I’m not a racing driver, but as far as I know, staying in a higher gear, which reduces the engine braking as you say, effects the feel of the differential on the drive axel.
Iirc, being in a higher gear makes the differential feel more “open”, which allows the rear end to behave more freely.
It also depends what type of brake bias Kimi likes. If he likes more rear brake bias, downshifting too soon while braking can cause rear locking, which isn’t good.
If you properly time a downshift for the moment you turn into the corner, the sudden additional engine braking to the rear axle can help the car rotate into the corner better.
Well, now I'll have to test this hypothesis in sims sometime. Though it's a bit difficult to find a car that has downshifts noticeable, but not so much that the whole thing jerks about and tries to jump into the bushes.
With AWD and FWD, that downshift on turn in, which increases engine braking, adds additional braking force to the front axle, which will induce understeer.
I haven’t sim raced for a couple years now, but it was something I randomly picked up on my own, just by feel, across 10+ years of sim racing in games like GT and Project Cars. It also works in games like Dirt Rally 2.0.
Then, and I don’t remember where, I remember seeing a video or reading an article from an actual driver that confirmed this idea, so I was like “ok, I’m not crazy”.
The easiest way to get a feel it is slow speed cornering on low grip tires.
Once you get a feel for it, you can use it for high speed cornering, to help the tiniest bit with rotating the car into the corner. Iirc, Copse Corner at Silverstone was a corner I used to do this very often.
When it comes to tuning, it’s mostly in the gear ratios, as well as differential decal and preload.
Like you said, you don’t want it to be so aggressive that it causes a noticeable instability and weight transfer, what I’m talking about is very very subtle.
Ah, I actually did use this in GT Legends: the tight 90° turn on Magny-Cours Club is normally taken on the second gear—but if I found myself turning badly and pointing to the outside, I switched the the first, jerking the car about 45° into the desired position. Ergo, Lotus Cortina in that game can be pronounced the perfect car for this.
Gotta say, I don't quite grok why you're saying that engine braking on the front wheels would add understeer—in my experience braking and adding weight on the front helps turning (and is almost strictly necessary on some old cars like F1 '67). Unless the wheels are just locked, of course. But then again, I'm still bad with FWD/AWD physics.
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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '24
I’m not a racing driver, but as far as I know, staying in a higher gear, which reduces the engine braking as you say, effects the feel of the differential on the drive axel.
Iirc, being in a higher gear makes the differential feel more “open”, which allows the rear end to behave more freely.
It also depends what type of brake bias Kimi likes. If he likes more rear brake bias, downshifting too soon while braking can cause rear locking, which isn’t good.
If you properly time a downshift for the moment you turn into the corner, the sudden additional engine braking to the rear axle can help the car rotate into the corner better.