Awareness as you mentioned I think can be as important as focus. Most people are not aware of their thoughts. Meaning that wondering of the mind is thinking. When you aware of yours mind distraction you can decide to focus. Great topic !
My advice is to enter long races as a basis, even against the AI. Short races are simply not enough to put your skills to test. Endurance races are the best practice to stay focused. One if my "permanent" in-race goals is to "make my best lap out of every lap", this is, to keep lap times within 0.5 seconds of my best time. The very time I fail this goal, my "spider senses" awake: either refocus, either manage traffic, either manage tire degradation, etc...
Interesting to hear someone else talking about this. I've got pretty bad ADD and 'attention control' is one of my biggest problems. I've found sim racing to be one of the most demanding situations for someone with ADD, because I can easily lose focus just between two corners. It took me a long time to be able to do even one lap without one bad mistake caused by some distraction in my brain. Over the years I got better until I can now do about 10 minutes without a mistake fairly consistently. Past that 10 minutes, though, and you can see in my lap times when my focus starts failing. I do keep improving, so I think sim racing is actually a really good tool for dealing with ADD and similar problems.
I've got add as well. I used to play csgo at a pretty good level and most games I was in the zone. Sim racing is much harder to keep focused, although nowadays I can do 45 minute races comfortably (it took me a good while to get there). CSGO was way easier because I had total focus for 30-45 seconds each round and then a good break until the next round. The closest thing to a mental break in sim racing are the straights. Very tiring for sure!
This actually explains so much! I’m not going to beat myself up over not getting as good as I want as quickly as I’d like. The amount of distractions some days are just unrelenting!
I'm very much a novice, so what I do when I catch my mind wandering is simply tell myself (out loud if need be) what the next corner is, where the braking point is, where I should apex, etc. Really just the basics, just so I can get back into that rhythm you talked about of the feedback from the car. And setting realistic goals definitely helps to keep my wits about me too, staying out of trouble and finishing 15th is a good race for me and having that mindset helps me to achieve it and not get distracted
Even being diagnosed with ADHD and having life long issues with attention not usually in my control, some of these things you point out have helped me. Of course, medication helps me too, but I still try to practice reminders like breathing and I always follow goals that are achievable like top half finishes or avoiding safety rating losses. Thank you for another insightful video. :)
There is no other element is as important as Focus in sim racing. Here's few things I found about focus while sim racing. 1. Time of the day: Focus is everything in sim racing. If I have the stats I could show you how bad my racing is in daytime because of lot of distractions like people coming and going from my room, phone ringing, messages popping, people shouting etc. compared to my nighttime racing performance where there is less external distractions. I am not a fast driver but even that I can drive my best at nighttime. 2. Brain's capacity/ condition prior to the race: If I am already bit drained out, physically or mentally or both due various reason, I tend to make more mistakes and ruin the race in the end. Sim racing requires your brain to operate at 110% all the time. Slight tiredness can lead to disasters. 3. Long stints and physical tiredness: I tend to loose focus if I have any physical discomfort or ache in certain body part. My brain constantly shifts it's focus to the discomfort rather than focusing on the driving. So any physical discomfort to begin with or to have in the middle of the race can lead to bad races as well. 4. Something to eat/drink in between: I tried to eat chocolate bars and cold fresh juices in between driving. Seems to help a bit with focusing. Probably because it injects some glucose in the brain which seems to help. for me cold juices seems to work better than chocolates. Sim racing actually helped to me retain my focus in any life situations better than anything. If you keep sim racing long enough, It will act as meditation for most of the part.
Well. It's a very insteresting topic. I've began to be aware of how I am when I sit and train/play. At times I really see myself disconnected. At times I'm present. At times I receive information and not adjust to what they mean. At times I become too conservative. At times I adjust or try to. Especially in LMU that doesn't have ABS, track evolution per se or coming from rain to dry is a big thing in how quick you adapt, how you explore what's possible without making mistakes etc etc. I've experienced days in which I am really present. I'm of course not becoming a faster driver per se but I can exploit myself to where I am without compromising it. There's development though. At the beginning my attention span was shorter and I was less prone to realise I was loosing focus while it was happening. Thanks!
I really like your high goal, low goal idea. Usually I go in with no low goal and get frustrated quickly when I mistake on one corner that was correct last lap. Thanks for the video and ideas.
