Ultimate Speed Secrets

by Ross Bentley

  THE CHARGER

  The Charger tends to either win or crash. Attributed to big you-know-whats, bravery is often what the Charger is credited with.

  Gilles Villeneuve may have been the ultimate Charger, but Paul Tracy certainly seems to have followed in his footsteps, as have Sam Hornish and Tony Stewart.

  THE PERSONALITY

  Could it be that some drivers have made it to the top due to marketability and personality, simply because of who they are and how they deal with people around them? Or due to their lineage, being “second-generation drivers”? While a champion must always have driving talent, there are some drivers who opened a few doors and generated some opportunities due to their personalities and the good fortune that has come with it.

  Would Danny Sullivan, Jacques Villeneuve, and Michael Waltrip have had the opportunities to showcase their talents without their names and marketing abilities? Did Alex Zanardi and Damon Hill go farther in their careers due to their personalities or lineage? Without a doubt, they all have incredible driving talent, but there are certainly other attributes that have contributed to the Personality’s success.

  THE PROFESSOR

  The Professor is the thinking driver. They often win at the “slowest possible speed,” using a calculated approach. Their cars are often better setup due to their analytical approach.

  Jackie Stewart’s strategy was to win at the slowest possible pace to conserve his car. Alain Prost, the second most winning F1 driver ever, had the nickname “The Professor.” Rick Mears may have been the best Indy-car oval racer ever due to his calculating approach to winning races. Even in the wild world of NASCAR, Alan Kulwicki won a championship by being just a little “smarter” than everyone else.

  THE COMPLETE DRIVER

  There have been few drivers who are the perfect combination of all of the above traits, but that is the ultimate goal of every driver, or at least it should be.

  Michael Schumacher may be the most Complete Driver ever, although Mario Andretti may have been at least equal in his day. And Jimmie Johnson.

  Think about Schumacher: Is he a Workhorse? Yes. He works harder at his craft than any driver. Was he born with natural talent? Certainly. Is he a Charger? Witness some of the dices he’s had with Montoya, Haikonnen, and Villeneuve over the years. Is he marketable and does he have a personality? Love him or hate him, Schumacher is a somebody, and his ability to motivate people around him is legendary. A Professor? His attention to detail and his analytical approach is one of the keys to his success. The Complete Driver? Perhaps the best ever.

  Although the definition of the Complete Driver has changed through the years, Mario Andretti is the only other driver in the history of the sport who we believe could rival Michael Schumacher in his completeness. He worked hard, had natural talent, was a charger, was marketable (who in the world doesn’t know the name Andretti?), and was a smart driver.

  Understand that I’m not suggesting that one type of driver is any better than another. Nor am I saying that because a driver is dominant in one type that he isn’t also strong in another. For example, the Natural is no better than the Workhorse, just because he may (or may not) have been born with more natural talent. You can make the argument that the Workhorse, in fact, is better in that he took what he was born with and made himself as good as the Natural.

  Neither is the Charger any less intelligent than the Professor, nor is the Professor any less assertive or competitive. It’s just that each one has used his dominant trait to maximize his performance.

  Now, if you had to pick one to be, it’s obvious that being the Complete Driver is going to be advantageous. It increases your odds of making it as a professional race driver. Can you make it if you’re not the Complete Driver? Well, the fact that so many champions have made it without being the Complete Driver says it can be done. However, even the champions I’ve used as examples for each driver type are awfully close to being the Complete Driver. It’s hard to find a type or characteristic that any one of them is weak in.

  When you attempt to categorize a successful driver, you will notice that some are difficult to identify as one type or another. That’s because they are well-rounded, or close to the Complete Driver. The more complete a driver is, the greater his or her odds of success. Every one of the drivers I’ve listed here are close to being the Complete Driver. They are also all champions.

  Take a look at drivers who have not won major championships. It’s interesting to note that it becomes much easier to categorize them. The reason? Because they are not as complete. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

  All young driver hoping to make careers driving race cars need to look at their strengths and weaknesses. While the natural thought is to work on improving one’s weaknesses—turning them into strengths—this is not always necessary or possible. Sure, one can make improvements, and that’s important. But drivers also need to focus on taking their strengths and making them even stronger.

  There is a good piece of marketing advice that goes, “Differentiate or die.” Being focused on what makes you different helps define your “brand,” who you are to the public, racing community, media, and sponsors, and a clearly identifiable brand makes it easier to sell yourself. It makes it easier for others to relate to and to remember you. Focusing on your strength, and emphasizing it, may make it easier to build your brand, and therefore open doors to selling your services as a driver. For example, if you have a reputation for being a thinking driver—a professor—perhaps you can emphasize this and sell yourself to teams with this reputation.

