Is It Me or the Kart? How I Tell Driving Problems From Setup Problems

I've been on the racetrack for about 22 years or so, and I've seen it all. And I'm sure I still have to see a lot. But what I notice a lot of times is that drivers struggle to identify whether a mistake is happening because of them, of their driving, or because of their actual kart — so from the setup, etc.

The reality is that, as I see it, most of the times — I would say 80% of the times — it's just the driver that's making the mistake, and even making it seem like the kart is behaving wrong. But it's just the driver that's driving badly and not helping the kart in a way.

The way you drive writes the kart's behavior

You've got to remember that the way you drive affects your kart balance massively. So if you drive very aggressively but in an erratic way — I mean, you've got to drive aggressively, let's be real. Of course, to be driving fast you have to carry the speed, you have to brake really hard and late. But for example, you want to be super aggressive with your brakes in the slow corners, in the hairpins, of course — but then you want to be super smooth with the steering. So you need to know how to be aggressive, and where to be aggressive, and where to be smooth, and when to be smooth.

Many times drivers get it wrong. Most of the times they are very smooth with their brake pedal and very aggressive with their hands — which then results into oversteer, and the kart feels like it's sliding. Which, again: it feels like the kart is sliding, it feels like the kart is set up badly. But the reality is that most of the times the driver makes it slide.

There is a big but subtle difference between when the kart is actually sliding and when the driver is making the kart slide.

So it's really key to analyze and detect whether it's the driver at fault or the kart at fault. That's the whole game — and it's the same skill I lean on when diagnosing balance from data.

There is no perfect setup

I'm not going to lie: many times the setup is not going to be perfect, and the mechanics and the driver and the team are going to be working proactively to try and get the setup in the optimal window. But you also need to recognize that there's no such thing as the perfect setup. You need to just be aware of that and acknowledge that. It's never going to be perfect. I'm not going to fool you into thinking, oh, the kart is always going to be perfect, don't worry. No — it's not going to be perfect. Most of the times, probably never.

The goal is to get it as close to perfect as possible in terms of setup, and then you have to adapt. Let's say the setup is 99 — you need to try to adapt your driving to make that become, let's say, 100. Maybe the kart is a little bit oversteery: you've got to control it by being a little bit smoother, so you can drive with it really well. The best drivers are the ones who are able to adapt, the ones who are able to live with it and get really good lap times no matter the setup.

And of course everybody would love to have a perfect setup all the time — but not even if AI had the chance to tune the setup would it manage to make a perfect setup. It would be impossible. The conditions of the track change so much in terms of grip level, temperature, humidity. The carburetion changes all the time. It's never going to be predictable. Even if you could predict it, you would never really have the grip level you had the session before — either you'll have more or you'll have less. The carburetion will not always be in the sweet spot. Again, you can tune the carburetion yourself if you're driving Juniors or Seniors, where you have the possibility to change it during the session — but in other kart classes, like 60 Mini or KZ shifters, you can't really change the carburetion yourself while driving. You'll have to do it after the session together with your engine tuners.

The reality is that most of the times it's the driver who's responsible to adapt to the kart. And it's the same in F1 — think about it. One race Mercedes wins, next race Ferrari wins, next race McLaren wins. Even there it's just really hard for the teams to be dominating all the races. Sometimes you have seasons where one team dominates, as in the case of Mercedes this year in 2026, or McLaren last year in 2025, or Red Bull before. But the reality is that it's very hard for them to stay at the peak of their performance — and it's the same in karting. It's just really hard to stay at the peak of performance and nail the sweet spot in terms of setup all the time.

The best drivers are not the drivers who get the best setups all the time. They're the ones who are able to adapt.

If you have understeer: okay, I'm going to try and find a way to rotate the kart even though I have understeer — by using more brakes, carrying more speed, clipping the apex kerb if needed to rotate. If I have oversteer, I'm going to try to find a way to get the kart to rotate just a bit less than usual, so I can control it.

Why bad driving feels like a bad kart

So, as I said: about 80% of the times it's just the driver that's at fault and causing the issues in the lap time. Mostly from faulty driving, in a way that the driver is braking too early, or driving too aggressively with the steering wheel, or anticipating the corner, etc. And that basically makes it feel like the kart is not right. As I said, in the case of aggressively using the steering wheel, it may feel like the kart is too slippery, sliding all the way through — but the reality is that it's the driver who's usually responsible for that.

