Instinct Driving vs Discipline
How to excel by adopting some driving characteristics that are opposite to your preference
Drivers are weird, including the bloody quick ones.
I ask them all the time simple questions like ‘where are you braking for the hairpin?’
Now you would hope all the quick drivers would answer in a similar way…
That way I can take that information and say to less experienced pilots, all the fast guys brake at point X.
But instead, if you ask for total honesty, the answer is very often a shrug of the shoulders.
Or..
Such a detailed answer about marks on the track with multiple IF THEN statements and caveats that I wish I never asked. It all depends on the rubber down, the time of day, if there is grip etc etc.
So, it seems there are two types of drivers in this respect, both fast, one who drives by the seat of their pants and another who knows every inch of the track and can recall it all. For brevity I’ll call them instinct drivers and discipline drivers.
The instinct type can jump in and go, and be quick - and on the data they tend to be very accurate and repeat braking points without knowing where they are.
The disciplined type likes to hit points and turn the track into a complex dot-to-dot puzzle, but one that changes according to conditions, all of which is calculated and then executed.
Working with these drivers is simple enough, you just have to adapt to each.
Amazingly, and this is incredible to me, you can ask the discipline driver to brake 5 metres later and they will.
With an instinct driver you can tell them go a bit deeper into the same corner and produce the same result. It seems 5m and a bit deeper are the same unit of length!
Now, that’s all fine and dandy if you are flying - but what if you are not? What if you are one of these types but things aren’t all dropping into place for you.
I’ll go through the pitfalls of these types and dig out some solutions you can apply, and make a breakthrough with your driving.
The Trouble with Discipline Driving
If you are a driver who chooses to work with braking points, turn in points and other useful markers that’s great. It means you can produce lap after lap consistent times, and perform like a metronome.
But it also means you can get stuck and become inflexible. When conditions change you have to figure it out and re-assign braking points, and that takes guesswork. And discipline drivers don’t like guessing, so they tend to stick to the plan and lose a bit of speed.
Fixation
Another downside of having fixed points is that visually, disciplined drivers tend to fixate on their markers. This means their eyes don’t flow around the track ahead, but get stuck on marks like apexes for too long. They aim for their exact apex points which is fine, but they also want to know that they hit them, by continuing to look there for too long. Then when they need to look to their exit point, their timing gets all messed up. Because of this they are often behind the kart.
That means their focus is on a point of track that is no longer relevant, whilst more relevant points are being ignored. Mistakes can therefore plague the driver whose nature demands accuracy. Ironic!
The Trouble with Instinct Driving
Instinct drivers are fantastic seat of the pants performers. They can feel a track change and adapt immediately, braking later because they feel grip increasing for example. They freely adapt and often fly when everyone else is still calculating what to do.
BUT Instinct Drivers Can be Slaves to their Mood
They can also be dictated by their mood, they are slaves to their state of mind which can often result in random mistakes or just a general loss in speed. When this happens they are completely lost, without any references they don’t have a blueprint to fall back on.
Because instinct drivers just go with how they feel the track, brake where they like, and feel the track for traction and drive without having to think, they are also susceptible to other non-conscious processes in the mind like emotions.
So, days when you ‘just don’t feel it’ an instinct driver can be bloody awful!
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