Quote:
Originally Posted by ddeflyer
I am only an intermediate driver (currently 9 HPDE days) so take this with a grain of salt/let the more experienced people chime in on my observations, but from looking at your videos I see several things that my instructors have pounded on me to get rid of (I'm still fighting some of these). Also I've never been to that track so I don't know how it should be driven; I am guessing about the line.
1. First and most importantly: look forward. Something about your line (not sure which part) really reminds me of what was happening when I would stare at the apex until hitting it.
2. Don't add steering input to hit at apex (I see you doing this several times as your car's angle of attack changes rather abruptly, could also be punchy trail braking). As you start going faster that will bite you by upsetting the car's balance. As it is you are probably triggering the traction control with that change of attack. Your car wants to set into an attack and bite, upsetting it makes you loose traction and scares your car's electronics.
3. As my instructors said, you paid for the whole track, use it. Tracking out, even when you don't feel it is required by the car's traction, does two things. First it makes it so you are used to the line when you do push the car out farther (and you aren't having a "Oh shit!" moment when you first see that you are pointed somewhere new while exiting a corner). Second, it gives your tires some rest/a chance to not be overheating them which can start to happen when you hit high slip angles (this is one of my current issues, I'm overdriving my tires for several reasons, I am going to post on this thread about it later today to ask for some advice myself).
4. Don't pinch your corners. This is related to #3 but still. You can get on the throttle sooner by not having as much steering lock and that means getting that much more speed that much sooner.
5. Don't worry about lap times. They are an interesting thing to look at for me at my level (and I suspect you too), but I'm having too much variance to get a meaningful time. Each thing I improve changes something else which then needs to be accounted for in subsequent parts. That is tricky and for me makes things vary alot. I am also at the tail end of my run group so I loose time letting people pass me (I actually like this because it makes me get a better feel for the car as I enter turns in different ways/speeds. That way when I mess up I have a better idea what will happen and how to control it along with the different messages the car gives me).
6. Not sure if you are doing this, but be careful that you aren't fixating on the car in front of you. You were in alot of traffic and that makes it hard to practice full speed. You can still get the line though (and if you do it right you will pick up elements of the track that you don't perceive otherwise).
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And here I was thinking I was being very smooth with my inputs, save for the end of the last 2 turns before the front straight... The traction control was off, and I'm assuming the abrupt change in steering you're talking about was at the double apexes, where I added more steering to hit the second apexes. I think the delayed throttle is partly due to me trying to be very gradual with the throttle in my attempt to be as smooth as I can be and not stab the throttle. Kinda over did it, I see that very clearly in the video. That is definitely something I can correct easily now that I see it and something I don't have to be on the track to practice. I think I am indeed fixating on the car in front toward the latter half of the lap, thinking am I close enough to his tail to get a point by? Actually trying to setup to pass him at the front straight but messed up. He pointed me by anyway. Lol
Thanks for the detailed and non-douchey critique. This will help me a lot.
