Quote:
Originally Posted by adc
He is saying that under steady cornering and turn-in, the car is understeering. He is saying that even under trail braking, he still found understeer.
Apparently, it does have quite a lot of power oversteer, which is not the same as negating the above. Does this make any sense to you? It does to me...
BTW the M3 understeers too at the track on turn-in, and again you can induce power oversteer but perhaps not as easily as in the 1M. I'll be experimenting with a square tire setup next.
Edit: And where are all the DC area 1M owners?  I wanted to try one so bad, to decide if I should order one or not... too late now of course... |
Quote:
Originally Posted by adc
There is no mild acceleration in a steady cornering state. And the guy found understeer also under trail braking.
All the stock BMW's I've tracked so far (not a huge number, but all the generations back to the E36) have understeered in steady cornering. Blame it on the staggered tire setup, suspension calibrations, whatever you want.
This never needs to be taken on faith however, just get your 1M on a track and drive the snot out of it, see which way it goes.  |
Thanks for posting this, I was about to do the same after reading the first few pages.
GoingTooFast might not understand that there's more to a car's cornering behavior than a throttle-adjustable attitude.
Anything on four tires will understeer when it carries too much speed into a corner, but it's the degree of understeer and adjustability that differs from car to car. Even with a relatively square footprint, the 1M's weight balance, staggered setup, and suspension tuning could all very well lead to a higher degree of understeer than people might find on a public road as opposed to a track (hence the differing opinions of Pobst's compared to other journalists' that drove the car on the street).
@GoingTooFast: power-on oversteer is separate from determining a car's steady-state cornering attitude. Just because it's easy to get the back loose with throttle does not mean it's a cure-all for understeer. The front might scrub wide before the limits on all four contact patches are met; reducing power, and in some cases, trail-braking, to adjust the weight balance are used to tuck the nose in by loading the tires differently. Maybe the 1M isn't so responsive to these actions.
In the end, I highly doubt Pobst is being biased and exerting any higher levels of criticism towards the 1M than compared to the other contenders.