Yesterday I mentioned the contact patch, which is the area of your tires which touch the road surface. Today I would like to take that concept up another level.
I'm going to try and describe this concept without any drawings, so please bear with me. The Friction Circle or Traction Circle is the idea that the total grip of your tires can be spent in acceleration, braking or cornering, or a combination of these.
The idea is used by race car driving schools to help you visualize what is happening to your tires as you try and go as fast as possible around a track.
Let's imagine that you have a car that will grip the road with a 1 G tire. Visualize that your car in sitting in the center of a circle. An arrow pointing North represents the maximum braking possible or 1 G. The arrow pointing South represents the maximum acceleration your tire can provide without breaking loose or again 1 G. East and West are arrows representing the maximum cornering force of 1 G before you again break away.
The idea here is that you have 1 G of Friction under your control, and you can spend it any way you want. Accelerating down the straight you can spend it all with no problems. In the same way you can brake with 1G. You can also corner left or right with 1 G maximum. Now assume you are coming off of a straight with hard braking, if you start to turn into a corner, will you make it or slide off the track?
The answer is if you are braking at the maximum 1 G you have no grip left to turn in. You must relax the braking and the amount under the 1 G is available for cornering. In the same fashion if you are going around a corner and approaching the exit and you need to accelerate the same problem comes up. If you are using all of the tire's friction holding you on the track in the corner then you have nothing left to accelerate with.
Racing drivers overlap the different phases of braking, turning and applying power to try and make the tire work as hard as possible for as long as possible. It's the skillful use of this overlap, releasing the brakes and feeding in the throttle to just the right degree not to overwhelm the available grip, which makes the best use of the "traction circle".
The winning driver approaches the limits closer, than the other drivers, without exceeding them and losing control of the car.
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