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Something about traction that must be carefully considered when you brake and accelerate is a car's tendency to oversteer or understeer.
- Understeer is when you turn the car and it still steers wide of the turn and off the track, no matter how hard you crank the wheel to make the turn.
- Oversteer is when you turn the car, and the rear of it comes wide and you end up either spinning, or at least sliding sideways.
Basically understeer is not turning enough, and oversteer is turning too much. Understeering is far worse and far harder to control than oversteering; and the best cure to understeer is a lot of oversteer. What, though, is the cause of these things?
Understeer
Understeer is caused by lack of traction on the steering wheels. When you turn, and your car's circular trajectory is markedly more than that of the turn, then you are probably accelerating, and thus not giving your front wheels enough grip to really pull the car into the line you wish to follow. Many people will attempt to accelerate to compensate for understeer. This is the wrong approach, the car will continue to lack traction for the turning wheels and continue to terminally understeer. The correct way to gain traction in the steering wheels is to brake, and shift the weight forward. This allows the steering wheels more traction, and better turning ability.
Oversteer
Oversteer is caused by lack of traction on the rear wheels. When the car's rear does not track behind the front and instead swings wide. Oversteer is relatively easy to compensate for, and therefore is the preferred solution to understeer. The general reaction to oversteer is to use the brakes. This is wrong, and will cause even less traction to the rear wheels and will generally make the car even more unstable and spin. Instead, one should accelerate, giving the rear wheels more weight, thus more grip, and keeping the vehicle straight and true. To compensate, when your car begins to oversteer chronically, turn the wheels the opposite direction of the turn (known as opposite-lock). The degree of opposite turn is based on the amount of oversteer, and optimum control of oversteer is almost always achieved by less than complete opposite-lock.
Understanding and applying how weight shifts, and controlling it, can help hugely in keeping your car stable, on the tarmac, and moving quickly throughout a race.
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Controlling the Car | Racing Technique |  |