Ultimate Speed Secrets

by Ross Bentley

  Exactly how do you induce the understeer or oversteer with your driving? That is up to you to find out. You should experiment with how you turn the steering wheel (the timing, how abrupt or smooth, the speed at which you turn it, and so on), the cornering line, controlling the weight transfer (with the brakes and throttle), and the car’s speed. If someone told you exactly what to do to make it understeer or oversteer, you would not get as much out of it. It is the experimenting—the trial and error, the self-discovery—that will help you become aware.

  Deliberately making the car understeer or oversteer makes you aware of whether you are causing or exaggerating any handling problem. It is like a golfer who consistently slices his tee shots. The typical fix is to turn his body or change his grip to compensate for where the ball is likely to go. The best fix, though, is to go to a driving range and deliberately slice a number of balls. By figuring out how to make yourself slice the ball, you have identified how to truly fix the cause of the problem, rather than just Band-Aiding it.

  This approach uses the MI+A=G to the fullest extent but at a subconscious level. Using this approach, you will fix any problem without even trying. It seems ironic, perhaps, that by trying to make an error, you become aware of what causes the error, therefore allowing you to fix it.

  PRACTICING Q-MODE AND R-MODES

  It really is unfair to expect yourself to be able to qualify at your best if you’ve not been allowed to practice it. With many cars and tire combinations requiring drivers to put in their perfect qualifying lap on a specific number of laps into a session, your job becomes even more challenging.

  The primary way for you to learn to qualify is through physical programming: practice. Yes, mental programming is also important, and you must do that as well, but it is difficult to visualize something you have never, or rarely done. You must give yourself the time to experience it and practice it. Then, you should go away and mentally program driving in what I call Q-mode.

  The combination of physical and mental programming of Q-mode will result in you putting your car in the grid position it deserves.

  In addition to programming your Q-mode, you should also work on various R-modes. What do I mean? In most forms of racing, a driver is not necessarily going to drive the entire race at what is often referred to as ten-tenths, at what I call R-1. R-2 is the mode where you’re backed off just so very slightly, at a pace that you could maintain all day, whereas R-1 is more of a “flyer” lap, most likely used in qualifying and the first and last few laps of a race. R-1 is on such a ragged edge that you would probably find it difficult to maintain throughout a race. R-3 is backed off from R-2 a bit more and is perhaps used to save the tires, brakes, gearbox, or engine.

  The important point here is that you cannot make the decision in the middle of a race to back off a bit, or to crank it back up again near the end of a race, without having a subconscious program to do that. I’m sure you have witnessed a driver who tried to back off slightly to protect a lead, only to crash. Or the driver who crashed, having had a big lead and being able to back off, only to have to crank it back up to the R-1 mode after a full course yellow ate up his lead. Even drivers like Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher have made big errors trying to change modes at the conscious level.

  These different levels, or modes, must be programmed. Once again, the most effective way of programming them is through both physical and mental practice. So you need not only practice driving at the R-1, R-2, and R-3 levels, you need to learn to trigger them. After some physical and mental programming, spend a session saying to yourself “R-1,” “R-2,” or “R-3,” and immediately drive at that level.

  BUILDING PROGRAMS

  Perhaps the greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, said, “No matter who you are, no matter how good an athlete you are, we’re creatures of habit. The better your habits, the better they’ll be in pressure situations.” One of the roles of practice is to build better habits, or better programming.

  Of course, just practicing driving around a racetrack may not be the most efficient use of time. As I’ve said before, only perfect practice makes perfect, so any amount of track time you get should be supervised and focused. If not, you may just get better at doing the wrong thing. And this applies no matter what level you’re at.

  It has always amazed me how the greatest athletes in any sport are generally credited with having superior natural talent, and yet they all seem to practice more, harder, and with more focus than their competitors. It makes me wonder if all that natural talent is really just more (and better) practice.

  Michael Jordan would show up for a game before other members of his team to practice his shot. During a short period of time early in 2001 when Tiger Woods was not winning everything in sight, he claimed it was because he was working on shots he would need specifically for the Masters later that year. Some people doubted his claim, until he won the Masters again. Martina Navratilova, winner of 167 singles titles in tennis, including a record nine Wimbledons, said, “Every great shot you hit, you’ve hit a bunch of times in practice.” And here I just thought it was all her natural talent that won those tournaments.

  The stories of Michael Schumacher’s commitment to practice and being the best is already part of his legend. After a day of testing at Ferrari’s test track, where he had just completed the equivalent of two full Grand Prix race lengths, he would spend a couple of hours in the gym working out.

  The point is that no athlete, not even you, can be expected to be the best if you don’t practice, both on and off the track. That practice is all about building better programming. The more you build better programming, the more natural talent you will be credited with.

