The Fundamentals

The three most important elements in managing a car near the limit are steering, steering and steering. Everything depends upon it and everything else makes it possible. If you can't steer, you're pretty much out of control. Simple as that.

Some simple explanations first

If the car won't steer then the available grip at the front of the car is inadequate or to put it another way, you have demanded more grip than the front tyres can supply. This is often referred to as understeer and generally comes with a little voice in your head that goes, "mummy, it won't go round the corner."

If the car steers more than you expect given the amount of steering that you applied then the chances are that the car is oversteering, i.e. the rear tyres cannot supply enough grip to follow the front tyres round the corner and so the rear of the car moves to a larger radius than the front of the car. In other words you have too much steering on for the available grip at the rear of the car.

The Meaning of Understeer and Oversteer is Very Simple

If you understeer off the road, you will generally see what you run into. If you oversteer you probably won't. We will develop a more robust and scientific description of these two conditions in due course.

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