Oversteer
A handling condition where the rear tires lose grip before the fronts, causing the back of the car to slide outward. The car turns more than the driver intended. Oversteer can feel dramatic but is correctable with proper counter-steering and throttle control.
Deep dive
Bentley defines it in Ultimate Speed Secrets: "Oversteer is the handling characteristic in which the rear tires have less traction than the fronts, the back end begins to slide, and the nose of the car is pointed at the inside of the turn. The car has turned more than you wanted it to, so it has oversteered. This is also called being loose, fishtailing, or hanging the tail out. Its effect is to decrease the radius of a turn." He identifies the trigger: "Turning into a corner with the brakes applied, or lifting off the throttle in a corner (trailing throttle oversteer) causes the weight to transfer forward, making the rear end lighter, thus reducing rear wheel grip." Ben Collins adds in How to Drive that "oversteer is predominantly the preserve of rear-wheel-drive cars, where an excess of power through the rear tires causes them to lose grip" but notes "it is also possible to destabilize a front-wheel-drive car."
Sources
- Analysis Techniques for Racecar Data Acquisition
- Going Faster Mastering the Art of Race Driving - Carl Lopez
- Speed Secrets Professional Race Driving Techniques Ross Bentley
- Ultimate Speed Secrets - Ross Bentley(p. 61, 66, 67, 273, 336)
- How to Drive Real-World Instruction and Advice from Hollywoods Top Driver (Ben Collins)(p. 34, 38)
- Analysis Techniques for Racecar Data Acquisition (Jorge Sergers)(p. 10)
- High-Performance Driver Education (HPDE) Techniques by Skill Level(p. 12)