Wipe out

Did you let off the gas or hit the gas hard in the corner? Maybe hit a patch of lose gravel or rocks or oil or water?

With these cars, they give such confidence that you sometimes think they can't do anything wrong. Sometimes you're going faster than you think.

 

Typically, the Mondials are more prone to understeer than oversteer, from my experience anyway.

What's the condition of your tires and were they cold at the time?

 

Mine understeers as you push it, but its pretty communicative as you get to the limit, not as sharp as the 308. It has a fresh suspension and much better tires on it than it did new. How fast were you going?

 

You're smart to try to learn all you can from this near-accident. You'll be a better driver for it in the future.

 

FWIW, this is highly unlikely. These cars tend to push if given too much gas midcorner. However, if you were very uneven with the throttle or were hard on the throttle than lifted, you could have induced lift throttle oversteer. At that point, you may have overcorrected causing some good old fashioned tank slapping. In order to cause throttle induced oversteer in these cars you really have to floor them in the turns.

If it makes you feel better, generally speaking, the Mondial is an incredibly predictable handling car due in large part to its long wheelbase. It has very progressive handling characteristics and usually gives plenty of notice before it sends its tail out. Of course, if you were driving hamfisted or slashing at the wheel, etc, you could easily upset the balance of the chassis. These cars respond best to a smooth driving style.

In addition, if there was oil or standing water on the road, or your suspension or tires are in need of attention, that creates a different scenario entirely.



Your lucky you pulled it out. Usually tank slapping in a Ferrari is a recipe for an intimate relationship with a ditch, fence, or a car in an oncoming lane.

 

front end of mine gets very light with feeling of loss of grip on corners if i have to high a pressure's in the front tyres. I did only try it to improve slow speed maneuvering quickly put it back

 

Any tips?

Seriously - Heck yes.

Go to a performance drivers school. Everyone should. At the least drive your car at speed twice a year at a local raceway / at a drivers ed event. It can keep you honed.

I have been track driving/racing for 30 years, hold a Pro Racing driving license, and train for several driving schools (including new teenage drivers). Its the best money you can spend on getting more out of any car - and saving your skin in tricky situations like this.

Practice practice practice.

 

I agree with above because we all over estimate both our own skills and what we believe the Ferrari can do.

 

Hey Lino,

Been there, done that.

Later I found a wide divided road with no traffic, trees, or ditches and practiced by making sweeping u-turns and inducing skids. Of course a driving school would have been better.

I like your idea of taking curves more slowly. I have found that it's much more fun to dive into turns and enter at the speed limit or below. Then keep steady power through and accelerate on exit. You get the thrill of the engine, downshifts under braking and full throttle acceleration. Really works the gearbox and keeps the speed down in the turns. The last thing we want to do is leave the pavement in our convertibles. However, considering the tail can come out, experience in a skid is essential.

Dave

 

Could not agree more with this statement.

 

Hey Lino,
Tank slapping is slang an old driving instructor used to describe the situation where a car oversteers and the operator counters by overcorrecting causing the car to slide out in the other direction, and then again overcorrects, and on and on. I did this as a teenager in a SUV and it scared the bejesus out of me. One of the reasons I attended a driving school.

As I said earlier, my gut tells me you were giving it too much gas in the turn, the car started to push and you abruptly jumped off the gas with the wheel still turned. Im my experience, that is really the only easy way I know to get the car to really oversteer, outside of gravel, cold tires, etc.

Outside of taking a driving course, which we would all recommend, the best advice I can give you is smooth=fast. With the Mondial especially, because of its complete lack of driver aids, they can't very well deal with sudden movements that upset the chassis balance. Focus on progressive throttle use, anticipating the speed you can carry through a corner and braking before entry. Similarly, don't rush your gear shifts and avoid shifting mid turn. For me, it is much more rewarding to establish a good rhythm in the Ferrari than it is to go blitzkrieg in my Porsche.

