Driving style evolution

Totally agree with you Sami. But agreement makes no discussion.
But: When many describe the fight against what they called understeer, they describe the actually the fight against centrifugal forces.
I claim: (hope you understand that I write: I claim, to get the discussion where I want it)
With a car that has oversteering, you will "always" lose the fight against centrifugal forces, because you too often must use opesite lock to prevent rear end from slideing too much. When I write too much I do not mean much, but too much.
Many drivers feel oversteering as safe (understeering unsafe), but the opposite is true.

what is better for rallying ? FWD or RWD ? and why RWD is abandoned ?

On World level of rallying RWD is very rare, as the only rwd rallycars that are FIA eligible these days are GT cars, Porsches, Aston Martins and Ferraris. But on national level rwd is still the king!

In Finland 1300 different cars were used in official rallies in 2010. Of those cars almost 800 were rwd cars!

To coach2, in my opinion, as described earlier, there is no difference in front wheel or rear wheel slide except that in front wheel slide you have lesser methods to correct that... Exaggeration: in front wheel slide you open the steering a bit and wait patiently something to happen and hope you dont hit a big tree, in rear wheel slide the real driving has just begun!!!

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Originally Posted by N.O.T

what is better for rallying ? FWD or RWD ? and why RWD is abandoned ?

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I would not say that they are abandoned, its more likely that its cheaper to produce FWD, and manufacturers like to promote the kind of cars they build.
But like Sami said atleast here if and when driver has the choise, its normally RWD, spectatorwise its nicer to watch also.

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Originally Posted by Sami

In Finland 1300 different cars were used in official rallies in 2010. Of those cars almost 800 were rwd cars!

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Very intresting information.But i suppose this occurs a lot in nordic national championsips,or to all national championsips?

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Originally Posted by N.O.T

what is better for rallying ? FWD or RWD ? and why RWD is abandoned ?

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Dominance of the audi quattro in the 80s :)
Oh, and RWD, definetly!

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Originally Posted by Tomi

I would not say that they are abandoned, its more likely that its cheaper to produce FWD, and manufacturers like to promote the kind of cars they build.
But like Sami said atleast here if and when driver has the choise, its normally RWD, spectatorwise its nicer to watch also.

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the thing that i find hard to understand is that what makes the majority of manufacturers go for FWD cars for their major fleet at least ? Are they safer ? cheper to produce ?

and when it comes to rallying if you exclude the 4wd which dominates FWD cars are the second best choice when it comes to higher competition....and especially tarmac, what makes FWD cars be the preferable choice from RWD and even 4wd sometimes....

I would be interested to hear you thoughts about how you translate the current ideal driving style (ie Loeb style- smooth) into rallying in video games?

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Originally Posted by N.O.T

the thing that i find hard to understand is that what makes the majority of manufacturers go for FWD cars for their major fleet at least ? Are they safer ? cheper to produce ?

and when it comes to rallying if you exclude the 4wd which dominates FWD cars are the second best choice when it comes to higher competition....and especially tarmac, what makes FWD cars be the preferable choice from RWD and even 4wd sometimes....

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About civil traffic, I haven't had a fwd car ever, and I won't. There's plenty of choice: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, Smart, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Lotus, and sports cars of Mazda, Chevrolet, Honda, Toyota, Ford, Opel etc... So if you don't want to drive a fwd car, you don't have to.

In normal traffic it doesn't matter too much whether your car is fwd or rwd. Only in winter conditions the difference is huge. What you should do in fwd, is totally wrong in rwd and vice versa. Fwd is cheaper to produce and it has slowly become the standard for family cars.

About rallying, I can quarantee that rwd is faster on tarmac than fwd. Fwd might be faster on very slippery conditions on mud or snow where there is very narrow track to follow, in these conditions rwd tend to loose. But when there's room for sliding a bit, rwd is superior, and especially on tarmac. Proof of that is that in wtcc rwd cars have to carry weight penalty in order to make them less superior.

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Originally Posted by Sami

About civil traffic, I haven't had a fwd car ever, and I won't. There's plenty of choice: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, Smart, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Lotus, and sports cars of Mazda, Chevrolet, Honda, Toyota, Ford, Opel etc... So if you don't want to drive a fwd car, you don't have to.

In normal traffic it doesn't matter too much whether your car is fwd or rwd. Only in winter conditions the difference is huge. What you should do in fwd, is totally wrong in rwd and vice versa. Fwd is cheaper to produce and it has slowly become the standard for family cars.

About rallying, I can quarantee that rwd is faster on tarmac than fwd. Fwd might be faster on very slippery conditions on mud or snow where there is very narrow track to follow, in these conditions rwd tend to loose. But when there's room for sliding a bit, rwd is superior, and especially on tarmac. Proof of that is that in wtcc rwd cars have to carry weight penalty in order to make them less superior.

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There was a thread recently that talked of the GT classes, that would be interesting to see them up against the fwd cars on loose surfaces, maybe even take on the 4wd cars on tarmac...