Hey All,
Like usual, I’ve written a short article sharing my thoughts and experience on a given topic in sim racing. My goal with these articles ultimately is to help give people a bit more information about the hobby we all love, while also hopefully making for an interesting read.
If you don’t know me, I’m Tom, and I’ve been working full-time for the last two years on a sim racing coaching business, so my thoughts in this mini essay draw on the 700+ hours of coaching I’ve done in those two years. Just to say that the thoughts I’m sharing here aren’t pulled from nowhere, but come from everything I’ve seen during my time coaching drivers of all ability levels.
Why You’re Inconsistent (Even with a Consistent Braking Point)
I want to preface this article by saying that there are many factors that go into consistency, and naturally I can’t cover them all in this article, but I do want to speak generally about where consistency comes from, and narrow down to one element of driving that can impact consistency, both to explain how to think about that element, but also to serve as an example of how to think about all the other elements that go into consistency.
Where does consistency come from?
Consistency can mean different things to different people, but for the sake of clarity, we can think of consistency as the ability to drive the same corner in the same way lap after lap. If it feels like you can’t take a corner in the same way twice, then you are inconsistent in that corner. The largest source of inconsistency in a corner is variation in your entry speed into the corner, i.e. if you looked at your speed just before turning into the corner across five of your laps, how closely would those speeds match? With an inconsistent entry speed, even the best drivers would not be able to execute the corner in the same way. Naturally, we are aiming to drive the car to the limit of grip, and a difference of 10 kph faster or slower on entry will be the difference between being over the limit and being under the limit. The question, then, is how do we make our entry speed more consistent?
Consistency of entry speed
Ultimately, your entry speed into the corner is dictated by your approach to braking for the corner. Braking encompasses a long list of variables that you need to consider in order to have a consistent deceleration lap after lap. As a broad overview, aside from the two most obvious ones (consistent braking point and consistent brake pressure), there are a good number of other factors that go into a consistent approach to braking, including downshift timing, car positioning on entry, steering (or lack of steering) during the braking zone, and initial brake application. Having a consistent brake trace and braking point are the first areas to work on when looking to improve your consistency, but I want to use the remainder of this article to explain how one seemingly more subtle factor can impact consistency, and for that, let’s consider the impact of initial brake application on entry speed.
Initial Brake Application: Why You’re Inconsistent
If you take a look at the red and blue laps in the video above, you can see that they begin braking at exactly the same point and have a largely similar approach to braking, but the difference in their entry speeds at the point of turn-in is 5 kph, which is enough to significantly influence the line they can take through the rest of the corner. The difference here is simply an inconsistent approach to initial brake application. Whereas the red lap lifts off the throttle prior to braking, the blue lap overlaps the throttle and brake, meaning the car is being pushed forwards for longer, even during the initial braking. This means that the blue driver will carry significantly more entry speed and struggle to get the car slowed down as a result.
This article is already getting too long, so I don’t want to go into the nuance of whether overlapping the pedals matters, how quickly you should apply the brake, or the impact of other variables such as downshift timing. At a high enough level these things will matter, but if you’re struggling for consistency, then simply having the same approach lap after lap will matter far more than having an exactly optimal approach. Nonetheless, hopefully this article has helped you think about consistency in a slightly different way, and given you a few things to pay attention to next time you hop into the sim :).
If anyone has any questions, don’t hesitate to ask — I’ll do my best to respond to any questions in the comments. As always, thanks for the support on these mini articles, and if you know of someone who would benefit from this article, sharing it with them would be greatly appreciated :).
I'll include a couple of links if anyone wants to check them out, but I'm happy to remove them if it goes against self promotion rules.
Intermediate iRacer Bundle: https://noakesycoaching.com/courses
1 on 1 Coaching: https://noakesycoaching.com/coaching
PerfectLap: 3D Telemetry Analysis Tool (from the video above)
Cheers
Tom
Noakesy Coaching
