How to Get Faster When You Have Nobody to Compare Against

We all know it's not that difficult to improve when you got lots of fast teammates to learn from. But how do you actually improve when you're driving by yourself, on a, for example, random track day, testing? How will you be able to improve your driving? How will you be able to improve your lines?

So these are common questions I get from my drivers, but I hear in general, because, obviously, when you have a fast teammate to compare against, or maybe not a teammate but you manage to get data from somebody else on the track, well, that data becomes gold, because you can really understand, all right, where you're losing time, because until then you're always guessing where you're losing time. But if you get, for example, the data from the fastest driver on the track, well, that becomes very valuable, because you can tell exactly what you're losing. You could kind of steal their lines, steal their braking points, etc. Even though I always believe that as a racing driver you should figure out yourself the braking points, etc.

But the real thing is that, yeah, obviously it's a big advantage whenever you have someone else's data that's faster than you in that specific session. Not necessarily a faster driver, but in that specific session. It helps you a lot to understand where you have to go and find the lap time. Maybe it's in the driving, maybe it's in the chassis, maybe it's in the engine tuning, or maybe it's in all the three areas. So, of course, the ideal would be to have having data of a fast driver on the track, but you can't always have that.

As I said, maybe you're a privateer, you're driving by yourself, racing by yourself, or maybe you're just on a random test day by yourself, and you are not going to have any access to data from somebody else's, and you won't even know kind of like what's the reference lap time on the track, because you're driving by yourself maybe that day.

The question to ask instead

So that question always seemed to happen, and it also happens to me when I'm going driving by myself, for example, when I'm driving in Lonato, or when I'm driving in Cremona or Franciacorta, you know, I'm like, oh, is this actually a good time or not? Of course, that's the question everybody asks themselves. But the real question should be, okay:

How can I find lap time by myself, between my own self?

Okay. Because the reality is that, I mean, guys, everyone is gonna be doing corners that are faster in other laps, or in other sessions, than in their, you know, fastest lap of that current session.

Let me explain. Of course, from session to session the track will change ever so slightly, and for sure it won't be easy to compare between sessions in terms of lap time, so it's not gonna be a real, like, apples-to-apples comparison. But the reality that many times, especially with sessions that are very close to each other, you will be able to have an idea of corners that you did in, in previous session, or that you did in the same current session but in different laps. Because that's the reality, I mean, getting the perfect lap takes a lot of practice, and it, you know, can only happen to, to drivers that are very experienced. And even then it's hard to repeatedly set the fastest lap, in terms of, like, matching all your mini sectors. And that's what I call the perfect lap.

Because the reality is that over a 10-lap session, when, let's say, the peak of the tire temperature is at, let's say, lap six, you will have four or five laps in the window to continue, let's say, setting faster lap times. And it may happen that maybe in your quickest lap, only a few of your corners and sections have been the best, the absolute best, from that session. But in other laps, you did better corners.

So the goal is that, as a racing driver, driver, you should chase always the perfect lap within yourself. That's pretty much the, the goal. If you manage to get as close as possible to your perfect lap, so when you are basically putting all your best corners, best mini sectors, together from that session, then you can be happy about your session. Most of the times that's going to be ending as a very highly performing session from your side, and most likely will be having a great result in, in the race or qualifying, if you obviously are racing.

Priority one: close the gap to your theoretical

But if you're just testing for yourself, I mean, you can't really measure that. So on Purpl I decided to create these features that allowed you to really benchmark yourself, in terms of comparing the mini sectors and seeing which laps you got best corner one, or the best corner two, the best mini sector three, etc. You know, you could see that. And the goal, obviously, is that when the peak performance on your tires or engine, etc., you're able to put everything together and, then, you know, try to repeat that over multiple laps.

Because the holy grail of a racing driver is to really use every single tenth the kart gives you, in terms of performance, and to be able to repeat it as much as possible, because it's not just about doing it once. You got to repeat it every lap.

I mean, you're not going to become a world champion by setting up fastest laps. You're going to become a world champion if you can repeatedly set those fastest laps, or maybe you don't even need to set the fastest laps. You just need to be quicker than the driver in P2.

You know, even if the driver in P15 is the fastest on track, I mean, you don't really care about that. You only care about being faster than the driver in P2, you know. So that's the only goal at the end of the day, and it should make you reflect that the goal is, again, to not only be super fast in terms of your ultimate lap, but to be able to repeat it consistently. And that's something that you're going to be doing on a random test day, for example, when you have nobody to compare against but yourself.

So you should try to, as I said, match your theoretical best, which is hard. If you have multiple mini sectors, which is my philosophy in racing, it's not just to use the three sectors that AiM provides on the MyChron. I don't like that. I want to see all the different sections in a realistic way.

