Thinking through a fast lap
I’m in the zone, that feeling when everything needed for a time attack has come together. The car is running sweetly, the track has been thoroughly explored and understood, and most importantly, my mind is in that state of eustress, just enough stress to perform optimally but not enough for performance to degrade.
Here’s the track map with corner numbers:
I’m approaching the last two corners and my laptimer tells me this lap is on course to be a personal best, and I decide the next lap will be another. Not ‘will attempt’, I believe in the power of positive thinking.
A flying lap starts not with Turn 1, the first corner, but with the last corner as that is the key to speed on the straight – the faster I exit that last corner, the quicker I go down the straight past the start/finish line and the better my start to the lap. On this circuit the last two corners are a chicane, so tackled as one. I won’t exit the last corner at maximum speed unless I do well on the previous corner.
So to begin my flyer I focus on a quick exit from the final corner, early on the power, if it feels like you’re going to get close to the wall on the right then that’s probably about the right speed. Down the straight in third gear I hear my engine’s supercharger begin to whine, that intoxicating signal of speed which is my cue to look for the red shift lights to illuminate above the speedo, standard on my Elise. One light..two..three…now it’s time to snatch fourth, the quicker the shift the better, as that can easily save you half a tenth of a second and I’m chasing hundredths now. And you want to change right on redline, 200rpm too early is slow, one rpm over redline and the rev limiter will cut your power to protect the engine which is even slower. As ever with motorsport it’s all about how far you cut your margins, and for this lap, my margin shall be nil.
Flat out in fourth gear heading towards Turn 1 I’m approaching 150km/h, the fastest I’ll go on this track. I never look at the speedometer, so it’s only later I know the speed from datalogging. Speedometers are irrelevant on racetracks and racecars tend not to bother with them, yet it’s the most common question – how fast do you go? Time not km/h is the answer. But we can tell how quick we’re going by point at which we change gear on the track, whether its earlier or later than before, indicating how well we took that previous corner.
Another misconception about fast laptimes is that it’s pure physical effort, like using an axe to chop a log. In reality hotlaps are more precision and accuracy, like aiming for a strike in bowling, or lining up a ball to pot in snooker, freehand-drawing a perfect circle, or in car terms, an accurately judged parallel park. It’s all about technique, judgement, delicacy and finesse, not dumbly pressing the throttle and often you set your fastest laps when you’re focusing only on technique, not specifically trying for speed. It’s what we teach novices, focus on technique and the laptimes will come.
But right now, dumbly pressing the throttle is what I’m doing, approaching Turn 1. I’m looking for my brake marker, the point where I’ve learned from the laps thus far to brake. It’s a small imperfection in the track surface and when it disappears under the bonnet I brake, and when I say brake, I really smash the anchors hard as I can. I also keep the car straight to maximise grip, heel-toe shifting from fourth to third, blipping the throttle whilst braking. It took a long time to master that shifting skill, but it’s such a feeling when you nail it and few people, even race drivers can do it properly. Oh and that will be my last gearchange for the lap.
Under brakes I’m using all the tyre’s grip for slowing down, but I’ll shortly need to turn. Now I’m looking left, through the corner, where the car will go not where it’s heading now, vision always ahead of what the car is doing right now. And then I begin to ease the brake pressure to free up some grip for turning.
Immediately after I begin the turn I know if I’m going to be on course for the apex. I can correct my trajectory of course, there is plenty of track space and time to do so, but if I need to make any changes I’ll lose time. This time it’s all good, I’m exactly where I want to be, turning and slowing towards the apex, reducing braking still further to allow yet more grip for steering, seeking to use every bit of traction my car will give me.
Now nearly at the apex I’m impatient, wanting to hit the throttle, but I have to wait, wait for the nose to come round, last thing you want is to increase the throttle and then have to reduce it. But this lap is going well, even though I’m only halfway through the first corner. For a brief moment I’m off the throttle entirely, and the steering wheel is turned to the maximum it will be for that corner, all my grip budget now spent on turning, not braking or accelerating.
Then I ease the power on, at the same time reducing steering lock to give the car some grip to accelerate. There’s nasty, bouncy kerbs on the corner exit, I don’t want to run over those, but I need to be going so fast the car naturally runs to the track edge.
Turn 1 is one of the most difficult on the track, so it’s good it’s up first. If the last turn is tough you run the entire lap in fear of that last-moment mistake, but on this track if you stuff it up then you can just relax for the rest of the lap, then have another go just sixty seconds later. If the lap is a throwaway you can’t relax too much, you’ll drop out of the zone and not learn the corners at racing speed. Backing off by a fraction makes quite a difference, and you want your muscle memory and mental reflexes attuned to maximum speed. I am often accused of not backing off for passengers, but I always do, even if it doesn’t seem like it. It’s quite possible to give a passenger a spectacular ride which is not fast and with large margins for error.
There’s another tough turn on the way, but my focus now is on Turn 2 which arrives immediately, you don’t even need to unwind steering so Turns 1 and 2 combine into one arc. Turn 2 is an easy full-throttle curve, then just take the shortest path from Turn 2 to 3. Entering Turn 3 I have to brake, smoothly wash off speed. It’s not the full-on, ABS-chattering brake into Turn 1, more of a delicate finesse to load the front, adding grip so it turns, compared to Turn 1 this corner is slower and easier to get right. I compromise the exit a touch – meaning I turn a little tighter than I could, not using full width of track on exit. That’s because Turn 4 is coming up.