  How would you define yourself? Are you very strong in one area but not so in others? Or are you a well-rounded, complete driver? Perhaps you’re not sure. If so, ask people close to you and your racing experience. To what successful pro have you been compared you? Study that driver’s career and see if any of the things he did to carry himself through the trial years into the successful ones would work for you. The more complete a driver you are, the more likely you are to become a great champion. What are you doing to become a more complete driver? Be honest. No matter how much natural talent you have, without being analytical, without being a charger, without having a marketable personality, and without working hard at developing all these traits, someone else with less natural ability and all the other traits will beat you. Think about that. Then ask yourself what you’re doing about it.

  FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE COMPLETE DRIVER

  The one constant in racing is that it is constantly changing. That means that this definition of the complete race driver today may not be totally valid a year from now, let alone in five years. But if you have two of the key components today—adaptability and a burning desire to learn—you will evolve as this definition evolves.

  All drivers will have their strong and weak points. You can look at this in two ways. First, if you are weak in one area, that is the area you need to work on to improve, that is, if you truly want to succeed.

  On the other hand, if you have a weakness in one area, you may be able to make up for it with strengths in other areas to some extent. For example, if you are not so strong in marketing skills, you may be able to make up for it by being strong in all the other areas. If you are very strong in team building, you may be able to motivate a team member to take over some of your marketing duties.

  Having said that, usually the driver who is the most complete package—the best overall compromise between all these areas—will be most successful.

  SPEED SECRET

  The more complete a package you are, the more successful you will be.

  No, I’m not suggesting for one second that you do not need the ability to drive quickly or that these other skills can make up for a lack of speed. Racing is all about speed, and no driver is going to make it far without this ability. I wouldn’t have dedicated my life to learning how to drive quickly and how to pass on this knowledge if it didn’t matter. In this day and age of motorsport, however, without combining all of the other factors
with speed, it is unlikely you will go far.

  No matter how fast a driver you are, if your car does not perform as well as your competitors’ cars, you’re at a disadvantage. In the history of auto racing, there are many drivers who could and should have been champions but were not. While it was obvious they had the speed to be a champion, there was something missing. This includes drivers such as Ronnie Peterson, Danny Ongais, and Roberto Guerrero in the past, and I have to wonder about drivers today like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Marco Andretti, and Filipe Massa.

  Obviously, there are many reasons for a driver not to become a champion. Many will say the lack of success is a result of being with the wrong team at the wrong time, and that’s true. But what made them the wrong team at the wrong time? Is it that these drivers, while being very fast, don’t have the same ability to help develop the car as other drivers do? Is it that given the same starting point, the same car, that these drivers would not develop the car as well as the drivers that become champions? It’s a fact: Some drivers just don’t have the same ability to feel and communicate what the car needs to have championship-winning performance.

  The most important question, then, is why? Why can some drivers feel exactly what the car is doing and then be able to describe that feel in a way that an engineer, or even the driver himself, can know what to adjust to make it better? And if a driver is lacking this ability, can it be learned? In my opinion, based on actual experience, the answer to this second question is yes. I’ve seen and helped drivers develop their ability to sense what the car is doing and then be able to turn that sense into words.

  Breaking the problem down, there are two issues with a driver who is not good at developing a car’s handling:

  • The driver is not sensitive to what’s happening with the car.

  • The driver does not communicate what he or she feels very well.

  The first issue is something that many will attribute to natural ability, but that I know can be developed by focusing on improving one’s sensory input. Leaving racing for a moment, if a person loses his or her sight, over time and by focusing on improving the sense of feel, the person can read using brail. In the same way, if drivers focus on improving their sense of feel for what the car is doing, they will become better at driving. The best way I know of to do this is through the use of Sensory Input Sessions.

  It’s one thing to feel what the car needs, but it’s another to turn that into the words to be able to get someone else to figure out what is then needed to improve it. Knowledge is important to this. The more you know about vehicle dynamics, chassis adjustments, and how chassis adjustments are made, the better you will be able to communicate. The better your technical knowledge, the more accurate your language will be, and therefore the better your communication will be. Fortunately, this can all be learned by reading a few books, such as Carroll Smith’s Prepare to Win, Tune to Win, and Engineer to Win (these are must-reads).

  One misconception that some drivers have is that they need to tell their engineer or crew what to do to fix the car. While that may be the case if you’re really the engineer, if you have someone who is ultimately responsible for the actual tuning of the car, your job is simply to report what you feel. It’s not to say, “Stiffen the front shock’s rebound two clicks.” In doing that, the engineer can only assume what you’re feeling and will not learn anything while making that adjustment. And many engineers will be offended by a comment like that, as he or she will feel that you’re trying to do their job. Rather, if you said, “The car understeers just after I release the brakes, the front of the car feels as though it unloads too quickly when I release the brakes. If you can control the rate the car’s front end unloads, I think it will have less understeer,” your engineer can determine what it needs. That’s not to say you couldn’t add, “It feels like if you stiffened the front rebound, it would control what I’m feeling.” That would provide even more information to your engineer.

