Want to go faster? Let me share what I've learnt over the last 20 years that will help cut your lap times down to the LastTenth. Whether in REAL WORLD or in a racing SIMULATOR, I will guide you through driving technique, car setup, telemetry analysis, race craft, race strategy, track guides, and use my background in physics to explain the technical knowledge behind it all.
Thanks for the warm welcome! I have 2 videos in the works and ready very soon; a little different that previous videos, but they were kinda done spur of the moment.
This is exactly me. I needed to hear this. I usually do a few mid speed laps to learn the track and then cut loose. Within 5 laps or so I've got my personal best and then I spend the rest of the week trying to break through that ceiling time and I never do.
I've been in single class 60 minute races with 30-40 car grids where I podiumed without racing anyone (compromise my line) the entire race, outside of the race start. In single class races, I would say racing happens a very small fraction of the time. Regardless, the point isn't so much about running the "perfect line", it's more about applying these principles to minimize lap times
I teach my students a technique I call grip test.The jist of it is to apply a stimulus to the car and see how it responds. Based on the response, you will know if you are under or above the car's grip 'limit'. Being such a fundamental skill, it's one of the things we on quite early on. I'll try to make a video on it in the future. It makes more sense when explained with some theory and practice.
Thanks so much! I could try in the future. I'm not sure I know Bogie well enough at this point to do it. Plus, I'd need to do a track walk to recon and gather pictures etc.
It's something I've always done without thinking about when racing and do the opposite when driving normally purely because there are generally cars in front that might be stopping for lights or junctions before turning. I do have 3 driving heads though, kart and sim racing , road driving and emergency response .
Yeah all those years of just doing it from a very young age, to the point they just instinctively know how to do it (correctly), sometimes without really knowing what they are doing.
Many if not most elite drivers do not use brake point "markers". They are looking at the apex, or visualizing the apex in their minds eye, clear back on the straight. They have honed their the special acuity and send of speed/distance to know when to brake, without having a specific landmark they use to key their braking. The strange thing is their braking points will be very consistent, as if they are using a specific marker. This is why you will never be a professional driver. Elite drivers develop this ability back when they were 10-14 years old in karts.... By the time you race against them in say....F4, they have been honing that skill for 6 years+
Hmm... I guess Verstappen just isn't elite enough... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mz7xA77rP3c.htmlsi=Ziffq4y4ia3W0QFq And neither is Hamilton and/or Russell... www.mercedesamgf1.com/news/formula-one-brake-systems-explained "Drivers ramp up the braking as the weekend goes on, using practice to really find the limit. They'll start off conservatively, before pushing deeper and deeper into the corner until they find the right marker to begin applying the brake pedal."
The explanation of how to feel the limit of slip angle is incomplete. It is different if you are in a state oversteer or understeer. You do indeed feel understeer with your hands, as the steering goes light. You should also intuitively feel that the car is "not turning as much as it should" (UNDERsteer). In a state of oversteer, you can not feel self aligning torque because it is the REAR wheels that are getting to the limit first, and those aligning torques react into the suspension, as the rear wheels are not steered.
Great and detailed explanation. Mosport has always been very well respect by all, including F1 drivers, as one of the most challenging tracks. I have done hundreds of laps there over the years and I have to say it is MUCH more forgiving now than it was when I raced there in the eighties. There were generally no runoffs or just grass ones as you showed here in turn 2. I can still remember following another 911 at full tilt, through the exit of turn 1 where he was straddling the exit curbs! From the curbs to the guardrail there was only about 6 feet of grass. A little too close for comfort!!
I still don't quite understand, in the next video about shifting point said when to shift is when there are less torque produced in lower gear than in higher gear Then isn't that torque is what important when thinking about acceleration? 0:17
I can see why it easy to mix this up. Yes WHEEL torque is what's important when thinking about acceleration. When power is higher, there is going to be some gear ratio that will allow the powertrain to produce more wheel torque, at some given speed, even if engine torque is lower.
That's a great question. I've heard various explanations. I haven't thought enough about it tbh, but what I've read is i) it's because of rubber's viscoelastic properties, ii) and because tires are round and when you add load, it gets harder and harder to fully deform to a flat ground.
Great question. For one, a longer wheel base will result in larger turning radii for a given steering angle. Said another way, it requires more steering to maneuver a corner than a short(er) wheelbased car.
Hey thanks for Checking in on me! I've just been super busy. I may have a teaser on what I've been working on. I'll post something on the channel. As for the videos, it's just increasingly difficult to find time. I think if I can find an editor to help me, I can do a better job of getting videos posted...
Dude, I raced pro-rally many years, and even I didn't see that slide coming out of 1 ! Nice recovery, considering what you where driving. John Biffin would be impressed (He rallied a Porsche, before Quattro ... yes I'm that old)
LoL thanks! But that wasn't me. It was a friend and fellow instructor who was willing to share the footage. But you're right about even you not being able to see it, which goes to show how snappy the car gets when we cross the dry line. BTW, I actually started this hobby in a subaru during the McRae era! 😀
It is also a lot easier to fit wide tires in the back of a typical car than the front so it makes sense to put more weight in the back to make it easier to balance grip out. Very wide front tires can also numb the steering feel more so than wider rear tires so there are some additional benefits in handling and feel.
Never driven it real life (hope to one day) but at least in the sim, this circuit always wants to end me. T2 in particular. Probably one of the hardest circuits to get right, and this is coming from someone who loves technical circuits like Suzuka, Autopolis and Fuji.. but Mosport makes those look like child's play. Great lap guide!
