Ultimate Speed Secrets: The Complete Guide to High-Performance and Race Driving

by Ross Bentley

As a race driver, your goal in each corner is really quite simple. Well, simple to state here, maybe not so simple to do. You want to: • Spend as little time in the corner as possible • Get maximum speed out of the corner by accelerating early to maximize straightaway speed

Often, maximizing one of the above means sacrificing the other. In other words, to achieve the best possible lap times, you may have to compromise corner speed for straightaway speed, or vice versa.

the most important goal for the corners is to drive them in such a way as to maximize your straightaway speed.

Driving the limit of adhesion—the traction circle—through the corners at all times seems like the only thing you have to do to go fast. But, how you drive

through the corners can vary.

To consistently determine that optimum line, you have to take into account the track variables, such as the lengths of the straightaways before and after the corner, the angle of the corner, its inside and outside radii, the track’s banking (negative or positive), and the surface’s coefficient of friction. And you have to consider the car’s variables: its handling characteristics, aerodynamic downforce, acceleration and braking capabilities, and so on.

The less time and concentration you spend on determining the exact point where you begin your braking for a corner, for instance, the more you can spend on feeling how the car is reacting to your inputs.

Also notice that reference points are not just visual or things that you can see. They’re also things that you feel and hear. For example, you may use a bump in a track, and when the engine note reverberating off a wall sounds different as a reference to begin braking.

the turn-in point, apex, and exit point

“clipping point,

Determining whether or not you had the correct apex is simple. If you come out of the corner having to turn more to keep from running off the road, then you had too early an apex. If you chose too late an apex, the car will not be using the entire road on the exit. It will still be too close to the inside of the corner.

If you are doing anything with the steering wheel other than unwinding it after the apex of the corner, you are probably on the wrong line. Most likely, you have turned in and apexed too early.

I know when I’ve hit the perfect apex. It’s when I’m able to just barely stay on the track at the exit, while accelerating as early and hard as possible. If I have to ease up slightly on the throttle to stay on the track, then I apexed too early. If I wasn’t able to unwind the steering after the apex, I apexed too early. But if I still have room left on the exit, then I apexed too late.

“geometric line,

“ideal line,

As I said earlier, you are not just dealing with one particular corner but rather a series of corners connected by straightaways. Considering this, plus the fact that you will spend more time accelerating on a racetrack than you will just cornering,

superior exit speed is far more important than ...

It doesn’t matter how fast you go through the corner. If everyone passes you on the straight,

Drive the corner in such a way as to maximize your straightaway speed.

the geometric line does not allow you to accelerate until you’ve reached the very end of the corner and begun to straighten out the steering.

The ideal line, on the other hand, with its tighter radius at the beginning of the corner forces you to enter slightly slower, but the gentler, expanding radius through the remainder of the corner allows increasingly more acceleration, and therefore higher exit speed.

Determining how much to alter the path from the geometric line is one of the more complex problems facing a race driver.

turning in too late and probably apexing too late—means the initial part of the corner must be taken so slowly that the time lost there cannot be recouped fully in the following straightaway. It will result in a slower overall lap time.

In general, the shorter and tighter the corner and the longer the following straightaways on either side, the more the line should be altered from the geometric line. In other words, a later turn-in and apex.

Many drivers seem to fall into the habit of driving all corners the same. They fail to adjust their driving appropriately for the different conditions—corners or cars—even though they may drive the car at its traction limit.

This may explain why some drivers can be very fast in one type of car or at one track and yet struggle when they get into another car or drive another track. A true champion driver can quickly alter his or her line to suit the track and car, and of course, always drive the limit.

important reference point is not where you start braking, but actually where you end maximum braking.

Only use brake reference points as back-up.

Your speed at the start-of-braking may be different due to how well you entered the straight, so that reference point will constantly need slight adjustment.

How do you determine how much to trail brake in each corner (and car)? Begin by asking yourself, “Does the car turn in to the corner well?” If not, try trail braking a little more, gradually easing (trailing) your foot off the brakes as you turn in. Or, does the car feel unstable or unbalanced going through the turn? If so, try coming off the brakes and getting back on the throttle just as you turn in. In this case, there may not be a trail-braking phase at all.

The transition from braking to acceleration is one area of your technique that may adversely affect the balance of the car most. You should be able release the brakes and begin application of the throttle without feeling the transition whatsoever and as quickly as possible. It should be immediate, as fast as you can possibly move your foot from the brake pedal to the throttle.

correctly executed transition from braking to acceleration is paramount. It must be done with perfect smoothness. That’s one big reason why one driver can make a car turn into the corner at a slightly higher speed than another driver.

how you lift your foot off the brakes is absolutely critical. It has to be eased off the pedal—quickly

transition over to the throttle so smoothly that you never actually feel the exact point where you have come off the brakes and where you start to apply acceleration.

Corner speed is proportional to corner radius.

G-force

using the largest possible radius means following what we call the “geometric line.

Back to our geometric line. Although the geometric line is the fastest way to drive through each particular turn, it is not the fastest way of getting around the entire track.

The benefits of a line with a later turn-in, apex, and exit are listed here:

Less time in the corner equals more time on the straight—or at least near straight—which is about as large a radius as you can find.

in slower corners is to turn in and apex late, which allows the car to be driven on an increasing radius (a straighter line) when heavy acceleration is required. In faster corners, where acceleration is limited anyway, you want to use an earlier turn-in and apex, allowing you to maintain or carry more speed into the turn.

In fact, there are really two ways to feel more g-force: • Increase your speed, which is one of the objectives of race driving the last time I checked!

Reduce the radius of the corner; the tighter the line around a corner, the more g-force you will feel. But what’s wrong with that? Every time you decrease the radius of the corner, you have to reduce your speed, which certainly isn’t the objective.

only increase g-forces by increasing your speed. In fact, one of the goals of driving the ideal line is to minimize g-forces so that you can then increase them by increasing your speed.

know which corners are most critical to your overall lap times,

compromise the car’s setup to suit one corner more than another.

The old rule was the corner leading onto the longest straight was the most important in terms of your lap time. The new rule is that the most important corner on the track is the fastest one leading on to a long straight.

When you analyze any track you will find that there are only three types of corners: 1. One that leads onto a straightaway 2. One that comes at the end of a straightaway 3. One that connects two other corners

In fast corners, since your car has less acceleration capabilities, it is much more difficult to make up for the loss of even 1 mile per hour than it is in slow turns.

the most important corner is the fastest corner that leads onto a straightaway. The second most important is the next fastest that leads onto a straight, and so on down to the slowest corner that leads onto a straight.