One of my big Aha! moments caused me to often say, “Drive the car, not the track.” I’ve said this because many, many drivers get too caught up in “driving the line,” to the point of not being anywhere near driving their cars to the limit (or close to it). In other words, they’ve focused on the cornering line so much that it’s like they’ve forgotten to focus on driving the car to its limit.

Through my own driving, and instructing and coaching thousands of drivers, I’ve learned that if you drove at the limit, but your line was not ideal, you’d still be faster than a driver who was on the perfect line, but not at the car’s limits.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to drive at the limit, on the ideal line. The good thing is, if you drive at the limit, the car almost tells you where it should be positioned, and what line it should follow.

These thoughts, and many more (including the ones below), have been turning laps in my head for the past couple of months as I prepare for the upcoming Cornering Masterclass (go to SpeedSecrets.com for info).

Last week, here in Driving Directions, I wrote about references, and received a couple of interesting comments:

“This sentence is GOLD: ‘You can think of performance driving as a series of minor mistakes, with micro-corrections, where you’re constantly adjusting to where you are on track. The more you plan ahead, using references as your guide, the better you’ll drive.’ And not just for performance driving.” (Thanks David!)

“Ross Bentley practices what he preaches. He was right seat with me a while back, and he was consistently pointing out his references. All were ahead of us, and he would say “My reference for turn-in is that sign”, and so on. And then on one short straight he said, “That sign is my reference to look for my next reference, the orange end of that guardrail.” Yes, Ross has references for references!” (Thanks Bob!)

To repeat what I said last week, references are not all visual things. Sometimes you just feel a reference (bump, crest of a hill, compression in the track, nibbling at the curbing with your tires, etc.), or hear it (the engine sound reflecting off a guardrail or concrete wall, tire noise changing as the track surface changes, etc.). You see, feel and hear references… at least, you should.

And to emphasize what I wrote last week, references are something you “index” a driving action off of; and they’re not necessarily an individual point, but rather, a collection of things that provide you with a sight picture which triggers an action.

The key is that a reference, or group of references, trigger an action. But relying on references too much is almost as bad as not using them at all.

You know those connect-the-dots pictures designed for kids, where they draw a line from one point to another? When kids first experience one of these, the lines between 1 and 2, and then 2 and 3, and then 3 and 4… are straight lines. Eventually, the young artist looks and thinks ahead, and begins making arcs from one number to another because they have a target ahead of them (maybe even seeing the whole picture before they start drawing). When this happens, the drawing is much more realistic-looking, as it’s smoother.

What these drawings really teach kids is to look and think ahead. Hmmm… maybe we drivers should spend more time with connect-the-dots drawings! Oh wait, we can do the same thing with a track map, and then apply it to our driving.

Many performance/race driving schools place cones at the key references (Turn-in, Apex, Exit) to help guide drivers. While this is a good way to start, too many event organizers leave these cones up on the edges of tracks for far too long, and many drivers never truly understand why these references are where they are. This has been proved to me: when the cones are removed, I see drivers struggling to find their way around the track. It also shows up when an experienced track day driver (one who has years of non-competitive track driving) is relatively “lost” in a multi-class endurance race where they have to adapt their lines as they’re passing and being passed.

Yes, reference cones do help drivers who are new to track driving get the idea of where to be positioned, but they can also rely on them too much. When that happens, it reinforces the habit of not looking and thinking far enough ahead; drivers become “lazy” and drive sequentially through corners, like connecting the dots of a drawing.

To be the best driver you can be, you need to understand why you drive the line that you drive, and how to adapt it when cars and conditions change. Interestingly, it starts with the end in mind.

A few years ago, after spending almost two years researching and thinking about how the best drivers use their vision, I had a conversation with Dr. David Ferguson who runs the Spartan Lab at the Michigan State University. In his lab, which focuses on many areas of race driver performance, he discovered something in the way that different drivers, of differing levels of ability, used their vision. The main take-away was that the very best drivers tend to focus, mentally and physically with their vision, on the exit of corners, even when they’re approaching a turn. From there, they worked back towards the beginning of the corner, and then did what it took to get to the exit.

So, instead of driving corners using references sequentially, they drove the corner with the end in mind, as if they were scribing lines on a connect-the-dots drawing. These drivers saw the big picture, and drove smoother — and faster.

This process begins with vision, and it’s the “process” (as I explain in the Vision Techniques Playbook) that makes the difference, beginning with what I call “Mental Vision” — the act of imagining what you can’t physically see. (Also refer to the Using Your Mental Vision post, and Glance & Focus Your Way Around the Track post).

As you approach a corner where the exit cannot physically be seen prior to the Turn-in point, you should have a strong mental image of where the exit is, and what it looks like. How do you get this strong mental image? From the previous laps you’ve turned, from mental imagery/visualization, and even from watching videos and driving a simulator. Really, you’re building a memory of where you want to go, and how to get there.

In the past, I’ve said races are won on the straights, and that’s still true. But, short of just having more power than everyone else, it’s what you do with the corners that maximizes the straight bits and gives you an advantage. So, maybe races are won in the corners? Oh wait, it’s the corners and the straights that matter the most!

Whether you race wheel-to-wheel, or participate in non-competitive track events, I’m pretty sure that it’s the corners that keep you coming back for more. Yes, at times it’s fun to see what your top speed is on straightaways, but ultimately, it’s the thrill, enjoyment, and challenge that come from the corners that we all love the most.

Identifying and driving the ideal line—one that leads to the fastest lap time—is a mixture of comparing radius to distance; using the elevation and camber, as well as track surface changes to your advantage; trading off speed in the right places to benefit speed in other places; using references to trigger the right actions; having a mental image of where you’re going before you can actually see it; and taking advantage of your car’s strengths and minimizing its weaknesses.

Wow, that’s a lot, isn’t it? And without a deep understanding of the key principles of cornering, and knowing why you should drive a corner in a certain way, you’ll have to rely on someone telling you where the line is (which may be slightly different in your car, at a certain moment in time).

It’s the understanding and ability to adapt—because you know why you’re doing what you’re doing—that makes our sport so rewarding and fun.

I often use the following illustration to compare how two drivers can be presented with the same view ahead of them on track, and yet one will be more consistent—and often faster—than the other. Want to guess which one?

After hearing me talk about this (or read what I’ve written on the topic), some drivers will comment in variousways about their use of references.

“I don’t really have many, if any, visual references. I just go by feel.”

I get it. There are two ways I’d like you to think about this. First, references are not all visual things. Some references you feel from the track (bumps, quick elevation changes, etc.), and the more of these you notice and file away in your mental database, the better you’ll drive. And some references are auditory—you hear them more than you see or feel them. So, just because you don’t have many (or any) visual references, I’d bet that you do have many more feel and auditory references than you give yourself credit for.

Second, many drivers do feel their way around the track, but I’d argue that some of that “feel” is actually a sight picture. You may not have one single point that you see, that tells you when to brake, turn the steering wheel, or anything else. Instead, your eyes take in multiple objects and sightlines and almost “triangulate” them into seeing a bigger picture that triggers your brain to tell your hands, arms, legs and feet to do something.

While it might seem as if you don’t use references, I believe that you do, even if that means you know when to turn into a corner, for example, when the overall sight picture looks just right.

In other words, sometimes feel is a “sight picture”—a picture of an entire scene, as opposed to individual objects and images.

“I have a hard time remembering what I use or see.”

You’re not alone. Many drivers feel that way, wondering why they can’t remember what they saw or felt on track. Mostly, this is because you’re operating, as a driver, in a subconscious mode, and not in a “I have to think about this, then that, and more of this again, and so on…” mode. In other words, you’re trusting your mental programming to drive the car, which is a good thing because your conscious mind cannot keep up with the speed of a car on track.

Have you ever driven somewhere on the street, gotten there, and then realized you couldn’t actually remember having driven there? I bet you have. The good news is that you were driving at a subconscious level, with your mental programming doing a good job of getting you to where you wanted to go. The bad news is that you may have missed something important along the way.

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If you’ve never done something, you’re naïve to what it takes to do whatever that something is.

For example, imagine standing at the bottom of a mountain, thinking about climbing it. You don’t know how hard it’s going to be, or how easy. You have no idea what the climb is going to be like. That…

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Yes, it’s been three years since I started Driving Directions. Two Hundred and twenty-five posts, which means more than one per week. According to Substack, that puts me in the top 0.61% of all of their writers (apparently, around …

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I’ve also written and talked a lot about the importance of understanding the Why behind what you do when driving on track. It’s one thing to follow the instructions of someone, and another altogether to be able to figure it out on your own.

Within the driving world (possibly other worlds, too, but I know very little about them!), there are rules, there are guidelines, and there are principles.

When someone first begins to drive on a track, they mostly follow the rules. And by follow, I mean follow, as in not questioning what they’re being told. For example, an instructor tells the driver that the apex of a corner is at the third red panel of the inside curbing, and the driver “blindly” (not physically blindly, obviously!) follows this “rule.”

But the position of an apex is not actually a rule, is it? Some might say that it’s a guideline based on what another driver or an instructor knows. Still, is it best to follow the advice of what others tell you, or to discover on your own what’s best based on some core principles? I know, “It depends.” But it depends on what?

Over some amount of time, the driver’s goal is to understand why the other driver or the instructor said that the apex was where they did, and ultimately understand when they might change the position of the apex to adapt to varying track and car conditions—and how their driving technique might influence it. In other words, the driver is now using principles to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Rules, guidelines, and principles. The differences come down to how rigid they are, how universally they apply, and how much judgment they require.

I think of rules as fixed and binary things. They work all the time, and you either follow them or you don’t. They’re usually imposed externally (by an organization, governing body, or the Laws of Physics), and breaking them has clear consequences. There’s little to no interpretation, the context doesn’t change them much, and they’re designed for consistency and control. Pretty black and white.

Example: “Track limits must not be exceeded.”

Guidelines are flexible recommendations, and they’re based on someone’s experience and best practices, but they’re not always right in every situation. They can help decision-making, but there’s some amount of judgment in terms of whether they’re right for you (at least, there should be some judgment). They may also be based on long-held beliefs (myths?), and “Well, that’s the way it’s always been done.” So, they’re somewhat situational and adaptable, and they can be bent or broken when appropriate. But often they’re derived from principles.

Example: “A late apex is usually better for corners leading onto a straight.”

Principles are fundamental truths or cause-and-effect relationships. They explain why something works, not just what to do. They’re adaptable across situations, but they still have a high level of reliability. Rather than simply complying with the rules, or following guidelines, principles require understanding. The good news is that they apply broadly across many situations (tracks, cars, tires, etc.), and they don’t require someone else to give you the solutions, as you figure them out yourself (and they therefore stick with you much longer).

Example: “Maximizing exit speed onto a long straight reduces lap time because it means you’ll be at higher speed longer.”

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If so, you’re not alone.

The list of drivers who have told me that as they practiced trail braking more, it resulted in slower lap times, is long. S…

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The driver of the red Spec Miata, the one with gray around his temples, looking like he’s in his mid-fifties, joked around with some friends in the paddock, patting his round tummy after finishing off a sandwich.

The other driver, thin, sipping from his water bottle, plays a “video game” on his phone designed to improve his reaction times, then looks up and notes that at nineteen, he’s the youngest in the field.

Both drivers have the same number of years of racing experience: eight. The young driver of the silver Spec Miata is just starting his second season of racing cars, having spent the previous years in fiercely-fought karting. All eight years of the older driver’s experience has been spent in SCCA Spec Miata racing.

Now, the front row of the grid is taken up by silver and red. One young driver, one older driver. Both have prepared in their own way, and up next will be a massive battle between the two, along with 23 others, nose-to-tail and door handle-to-door handle. Spec Miata racing at its best: drafting, passing, out-braking, tires at the ragged edge of traction.

Of the two drivers I’ve just described, who do you think has the best chance of winning?

According to popular belief, the younger driver has the advantage before the race even begins. His reflexes are sharper, his inputs faster, his brain—supposedly—wired for speed in a way the older driver’s simply isn’t anymore.

The younger driver is quick, no question. But he’s also getting surprised—by the car stepping out at turn four, by a slower car appearing where he didn’t expect it, by the drafting move the white car behind him put on him. He’s reacting well. Impressively, even. But he’s always one beat behind the situation, playing catch-up with a car and the drivers around him.

The older driver? He’s rarely surprised. He’s already adjusting his line into turn four before the car tells him to. He saw the slower car three corners ago. He “knew” what Sam in the white car was going to do. He’s not reacting to the car, he’s ahead of it. And he’s seen that drafting move from Sam before.

Here’s the thing: if you’re relying on your reflexes, you’re already behind. The best drivers — regardless of age — have learned to stop reacting and start anticipating. And that skill doesn’t fade with age. It deepens.

When I recently asked a group of drivers to tell me what separated the very best drivers from the less-than-best, one driver immediately said, “Reflexes. The best have faster reactions.”

In the past, having someone sitting next to me on a plane ask me what I do for a living (assuming I replied with the full truth, knowing that would lead to me getting no alone time on the flight), at some point in the conversation my seatmate would definitely make a comment about how fast my reactions must be to drive race cars.

Nope.

In fact, there have been studies showing that World Champions and Indy 500 winners do not have better reaction times than others. And reactions of race car drivers are not much different, if any, from the average population.

So, when a driver says that they’re getting older, and therefore their reflexes are slower, and that means that they can’t be as fast as younger drivers, I shake my head.

If you’re relying on fast reflexes to get you around the track in control, you’re doing it all wrong.

Anticipatory reactions. That’s what gives an experienced driver the edge over a less-experienced one.

Yes, raw reaction time may slow with age, especially if you don’t deliberately train to maintain your reflexes. But the more important question isn’t how fast can you react. It’s how often do you need to?

Research consistently shows that when drivers anticipate a hazard, they can respond in well under a second. But when something truly unexpected happens—for any driver, at any age—reaction times can double. The difference isn’t age-related. The difference is surprise versus preparation. Eliminate the surprise, and you’ve made the reflex almost irrelevant.

Standard reaction time tests make a critical error: they assume that all drivers encounter the same scenario for the first time. They don’t account for the fact that an experienced driver has already seen a version of that scenario dozens or hundreds of times. They’re not reacting to something new—they’re recognizing something familiar and executing a response they’ve already rehearsed. Measuring their “reaction time” in isolation misses the point entirely.

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I’ve questioned myself, over and over again, whether I should share what I’m about to share. But, as a glimpse into my thinking—and therefore, how I coach others, and how I’ve seen other drivers think—I figured I’d live outside the comfort zone by hitting “Publish.”

It feels…

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First, “Many drivers drive the slow corners too fast, and the fast corners too slow.”

From my observations, this is quite common. But why? Two main reasons:

1. Mental: Fast corners are intimidating, and slow ones are not.

2. Physical: The speed adjustment phase is out of sync in fast corn…

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But first, what are the new regulations? Broadly speaking…

• The cars are smaller—shorter and more narrow—and lighter

• They have less overall aero downforce

• Power comes from both an internal combustion engine and electrical motors, with approximately a 50-50 split when at full deployment.

It’s that last point thatʻs making things controversial. When the current World Driving Champion, Lando Norris says, “We’ve come from the best cars ever made in Formula 1 and the nicest to drive to probably the worst,” you know things are not all okay in what is supposed to be the top of the world of motorsport.

Drivers (and people like me who are “purest” of the sport) are disapprovingly pointing to how the drivers have to manage the electrical power and deployment of it. Like a video game, there’s a “boost” button on the steering wheel that triggers the full use of the battery and electrical motors. But, because thereʻs no free lunch in racing, when that power is used up, the car is relying only on the internal combustion engine—and it’s a sitting duck to cars behind to pass if they’ve saved some battery power.

So, it’s a matter of managing the use of the batteries. That has become the main job of the drivers (and the engineers).

As I wrote a few weeks ago, the World Champion may be the driver with the largest mental bandwidth to monitor, think about, strategize, decide, and activate the power use better than their competitors. Personally, I like that challenge for drivers. Racing should be a huge mental challenge. But has F1 gone too far? In this case, I think so.

During qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, debris that came off Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes was laying in the middle of the track. Lando Norris came along, at speed, and made a direct hit over it, resulting in shattered debris all over the track, causing a red flag.

As Norris said, “I’m looking at my steering wheel, that’s why I don’t see the debris, because I have to look at what speed I want to get at the end of the straight. And if I need to brake 30 meters earlier, 10 meters later. So that’s also the problem. You have to look at the steering wheel every three seconds to see what’s going to happen, otherwise you’re going to end up off the track.”

When drivers are spending more time looking at their steering wheel than looking at the track up ahead, that’s not just too video game-ish for me, but it’s dangerous. What if the debris that Norris hit had been something worse?

In Japan, Ollie Bearman went off on the approach to the Spoon curves at 191 MPH (308 KPH) after trying to avoid Franco Colapinto when he started to slow due to “super-clipping” (that’s what it’s called when a driver is coasting to recharge the batteries). The speed differential between the two cars was in the range of 30-50 MPH (depending on where it’s compared), and Bearman lost control on the grass and registered a 50G impact into the barrier.

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I get great enjoyment out of merging ideas from one discipline with another, and particula…

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What is it? It’s a series of “If-then…” statements, as they apply to driving.

If you can begin to apply the throttle early in the corner (which is a relative thing, not something defined by some rule)… then you probably over-slowed.

If you have to wait until you’re well beyond the apex before starting to apply the throttle… then you probably (but there are exceptions to this) carried too much entry speed.

If someone tells you that you should always begin applying the throttle at the apex of a corner… then ignore them.

If you’re inconsistent with where you begin to apply the throttle in corners… then you probably don’t have enough references and/or your braking is inconsistent.

If your braking is inconsistent—either over-slowing or not slowing enough for the upcoming corner… then you might be focused too much on your BoB, and not enough on your EoB.

If your braking is inconsistent—either over-slowing or not slowing enough for the upcoming corner… then you may have an issue with your foot position, such as not having your heel on the floor when applying the brake pedal.

If you turn into a corner and your car doesn’t change direction in the way you want it to… then you’re experiencing understeer. If you’re already trail braking, keeping pressure on the brake pedal… then ease up on the pedal to give some braking grip to the front tires to turn; if you’ve mostly eased off the brakes… then try putting a little more pressure back on the pedal — trail brake more.

If you feel the front tires sliding and your car understeering… then straighten the steering just a little bit to give traction back to the front tires.

If you turn into a corner and your car changes direction more than you expected… then you’re experiencing oversteer. If you’re trail braking… then ease off the brakes to balance the car, giving more grip to the rear tires, while straightening the steering wheel a little (counter-steering, opposite lock). At all times, look where you want to go.

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After Ayrton Senna put in what was arguably the single greatest qualifying lap in motorsport history (in 1988, at Monaco, where he laid down a lap that was 1.4 seconds faster than his McLaren teammate, 4-time World C…

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When a journalist asked him how he knew how to deal with what could have been a disastrous situat…

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The Catalyst really created a whole o…

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This quote from James Clear reminded me that it’s time to focus on the basics. Again. And again. And… well, you know.

The super-trick advanced stuff that the best drivers in the world do is just the basics done b…

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I’m curious whether you’ve experienced something similar to this, and if so, please click on the Comment button at the bottom and share your thoughts.

Driver: “I’ve been practicing my trail braking, and I feel that I’ve gotten better with what you talk about when you say ‘timing and rate of release’ of the brakes. It feels smoother, and it does help the car turn in, or rotate, better. But… I’m turning slower lap times.”

Me: “Ahhhh, you’re not alone with this—many drivers go through this experience.”

Driver: “Well, that makes me feel a bit better, but my goal is not to drive slower!”

Me: “I sure hope not! Okay, let’s dig into this. First, so we’re both on the same page here, remember that there is a BoB—Begin of Braking—and an EoB—End of Braking. BoB is obvious, right? And EoB is also obvious, but just to be clear, it’s that point where your foot finally comes off the brake pedal, no matter how quickly or slowly you release the brakes. Think of it as the very instant that your brake lights go from being on to being off. In between the BoB and EoB is the brake zone, and that’s what we really need to focus on here.”

Driver: “Okay, makes sense so far. But why am I slower despite having improved my trail braking?”

Me: “Patience, Grasshopper! As you focused on practicing trail braking, did your BoB or EoB change?”

Driver: “Well, my BoB didn’t change because I wanted to be consistent so I could compare the results of more or less trail braking.”

Me: “That makes sense, and your approach to this process is smart. You don’t want to change too many things at one time because then you won’t know what did what.”

Driver: “Right, that’s what I was thinking.”

Me: “What about the EoB?”

Driver: “That definitely changed! It was later because I was deliberately trying to trail brake longer into the corners. I was slowly and gradually releasing the brakes.”

Me: “Great! That’s the first step. And remind me how the car felt when you extended the trail braking further into corners.”

Driver: “Funny that. Most of the times it helped rotate the car. You know, it helped me turn the car into the corner, like it was more responsive. But there were times when it seemed to make it worse, almost to the point where it started to understeer a little.”

Me: “Yes, good awareness! Why do you think that happened?”

Driver: “I get why trail braking more helped the car rotate. By having a little bit of braking on while I turned into the corner, it kept the weight on the front tires, giving them more grip than the rears. And wow, that was fun! I kept the image of what you talk about with the difference between rotation and oversteer in mind. Rotation is slight oversteer, but it’s what I’m doing to the car; oversteer is what the car is doing to me.”

Me: “Yes, you got it. But you said the car would also understeer at times. Why do you think that is?”

Driver: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Well, if you did know, what would the answer be?”

Driver: “Hey, now you’re pushing me! Okay, I get it, you’re making me think. Hmmm… the more weight on the front tires help give them grip, I get that. But I think it’s possible that with too much weight on them, they might struggle for grip. Is that right?”

Me: “Yes. Another way of thinking about it is that you can only ever get so much grip out of the tires, and if you’re asking the fronts to both brake hard and corner at the same time, you might be asking too much of them. So, to help the car turn more, you might have to ease off the brakes just a touch, so you’re not asking for more than one hundred percent from the front tires. You have to give some cornering grip to the tires by reducing the ask from them for braking. It’s a tradeoff.”

Driver: “Right, that makes sense. What you’re saying is to make the car rotate more, I have to either trail brake more, or less! Wow, this is not easy. So, how do I know which to do?”

Me: “There’s only one way of knowing, and that’s to try both. You have to experiment. Spend enough laps trail braking more to see if that helps, after you’ve gotten good with your brake release. And then try releasing the brakes a bit earlier for a few laps. You have to give both methods enough laps to make sure you’re doing them well, and then you’ll feel the difference and know which is best to manage the amount of rotation you want.”

Driver: “Okay, but can we go back to why I was slower when I improved my trail braking? That was my first question, you know!”

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I was thinking about this recently, and then the following list of skills, techniques and challenges popped out of my head and onto my digital paper. From there, I thought about—and wrote about—why each of these things holds us back from performing better on the track.

Iʻm not sure Iʻve identified every reason for the issues below, but I hope I got the majority. And the most important ones, too. Still, I’d love to hear your thoughts and input on what I might have missed. If you have anything to add, please click on the Comments button at the bottom, and post your thoughts and ideas. Together, let’s see if we can complete this list.

[Warning: This is a long post, with a long list of mistakes and causes.]

Turn in early:

Let’s start with one of the most common mistakes. Why do drivers turn-in early for a corner?

Often, it’s fear/self-preservation based. Approaching a corner at high speed can be intimidating, and when we get that feeling, we want to do what feels safe. Moving away from the outside of the corner, tucked in close to the inside gives us a sense of avoiding the big scary monsters on the outside of a turn. And the sooner we get away from them, the better! So, learning to feel safe and comfortable turning in later, at the right point in a corner, is the key to improving.

If you don’t have a clear mental picture of where you’re going, you won’t know how to get there, and it’s likely that you’ll turn into corners early because it seems like that would get you somewhere sooner.

The final reason (for now) is simple: You have a habit of turning in early. I think of habits as mental programs, and you can re- and de-program your mind. How? By overwriting it with a stronger, better and even more-rewarding habit. But if you’ve developed a habit of turning in early, you’re going to continue to do so until you change—re-program—it.

Brake too early:

For many drivers, fear, self-preservation and a lack of confidence lead to braking early. Or, at least, braking earlier than necessary.

But, as astronaut Chris Hadfield has said, “Fear is just a symptom of lack of preparation.”

One way the best drivers prepare for a corner is by looking well into the upcoming corner, to where they’re going to finish, or end, braking. Yes, mentally and visually focusing on the EoB (End of Braking) when approaching a corner will make it easier to begin braking later. Similar to early turn-ins, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know how to get there? If you don’t know when you’ll be ending your braking, how do you know when to start? If you know when to end your braking, you’ll be better prepared, feel more confident,and begin braking appropriately.

If you’re not looking towards the turn-in point and EoB as you approach the brake zone, you may end up braking early.

Finally, a common cause of braking early is making the initial application of the brakes soft and slow. When traveling at your highest speeds, you may be able to brake harder than you think. If you don’t do that, you convince yourself that you’re already as late on the brakes as possible, and continue to apply them at the same place.

Brake too late:

Some of this is caused by the mindset that later braking will always make you faster. You may have beentaught this, or feel that you’re gaining on other cars on track by delaying when you begin braking.

I doubt there is a driver in the history of racing who hasn’t felt that later braking results in being faster. Itʻs the time/distance paradox: if you’re two seconds behind a car at 100 MPH, the distance is much more than it is at 50 MPH. So, as your speed slows in the brake zone, even if you stay exactly two seconds behind, the distance between you and the car ahead shrinks. And that makes it seem like you’re gaining, when you could still be the same amount of time behind the other car. When you close up behind someone, it’s seems logical that you’re faster. But what matters most is time, not distance.

On the flipside, it also seems logical that the less time you spend braking, by compressing the brake zone (by braking later), you will be faster. That is often true, but not always. If, by braking later, you brake harder (which is what most drivers do instinctually), and your corner entry speed is the same (or even slower because of the harder braking), you won’t be any faster around the length of the lap.

As I’m sure you know, there are times when braking earlier, but lighter, actually results in carrying more speed into and through a corner, which then results in a faster overall lap time. Braking later goes against the idea of braking lighter, so, instead, you brake later and harder.

Over-slow for corners:

The number one reason I see for over-slowing is being overly-focused on the BoB (Begin on Braking). I know this may be sounding a bit repetitive, but if you don’t know where you’re going, and the speed you want to be at when you get there, you’ll often overreact and over-slow.

A common cause is the initial application of the brakes being too soft, resulting in the feeling of being too fast as you approach the turn-in, and then increasing brake pressure (like most drivers do when driving on the road and approaching a traffic light). Instead, if the initial application of the brakes is strong, then as you get close to the turn-in point, you can modulate the pedal to fine-tune your corner entry speed. But if you’re intimidated by the speed you’re carrying as you approach the turn-in, you’ll hang on the pedal too long and take off too much speed.

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