Vaughn Gittin Jr. 'Drift VS Grip' at GP3R

Vaughn Gittin Jr. demonstrates through a split screen comparision the difference in Drift VS. Grip in his Monster Energy Nitto Tire Ford Mustang RTR and the NASCAR spec Kerry Micks Racing Ford Fusion at GP3R in the streets of Trois Riveres, Canada. What is your favorite? Drift or Grip?

[Avetho]

My favorite is a mix of the two. Drifting with minimal to no counter-steer with only as much angle as needed to make it around the corner, sort of fast in, fast out.
I like to think of it as using all of the tyres' gripping potential, either rwd or awd.
As is common with most of my comments, prepare for a spiel, or many words.

Gripping is slow in, fast out. Drifting from what I've watched seems to be somewhat fast in, somewhat slow out when compared to gripping. Gripping tends to be faster than drifting due to the slow in, fast out nature of it, where you can use all your power to accelerate from an already fast speed. You can't use all your power in a corner because the back end will step out, so only in certain situations drift can be faster than grip, like downhill tight corner racing in a lightweight vehicle. Basically downhill touge racing as seen in Initial D with the AE86, most of the physics seem correct to me, apart from the gutter run and a bit of the weight transfer, like the first inertial drift they show.

The mix between drifting and gripping I think is achieved by pushing the car beyond it's grip limit so that the back end starts to slide a little bit, and you increase the very small amount of angle to turn sharper if need be. No show, all go. It's faster than gripping, and way faster than drifting without burning huge amounts of rubber like drifting. I feel that very few people can actually pull something like that off because you have to know the limits of the car at that time. It takes years of practice in the vehicle you are using to know how far it can be pushed, and how it reacts when anything happens at all. Water on the track or in the rain or snow, tyres losing tread unevenly between sides of car, tyres too hot or cold, tyre pressure, engine power and torque curves, engine temperature and fluid temperatures, valve float power losses, etc. To go as fast as a car can possibly go from a physics standpoint requires someone who is the best the world has ever seen, period. Nobody we have now or in the past is that good. The best we have for knowing car's drifting abilities are the record holders in their respective areas, like Vaughn Gittin Jr here, Ken Block, Keiichi Tsuchiya, Tanner Foust, and many others. They push them to their wits' ends and manage to pull off amazing maneuvers and track times. There is one in gaming as well who is known to be the best at this sort of thing, not quite the master of all things on four wheels that we need, but at the very top effectively, he is called Don Joewon Song. He is probably the Ken Block + Tanner Foust + Vaughn Gittin Jr of the Forza franchise, Don Forza himself I guess, if you know Spanish you understand that Don title I used. But even then, that skill is in the virtual world, not real life as far as his viewers know.

I would like to see a video of one of the top drivers in the world trying the grip/drift technique I described. I believe it's already known by many, I'm not the one who came up with it, that's for sure. It could be cool seeing just how much faster it is than gripping. Probably no more than a few seconds faster if used on say, Laguna Seca using the same vehicle both runs with new tyres each time, but that is a big difference in terms of racing as far as I know.

Anyhow, if you actually read it and made it here Vaughn, thanks for taking the time to read my spiel, I enjoyed this video, and I think you are a really good drifter and racing driver, hence why you were mentioned in the examples I gave. Have a good day sir and good fortune to you in your career! :D

[tanalafauzan]

Drifting is faster when your car has overbore type of engine, which it's strong point is on high rpm, drifting helps you keep the rpm high on turning. Meanwhile griping more suitable for high torque engine/overstroke,

[T-bm]

In shuot and sharp turns as well as on bad pavement such as gravel and non slick tires, drift is more beneficial. Using both drift and grip would be more beneficial. But the fastest is using both depending on the conditions .

[Bastiaan_NL]

I love both, grip racing for the endurance and drift for the agressiveness!!

[LtBaconStrips]

What had the best lap time? I race non wing open wheel sprint cars and if we could keep it in a straight line on dirt our times would be much faster. But we can only do that when the track takes rubber and doesn't slick off. So I would guess grip was faster?

[Vinnay]

Drifting generally favors hairpins. Gutters can also help with quick cornering too. XD

Drifting on certain corners can effectively block your opponent/s as well but neither is better since both rely on skill and favour certain surfaces.

Also, drivetrain, car weight, centre of gravity, tires, suspension, differential, transmission all play a part in driving for example, a car with a gear ratio dialled in for drifting will not do so well for gripping.

If you could tune a car to have a perfect balance for drifting and gripping, you could potentially get a even better lap time but again, it depends on the track too. If it were Le Mans, no way would a drift/grip car be able to last long, would be fun to watch though. A short 3 lap race on a track that has a healthy mix of downhill turns and regular turns like Laguna Circuit could be the best for our hybrid car especially with that final hairpin.

But I digress, this is all just theory, even with all these tweaks, it comes down to the driver's abilities. Anyone can drift but I doubt a professional grip driver who's driven tracks multiple times in the same car isn't gonna suddenly start changing his cars tuning and practice drifting around corners especially when you consider most professional drivers tour around the world on many different tracks which generally favor grip driving anyway.

[timphotoec]

I think there seems to be some confusion as to what we are calling "drifting". To ME a race based on lap times is grip but the fast cars are basically drifting at a few percent slip because maximum grip from you tyres is at a small % of slip. "Drifting" is NOT about lap times but instead about points. ie the fastest laptime is NOT necessarily the winner.

[totojejedinecnynick]

How many "laps" or runs do your rear Nittos last when you drift like this? Just curious :)

[JamesHarper]

For time and distance, go grip... love the skill of drifting, but i doubt it could be done around nordschliefe.

[timphotoec]

Crazy! When racing if you slide you loose time and the guy behind passes you. Lap times dont lie.

[orangeman]

both are good but I rather handle with grip

[robertparis]

meh, not really fair though, aren't nascar car's super low tech and more set up for the oval? while the drift car is more or less in it's environment.

[GoodBoy-iofd]

This is a no brainer GRIP IS FASTER THAN DRIFT!

[yesdaniel]

Drift is slower in same places of the track

[iq]

That's showy drifting. There's a difference between a racer who puts on a show and a racer who wants to win.

[friedfood]

Lots of editing to make the drift look as fast as the grip.