A little comment. Trail braking requires a firm confidence and I would claim that trail braking is easier with stiff sidewalled (race/slick) tyre compared to a soft side wall road tyre - on tarmac. I leave a little reservations to gravel and snow - situations where you need to base everything on (aggressive) weight transfer. If you have wobbly tyre on tarmac it is very difficult to find the confidence. The tyre needs to repeat the same time after time and you need to be able to trust it.
That's an interesting idea. My current sidewalls are really soft; softer than my last ones which were already soft. It was quite and adjustment for me.
@@LastTenth If we think about the axis of tyre types Volume->HP->UHP->UUHP->race slicks we have certain tendencies from left to right: - Dry grip increases - Life span shortens - Tyres can take more heat - Sidewalls get stiffer But there are still differencies. Michelin favors relatively soft sidewall (after all they patented the original X-Radial) while Bridgestone prefers torsionally very stiff tyre tube. The angle of sidewall plies are quite radial in Michelin while Bstone apparently uses more diagonal angles, like a leftover from cross-ply tyres. There are pros and cons in both. Stiff sidewall usually means short reaction time due to lateral stiffness, but also more noise, vibrations and hardness. Soft sidewall is more comfortable, reacts slower and gives a bit more room for the contact patch to comply with the road given you have got the steel belts correct. Michelin is the tyre that takes the longest to wear out. Note that vertical stiffness is not the same as lateral stiffness although they correlate most often. And another factor is the damping of the stiffness, especially lateral. Nobody likes a wobbly tyre. I have had PS2, PSS, S02A, Conti SC2 and Eagle F1 As6 in my 911. All excellent tyres, except the SC2 which was rubbish. Gripwise I can not tell which has had the most grip but I can tell that I loved those Bstone Potenza S02A for the superior feel, accuracy and predictability. The sidewalls were really stiff. They really pumped up my confidence. Coming from a winter snow country Ive learned trail braking naturally. Otherwise you tend to understeer to the snow bank and you will be punished by digging the car out from the bank.
@@juhakivekas2175 Hah! I know what you mean! Not only did I have to dig my car out of a bank, I once had to tow my car, with my other car, out of a snowed in ditch.
All these tricks give extra load to the tyres so logically the car acts as if it was heavier than it really is, of course at low speed corners that load is substantially less than at fast ones but in any case the car acts like a heavier one and giving that F1 cars turn way better than normal ones I don't understand how the opposite happens otherwise we wouldn't have seen all these applications on them, if we examine acceleration or braking process of course the lighter car is more effective due to its lower mass but would its tyres have more grip to achieve that? That's what I meant!
I'm afraid your logic is wrong. As I've mentioned, more load on a tire does not equate to a heavier car, just like how a plane isn't any lighter because of lift. A F1 car's weight is around 798kg plus fuel. No amount of downforce is going to change that.
And why FIA banned old school ground effect chassis with the most characteristic example of Brabham BT46B fun car which increased the grip so much giving the car big advantage in the corners?
Not sure what this has to do with this video, maybe you're confusing this video with another. Regardless, I haven't looked into it but I remember reading it was something on the lines of safety. Ground effects produced a lot of downforce, but it had a really narrow operating window. If you exceed that window, from too much roll, road irregularities , or damage etc, it would be like and aerodynamic off switch and you loose a lot of grip which will send your car careening off track, presumably at a very, very high speed. Add to that the lower safety back then, it was considered too dangerous.
Then if lighter cars are always better why we see F1 cars using these enormous wings to press them down making heavier than they normally are and why the majority of executive sports cars are over 1.5 tons heavy when with modern technology they could have been much lighter?
Well first of all, wings add downforce, they don't make cars heavier. They increase the normal force on the tires. As for sports cars, the reason, imo, are a few. Over the years they've had bigger and bigger engines, which need bigger brakes, safety, electronics, wiring, and everything else, making them heavier. Also crash test standards are probably a lot higher which would make for a larger and heavier car. Then there's the marketing. Nobody wants to pay quarter mil for a car with 13" rims, so they have to stuff big wheels and big tires and fit big brakes on them. Here's a simple fact: when people convert street cars to race cars, nobody adds weight to it, they're gutted every single time. If you look at F1, and others, there are minimum weight requirements which is for safety i believe. Without it, they would just make the cars lighter and lighter.
@@LastTenth yeah it’s in the regs. Unless we misunderstand each other, I think you’ll find it’s also the rule in F1. If all four wheels are over the white line the lap time is deleted.
@@CurboroughSprinter Then based on what you're saying (I presume "over" meaning 'beyond', not 'on top'), the track limit is the outside edge of the white line, not the white line itself. That's why I said in the video a white line is, at best, imprecise.
@@LastTenthwell I’d say a white line is more precise than the edge of the asphalt, which may wiggle about depending on how well they made the track. The point is, at 2:14 and 2:19 the car goes all four wheels over the white line so exceeds track limits and the lap would be deleted in real life in most UK racing.
@@CurboroughSprinter If the edge of the asphalt is the track limit, then a white line is irrelevant no matter how straight it is. This is why I said, in your case, the track limit is the outside edge of the white line, not the white line itself.
Actually the suspension is not a factor in how much total weight transfer occurs. May be this can help: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g6UWye-StcU.html.
I'm not sure what you mean by better. Torque and Power are interelated. An amount of torque at some engine speed will always result in some fixed amount of power.
Great question! It's not easy because of the power steering. Without it, the steering effort would reach peak just before the tires reach optimal slip angle. But if everything is numb, you'll have to rely on other techniques. One such technique is the 'grip test' - it's something I teach to students pretty early on and it takes an amount of intentional practice to internalize it. I'm not sure it's something I can explain in a few sentences. I might try to put a video together some point in the future, but in the meantime, you may find some information on this and other topics on my discord. Just go to discord.lasttenth.com.