Fantastic video. As someone who's main racing sims are usually rally based this skill is incredibly important. Because to PROPERLY be on the limit on a WRC stage with pacenotes, car control, etc etc it can be daunting. Especially when you have to really be visualizing the pacenotes to know whats ahead. All it takes it one single lapse at the limit, and you can easily loose your pace.
Thank you for making this video. I am still learning how to sim race, and I am at a point where I am not finishing where my pace says I should finish. I think focus and consistency are where I am coming up short, so this video is helpful.
For someone who is 101-102% off the pace and spending 100+ hours on each track in practice with telemetry and being just 1s shy of absolute aliens I can really confirm this. Obviously feel and understanding of car is very important, but focus is what really sets apart best from aliens. Of course practice is another things that is very important and more you can practice the correct way the better you will become. But with greater focus you really archive things faster and easier, just as Nils said. Still haven't reached alien times, yet ;)
Nils with another banger of a video! For last months this was exactly what I understood for myself spending 10-100 hours training each track and training my pace/times (being 101-102%). And I've never understood this as much as I understand this now, that focus and/or concentration on the moment is what actually helps me get better, but I really struggle with that. I feel like I have some psychological problems with concertation, however I have completed endurance championship and was easily doing double stints with no time drops. However when I practice alone it gets tougher as there is no adrenaline from race that helps me keep up my concentration and I tend to do short practices (to my point of view), where I usually drive ~25 liters until pit for around 1-2 hrs before draining out. And sometimes keeping concentration even for those ~25 liters seems hard. That's why I try to improve my sleeping habits and be/feel "fresh", before jumping into race or practice session. Also thank you for your content you've really helped me improve in my driving and understanding of things and I honestly suggest you to anybody as best of the best simracers/coaches. (Idc if someone says you're not, considering how you understand racing and are able to articulate it in words and videos to others is amazing, best content!)
Good point. Also personally for me the aspect of training is often to extract better laptime, so I'm just constantly watching the delta and either get too excited or too frustrated with how it is going. That's why sometimes I match or even break my lap records in sprint races, because I'm just focusing on the driving and the cars ahead and not purely on the delta
@@TzeiEm I used to use delta to help me improve but over last months I found that as I keep my eye on it distracts me more than it helps. So I practice not to look there and trust my feeling and look at telemetry afterwards.
Instructions unclear; lost my focus after 5 seconds... In all seriousness, great video as always, shining a light on something that's completely overlooked by more 'hard skill' oriented topics!
While recognizing my short focus/attention span, I have a time-based and an event-based focus reset strategy. Time based one when I am on my job and event based one while doing other things, like racing. During a race, I TRY to reset every 1, 2 or 3 laps (depends on the length), on the start-finish stretch. I am slow, but fairly consistent. Pro tip: If you want to focus while reading a long sentence (like the above one); just hold your breadth and read. :D
I also have problem with keeping focus so most important for me to keep up my 101-102% pace is to be on adrenaline. If I'm not sweating I'm not focused which means I'm not going fast enough. But your suggestion is also interesting!
What Helps me massively is also the IMMERSION into the Game. There is very good Hardware to Buy and also Hardware Not to buy (eg LED). Triple Screen/ big curved screen / Maybe VR, good headphones as described in this Video, darkness in your room, powerful PC for better graphics and Flow of the Game, gloves to prevent abrasions etc. etc. . Good Video ❤
After perfect practice with data pack and visual replay practice, when official race starts my goal is to finish race and hit my realistic consistent laptime during race. Usually crew chief will say your laps are consistent. And then focus on that lap time and not the coach data pack laptime.
This is one of the main reasons I don't play in leagues much currently! It's almost impossible for me to get a full 90 min chunk of time where I'm not interrupted. When I do practice, 1. the first thing I find is a set up that I feel comfortable with for that track. 2. I try and find a pace I can duplicate for the entire race! It's irrelevant if I can start off super fast if I destroy my tires and lose a ton of lap time in the final laps. 3. I try and work on stamina as I have nerve damage in both my feet and a horribly bad back! 90 min is about my max although I'm working up to doing 3 hours with full 1 hour stints.
