Well, I have read all this thread with a grin on my face, some say canned
and others not. My personal opinion is not. People have made comments on the
laws of physics which are the thing in question here. F1 cars are an
individual breed, they rely (especially at present with the grooved tyre
regulatons) mainly on the downforce given by the front and rear wings. They
reckon you could drive one of these things on the ceiling because of the
speed and downforce combination. If you took the wings of these cars
cornering would be seriously difficult (obviously) even at low speeds.
If you watch TV coverage of the sport, which I have been lucky enough to see
here in the UK from being a young lad to a 30 year old man on a regular
basis, you will have seen the many accidents and unfortunate fatalaties that
have occured in the sport.
Most of these occur because the driver is on the absoloute limit, obviously
only a fraction of speed , late braking etc.. takes you beyond that point.
You find that That the cars just go ping!, and there out of control,
spinning away or just sliding sideways at some serious velocity leaving the
driver helpless and at the mercy of fate. These cars are not designed to be
powerslided it`s not efficient, it costs laptime, there designed to stick by
downforce. When downforce is gone you are usually travelling at a silly
speed ( hair on fire ) thus regaining control is not easy. I`ve seen some
good recoveries, but they usually entailed spinning 540 degrees heading off
backwards on the grass, track or wahtever with the driver being able to get
the car pointed in the right direction and get away without hitting anything
and without loosing much time ( oh! being alive aswell).
I`ve heard people give it the old " it`s no GPL " routine, and I couldn`t
agree more. It is NOT GPL,as in it is not trying to replicate hoe cars back
then handled, It is trying to replicate how cars handled in 1998. I
personally like the physics model, the best way to regain control of a lost
car is too bleed off the speed, try to get it back within the limit, I think
this is correct. Most low speed spins are caused by over acceleration at a
time when downforce is not working at it`s true potential, people surely
don`t think that upon loosing control putting your foot down and turning
into it is going to help a recovery. Taking your foot off the gas and
fighting it is what is called for, remembering that sharp movements of the
wheel will result in sharp movements of the car which will alter the cars
sensitive characteristics.
Gp3 seems to give a good idea of how things work in a modern day F1 car,
bearing in mind it`s not a easy thing to model.
Shit I didn`t intend to waffle on that long, anyway thats my humble take on
the handling.
Snake.