And it's going to be hard to tell sometimes. Sometimes you may be feeling that it's the driver, but in reality it's the setup. There's a fine line which is really hard to read. The very experienced drivers can tell whether it's actually just the setup and not them. That's why drivers need to develop that self-awareness — I would say it's pretty much a driver superpower to have crazy-high self-awareness, because it literally tells you whether you are experiencing setup issues in that moment, or whether it's actually you having faulty driving, so you can fix it the next lap going through that corner, or right away into the next corner of that same lap. That's why you need to be massively self-aware.

The prerequisite: get within two tenths of your theoretical

One thing I always like to tell my drivers before we even think about the setup — because let's say the kart is at fault, the kart is not good, so maybe the chassis, maybe the engine — I say to my driver: okay, why don't we look first at your theoretical time?

If your theoretical time is like three tenths faster than your real lap, we shouldn't even discuss the kart. Because if you are two tenths off quali pole position and you have three tenths to your theoretical — do you know that if you drove all your sectors together, you would have set pole position, right?

Before we even talk about chassis, engine, whatever on the kart: first, make sure you are at least within two tenths of your theoretical.

And that's not even world class. To be world class you've got to be within half a tenth of your theoretical on a daily basis — not just once in a lifetime. You've got to be doing it repeatedly, session by session, within half a tenth. It means you are getting your peak performance when your tires reach peak performance, and then you drive at your best in that specific couple-of-laps window.

You also want to see real consistency in your lap times. Once you're able to match your theoretical, or get as close as possible to it, you also want to repeat yourself over multiple laps — two, three, four laps within one tenth. If I see one lap that's pretty good and the other laps are not even close to it — the second-best lap is three tenths from the fastest lap — that is really upsetting, because it means the driver is not consistent. And if the driver is not consistent, and the kart basically doesn't change during the session, well — then we have a driver problem, before blaming the kart for whatever reason.

Another really important metric to measure is braking-point repeatability. And it's the same for line repeatability — the racing line. We're able to track that through the PURPL app: you're able to see, was I able to replicate my braking points again and again? Was I able to push them deeper every lap as the grip came, or not? Were my racing lines consistent lap by lap, or were they deviating two, three meters from one lap to the other? Of course that's not good if that's happening. You want to match your lines and your braking points once you get them right.

Now, racing happens mostly by feeling, in a subconscious way more than a conscious way, so you can't really overthink this too much. It has to happen automatically, through so many hours and days and months of muscle memory that you've built into your skills. You can't fix it in one second after looking at the data and say okay, go and fix it. It's just not possible like that. It would be like telling a newbie basketball player to just match Kobe Bryant right after watching his game. You've got to put in the work and build that muscle memory to become that level of driver.

When it's finally time to touch the kart

Then, once the driver is driving well and I still see that the lap time is not coming — I see that the consistency is there, but even though the driver is trying to brake late, trying to carry the speed into the corner, his lap time is not improving and his corners are not improving either; despite trying everything, he may still not be able to carry the same minimum speed as the others — then what I do is: okay, we first make some setup changes.

We listen to the driver's feedback: okay, what do you need — more front, more rear? And we try what he says. We're going to add more front. If he improves, perfect. If he actually gets worse, then we try the other way around — remove some front, or add some rear. And if he improves then, that's perfect too, but we probably understand that we can't trust his feedback too much yet. Probably he's not experienced enough yet at helping with the setup tuning, and maybe he needs more races before we can start implementing his feedback into the setup. And that's fine — it happens to many drivers. It probably happened to me too.

Then, if the driver has no clue what's really going on, even though the lap time is not coming, I use my perspective and my experience. I go through the data and watch the video, and I'm like: okay, you know what? I think you probably weren't trying hard enough before; now you are trying hard, but it's still not coming in the lap time — so you probably need more front, based on my experience and based on the video. And then it looks like: okay, yeah, now the lap times are much better. You can see the minimum speed increased, because before you weren't able to rotate the kart, and now you have exactly the rotation you needed. Boom — there you go, we're set.

It's all these sorts of things that are extremely nuanced. But again: you, as the driver, first have to demonstrate that you are driving properly, that you have consistency, that you can repeat your lap times, and that you're as close as possible to your kart's potential — which is your theoretical, basically. Once you're able to prove that, then obviously it's down to the mechanic, the coach, or your team manager — whoever's taking care of your setups — to give you some trust and actually go out and try changing something on the kart. Whether it's on the chassis, on the engine, on the carburetion, on the sprockets — there's a lot you can tune. On the engine side too, you can tune the engine in a way that shifts the power band more to the top, more to the bottom, or more mid-range, based on what you're looking for in that specific moment.

