waremark wrote:I would be surprised if police drivers corner anywhere near the limit of grip, at which smoothness might be an issue. Swift road drivers probably corner at 0.3 or 0.4 g compared with a limit of grip of around 1 g.
If my data is to be believed, 0.5g for a smooth driver, a bit more for someone who goes too deep into things before steering.
waremark wrote:I wonder what is meant by smoothness in the racing driver context. When I see video of racing drivers they are generally working the steering wheel as they corner, whereas most of us smoothly wind the steering on, hold it constant for a bit, and then smoothly wind it off. Is the working at the wheel, or I could call it sawing at the wheel, which the best racing drivers do, smooth?
They have to work the steering - you're constantly balancing the car as the road surface varies in grip level and angle relative to the car. You can add 'not getting it quite right last time' to that. If you're tanking on you are using all of the grip budget so fiddling around with the corner weights using power/deceleration isn't going to give enough of an effect on its own so you use the steering to add an instant effect at the front of the car.
When I'm really tanking on around Millbrook, on certain corners you have to do this. The longer the bend, and there's a cracking triple apex corner halfway round the Millbrook Outer Handling circuit, the more likely you're going to need to mess with both weight transfer and steering. I still do more of the former than the latter, and if I'm doing it right you oughtn't, as a passenger, feel any difference in cornering force.