Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Anyone familiar with racing know if its okay if drivers hit the bumpy red/white edging on the track curves? Or does it slow down the car?

I noticed he was an excellent driver and still hit the sides a few times seemingly on purpose.

View on HN

So long as one of the four wheels remains on the road, it isn't cutting a corner. It doesn't slow the car much on the inside of the corner as most of the car's weight is on the outside wheels, particularly with non-race cars that tend to lean/roll more. But you wouldn't see an F1 car doing this very much.

> But you wouldn't see an F1 car doing this very much.

You see it from every F1 driver on almost every corner of almost every lap. Have you ever even watched a single F1 race?

As a racer of stock and late model cars, it allows the driver to maintain higher speeds at entry and exit of corners by utilizing every bit of track available to you. It’s more beneficial to you when the track is utilized at its entirety.

On corner entry you hug the yellow line as close as you can with full speed and much less braking, on exit because of the speed and always trying to apply minimal breaking the car it’s harder to turn so you apply enough breaking to maintain the car in the track and get as close to the corner as you can.

Hope it helps.

You can use the change of dynamics from a curb to rotate the car around in slow corners. Watch the Monaco GP around the swimming pool and you'll see car by car clipping the sausage kerb at almost exactly the same point to get the front turned in.

Formula 1 drivers do it routinely. If it works better for the racing line then it makes sense to do it. You can see it happening in Charles Leclerc's pole lap from yesterday's qualifying at the Italian grand prix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LCS-7gJ57s

Yes, drivers routinely clip the curbs as they go for the ideal racing line through each corner.

For example, a good lap around spa in an F1 car means getting a blind curb at the top of Radillion at about 310 KPH

The racing line tries to widen every curve. You go into the turn on the outside, right over to the inside at the apex, and come out of the corner on the outside again. Try and just clip the edging on entry, apex and exit.

You've driven a much shallower turn than the road, so can take it faster. :)

They're called berms and yes that's normal. Race cars will have properly tuned dampers and suspension to handle the high frequency oscillations generated when rolling over them. Drivers use the stripes to gauge corner entry, apex, and exit when taking a line.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com