  One final comment about practice: It’s dumb to crash in practice. This session is really to learn the track and to find the right setup for the car so you will be quick in qualifying and the race. Don’t waste it by crashing. There’s not much satisfaction in having someone say, “It’s a shame about that crash; you almost won that practice session!”

  Qualifying can be an art in itself. Being able to pull off one extremely quick lap is what it’s all about. Obviously, it’s important to qualify well. The closer to the front of the grid you are, the fewer cars you have to pass. Plus, psychologically, it gives you an edge on everyone you outqualified.

  It’s often best to wait for a clear gap in traffic during qualifying. There is not much point in driving in a group of cars, only to have those cars slow you down. Sometimes you spend more concentration on “racing” the cars around you, rather than focusing on what you need to do.

  That said, some drivers actually perform best when there is a little extra incentive, such as chasing another car. Plus, you may be able to get a good draft off the car in front. But be careful you don’t get too caught up in what the competition is doing. Again, focus on your own performance.

  As I said earlier, you may want to set up the car a little differently for qualifying. Sometimes, setting the car up a little looser (so that it oversteers more) or with less downforce is best for a couple of quick laps but would be difficult to control for the length of a race.

  There also comes a time in qualifying when you may have to go for what former World Champion Niki Lauda called a “chaotic lap.” This is where you push for that last extra tenth or hundredth of a second. This may mean leaving your braking that fraction longer, entering a turn a fraction quicker, or taking that “almost flat-out” corner absolutely flat-out. Obviously, this can be the most dangerous driving you ever do. It will likely be the most thrilling as well, and the most satisfying when it all works out.

  Qualifying for an oval track race, where one car at a time makes a qualifying run, is probably the most pressure-filled moment of your life. But, like anything, the more experience you have doing it, the easier it gets.

  It’s important to be focused for qualifying, whether it’s by yourself on an oval or in a pack on a road-racing circuit. This is where you really have to shut out ev
erything else around you and visualize yourself doing everything perfectly on the track, pushing for that last ounce of speed. Then, once you’re on the track, just let it flow. Don’t “try.” If you’re focused and you’ve visualized what you want to do, it should come naturally. Let it happen.

  Putting a lap together for qualifying can be a challenge for some drivers, even some who are no doubt fast. The challenge can be driving the car at the limit every inch of the track. All fast drivers drive the car at the limit, for most of the track. Super-fast drivers drive at the limit the whole lap, not just parts of it.

  A few years ago I was coaching a driver competing in the Formula Atlantic series race that was supporting the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. As luck would have it for me, the team’s shirt I was wearing that day was almost identical to the ones worn by the track security people. I first noticed this when I walked up to the front of a grandstand to watch the Formula One cars during a practice session. As I stood there with a radio attached to my belt and a hard-card pass hanging around my neck, three people showed me their ticket and asked where their seats were. I politely pointed them in a direction I thought might help, and then noticed a gap in the fence where a security person had just walked through. So I did as anyone who wanted desperately to get a closer look into the cockpit of a Formula One car at speed would do: I walked through the gap in the fence and positioned myself in such a way that I had an amazing up-close view of the cars as they made their way through one of the left-right chicanes.

  I stood there for about 30 minutes soaking up as much as I could from this vantage point, asking myself why some drivers were doing what they were doing, what made the fast ones fast, and noticed the dynamics of the cars as they passed. Even at the level Formula One drivers are at, there were things that I could notice that some could improve on. There were some drivers who had their cars at the limit through about 95 percent of the section of track I was observing. There were others who had their cars at the limit for 99 percent of the time. There was one driver who consistently had his car at the limit for 100 percent of the section, Michael Schumacher. He was doing something inside the cockpit that allowed him to have his car at the very ragged edge through the middle section of the chicane in a way that the others didn’t, not even Haikkonen or Montoya. The difference at that level of driving is minute. I’m sure that had I not been able to get as close to the track as I did that day, I would never have been able to notice the difference.

  So, if putting together just one section of track—driving it at the absolute limit throughout a section—is so difficult, imagine how challenging putting together an entire lap can be. And I bet you have by now, imagined putting together one perfect lap, with the car at its absolute limit every inch of the track. That’s what mental imagery is all about. But if it’s difficult for even Formula One drivers to have the car at the absolute limit for every inch of the track, how challenging is it for you?

  SPEED SECRET

  Driving the limit means driving the limit every inch of the track.

