Today i had a nice discussion with my friends about how we drive when doing some virtual racing. btw they all play nfs, gran turismo, forza and games similar to those, and only 2 of us (me included) play lfs.

Most of them said drift is the fastest way to race, and some replied that total grip is faster, and slides make you lose time.

Personally, i like to oversteer a little bit, having just around 5 degrees of slipping, except on single seaters and gtr's, where i need downforce. i drive better that way.

after this i had the idea of creating this topic just to know how you drive when racing on live for speed, and maybe learn a little bit more about driving styles. you grip, drift, or do something between these 2...

Grip , fast , clean

And never think drift is more fast that grip

Heh well grip is faster then drift. However even if you grip in cars (this doesnt apply to GTRs and Fomulas) I think its faster to get just a little slip of, like you said, 5 degrees.
If you look at the WR replays for the XRT for example, most of them do have a slight angle.

DevilZ also told me that a slight angle helps. Of course a slight angle I dont mean lose grip completly. It has to be controlled and not really sliding that much.

Bleh I hope you see what I mean but I agree with you on the slight angle point.

Drifting is slower then racing.

Drifting can be faster in some circumstances: low-grip conditions such as gravel or snow, cross-ply tyres, etc. But generally on dry tarmac with modern tyres and vehicles, you want to reduce slippage as much as possible.

My real-life style is smooth and progressive. If the car cannot be balanced, I prefer slight understeer, and avoid oversteer. Very smooth and positive steering input, a little hinting to load the suspension and tyres before fully committing, mild trail-braking in the early phase, but completely off the brakes by the time I've fully committed, on the throttle prior to the apex without lifting off. The only downside to this style is the tendency to scrub some speed in higher-speed corners. I've also exited too wide when under pressure.

My current style in LFS is adapted for playing with mouse and keyboard. Setup always tends to understeer. I brake heavy and late, turn in aggressively to scrub off speed until the apex and then power out. Problems with this is there is little room for error if I misjudge the speed I need to scrub off, I can miss the apex entirely and then have to force the car into a drift in order to make the turn. Sometimes I hit the apex too early and end up powering out too late.

I like to enter corners too fast, swear, try to get the front end pointing the right way with a combination of clutch and mismatched revs, then fail to catch the resulting oversteer until I'm half-way to the next corner.

I find it makes me slow as shit and very tired after just a couple of races.

Of course drifting is faster than gripping.. But I say that in the sense of just slipping the wheels because you're just over the maximum. Not losing it.

If you never slip the wheels, you're going to too slow, if you slip them every time, you're going too fast and will loose time.. If you slip the wheels once in a while, you're going fast period.

For me, drifting through a corner can be faster than the alternative, if I've set myself up badly for the corner, either by overshooting the turn-in point or some other stupid thing that I do when driving in LFS. A drift can get me out of a sticky situation and salvage at least a little bit of pace.

Faster than the alternative screw up, but this shouldn't be confused with a well-approached corner, catching the apex nicely, and some good and firm traction through. If someone actually thinks that drifting round a racetrack corner is faster than racing, then that actually suggests that they're just crap at racing (like me), IMO.

I prefer Both drift and grip, grip is cleaner and faster and drift is my form of art.

Quote from MiniVan :

I prefer Both drift and grip, grip is cleaner and faster and drift is my form of art.

But grip still is faster. Its not what you prefer, its what's faster.

In my mind, grip is obviously faster to some exeptions. (REALLY tight corners)

evilpimp even if i mentioned racing, the goal here is to know how you like to drive, not what is faster...

let's try not making this into another grip-drift battle...

I like to drive as smooth as I can while thinking about the mechanical sympathy of the car. So I dont use made engine braking, mash the gears etc.

Makes me slightly slower than the aliens but then I normally always finish as well.

The other benefit is that each time the realism steps up in LFS I don't have to adjust anything in the way I drive, because I am doing right in the first place and not exploiting holes in physics or damage models etc.

Well I like to do both :P

Drifting is to relax and sometimes action in a battle.
Usually driftings smooth for me.

