Is smooth fast ? - Pro drivers give there opinion

Thought this video was really good as drivers convey where to be smooth and in what situations sometimes being a bit lose is beneficial to time.

Obviously as a general rule driving smooth is fast and a good tip for new drivers, just nice to have a more nuanced view on things !

 

Interesting video. I always struggle to find the balance between smooth and bttw.
R.I.P. Justin.

 

I think you can start by asking "what is smooth ?". Because there's a huge difference between being smooth and being slow and under the limit. It's not because you're working at the wheel that you aren't smooth, and vice versa.

It's a bit hard to explain considering how much is going on and how many inputs are at play.

 

One of the most common mistakes that new racers make is too late braking. All they wanna do is to get to the corner in front of the opponent. They think that perfect corner is to brake as late as possible just so that they stay in track limits upon entry. Corner exit speed is the last thing on their minds. Smooth is going fast out of corner, not in.

 

To me being smooth means not unsettling the car over a certain point. Nothing about slow in fast out.

 

QFT. And to add, being delicate on throttle on exits and brake input and fade out is often more important than trying to prevent steering corrections, but when you do keep them as minimal as needed and anticipate. For instance, the later you notice oversteer the bigger the correction has to be which will lose time and unsettle the car more. And if you countersteer and wait for visuals untill you straighten up the wheel you're mostly too late.

 

It is comon to see drivers braking later trying to catch the car in front. That is totally counter productive because the slow-out effect makes the gap even bigger.

 

I like the guy who said smooth on the entry then ride the exit, skipped the standard platitudes and actually gave a real answer.

 

10/10 pretty smooth - IGN

Perfect cornering is braking as late as possible whilst exiting as fast as possible (generally, corner dependant yada yada)....

Funny you say late braking. In real life people brake way too early, haha.

 

The main difference between driving aggressively and smoothly is how the car will react to your inputs in return. If you drive aggressively, yanking the wheel quickly and jabbing the throttle instantly out of corners the car will be sliding all over the place as you will unbalance the car pretty much instantly. If you are smooth, the car will retain its balance and you will inherently be faster as you'll spend much less time trying to save the car and keep it on track and more time actually getting neat lines around corners. Not only this, but if you are smooth (and consistently so), your tyres will last much longer, so over the course of a long race the advantages of being smooth will become more apparent the longer the race goes on for, as the more aggressive guys start to struggle with grip sooner. In fact they will create a "vicious circle" for themselves. They drive aggressively, tyres wear out faster causing less grip, causing them to slide more and drive even more aggressively, causing the tyres to wear out even faster... and again and again. So in short, yeah smoother is the majority of the time faster.

However, you can still go extremely quick while driving like a mad man. In our league we have coined this term "sailing", where you are constantly on the limit of grip 100% of the time, but because you are able to hold the car literally at the absolute maximum of its capabilities you are faster. Even if you do slide a fair amount you can often actually carry much more speed through corners than if you were driving smoothly. Of course your tyres will still wear out faster so in a race you will need to take a step back, i mean i think we all know you can't drive at 100% for a whole race, especially a long one because not only will you wear the tyres out faster but you are also more likely to crash. However, in qualifying aggressive driving (if you can master the art of "sailing") is actually faster.

I'm quite an aggressive driver myself, often found doing 4 wheel drifts around corners. On some tracks such as Donington, Brands Hatch, Zandvoort or even Imola my style pays dividens because on those tracks you can gain a lot of time by carrying more speed through the corners by "slighly sliding" (saling) through and i can often find myself racing with aliens, basically an area i personally feel i do not belong skill wise. However, tracks like Monza, Barcelona or Mugello I find it much more difficult to be fast with my natural style, sometimes I have to adapt to a much smoother approach to be faster but then I'm usually further down the grid.

For example, in this video on Brands Hatch you can see my inputs are far from smooth, but because the track caters to my style I can bag some really good times. However, in my Monza video you can see my style changes completely in an attempt to adapt to the track and also my worn out tyres. My inputs are much smoother and as a result the car is more planted, more balanced and moves around a lot less.

It all depends on your own skill and style. I know a lot of guys who are alien fast but also smooth as silk, but equally there's guys out there who are extremely aggressive but have quick reactions and can hold the car on the limit the whole race and be even faster. However, for the slower guys 99% of the time they will be faster the smoother they are. I know a couple guys who i've seen improve massively pace wise purely by becoming smoother with their driving, and in turn they became much more consistent too.

 

SAFEisFAST is best YT channel regarding race craft, IMO.

Smooth is definitely fastest way, I guess you can go "cowboy mode" from the middle of apex only if next turn is not too far, so you'll loose almost nothing. My laptimes are average, and I'm opposite to smooth, too difficult for me. I think all fastest guys around are smooth on the limit, where others are simply loosing grip already, they have better lines, more rational corner enter-exit strategies, and uses track width perfectly.

Thats most common mistake of mine too. It is not that horrible to overshoot while being in outside, but very embarrassing to do that while being on inside, as it is a crash almost guarantee. Being on inside and braking as late as on outside is a very bad thing to do

 

I agree I share his view on driving as well !

 

I remember a discussion going on in a driving Facebook group I'm part of where people were mentioning the very common term, "slow in, fast out" is the fastest way around the track. And then one of the pro drivers said, "fast in, fast out" is actually the fastest way around the track. Truth is there's more than one way to go fast around a corner and your driving style heavily determines what works better for you.

 

Your exit speed determines your speed on the next straight, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

In the real world smooth surely means kinder to your tyres, brakes, engine etc... and yourself physically. Jackie Stewart has always been a big advocate of perfecting smooth driving first then increasing the speed. I tend to believe him.

 

Sebastien Loeb, the biggest rally champion of all times and imo also the best rally driver of all times was so fast because he was smooth.

 

I think smooth is a good, but not the only way. Remember the last century - there were the two prototypes of different drivers: Prost, the smooth one, Senna, the always flat-out guy. In same cars, Senna had a slight advantage (which the polelaps are an important indicator for), even if you do not take the betrayal in the '89 season into account. Sure, when there are ressources to be considered, such as tyres, fuel, wear, smooth driving might be better. But those circumstances are a result of artificially created boundaries to remove speed. It has nothing to do with "who is faster".

 

Smooth is important to not loose speed. Driving is everything about dont loss the speed. Not a thing like be slow and you will be fast, this is not true. Be fast, and stay fast, as most as you can.

 

depend on the car you are racing, take for example the new audi S1, if you drive it smooth you are going to understeer like crazy but if you trow it in entry you usually can accelerate sooner in corner exit thanks to the "quattro", but in the other hand if you are not smooth in the praga you are dead

 

My (totally irrelevant) 2 cents...
"Smooth is fast" is often used as a blanket statement, that's why it's both true and false.

It's true because smooth is better than "aggressively" missing apexes and counter steeering wildly.

It's false because to achieve the ultimate speed you need to "dance on the edge" a little bit.
In my opinion the ultimate speed is on smoothing your aggression.