Car driving tips and theory » Cornering http://definedriving.com Car driving tips and theory. Here you will get tips about automobile parts, how to do driving, driving techniques, how to maintain your car ,its mileage etc Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:54:28 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Cornering the rightway: A visual aid http://definedriving.com/driving/braking-and-accelerating/cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering-right http://definedriving.com/driving/braking-and-accelerating/cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering-right#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:48:53 +0000 driver http://definedriving.com/?p=344 Related posts:
  1. Gear shifting the rightway: A Visual Aid
  2. Cornering
  3. Drift Angle
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Cornering the rightway: A visual aid

Approaching a corner

Approaching a corner

Maximize the potential radius by approaching the corner on the edge of the track. You can see that the turn in point for this corner is about one full car length pass the brake marker in front of the car.  At this point, you should almost complete the braking and should be easing smoothly off the brakes.

cornering2

Midway of cornering

Midway between the turn in and the apex. at this point the driver needs to maintain a constant speed. Using a late apex line, the driver will begin to accelerate in about another two car lengths into the turn from this image.

cornering3

Apex of a corner

Like most simple corners on the track, the apex of this corner is slightly late. The apex is said to be the point at which the car reaches the inside most position of the turn. At this point, the driver is almost full on the gas. (Make a note that the second car is very wide, and is not likely to touch the curb marker without slowing down significantly).

cornering4

Coming off the apex

Coming off the apex, the car is now headed to the opposite side of the track. At this point the driver should be at full throttle.

cornering5

Exiting a corner

The corner exit should be taken as wide as possible. The driver can use the corner markers as part of the track, if the corner markers are flat enough, and not excessively slippery. However, the driver needs to be careful with tall curbs as they can suck the car up very quickly.

Related posts:
  1. Gear shifting the rightway: A Visual Aid
  2. Cornering
  3. Drift Angle

]]> http://definedriving.com/driving/braking-and-accelerating/cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering/a-visual-aid-for-cornering-right/feed 0 Cornering http://definedriving.com/driving/braking-and-accelerating/cornering/cornering-2 http://definedriving.com/driving/braking-and-accelerating/cornering/cornering-2#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:41:43 +0000 driver http://definedriving.com/?p=341 Related posts:
  1. Cornering the rightway: A visual aid
  2. Changing Side Swing
  3. Passing
]]> Road racing comes down to cornering in the end. The driver who is able to sustain the highest speeds through the turns will have the lowest lap times, assuming the cars to be of equal configuration.

Braking and accelerating into a corner

Braking and accelerating into and out of a typical corner. Note the pedal pressure variation  during the course of cornering.

To get familiar with the terminology first, every corner is made of three parts. They can be termed as the entry, the apex and the exit.

The entry is the point at which a turning begins. The apex can be defined as the point where the car reaches the furthest point on the inside of the turn. It is at the exit where the car completes the turn and start to drive straight. While driving through a corner or a series of corners, the main objective is to have the maximum possible speed at the exit of corner, or at the last corner of a series. It is not necessary to have the maximum speed

The objective in driving through a corner, or a series of corners, is to have the fastest possible speed at the exit of corner, or the last corner of a series. It is not necessarily to have the fastest speed going into the corner, nor even the fastest speed in the middle of the corner. The last corner exit before a straight is the most important segment. The speed of the exit determines the speed during and at the end of the straight. If you can increase the average speed of an entire straight, that will have greater impact that a faster average over the shorter distance of the entry to the turn, or through the turn itself. The path, or “line” you drive through a corner will determine the exit speed. In general, the fastest line through a corner is the one that allows the greatest radius, or straightest path. As a car can go faster around a large corner than it can around a tight corner, the shortest path around a corner is rarely the fastest. To illustrate these concepts so far, the classic teaching aid is to look at a 90-degree bend. In the illustration below, the dotted line follows the path of the road. The solid line indicates a path that maximizes the radius of the turn, or attempts to make the turn as straight as possible. As you can see there is significant difference in the tightness of the turn that follows even the outside of the road compared to the one that utilizes the whole width of the road surface.

Cornering

Cornering

As mentioned, the objective in any corner is to have the highest exit speed. Taking a line that allows the earliest possible point to get back into the throttle is also involved apart from increasing the corner radius. In order to do this, the car should straighten  back out on the corner exit path at the earliest. The above corner line can be modified further to allow this. In the image below, the previously mentioned large radius path is illustrated by the dotted line. The solid colored line indicates a path known as the “late apex”. This path moves forward to the point at which the car reaches the corner apex. The exit path of the car gets straightened by the late apex, and therefore allows the driver to accelerate earlier. This helps to increase the exit speed, and it in effect helps to lengthen the straight, that allows to achieve higher speed at the end of the straight.

Ideal Line

Ideal Line

There is still a faster technique for most of the corners, while the geometric racing line is faster than the natural line of the road. The theory behind the technique is using the late apex. The car can aim to apex later than the geometric apex point, by delaying the turn in point, and beginning the turn with a slightly sharper bend. This helps to straighten out the second part of the turn, and thus allows the driver to throttle early. Even though the car will have to slow down more at the turn in phase, the exit speed will be higher. This exit speed helps the driver to achieve that much more speed on the straight, which will bring down the overall lap times.

Related posts:
  1. Cornering the rightway: A visual aid
  2. Changing Side Swing
  3. Passing

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