Racecar Engineering

On the throttle

If you’ve been following this year’s series of articles from OptimumG, you know we have shared some of the data analysis techniques used by our engineers in their day-to-day racing activities. So far, we have presented steering and braking performance metrics, and this article will focus on the throttle channel.

Of the three driver inputs, the throttle has two main functions: accelerating the car and, in some cases, using longitudinal tyre grip to balance it.

The tricky part is applying the correct amount of throttle. A driver can easily apply too much, too little, too fast or too slow. As a driver moves to higher racing series, which typically means more engine power, the more difficult it is to find the perfect throttle modulation.

The driver reaching a steady state (equilibrium) point of the car tells the race engineer there probably isn’t any additional grip available

Before we start looking at ways shows a throttle trace for a long corner.

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