  On the other end of the spectrum, there are drivers who will say, “It understeers,” or worse yet, “The car sucks.” If you used the second comment, I doubt you’ll be much help at all. But if you use the first comment, a good engineer will then begin asking you more questions to dig deeper into what you’re saying. But if not, you’re going to need to ask yourself some questions. I suggest the following procedure:

  QUICK DEBRIEF

  • Handling: better or worse?

  • If I could have the car do just one thing better, what would it be?

  DETAILED DEBRIEF

  • What is the car doing? Understeer, oversteer, or neutral?

  • Where is the car doing it? Which turn(s)?

  • Where in the turn(s)? Entry, middle, or exit?

  • What am I doing when the car does this?

  ~ Braking?

  ~ Trail braking?

  ~ Releasing brakes?

  ~ Coasting?

  ~ Maintenance throttle?

  ~ On power?

  ~ Slowly turning steering wheel?

  ~ Crisply turning steering wheel?

  ~ Steady steering?

  ~ Unwinding the steering wheel?

  • Is it the car or me? Am I inducing the handling problem, or is it the car?

  SPEED SECRET

  Ask yourself, If I could have the car do just one thing better, what would it be? Then, keep digging with more questions until the answer is obvious.

  By asking yourself these questions, you dig down to the core of the problem, and the solution is quite simple. The more questions you ask, the better your quality of feedback will be.

  Drivers who have a reputation for being good at setting up a car really are no more naturally talented with this; they just ask themselves more questions. In doing so, they dig the answers out of themselves; they draw the feedback out of themselves. Their curiosity may be what makes them seem more naturally sensitive to what the car is telling them. Add that to a good knowledge of the technical aspects of vehicle dynamics and chassis setup and you’ve got what it takes to be great at setting up a car.

  By focusing on taking in more sensory information through your eyes, through your body, and through your ears, you become more sensitive to what it’s doing. You become more in tune with it. In other words, by doing Sensory Input Sessions. Communicating what’s happening then is fairly simple. It’s just replaying the turns in your mind, thinking about what happens, where it happens, what you’re doing when it happens, and what could happen if you did something different.

  SPEED SECRET

  The better the information your senses provide to your brain, the more sensitive you’ll be to what the car is doing and what it needs.

  DEBRIEFING

  No matter what level or type of racing you are involved in, after every session you should debrief. This may only take a minute or two, or it could last for hours. Your main objective is to determine what the objectives should be for the next session, to make further improvements.

  One of the first things you should do in a debrief session is to take a track map and debrief with it. Make notes on the track map, writing down what gear you’re in, and what the car is doing in the braking zone and at the entry, the middle, and exit phase of each corner. Then, rate your driving on a scale of 1 to 10 in each section of the track, with a 10 representing the car being driven at the limit and 1 being well away from the limit.

  The exact number you put on “how close to the limit was I” for each section of the track is not important. Every driver will perceive the limit as something a little different, so it is not something that you could even compare from one driver to another. The goal is simply to help you become fully aware of whether you are driving every section of the track at the limit.

  The interesting thing is that most drivers will have to recalibrate their ratings as they improve. Often, you will believe you are driving at a 9 or 10 on the “limit” scale for a little while. Then, with a bit more experience, and a better sense or feel for the traction limit, you will p
erceive that same cornering speed as only a 6 or 7. With time, what was once a 10 will only be a 7. Again, the number is not important.

  It is important to go through this process prior to learning what your lap times are compared to others. Once you begin to think in terms of how you compared to the competition, the accuracy of your awareness and feedback will suffer.

  As you go through this process, you will become more aware of things the car is doing. The act of writing it down leads to a fuller awareness level. Without that awareness, you will not have the information you require to make the car better, nor will you have the awareness of what you need to change to improve your driving.

  Through the exercise of putting a number on how close to the limit you are driving the car in each area of the track, you will become completely aware of where there is room for improvement.

  Is auto racing a team sport or an individual sport? I know some race drivers act as though it is entirely an individual sport, but it is definitely a team sport. Having said that, once you’re in the race, barring pit stops, it is an individual sport. Sure, it took a team to get you there, but at that point it is totally up to you. Or is it? The team dynamics, the energy level within the team, the communication, and the ability of team members to work together is one of the deciding factors in how well you perform in the race.

  Looking at the history of auto racing, there have been many great dynamic duos: a combination of driver and engineer and team manager that have won more than their fair share of races and championships. Colin Chapman and Jim Clark, Colin Chapman and Mario Andretti, Roger Penske and Mark Donahue, Roger Penske and Rick Mears, Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher, Steve Challis and Greg Moore, Mo Nunn and Alex Zanardi, Mo Nunn and Juan Montoya, Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon to name just a few of the greatest “teams.” I don’t think the fact that Colin Chapman, Roger Penske, and Mo Nunn are each mentioned twice is simply coincidence. These legendary team owner, managers, and engineers knew and know how to communicate with drivers. In fact, that may be the key to them becoming legendary.