire wear was less an issue.