This is a very interesting point, except with me is total opposite, I make more mistakes in a quick race around the 20-30min mark format over 60-90mins races. I don’t seem to understand why that is with me yet but working on it
16:05 "Becoming more aware of your farts and getting in charge of your mind wandering can be trained". I knew I was missing something! Gotta become more aware of my farts. Cant wait for the result! 😂 I cant unhear it and I bet now you can't, either. Enjoy! 🤪 Anyway, Focus really is the hardest skill to master. Sometimes just focusing on your mirrors or what the guy in front or behind is doing can throw you off and make you lose what you needed to do. Gotta get more aware of these things distracting you and temper the way you focus so it is always on the most important thing ahead.
Meine Philosophie. Konstanz. Beste Hotlap bringt null wenn Du den Fokus auf der Strecke nicht permanent bringst. Und die schnellen Jungs können beides.
I do better at 'busy' tracks where I have less time to mentally wander. I'm getting better at one hour races though with fewer and fewer brain farts, but there are absolutely abysmal days and also days when I can really lock in and the finish line shows up fast. I just can't forecast which one is coming in. I know good sleep makes a huge difference for me. It fixes a metric ton of performance issues. Good sleep is like starting on pole for the new day.
Secret Service agents were changing every 15 min some time ago, becasue it was believed that you can remain fully conrentrated on task for not more than that time. Interesting...
I'd like to see a bunch of aliens put on an EEG brainwave measurment tool in a laboratory to see what kind of alpha or theta brainwaves they have. Psychology calls it the flow and sports calls it the zone. I agree that some kind of meditation practice will help with lengthening focus.
Hi, Nils, I really really have to thank you for all the videos and dor sharing super valuable information. Based on your videos I scrapped around 3s. Now I am racing with a friend and he is constantly 1s faster than me. We looked at the telemetry and he has around 10km more in each corner. How can I gain those 10km. My mind will not let me release the brake faster. What I am doing wrong? How can I increase the minimum apex speed? Many many thanks, Catalin
that depends on the specific error, but it all starts with cleaner trail braking to allow the front to smoothly grip up for the turn and/or using the entire track width during braking
doesn't work for me at all as i rely so much on game audio to know whats happening to the car. if your ear can differentiate game sound from music - fine, if you don't rely on sound but mostly vision and ffb - also fine. and if music relaxes you, well, also fine. personal thing, but not mine :D
I’d like to know his thoughts on this as well! I know I can’t do it. I tried listening to music even while just cruising, and learning the track. Too much noise pollution
Sometimes I use music to help myself with focus and adrenaline to upkeep my focus. But sound is also very important to me most importantly in braking as I tend to define my braking speed with engine braking/rpm sound.
Personally I have found playing background music to be really helpful. Since I started that habit, I have made significantly less errors during longer races. But I wouldn't choose my gym playlist of course, instead I usually listen to some lofi beats playlists that are actually intended to be played in the background and improve your focus
What about Jardier? He's significantly slower than you, but still so much faster than casuals, while he's constantly talking, reading chat etc. during the races :d
I thankfully have medication to help, but a lot of the time I have to have someone to talk intermittently to get my focus back on the race. Usually my mind will have racing thoughts and I'll get super restless whilst my inputs get impatient and imprecise, but once someone tells me that I'm doing well or that I'm closing in I get back in it. Crew Chief updates as "simdad" as they are actually help me too. Just little things that I try to use to remind myself.
Even with this though it is still very hard compared to someone who is not suffering from ADHD. I realize that in sim racing I have a disadvantage but that makes the triumphs that more important to me whenever I do manage to place excellently or even improve quite a bit. :)
Compared to LMU, ACC is much more arcade-like-game. You dont even have to modulate the brakes, because you have ABS. In LMU, no ABS for GTE-class, and a more realstic tyre-model. This is what real-world-racing-drivers say.
so you are complaining about real GT3 Cars having abs? and obviously you don't know what you are talking about. just because you reach 100% input in acc doesn't mean there's no modulation. you didn't look close enough, or watched bad drivers for whom abs is designed. if acc is oh so easy, go and drive fast in it, we're waiting you always come with the same stuff, stop boring us all, and this video is even entirely unrelated to any of that - what's wrong with you? maybe watch my video on sim Fanboyism.
wow, did you just speak for over 20 mins to tell people how great you are? :D my god nils. youre an awkward, narcisstic person for real. you could have explained that in under 5 mins. but you just LOVE to hear yourself talking.
dude what are you blabbering about, hes talking about focus.. found it quite interesting.. you seem to have some personnel grudge against the dude.. wonder where that animosity comes from