When you get it right with the Ferrari it is infinitely rewarding, even if its ultimate limits are lower than modern sports cars. Even after three years of ownership, It is still a learning process for me. I still occasionally commit the cardinal sins of braking midcorner, shifting midcorner, etc. Mistakes happen when I am not paying enough attention or encounter something unexpected. Just try and stay far enough away from your cars limits that things don't get hairy when you make mistakes.

 

Any driving schools in particular anyone here would recommend? I found http://experienceferrari.com/ this morning and it interests me. Comments?

 

When you drive a car with a mid engine, that usually means that the weight bias is towards the rear. While some cars can be set up with "understeer" when push comes to shove on these vehicles, they ultimately end up "oversteering". What that means is that when you're at the limit or over, the car wants to leave the road rear end first. Letting off the gas in a slide is the classic start of this type of accident.

Before you get into trouble, you need to take a driving course with your car, so that you can see what happens when you get to the edge of the handling. These are learned skills, and without the practice and training, if you keep going that fast, you'll wreck the car, and maybe yourself and friends.

Art

 

First of all, kudos to you for posting the fact that your car got away from you and asking for tips. As you can see it happens to most people at some point but few openly admit it and ask for help - nicely done!

Organized track days at your local racetrack with instructors is a cheap and excellent way to build and tune your skills in your car. I would contact the local FCA chapter or local Ferrari dealership (or any top-end dealership/club - Lambo/Porsche/BMW etc.) to see what track days might be scheduled.

As far as schools there are many - Skip Barber, Bondaurant, Jim Russell etc. and now some events like World Class Driving that actually take place on a track and (I believe) with instructors. The downside of these is that you won't be driving YOUR car so while you develop the skills you will need to learn to adjust and apply them to the characteristics of your particular car. Valuable skills notheless!

"Tank Slapping" actually refers to racing motorcycles rather than cars and the term comes from oversteering a motorcycle - generally while at maximum lean angle - where the rear end steps out, regains traction and then snaps back as you accelerate - the result being the rider (generally in a tuck position close to the gas tank) being flung around and "slapping" the tank. While scary, it is a better result than a high-side crash - remember you can't "spin" a motorcycle

Good luck and enjoy!

 

Great advice. Unfortunately, if Canada is anything like the US, it will be difficult for him to find a place that will allow him to do so. There are very few race tracks that will allow our old Mondial cabs to do anything but parade laps without adding a roll bar.

 

Ah - good point and too bad. Oh well, the driving school route will still get him useful skills that can be applied to driving the Mondial or any other car. And as already mentioned, just driving the speed limit in any Ferrari is exciting enough!

 

Actually "tank slapping refers to the handlebars motion, when the bars go from lock to lock, with increasing frequency. It doesn't have to be when you are leaned over, indeed at Laguna Seca, the front straight has a kink in it, and back in the day (70s and 80s) when I raced there, you had to pick the front end of the bike up at 100 mph because if you didn't it got light and you'd get a tankslapper coming over that kink. Those tankslappers were more common in the 70s and 80s when bike suspension hadn't been advanced, and sometimes those tankslappers eneded up with a crash. I had a friend who died on a H2 Kawasaki, when it did that to him at Riverside in the late 70s, and he got spit off at over 100 mph.

Art

 

This is a slang term, remember, not something you will find in Webster's. It's used loosely, and I am sure you are both right...However, after reading Shorn's post, I did some google searches and it is commonly used with cars as well, as I had indicated earlier.

In fact, it is even in the Urban Dictionary in that regard

http://www.urbandictionary.com/products.php?term=Tank%20Slapper&defid=794526

 

Good to know - Thanks for the research! Having high-sided my Zx9 back in '95 the motorcycle angle is lodged in my head... well wrist and collarbone to be exact!

BTW - Love the JC tagline/quote!

 

Just be thankful you didn't lift mid turn in a 930...

 

LOL.
Thinking the same thing!