Nordschleife

I have been with Sepp Haider when he is showing off, and then he DOES move his hands and feet very quickly. Normally Sepp is very smooth.
I hope you can get to go on some of the Audi driving courses. They also run the Lamborghini Driving School. I have had a lot of fun with them at the Circuit de Catalunya.

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RJay

I have a theory about this which may be completely full of crap, but I think it has some merit. The basic problem with the Audi TT and others of its ilk, is that it favors FWD and transitions to a RWD bias when front slip is detected. This system, to my mind is **** backwards. The problem is that when you try to turn and the front wheels are driving and start to slip, you understeer. If you're initial reaction is to add lock, you dig a deeper hole. Now, as slip is detected, power is xfered to the real wheels. Unless the fronts hook up, this will will simply continue to push the car in the direction of the understeer. But removing power from the front helps front grip for turning and as the steering angle is overcompensated, things get ugly. I think its particularly bad in these cars as they seem to be set up for a horrible amount of understeer to begin with. I've sense this many times this snowy winter in my recently purchased 2.7TT, it feels like the car is trying to break itself in two. All this seems to be amplified by the ESP crap.

If OTOH, you bias to the rear and the rear begins to swing out, as in a Porsche TT (which of course is what we thought you were referring too initially), you naturally countersteer. As slip is detected, power is ****fted to the front, whose wheels are pointed in the direcition you wish to go in and the car pulls through. Much more natural to drive system, IMO.

I hate this characteristic in my Audi, but I hope some of it can be tuned out a bit by eliminating its ridiculous level of understeer (I don't have the sport suspension). Can't speak to the TT in this regard, but I suspect improving its character might lay in a similar direction.

Just my theory...

Nordschleife

Just a couple of points, which may help.

Firstly, the TT (Golf platform) and 2.7 S4 Biturbo have completely different AWD systems. The transverse engined cars (TT, Golf, A3/S3) have Haldex whilst the A4/S4 has Torsen, so you can have very different outcomes from similar driving inputs with the different AWD systems. Haldex is more like part time AWD, Torsen is full time Torque Sensing. Where both types are similar is the way they will behave badly when driven in the same style as a rear wheel drive car. Then they WILL plough into corners with the ESP going off like a burglar alarm.

The most important thing to do, and it DOES take practice, is to unwind the steering when you are understeering, its counter-intuitive, but believe me it works everytime, it helps if you back off the throttle too. To begin with get the foot right off the gas, with practice you learn to back off partially, suddenly the car regains traction on the front axle and you can apply more lock and throttle and you are reeling in the apex, ready to power out. All the time use very smooth movements. If you manage to be really smooth, you wont find the ESP nearly so obtrusive. This is doubly important when driving in snow. With practice, you can use the ESP like a personal trainer, if it cuts in, analyse what you did wrong and avoid doing it next time.

All Audis are horrible if you try and drive them like RWD cars. Treat them right and you can have lots of fun driving them. People used to powering their way out of understeer have the most difficult job adapting. I know of very very few journalists who can drive quattros well. Correction, I don't know ANY journalists who can drive these cars well, but I do know a few drivers who write a bit who can drive quattros. So they usually get a lacklustre press and many drivers assume the writer knows what he is talking about and discover the same 'problems' as were written about. Cameramen want the journo to come round the corner in a power slide, that takes a little practice in an AWD car. If the journo can't do it, he slags off the car.

You will see well driven RS4s scaring the fertiliser out of 996 Turbo drivers on track days. It really does pay to adopt a different driving technique from that used in BMWs and C2s.

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boqueron

Nordschleife, my concerns were right !

I just called Audi and they courses are ONLY for Audi owners...... Nevertheless, It seems that they will pass my case to the team in charge and, hoopefully, they will call me during the week. Let's see...!

boqueron

Rjay, your explanation makes sense. Again, the realllity is that, when the Audi Quatro (4WD) was rallying, nearly no other car nor make, could ever win against them ! As Nordschleife says,it shoud be a matter of technique.

Nordschleife

Good luck Boqueron, are you talking to the Spanish or German office? Michael Schumacher goes on Audi driving courses, and he does not PAY for his Audis (but he does drive them).

One day the Audi Driving Experience will organise a driving course with Colin McRae and Michael Schumacher instructing.