Racing is more competitive (imo) and has more high speed action and a small mistake can sometimes make you lose a lot.

So yeah... I like to do both depending on my mood.

Drift, slow, dirty.

I just torn apart an old steering wheel I had laying around in the basement. I plugged it next to my Momo, and with some fitment, it worked perfectly. Only thing is I don't have the same speed and precision that I used to. I'll need to get a 3rd leg if I want to be competitive with that clutch pedal!

Use you "other" third leg.

Aggresive, but only because there's only so much I can do with a kb+mouse without losing time to more precise controllers..

My driving style is braking too early, understeering in, oversteering out.. Except in corners such as the so5r hairpin and the tight section before the 2nd split, where I enter the corner with a slight oversteer.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I like to enter corners too fast, swear, try to get the front end pointing the right way with a combination of clutch and mismatched revs, then fail to catch the resulting oversteer until I'm half-way to the next corner.

I find it makes me slow as shit and very tired after just a couple of races.

You also use the "flailing arms" technique with your steering if I recall


I prefer to slide the front end. The front end slides around mid corner to just after mid corner as I push out into the grass. I then smack against the wall, which helps tremendously in turning the front back to the track, spin wildly fishtailing out of the grass, swing the rear around like a pendulum because the tires are dirty until control is regained and I'm back going straight again.

Seriously, I see folks here talk about "a little bit of slip in the rear", then I see them on the track and I try their setups, and those setups with "just a little bit of slip" are complete drift sets for me. Not "just a little slip" at all. I indeed like "just a little slip", but not these crazy and hugely oversteering "just a little slip" setups that everyone else seems to like. My "just a little slip" is truely just a little bit of slip.

If this post is about what i prefer...i'd say grip,period.And the reason its because the car is surely more controllable and predictable if driven this way.And what's more i can't see any point why i should drive a car in a manner it is not meant to be driven.
Otherwise,if the post is meant to find the fastest way around a track,still is grip...all of you can't deny the fact that grip (aka proper and neutral driving,braking in time and neatly driving through a corner) is the best way.Drifting may be more spectacular,but surely isn't the best nor the fastest way to go round a circuit.There are so much reasons why drifting is for show and grip is for times and races

Drift is slower becouse when you drift you loose grip and you gauge says that you drive for instance 100km/h but really you drive with 65km/h Slicks make you faster . When i drift with my XFG on bl1 i can't make a time under 1:45 but when i drive without drifting i make time about 1:37:08

Drifting in curcuit racing in cars that aren't oldies is a waste of time.

It ruins tyres and ruins momentum.

Every car has an optimal "working slip angle", which is the difference in angle between the direction the car is pointed, and the direction the car is going. A "working slip angle" is the only way the rear tires can generate any cornering force. Indy Racing League (ovals) cars have very stiff sidewalls on their tires and have the smallest working slip angle of any race car today, about 2 degrees. Most high downforce cars, like Formula 1, aren't much higher at around 3 to 4 degrees. Non-downforce cars use even higher slip angles, depending on the type of tires (bias ply racing slicks have higher working slip angles than radial racing slicks).

Although it's call slip angle, what's actaully happening is flexing of the contact patch towards the direction the car is moving, combined with some slippage at the outer portion of the contact patch.

Regarding driving style, I find I get my best times when using opponent cars for brake assist and cornering berms.

I think you have to adopt your racing style to a car. I mostly try to brake as later as possible, but thats not good for some cars. Some slide on corner enter is good on HL, but not in race cos of tires... As I said everything depends on a car

Btw. 888 post like my fav car number :banana:

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I like to enter corners too fast, swear, try to get the front end pointing the right way with a combination of clutch and mismatched revs, then fail to catch the resulting oversteer until I'm half-way to the next corner.

I find it makes me slow as shit and very tired after just a couple of races.

It's more than just me? I'm, so happy now!

At most we use drifting while racing on XRT, LX6, RWD type cars. Remember slippy going out of the corner while accelerating.

Slow in, fast out. But most of the time I take it too seriously and brake way too early and not hard enough, resulting being not-so-fast out. I prefer oversteer over understeer, and soft setups over hard setups.