Of course, you don't want to compare corner by corner, because there are corners that are a sequence of corners, like chicanes. It wouldn't be fair to have a mini mini sector in between the two, because then it wouldn't be realistic. But the sections algorithm that we created is instead very real, and accurate, most importantly, which makes it a very useful tool to show you whether you're actually doing a really good job or not.

So, as I said, if you're driving alone and you have nobody to compare against, your first priority is to match, or get as close as possible to, your theoretical best, not from the MyChron but from the Purpl theoretical best, which is going to put all the sections together, which, for example, you know, if you have two corners and then you have a straight line, that's going to be counted as a section. Then you have two other corners and another straight line, you have another section. All right, that's how it works.

Basically, the sector detection we have created is basically very precise. And what I wanted to do is to make it very honest, and it shouldn't give you false sectors, because then it wouldn't be useful. So, as I said, I'd prefer to have less sectors than more, but making sure those sectors are real, okay, so you have real breathing time between corner to corner, so that one corner doesn't affect the other, so that one mini sector doesn't affect the other. So I wanted to make it, uh, real, and I think we managed to, which I think it's just working phenomenally well.

Priority two: consistency

And the second priority you would work on if you're driving by yourself is the consistency. So you really want to get yourself in that consistency sweet spot. And how do you do it? How do you check that? Well, you check that by looking at your standard deviation. There's a specific channel for that inside the Purpl analysis dashboard.

You can see, okay, if you did a really good job, your consistency is going to be very high, but the real value is going to be low. The standard deviation, which is basically statistics calculation, it's going to show you, oh, you were very close to your theoretical. So the lower the value, let's say if you do a 0.1 standard deviation, it's much better than if you did 0.4 standard deviation, okay. So that's pretty much the goal, is to have the lowest standard deviation as possible, which basically means that you have the lowest swing between one lap and the other.

I mean, that, at the end of the day, if you're able to repeat the laps again and again, it means you're on top of your game, and it means you're just doing a really good job. And that just goes to show you whether did a good session, not only in terms of ultimate lap time, but also in terms of just, like, consistency, which is really key when you're driving alone. I mean, that's one of those things you want to measure, and you can just do it against yourself.

The kart is not going to change in such a way during a session that will not allow you to be consistent. That's a bit of like a, an excuse. It's going to be you.

We're going to be able to keep yourself consistent by just relying on your muscle memory, relying on your experience, or car control. And, you know, if you have to make a mistake, because everyone makes mistake, you know, you need to try to adjust during the corner and try to reduce that mistake from, from half a second, let's say, to just one-tenth of a second, or even less, half a tenth. That would be the goal, as professional racing drivers do. They're not losing too much for mistakes, they just lose a tiny bit, which is the goal, or at least should be the goal, for all karting and racing drivers in general. Minimizing mistakes and time loss for each mistake, that's just super important.

Borrowing a reference

Then, of course, if you have the chance to have some data or some video onboards from drivers that have been historically really fast on that track, you know, that would be really useful too, so you can kind of borrow a reference, in a way.

Because, uh, yeah, I mean, obviously the onboard video, um, it's going to show you the lines really well. So if you're going to a track that you're not too experienced, you can check for onboard videos on YouTube, or you can get an onboard video ideally from your teammate or from somebody else. But, I mean, it's, it's very fierce out there, and I doubt you will get to have, uh, your hands on, on someone else's really fast onboard video. I mean, I don't share onboard videos with my teammates at all. I mean, that's just pure competition, I'm not here to work for making the others win. But, uh, equally, there's a bunch of good videos on YouTube, I mean, from most of the, let's say, popular tracks and popular series, so you can always have an idea of what the best lines are for the other drivers, and, and so you can match them, starting from there. Maybe if you find other, other tricks to find better lines, that would be good, of course, but I would say start from the baseline of what the other drivers are doing to win.

You can also check race videos. You can have an idea of lines too, and the track used properly, and, you know, the turning points. I mean, you can't really see the braking points, but, to be honest, that always depends massively on the grip level on the track, on the setup, and, obviously, on the category of driving. But having an idea would be very useful.

Comparing data across sessions and days

Also in terms of data. But, to be honest, guys, data is not going to be very useful, because if you compare yourself in one session that was maybe very hot, the track was very hot, compared to a day that was very cold, and, you know, it's going to change, for sure, the grip level, whether you have more grip level or less grip level. Like, you won't really know, it's always going to be different, you know, because the, the number of drivers on the track will be different, then the tire compounds on the track will be different. So many things will be different, so you can't really compare apples to apples, it's going to be a bit of an unfair comparison. But I'm pretty sure, uh, you have an idea what I'm talking about.