  Qualifying, getting that last bit of speed out of yourself and the car for just one lap, is as much about your mindset as it is about any technique. Triggering that mindset starts before you even get in the car. Even the way you walk to the car can impact your mindset. Michael Schumacher’s walk sends a message to himself and others that he means business. Shutterstock

  I strongly recommend that when you’re doing mental imagery of a perfect qualifying lap, you break it down. Break it down, almost to the point where you can see, feel, and hear yourself over every inch of the track, even if that means doing it in slow motion in your mind. If there is a piece of the track, no matter how small, where you can’t imagine having the car at the limit, you won’t when you get out there to qualify. And for some drivers, there are pieces of the track that they can’t imagine in their minds at all; it’s as if a section of the track is missing. Guess what? If that’s the case for you, it’s doubtful you’ll be able to drive that section of track well. Do everything you can to imagine that part of the track, even if it means going out to that section and getting another view of it while other cars are on track, imagining yourself in one of them. Or walk the track at the end of a day, stopping to take a mental snap shot of specific sections, and then close your eyes and mentally rehearse it before walking on to the next section. Or if you have some in-car video, play specific sections in slow motion, and stop and replay them over and over until you’ve got a clear mental picture of every inch of the track.

  And that’s the process for putting together a lap. Get a good clear mental image of what every inch of the track looks, feels, and sounds like at the limit, build a mental trigger to launch the program, and then just let that program take over when on the track. Perhaps the most difficult part of this puzzle is that last piece: trusting the program. For many drivers, the idea of not trying and just trusting their mental programming to drive the car just doesn’t seem right. They have the mental model of a race driver constantly fighting with the car, making it do what he or she wants, thinking about every single movement in the car, and consciously being in control.

  Ayrton Senna was a master of trusting his programming to drive the car. One of his legendary qualifying drives was at Monaco in 1988 where he took the pole by outqualifying his McLaren teammate, four-time World Champion Alain Prost, by 1.4 seconds! Afterwards, Senna said, “And I suddenly realized I was no longer driving the car consciously. . . . I was kind of driving it by instinct, only I was in a different dimension. . . . I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more. Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realized that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are.”

  Senna got to that level more than most drivers, and if you really listen to how he described his driving it was clear that he trusted his mental programming to drive the car, even if that resulted in him being a little scared by the feeling: “It frightened me because I realized I was well beyond my conscious understanding.” While he may not have truly understood what was happening, he certainly allowed himself to get there more often than most. And that may be the most important point: allowing yourself to get there, trusting that by letting go you’ll actually perform better by letting your programming drive the car.

  Putting a lap together, driving the car at the limit every inch of the track, is all about developing a clear mental program, triggering it, and then trusting it to do the job.

  SPEED SECRET

  Program every inch of track you want to drive at the limit, and that better be every single inch of track.

  Before a race, think about where you are starting on the grid. Who is starting around you and what are they like to race with? Can you trust them to run wheel to wheel with you? Are they fast starters? Do they run a few fast laps, then begin to fade?

  Analyze those factors and have a plan well before you head out for the start of the race.

  During your first pace lap (or the first lap of a practice or qualifying session for that matter), your first priority is to get the tires and brakes up to operating temperature. Many drivers will weave back and forth across the track to heat the tires. This is great, but be careful. Often, you will end up in the “marbles” off line with cold tires. Many drivers have spun out doing this. Also, it has been known to happen where two drivers get so caught up trying to warm their tires, that they actually collide. Watch closely for what the other drivers around you are doing. Don’t be surprised by someone accelerating and then braking hard.

  In fact, race tires will heat up quicker from hard acceleration and braking than just weaving back and forth from side to side. A goal should be to heat the tires from the inside. If you build heat in the brakes pads, the temperature transfers through to the rotors, to the hub or uprights, to the wheel, and into the air inside the tire. This builds temperature in the carcass, not just the surface of the tire.

  So weav
e back and forth while using the brakes with your left foot to heat them up. Accelerate hard in a straight line, getting some wheelspin, and then brake heavily. If possible, hang back a little when approaching a corner, then accelerate to take the turn quickly, even trying to work the steering wheel back and forth to scrub the front tires. At the same time, take one last good look at the track surface in case some oil or whatever was dropped on it in the previous races. If it’s raining, really work the car around to feel how slippery it is. Make sure you’re comfortable with what the car is going to feel like during the opening laps.

  At the start, look far ahead, not just at the cars around you. If possible, watch the start of other races to see where (approximately) the starter drops the green flag. And if you are using a two-way radio, have a pit crew member watch the starter and radio you as soon as he sees the flag drop.

  Sometimes you can hang back just a little from your grid position, then begin to accelerate just slightly before you think the green flag is going to drop. If you’ve timed it right, you will have a slight advantage on the others around you. If not, you’re going to have ease off the throttle. What you don’t want is for the flag to drop just as you’re backing off the gas.

  In fact, depending on your grid position, once you have started to accelerate, don’t lift. If you do and the green flag drops, you are going to lose positions. If you try to anticipate the green and begin accelerating, stay on it (within reason, obviously). If you do this, one of two things will occur: