Q: “What are the keys to learning a new track and getting up to speed quickly like the pro-drivers do?”

Q: “What’s your favorite way to stop over-analyzing and just drive? I’ve heard you talk about this on your podcast and webinars, but please tell me again how I can drive faster by not thinking so much.”

Q: “Some drivers plateau and I often find that they are going to the same track over and over and over again. What are the benefits you’ve seen for those drivers that get out of their comfort zone and go to a completely new track? Why is this good or bad? Should this occur as part of every track season or once every few years for a bucket list track/road trip?”

Q: “There is one thing that I have wanted to know, but I never found anyone whom I thought would be able to answer my question correctly – until now. How do you save tires? How do you abuse tires on the track? Oops, that’s two questions. The second question may seem obvious, but drivers do many things with their cars that we are not aware of, or assume to be the right thing to do.”

Q: “Now that sim racing has become more popular and I’ve done quite a lot of it during lockdown, I find myself with some bad habits. Braking and brake feel for instance is much different on my sim rig compared to real life. It can take me hours in real life to find the right amount of trail braking after doing it on the sim one way for so long. Also, I have the problem of thinking I’m going faster the more g’s I pull which isn’t always true now that I can feel g-forces again. How do I quickly adjust from sim racing to real life racing?”

Q: “I had a quick question with regards to tire squeal and using it as a gauge for performance driving. Recently, I took part in a driver training program and was reintroduced to the saying “a squealing tire is a happy tire.” My previous belief was that tire squeal occurred in the frictional region after the point where a tire has peaked in the force vs. slip angle curve, not approaching or at the peak. Obviously, every compound, construction, and even batch of tires act differently, however have you found a general trend in your experience? Also, does the same apply for racing slicks? In my limited experience with driving on slicks, I can’t say that I have ever gotten them to the onset of tire squeal before I’ve had to catch the slide.”

Q: “This question is a variation on one that you already answered on your website. That question asked if the driver could expect the same g-force limit during braking vs. cornering. Looking at my data, I see that the faster the corner, the lower the g-force I’m achieving. I’m not surprised, since I’ve never been comfortable with fast corners. Assuming the track conditions and track camber are the same, should I be able to pull the same g-force in a fast corner as in a slow corner? That would be a guide to how much faster I can do the fast corners.”

Q: “I’ve been experimenting with different techniques, different lines, trail braking, rotating, controlled-over or understeer where needed, and on and on, and my lap times are no longer improving. How do I know if I’ve reached the limit of the vehicle, or my skill limit? Is it safe to say that some cars will never achieve “insert-super-fast-lap-time-here,” no matter what you do to them, within reason? I can only go so wide of a tire, or reduce weight so much, or tune suspension so much, before there isn’t much left to tinker on the car. I see cars with half the power, similar weight, running similar or faster lap times than I do.”

Q: “Years ago I did a coached track day at Spa-Francorchamps where the coach encouraged me to brake gently to ‘stabilize the car’ during the weight transfer in a quick ‘right-left’ sequence (the corners between the long downhill double-left of Pouhon and the 90-degree right of Campus – corners sometimes called ‘Fagnes’). I found this puzzling at the time and dismissed it as it didn’t seem to fit my ‘mental model’ of smooth weight transfer – why would you want to move the weight/mass from the left, to the front, then to the right? Instead I concentrated on just trying to give the car a short piece of ‘straight’ between the corners so the weight didn’t go directly from the left to the right – I left the braking bit out. Recently I was re-watching the DVD ‘Drive to Win’ filmed at Mt Tremblant circuit, and again the coach was mentioning a left-right sequence where you should brake between the bends to ‘stabilize the car’ and I wondered… is there ever any reason why you would want to do this? Does engaging the brake pads with the discs give any sort of stabilizing effect?”

Q: “What are the keys to learning a new track and getting up to speed quickly like the pro-drivers do?”

Q: “What’s your favorite way to stop over-analyzing and just drive? I’ve heard you talk about this on your podcast and webinars, but please tell me again how I can drive faster by not thinking so much.”

Q: “Some drivers plateau and I often find that they are going to the same track over and over and over again. What are the benefits you’ve seen for those drivers that get out of their comfort zone and go to a completely new track? Why is this good or bad? Should this occur as part of every track season or once every few years for a bucket list track/road trip?”

Q: “There is one thing that I have wanted to know, but I never found anyone whom I thought would be able to answer my question correctly – until now. How do you save tires? How do you abuse tires on the track? Oops, that’s two questions. The second question may seem obvious, but drivers do many things with their cars that we are not aware of, or assume to be the right thing to do.”

Q: “Now that sim racing has become more popular and I’ve done quite a lot of it during lockdown, I find myself with some bad habits. Braking and brake feel for instance is much different on my sim rig compared to real life. It can take me hours in real life to find the right amount of trail braking after doing it on the sim one way for so long. Also, I have the problem of thinking I’m going faster the more g’s I pull which isn’t always true now that I can feel g-forces again. How do I quickly adjust from sim racing to real life racing?”

Q: “I had a quick question with regards to tire squeal and using it as a gauge for performance driving. Recently, I took part in a driver training program and was reintroduced to the saying “a squealing tire is a happy tire.” My previous belief was that tire squeal occurred in the frictional region after the point where a tire has peaked in the force vs. slip angle curve, not approaching or at the peak. Obviously, every compound, construction, and even batch of tires act differently, however have you found a general trend in your experience? Also, does the same apply for racing slicks? In my limited experience with driving on slicks, I can’t say that I have ever gotten them to the onset of tire squeal before I’ve had to catch the slide.”

Q: “This question is a variation on one that you already answered on your website. That question asked if the driver could expect the same g-force limit during braking vs. cornering. Looking at my data, I see that the faster the corner, the lower the g-force I’m achieving. I’m not surprised, since I’ve never been comfortable with fast corners. Assuming the track conditions and track camber are the same, should I be able to pull the same g-force in a fast corner as in a slow corner? That would be a guide to how much faster I can do the fast corners.”

Q: “I’ve been experimenting with different techniques, different lines, trail braking, rotating, controlled-over or understeer where needed, and on and on, and my lap times are no longer improving. How do I know if I’ve reached the limit of the vehicle, or my skill limit? Is it safe to say that some cars will never achieve “insert-super-fast-lap-time-here,” no matter what you do to them, within reason? I can only go so wide of a tire, or reduce weight so much, or tune suspension so much, before there isn’t much left to tinker on the car. I see cars with half the power, similar weight, running similar or faster lap times than I do.”

Q: “Years ago I did a coached track day at Spa-Francorchamps where the coach encouraged me to brake gently to ‘stabilize the car’ during the weight transfer in a quick ‘right-left’ sequence (the corners between the long downhill double-left of Pouhon and the 90-degree right of Campus – corners sometimes called ‘Fagnes’). I found this puzzling at the time and dismissed it as it didn’t seem to fit my ‘mental model’ of smooth weight transfer – why would you want to move the weight/mass from the left, to the front, then to the right? Instead I concentrated on just trying to give the car a short piece of ‘straight’ between the corners so the weight didn’t go directly from the left to the right – I left the braking bit out. Recently I was re-watching the DVD ‘Drive to Win’ filmed at Mt Tremblant circuit, and again the coach was mentioning a left-right sequence where you should brake between the bends to ‘stabilize the car’ and I wondered… is there ever any reason why you would want to do this? Does engaging the brake pads with the discs give any sort of stabilizing effect?”