[snailpace85]

I always reckon the simplest questions have the most complicated answers and vice versa! That's a monster of a question!

To take the theoretical first as that's implied in your question - it's complicated. You can get somewhere with the concept of a coefficient of friction combined with knowing the radius that you're trying to turn. Good tyres will give you over 1 g centripetal acceleration on a good flat surface in the dry. In reality, tyres don't have a simple constant coefficient of friction - nothing does really because it's a simplification used when teaching physics to GCSE students! In fact, setting up a car with different springs and anti-roll bars wouldn't work like it does if there was a simple coefficient of friction. To really understand it you could get Alan Staniforth's book on the subject as a starter but then there are proper university level text books on vehicle dynamics - I don't have the references to hand but I'm sure you could find better more modern ones than mine on Amazon. Suffice to say that, to get proper answer to your question requires a lot of data from the tyre manufacturer as well as car data. There are people doing that sort of thing but it gets very advanced and the vast majority of professional teams, never mind club level, would regard it all as way too theoretical.

So - to the practicalities then. As already said, practice is what gets people there. It's not just a case to going faster and faster until you spin. If you build up the speed progressively you start to feel the tyres get to their limit and you can get pretty good at feeling what's going on. Bear in mind that camber and changes of gradient have a significant effect as does the amount of braking or acceleration (longitudinal) you are applying - look up traction circle or ellipse on the internet - there are some good YouTube videos by Scott Mansell you could look at. Of course, wet track, high downforce, type of tyres etc. all have a huge influence.

The reason that you can feel the grip limit in the tyres is because the relationship between the centripetal force and the angle that the tyre makes to the direction of travel (the slip angle) is non-linear. Indeed, it reaches a maximum and then reduces as you try to corner harder and harder. In principle, you should be able to find that maximum without losing control. Ha, that's where all the fun is!

Basically, the answer to your question would fill a text book on the theory side or take a good many laps with a race instructor on the practical side.

Scott