Out of Turn 3 it’s full-throttle through Turn 4, it’s not hard to do if you exit 3 correctly and clip 4’s apex, but I’m trying to minimise my steering angle, aware than anything other than straight ahead means the car uses precious energy for turning which could be translated into more speed. Just because a car is at full throttle doesn’t mean to say it’s going the fastest it can, something owners of front-drive cars in particular need to learn, understanding that sometimes slightly less than full throttle with the steering straight is quicker than full throttle with a slight steering turn, fighting understeer, to say nothing of the deleterious effect on your front tyres.
So out of Turn 4 you end up on the right side of the track which is exactly where you want to be for the wide entry into Turn 5. And turn 5 is a toughie. It’s relatively fast, and like Turn 1, you need to use the full width of track on exit. Too big a safety margin and you’ll be slow, wasting grip, too fast and you’re either flying off the track, or needing to make a time-sapping mid-corner adjustment. It’s the sort of corner where you have enough time to realise you’ll run wide before you do, but instead of making a correction which keeps the car on the track but slows it, you can just hope the Traction Gods deliver you some grip before the edge of the track arrives, rather than you actually lift the throttle. Many a driver has come to grief hoping the Traction Gods are merciful, but they obey the laws of physics which are notoriously inflexible.
Done right, the car clips the Turn 5 apex on the left, you apply power and it naturally arcs out wide to the edge of the track. Then there’s a brief moment of full-throttle before Turn 6 arrives, entered from the inside as there’s no time, or point in going left for a wide entry – the quickest way around this track is the shortest path between corners. Sure, you may travel faster if you swing out wide, but that’s more than outweighed by the extra distance travelled. Yes, the classic outside-inside-outside line is fastest in many cases, but not when you have very closely linked corners.
The science to figure out the quickest racing line cannot be distilled into one, or even ten simple rules. Swinging out wide for most of the corners make the track longer by about twenty metres or more than five Elises end-to-end, over 1% extra distance and at an average speed of 95km/h that’s 0.8 seconds extra of laptime, or half an eon. The extra speed on the wider arc won’t compensate for that additional distance in this case, and remember the more you turn the steering wheel, the slower you go.
Turn 6 is a long but tight corner, similar to Turn 3 but more so, nearly 180 degrees and it’s a delicate judgement to brake enough so you can turn the car, but not too much so you’re over-slow. With these corners you’re delicately brushing off speed, coaxing, easing, gently persuading the car, unlike the smash of brakes into Turn 1. Then when you’re into the corner the key to success is looking ahead, as you want to apply the power at the point where it’ll make the car run wide out to the left of the track, and you won’t do that if your eyes are staring straight ahead, so it’s eyes out of the side window, looking, waiting for that moment when the right foot goes down and the steering can straighten up.
Leaving Turn 6 there’s a little section of full-throttle and then we’re into my favourite moment of the track, the high-speed entry into Turn 7, the huge sweeping left-hander. You can pretty much throw a car into the corner without braking, just lifting off the accelerator, and it’s an exhilarating thrill to feel my Elise rotate in for the first apex, the rear loose, on a trajectory off the track but no…there’s just enough grip and I’m turning, slowing, now towards the centre of the track for a double-apex. You spend what feels like a lifetime in this corner which turns more than 180 degrees and it’s a glorious long moment like few other tracks offer, a little slice of racetrack heaven, playing with throttle and steering to delicately explore traction limits, then decide how you’ll use any surplus grip you’ve found – is it best to add a fraction more steering, or a smidge more power? Whatever suits the situation at hand, and here you can steer on the throttle which is adjusting the arc of the car by small throttle movements whilst the steering is held steady. There are not many corners where you can spend many, many seconds right at the limit of traction but this is one. Get it wrong, and you have oversteer to deal with and whilst I think oversteer is about the most fun you can have while clothed, it’s not the fastest way around the track.
Where were we? Oh yes, mid-corner. So here I’m looking well ahead, waiting for that moment when I can apply the throttle and arc out, clipping the second apex, the car naturally running wide to the right. Again, I know I’ve got it right if I’m concerned I might power off the circuit, but won’t. If I get it wrong, apply the power too early, well I can fix that by simply reducing throttle a little and thus tightening the turn, but then I’ve thrown away my laptime.
An error novices often make is to focus on keeping their minimum speed as high as possible during a corner. Big mistake. First, you shouldn’t be looking at the speedometer at any time during a lap. Second, the quickest way around a racetrack may well be to go slower than you can at some point so you can gain time elsewhere. For example, if your minimum speed during a corner is say 65km/h, and you can launch out onto the next straight at 75, that’s better than a minimum corner speed of 68 and you’re exiting onto the straight at 72.
Out of Turn 7 and there’s a small straight towards the final two corners which make a chicane, and these are relatively easy. Big brake for Turn 8, turn in with a transition of grip from brake to steer, don’t clip the kerb, well not more than a fraction, as that’ll unsettle the car, make 8 slightly tighter than it could be which makes 9 a fractionally wider arc, then power can go on as steering straightened up. And there’s the large, unfriendly, unyielding concrete wall on the exit of 9…but in my car that was never a threat unless kerbs were bounced over.
Out of 9 and it’s just now a matter of shortest path to the finish line, nothing left to do but press the throttle hard. I glance at my laptimer and it flashes green with -0.04 in white. Four hundredths better. I’ll take that. But I’m already reviewing the errors of the last minute, and thinking how I might improve when once more I brake for Turn 1 in another five seconds.