Cry wolf about the kart and the team stops listening

One thing I want to point out: drivers need to understand that when they say the kart is bad, the kart is not behaving like they want, the engine is not good, the chassis is not good — they need to be seriously aware of what they're saying. Because if they say it once and they're wrong, they say it twice and they're wrong, they say it three times and they're wrong — then guess what the team or the coach or the mechanic is going to think about that driver? They're going to think that driver is just making excuses. And all those individuals are not going to trust the driver's feedback anymore. That's pretty bad for a driver in terms of reputation — the moment you may actually feel something right in the kart, they may not trust you anymore.

I've seen that many times in racing. A driver, for example, was complaining, complaining, complaining, and it was never right — he would find excuses all the time. Eventually something came up where he was right. But because he had kept finding excuses and blaming the kart for no reason, in that moment the team didn't follow him, and he was very frustrated. But that was the situation he created: the team didn't trust the driver anymore, because he would always attribute the problem to something external, something else, and not take responsibility when he needed to.

The thing you always have to remember as a driver is that the team is always ready to back you — but they also want to find lap time and win races, as much as you do. If you are constantly searching for excuses and not paying attention to your driving, and instead just thinking about the kart all the time, you're not going to get the trust from the team. The team will try to do the best they can for you, up until a certain point — if you become too much of a headache, they will most likely prefer you go to another team rather than keep finding excuses. The team is there to support you and back you, but they also need to teach you at some point, and make you understand you're wrong whenever you're wrong — because that's part of your development and your learning curve. It's the same dynamic I talk about in the driver-mechanic relationship.

Focus inward first

So what I suggest, as a driver, when you are losing some tenths here and there — you may be three, four tenths off the pace, and you're not really sure whether it's on you or the kart: before blaming the kart, I would always advise you to have a look at your videos, have a look at your telemetry. You can use PURPL to give you feedback on where you're giving up time to yourself. First of all because maybe your theoretical time is five tenths away from your current fastest lap, and you realize that would probably be enough to get pole position and win the race. So before even thinking about your kart, let's get as close as possible to the theoretical — or even match it, ideally — or be super consistent to your optimal time, so that you have the proof: okay, I'm doing a really good job.

That's the thing — it applies to me too. Right now I'm not feeling I'm there in terms of kart fitness, because in this case I haven't been driving in the last six months. It's very busy at Babyrace, and I'm working here at PURPL to help all drivers find lap time with their telemetry and make it as easy and effective as possible. So I've had to sacrifice my track time for days at the track with the team, as well as days in the office working at PURPL. And I know I will probably not be super fit in terms of muscle memory — even though I'm fit, because I'm training every day, I will not really be fit for the kart, and I will need some days to get back into my rhythm. And I know it's not going to be the kart's fault. It's just going to be me who needs to pick back up the automatisms, the muscle memory, in order to drive at my best. It's not the kart that can drive every lap consistently, or within one tenth of the theoretical — I'm the one responsible for doing that. And you should always think the same way.

Of course, once you feel like you're driving really, really well and you're still four or five tenths off the pace — then, if you have data from your teammates, go and download it and have a look at what's missing, the way I showed in comparing two laps properly. If you see that you're missing something in the corners, then probably there's something with your setup or your tires. If you're missing in the straights, there may be something in your carburetion, your sprocket, or your engine. Or maybe it's something you can't really see — something in the tubes, in the frame of the kart, but that's not most cases. Maybe you're not able to brake as late as the others because your pads are finished, or because you have no more oil in your brake pump — that makes you brake early, and maybe that's your limit, but it's not the limit of the others. And so again: you always have to first look at what you're doing, and then compare it to the others. If you see the others are able to brake later, you have to think — is that because they have new tires compared to me? Because they have better grip? Or maybe the grip is the same and it's just my brakes not working quite as well — and you bleed the brakes, you rebuild them, you go out, and wow, you find three-four tenths. That was it.

With time you develop the experience to identify the issue a lot faster, instead of having to wait five, six sessions to find it. That takes time. But first: focus inward, don't focus outward.

The worst drivers focus outward first. The best drivers focus inward first.

They ask: okay, what can I do better myself? Is it me? Where can I improve? And when they feel like — okay, I've pretty much arrived at what I can do, I can't extract more lap time from the kart — then it's time to work on the kart. Not the other way around. Remember that. Remember to sign up to PURPL — and as always, keep sending it.