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boqueron

With the spanish office. This was a first contact with an operator at the 902 number.

Nordschleife

Try talking to the Germans when the office in Ingolstadt opens on Tuesday. All the driving at C. Catalunya is organised from there, in the first place.

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RJay

Don't forget Haywood & Stuck in Trans Am where they kicked butt for a while as well. But, as far as I know, both the Rally and TransAm cars were not front bias AWD. Marketing drivel aside, I wouldn't try to divine much more than a spritual connection between their current road offerings and their past successes. Actually, I'd love to know if the TT DTM cars maintain the street cars front bias or do they modify the split for racing (which I would suspect they do).

I'd remark that the nominal techinique for correcting understeer in a 911 is not really any different from what Nordschleife described. The physics are the same regardless, recall the friction circle and the notion of throttle-lift oversteer. If you exceed the ability of the front tires to steer, to regain grip you must ask less of them. Thus reducing the steering angle and/or lessening power application will aid in turning, by reducing the demands for traction back within the usable thresholds. All us old 911 guys know that the way to make a 911 rotate is add a little lock and lift. The trick is knowing just how much of each to do!

Nordschleife

RJay

There is nothing in common between the DTM cars and the street cars. They are purpose built race cars, rear wheel drive built on CF tubs with V8 race motors and gearboxes. There is some similarity with the silhouettes of the original cars.
DTM switched to '4 door' cars last season, so its A4s against C Class Merc and some POS from Opel. MG is supposed to be joining in this season (another POS).

On the race track most factory-inspired quattros race with locked diffs.

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RJay

Thanks! Pretty much as I suspected. We don't get to see much of the series over here, only the occasional race at an oddball time courtesy of the presumably-now-infamous-the-world-over Speed Channel here in the US. I generally only wind up seeing it by accident.

Hmmmm....what you describe does seem somehow strangely familiar. V8s? Purpose built race car that only resembles the look of the street car? Jeez all they have to do is run ovals and we'd be able to watch that stuff 24/7. Well, I guess the CF tubs would have to go, though.

Nordschleife

But DTM is really exciting, and quite "muscular", you are not allowed to drive like that in America on road circuits. But like that other series you get all the time on TV, the fans go crazy, quali shoot-outs, compulsory do-nuts.......

It ain't pretty but its fun.

How nice it would be if MB, BMW and Audi built retrowagons and ran them in that Oval series.

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boqueron

Sorry to disturb again... Do you have their phone number ?

boqueron

During the courses, when I was discussing the technique with the trainer he insisted that when racing with a 4WD the way to enter a corner was:

Just before it, BALANCE the car and wait until you get the proper weight on the outside of the car

1.- WHEN the weight is there ( not before) , force the oversteer ( if you accelerate to early you get understeer )
2.- Getting the right slide angle
3.- Countersteer
4.- Once sliding keep the slide fed with throttle bursts while slowly winding/unwinding the steering wheel in order to get out of the "center" of the corner
5.- When you begin to face the exit, unwind the steering while you put more gas

Easier to describe than to do it consistently.

All this, seems to be the same technique for 2WD ! The main difference was that with the 4WD you needed more speed.

When in the slippery track with the TT it was evident that if you did not force INITIALLY enough the oversteer, the understeer overtook and it was quite difficult, once the car started to understeer, to get back to oversteer. Obviously , once you start to try to get oversteer from an initial understeer in the middle of a corner you are allready in the outside as you have opened your angle and lost the good line . Again, the anticipation was (is) crucial. If you did not anticipate with the TT (balance and weight BEFORE the corner ) you just went out of the line with a serious understeer and, many times, out of the corner!

When the understeer starts to appear AFTER an initial oversteer, the only way to get things right was, as Nordschielfe described, unwinding/winding and lifting/pushing the throttle ( as I describe more or less in point 4) . This method ONLY worked IF the understeer was appearing AFTER the initial oversteer. If you try it at first when understeer was the initial way of entering the corner, you have many chances that when you get the gas back again trying to oversteer...you get a beautiful spin !!! ( I have had dozens (!!) of them in this situation)

I insist: 1) It was far easier to do all this with a 2WD than with my TT !! ( BTW, the BMW's were "plain" 320's.... ). and 2) this was my experience in a special track that nearly replicates ice driving, nothing to do with a normal track or open roads.

Nordschleife

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