So, in terms of data, it would be just an idea for you to know, okay, this driver started braking here, he, you know, released the brakes there, he carried this amount of speed. So it could give you an idea, having the data session file from someone else of some other days. But, again, I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't use it too much. You know, I would just maybe use it as a starting point if you're, like, spectacularly wrong, let's say, on your braking point, and you're trying to brake way too late or way too early. Of course, that gives you an idea of what you should be doing to just, like, get into the rail, in a sense. But, of course, I wouldn't use data too much from other sessions, from other days. I would focus most on what's during the day, and, ideally, what's in that specific session, because it's incredible how quickly it changes, the conditions of the track, in, uh, in, in just a single day, or just from session to session in karting, is just so spectacular, whether because it's due to the weather, or whether because it's due to the drivers laying down the different rubbers on the track. So, I mean, it's just incredible to see that, that difference.

So that's why I don't like to rely on a data file comparison from different sessions, or even different days, from the same track in the same category. But, yeah, that's why it would just be an idea. Like, for example, when I go drive in a, in a track, I'm like, just having an idea where I'm, uh, losing, from another day where it was quicker, and I'm just having an idea whether it's on the straights, for example, whether it's in the corners, in which corners.

Of course, if, on the, in the races, I use the race engine, and I see I'm losing, like, three, four tenths down the straights, and I see I can't change my gears, because, obviously, I drive a KZ now. If I say I can't change my gears at, for example, 15,000 rpms, and I need to change them at 14,000, because my carburetion isn't right, or because my engine isn't tuned up, it's just testing engine, well, then, of course, I'll be aware that, okay, you know, I can't really do too much on the straights, and I just have to try my best in the corners, and whatever, okay.

And if I see that I'm doing really well the corners, I'm just losing on the straights, then, okay, I'm happy about that, and I keep pushing on the corners. Means the grip level is good, I'm just, like, using a suboptimal engine, but that's fine, you know, because you don't need that for random testing days. So, okay, but it gives me an idea. And, uh, yeah, as I said, I just take it as a, as a reference.

And also in terms of, uh, exhaust temperature, in terms of grip load index, I can always see the friction circle and see, okay, that day I actually had more grip. That explains why I could carry five kilometers more into that fast corner. Or that day I had less grip, so now I should be carrying more speed, but I'm carrying the same speed, so probably now I'm not doing the best job. So I need to understand why, etc., etc.

But also in terms of exhaust temperature, to understand the carburetion, see where you benchmark against other sessions and other days. Or even in terms of water temperature, RPMs, it's really important to know the sprocket and everything.

So it's, it's great to compare yourself against other sessions, or other days, even other drivers, to see pretty much where you're losing, in terms of areas on the track, whether it's on the corners and the straights, etc., and the exits, and the top, whatever. But, as I said, in terms of fine tuning you can't really compare that much, because the track changes too much, the, the conditions just varying so much, and you will actually end up with wrong and unreasonable information.

You know, in, for example, uh, in the, in winter the engine just goes faster, because you, the engine basically absorbs cold air inside the air box, and the engine is just going to go faster than, you know, when the track is, uh, 40 degrees, uh, air temperature, and 60 degrees, uh, you know, track temperature. Of course, the engine on the straight is going to be slower in the summer, but, of course, you can't really try to tune up the engine to go as fast as with how it goes in the, in the winter. Yeah, you may have to change the calibration, for sure, but still it won't go as fast. So you kind of have to live with it and try to make the lap time somewhere else around the track, maybe in the corners, you know, because maybe it's going to be more grip, because the track temperature is higher, and you may need more grip in that moment.

The real shortcut: rent a benchmark

One really cool way to, perhaps, shortcut your learning curve is either getting a private coach that can show you around, but also, so the really cool way would be to get a driver to be your coach, and a really fast driver to come driving with you, and literally drive side by side with you. That could be a really cool add-on, and it would be really easy to compare sessions, because the track will be the same for you too. And you, in that case, really have no excuses. And if, obviously, the karts are set up very, very evenly, then, of course, you will be able to really push your driving, and really test how good you're driving against a really good fast driver.

So that's one of the suggestions for me to, to give you, is try to kind of rent a fast benchmark. So, yeah, if you could get your hands on a day against a really good driver of that category, maybe that's gonna be quite costly, it's gonna cost you quite a bit, but, uh, I think it's gonna be very worth it, and you can know pretty much how far you are from him. Or maybe you are at the same pace, or maybe, surprisingly, you'll be quicker, which will leave you with a pretty big smile on the face. Even if you can swap the karts, that would be also really cool. I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to, to understand exactly your, your, your level, and that's going to give you a lot of, uh, things to work on, on your driving, for you to improve, uh, as a racing driver.

I think that's one of the best ways to shortcut the learning curve. So I hope you can go out there and do it. You can find all the tools needed that we talked about in this guide on purpl.app. So go ahead and give it a try, I'm sure you're gonna enjoy that, and make sure to, to send me some feedback. Remember to keep sending it. Ciao, ciao.