The Overslowing Signature: How to Spot It in Your Data

You can probably relate to that feeling: you're not carrying enough speed into the corner, the RPM is very low, your exit momentum is just bad, and it feels like everybody is dropping you.

That's the classic sign of slowing the kart down too much — starting at the entry and continuing through the mid-corner.

Why "slow in, fast out" costs you time

There's a lot of bad advice in the karting community about this, from coaches and mechanics alike, and it usually comes back to the slow-in-fast-out technique. The belief is that you gain more on the exit than you lose on the entry by slowing the kart down more.

It isn't the case, and I'm really a big enemy of that technique. Do the math:

Go in slow and lose two tenths on the entry, then win back one and a half on the exit — you're still five hundredths down. That's a net loss.

And think about it another way. Do you believe drivers like Schumacher, Verstappen, Senna or Hamilton developed their skills going slow in, fast out? I guarantee you they didn't become legends driving like that. So the focus shouldn't be "I should go slowly into the corner". It should be the opposite.

Overslowing won't make you a world-class driver. It may get you decent results in club races or at national level, but it will be really hard to achieve anything substantial on the world stage. The exit-speed argument gets misused to justify exactly this, which is why it's worth reading properly.

What "fast enough" actually feels like

Now you're thinking: okay Alessio, but what do you even mean by going in "slowly"? That's very generic. Fair — it isn't specific. So here's the feeling.

In a heavy braking zone you should feel like you have to hold the brakes almost to the very end, because otherwise you're going straight on. You know that feeling on a roller coaster where it lifts you and then unloads you, and you almost feel like you're coming out of it? That moment where you're out of breath?

That's how a corner entry should feel. Almost out of breath, almost like — I'm going to miss it.

If you're going in comfortably and you don't have that feeling, you're not pushing the limit, and you're never going to become a world champion. You'll be fine in club races; it won't put you in the world championship class. You develop that feeling by pushing and practicing carrying a lot of speed into corners.

The signature in the data: a V where a U belongs

On the data, overslowing shows up as a V-shaped speed line — the speed trace, not the racing line. There's an area in the mid-corner where it drops very low, and that doesn't work, especially in single-speed karts like 60 Mini, Junior or Senior, whether that's Rotax or X30. You need the RPM up, you need the momentum. Reading trace shapes is the quickest way to see it.

So how do you turn a V into a U? By opening up the entry as much as possible in terms of line, opening up the exit as much as possible, and then getting as close to the apex as you can — ideally making it. When you have that proper racing-line arc, plus good entry and minimum speed, you're set. Given whatever kart you have in that moment, you'll be doing really well if you're maximizing track usage on entry and exit, making the apex, and carrying enough speed to lift the inside rear wheel. That lift is the whole mechanism behind carrying mid-corner speed.

The steering-angle tell

Here's a check you can run without any data at all, and it's one of my favorites.

When you go slowly through a corner, you'll notice you need a lot of steering angle. And in a go-kart, where the steering ratio is extremely aggressive, that means something specific.

A road car or even a racing car is around 1:15. A kart is about 1:1. It's completely direct — every degree of steering results in a lot of turning at the wheels.

So you shouldn't need much steering angle at all. If you're using a lot of it, you're probably not carrying enough speed — because the more speed you carry, the more rotation you get, and without rotation you're forced to steer. That's your sign, and the data will confirm it with a very V-shaped speed trace.

The cascade: one mistake becomes four

Overslowing rarely stays a single error. It triggers a chain, and that chain is what actually destroys the corner.

First, you go on the gas early. This is the single most common thing that happens right after, and it should act as a wake-up call to fix it on the next lap. When my drivers brake early and go slow, they usually realize it — at least they have that speed-sensing skill — and think, I'm too slow, I'll get on the gas early. It's a bandage. It doesn't properly compensate: you may go from a three-tenths loss to a one-tenth loss. And sometimes it makes things worse, because getting on the throttle too early pushes you out wide on the exit, so you lose there too.

Second, you turn in early. Around 90% of the time, a driver who brakes early also turns in early. There's an automatism in our muscle memory: we brake, we wait a tiny moment, and we turn. It varies by driver, track and corner, but the sequence is always there. So brake early and you'll turn early.

Third, you get an early apex. Which means you don't have the right rotation by the mid-corner, you're pointing the wrong way, and you have to do your rotating on the exit — exactly where your steering should already be straight. If you want the geometry behind that, it's in the racing line.

You couldn't make more mistakes than braking early, turning in early, and getting on the gas too early before the apex, pointing in the wrong direction.

So you lose the entry, you lose the mid-corner, and then you lose the exit as well — all from one initial error. This is why I say everything starts at the entry: the mid-corner and the exit are largely a consequence of what you did on the way in. If early braking is your pattern, there's a specific fix for it.

How to find your limit with nobody to compare against

You might say: fine, but how do I know if I did the right corner speed when it's just me at my local track on a random Wednesday? It isn't as straightforward as having a teammate to compare with. But there's a way.

If you do 15 laps in a session, you will certainly carry different speeds into the corners across those laps. Look at the lap where you carried the most speed through a given corner and compare it against your fastest lap — most of the time you'll find you did that specific corner better on a different lap.

Your goal is to match that, or carry more, in the next session. Then keep pushing to see where the limit actually is. If your best mid-corner speed in a hairpin is 60 km/h, aim for 61, 62. You won't judge it that precisely from the seat, but you can push more next time out. And when you find you can't make the apex any more, or you're losing on the exit, you've found the limit. That's the same self-benchmarking logic as getting faster with nobody to compare against.

It's an art, so you have to feel your way to it

At the end of the day, racing is more of an art than a science. And like all arts, it's harder to explain than to do — you can't execute it like a robot. There's all sorts of art-generation software now that can replicate art with AI, but racing you have to feel.

So go out with clear goals. You don't want to drive empty laps, clueless as a sleepwalker with no idea what you're doing or how to find the lap time — that's what structuring a practice day is for. But equally, once the helmet is on, it has to become automatic. That's the result of what you did in the days and sessions before: whether you arrived prepared, on that track and off it, with your fitness, your visualization, all of it.

Focus on carrying entry speed, and use the signals:

• Your inside rear wheel should lift.
• Your steering input should be small.
• You should feel like you might not make the corner — that roller-coaster, out-of-breath feeling.

Get those and you'll beat the overslowing monster that so many drivers carry around, and you'll develop the feeling of driving on the limit at the entry. You'll also massively develop your kart control along the way.

You only develop kart control when you push beyond your limits. Never when you drive within them.

That's it. Remember to sign up to PURPL, try your first sessions, let me know how it goes — and remember to keep sending it. Ciao.