Skidpad

A skidpad or skidpan[1] is a circular area of flat pavement used for various tests of a car's handling.

The most common skidpad use is testing lateral acceleration, measured in meters per second squared (m/s2) or the scaled unit g-force.

Some factors which can aid in achieving higher g-force are high power, wide tires, low mass, appropriate suspension setup and large downforce.

At this point, the speed of the car is recorded, and given the centripetal acceleration formula (by the formula v²/r, that is velocity squared divided by radius) the car's handling in terms of the maximum of lateral gs can be derived.

[3] A new world record was accomplished in November 2020, when the Porsche Taycan set the Guinness World Records best mark for longest electric vehicle drift on the skidpad (measured in time).