Driving Tips (2)

Improve lap times in Gran Turismo 7 by understanding understeer, oversteer, rain driving, and fuel/tyre management.

What makes a car understeer/oversteer

Understeer is when your car wants to continue traveling in a straight line even though you're attempting to turn, whilst oversteer is when the car changes direction too quickly instead and loses traction, which can result in a spin. Under acceleration, front wheel drive cars will understeer, and rear wheel drive cars usually oversteer. Handling under braking and turn-in depends more on weight distribution, with front engine cars often understeering and mid/rear engine cars oversteering.

Setups can solve these handling issues, but FWD cars in particular can be difficult due to only two tyres doing the work that is normally done by four. If you want to try and fix the on throttle understeer, install front aero parts, and reduce rear downforce if you can. Basically the opposite of what you would do to combat on throttle oversteer. You can also make further handling adjustments by using a limited slip differential (LSD) and/or brake balance controller.

There are LSD settings for acceleration, deceleration (braking), and initial torque (primarily affecting mid-corner grip), and in each case, raising the value will typically reduce oversteer in that situation, whilst lower values combat understeer. Brake balance can further affect handling on corner entry, with a front bias able to reduce oversteer, and a rear bias mitigating understeer. You can also use brake bias to improve tyre wear if one axle is wearing out faster than the other; for example, rear bias if the front tyres wear out too fast.

A simpler way to combat these handling issues may be to use a 4WD car. In exchange for typically being heavier than their 2WD counterparts, 4WD cars offer a lot of grip and are especially effective in the rain. Note that this isn't always a viable strategy; sometimes the race won't allow you to enter a 4WD car, and if tyre wear is active, RWD cars take better care of the front tyres.

Rain

Dynamic weather is back, and features more prominently than it did in GT5/6. You have a surface water gauge on your HUD (Heads-Up Display, showing information on screen) in the bottom left, which helps you keep track of exactly how wet it is at any given time. Loss of grip is minimal up to the first line in the gauge, at which point the track will become noticeably slippery with intermediates being the ideal tyre. If the gauge starts approaching the second line, heavy wets will be the faster option, and if that second line is exceeded, there's standing water on the track and you will aquaplane if you don't have full wets on. Also, one of your MFD (Multi-Function Display) options is a weather radar (your minimap with nearby blips and threats marked), which shows you if rain is approaching the circuit, and how severe the rain is or will be. Zooming the radar out will let you see potential rain earlier and give you time to plan for it.

Driving wise, be prepared to brake earlier and corner slower in the rain. Also try to avoid the kerbs, as they become relatively more slippery when the surface is wet. This is especially true once the rain stops, as the racing line on track dries out first, whilst the kerbs and less used sections of asphalt will stay wet for longer. Comfort and sport tyres can handle anything short of extreme wet conditions, whilst racing slicks are only good in the dry and thus are risky to use in world circuit races where rain is a possibility.

Fuel/Tyre Use

You won't have to worry about this in the main GT Cafe campaign, but a large number of chili/post-game races, as well as missions, feature tyre wear and fuel consumption. The rates of usage are typically accelerated in GT7 to simulate a longer endurance race in a short time.

A smoother driving style will generally improve how long your tyres last. Unfortunately if you're a controller main like me, this is almost impossible with the games current physics; wheel users have a competitive advantage. That aside, some cars are naturally better on tyres than others. FF cars, and to a lesser extent 4WD's, struggle with front tyre wear due to the tyres being asked to handle both acceleration and cornering. Loss of grip due to wear is relatively small until you approach full red on the indicator, at which point the tyre hits the "cliff". It may still be worth limping to the finish on a full red tyre if you can save a pitstop by doing so. The approximate relative life for racing tyres as of spec III is that for every 4 laps the Softs can do, the Mediums do 7 and the Hards 11.

For fuel, short shifting is a good technique to learn. If you have manual gears turned on, and your car that doesn't have a narrow power band, you can save fuel by shifting up well before the rev limiter. By avoiding the top of the RPM range, you use less fuel, and this may allow you to save more time than you lose by taking on less fuel in the pits, or even save an entire pitstop depending on the race settings. Of course, one can also use a leaner fuel map, but in most cars this costs you more straight line speed compared to short shifting. I only recommend using the fuel map in emergencies, or if doing so would definitely allow you to make one less pitstop.