How to Warm Up Kart Tires Faster: Fronts First, Then the Rears

Remember to warm up the tires, Alessio. That's what my mechanic always used to say, Piero, when we were racing together in our golden years between 2012 and 2014. And I never forgot his words. And now they're stuck in my subconscious and part of who I am.

But the point is that as boring and as repetitive as it sounds, warming up the tires is extremely key if you want to get performance from lap one, whether it's a qualifying or whether it's a race, because you don't want to have the performance coming on lap seven, because that's too late. Just think about it. If you can get the tires already on lap one, then you have a massive advantage over the competition, over the other drivers. Because the reality is that, believe me, even at WSK and CIK level, almost nobody warms up the tires like they're supposed to. Almost everybody is leaving lap time on the table in the first few laps.

The vicious cycle Max Verstappen started at Lonato

I remember one driver, his name was Max Verstappen, in 2011 at the Winter Cup at Lonato. I remember him, I was watching him, and I was blown away, because he would warm the tires so much, not only in the formation lap but also in the first push lap he did. It was incredible. He would literally bring up smoke from his rear tires by how hard he was braking, by how much speed he was carrying, by how hard he was pushing.

That would in turn not only give him fast lap times, but give him way more temperature, which automatically gives more grip. And that's a vicious cycle, because more grip, you know, faster speed, faster speed, faster lap times. And again, faster speed equals even more temperature, and more temperature equals more grip. It's literally a vicious cycle. And that all starts by purposely pushing those tires to get the tire temperatures.

Is tire temperature more important than pressure?

Because remember, the grip coefficient, which at the end of the day is friction, it comes down to the temperature. It's massively influenced by the temperature. And even though the tire pressure has an effect in the equation, the reality is that most of it, it's due to the temperature. You can already have the tires set at the optimal pressure, say 0.90 bar, that's maybe the hot tire pressure target for whatever tires you may be, as an example. You could start with 0.90 with cold tires, but you'll see you won't be having the same grip level, and obviously same lap times, as you will have when the tires are in the optimal operating window. So that really goes to show you that it's not too much about tire pressures, but it's much more about tire temperatures. Of course the goal is to get those to be both nailed, for when, you know, you have the optimal tire temperatures you also have the optimal tire pressure at the same time, and that's when you basically get the, you know, best lap times and best results.

But the point being is that the only one who has the responsibility to get those tires warmed up as quickly as possible is not the coach, is not the mechanic, is not your data guy, is not your dad, your mom, it's nobody, not even your team manager. It's you, and yours only. You are the only one responsible for your tire temperatures, and therefore for your grip level, especially in the first few laps of the race, but even during the end of the race. Because if you're over-pushing the tires and you're sliding them too many times and you're just overheating those tires, and so you're going beyond the optimal operating window, then even in that case you're going to be hurting yourself, and you are going to be the responsible one. Nobody else will. So yeah, this really goes to show you that you need to have a procedure, a clear procedure stamped in your mind, that you don't have to be guessing every time what you got to do to warm up the tires. Like, you need to have a really clear idea of what you're going to do as soon as you leave the pits.

Use every millisecond, but don't slide them

So the thing I want to remind myself and my drivers at Babyrace and Senndit is that you have to use every millisecond you have to get those tires warmed up. Literally, you don't want to waste any millisecond, because every millisecond you waste, especially in a formation lap, by not warming up the tires, and by literally going straight with no effort on the tires, well, that's just temperature that you're not building that you could have built. And basically that's lap time, or even positions, lost in the first few laps. So you don't want to waste any millisecond in the formation lap, or it could be in the outlap of a qualifying.

That doesn't mean you have to go and just slide the tires like crazy, that you have to almost spin every time. No, you gotta be doing it mindfully, otherwise F1 drivers would be drifting every single corner before the beginning of a race. But why don't they do that? Because there's a downside to that, especially when you have fresh new soft tires. I've came to see that you don't want to over-stress them when they're brand new and when they're cold. You need to progressively bring them up to temperature. You almost have to massage them, get them in the optimal temperature, without stressing them too much.

That's, I know, a fine line to cross, because you're like, oh Alessio, but you're telling me I gotta warm the tires up as much as I can, I don't have to waste any millisecond, but at the same time you're telling me that you don't want to stress too much the tires. Yes, there's a fine line, and I want you to understand that you need to use absolutely every millisecond you have to get those tires at the optimal target temperatures as quickly as possible, but equally you don't want to slide the tires, because, hear me out, there are two separate things. One thing is warming up the tires, progressively putting load and energy into the tires and getting the tires, you know, to do the work. But another thing is to slide them and going beyond the slip angle, you know, when you go beyond the slip angle too much. When the tires are cold and have low tire pressures, you're going to kind of damage them. You're going to create some graining, where the inside of the tires is still cold and the outside of the tire is too hot.

So you don't want to have this. You want to have a progressive tire build-up from the inside to the outside, and you don't want to be too gentle about it. Of course, you kind of want to rush it up, but you want to rush it up in a way that A, you don't slide the tires too much, and B, you don't go outside of the racing line to warm the tires and making excessive weaving.

But then that actually creates another problem, which is you get pickup on the tires and dirt, because dirt not only makes the tires dirty and reduce the grip level, but also when you pick up dirt on your tires, that actually is going to show in the heat camera, that it's going to cool the tires down, because when you pick up dirt, dirt is not warm. Dirt is cold. And so if you pick some stones, if you pick some grass, if you pick some mud, whatever you're gonna pick, or even just tire pickup, you know, whatever you're gonna pick, it's going to cool down the tires, which is going to literally be the opposite of what you want. So remember this, if the track is very dirty off the racing line, you don't want to excessively weave and get pickup on your tires. You don't want to do that. You instead want to try to stay as much as you can on the racing line, do very little weaving in that specific case, but still put energy load into tires.

Formation lap and qualifying outlap are two different procedures

Now you'll see that the reality is that, especially during a qualifying session or even a simple free practice session, you won't be weaving that much. It's more about starting to push. And if you start to push early, then you're going to get the temperatures much more than if you would weave and just, like, literally make chicanes on the straights. But of course, in a formation lap for the race, you can't push. You know, you're off to go at the pace of the leader. Ideally you are the leader and set the pace, but you can't make a push lap in the formation lap. You gotta go slow, you need to pack the group behind you, so that it's compacting. And so you gotta go slow, and that's when you're gonna make the, you know, weaving and building up the tire temperature.

But again, that same formation lap procedure, you wouldn't repeat that during a qualifying session, where you would want to build the tire's temperature, you wouldn't do it exactly like you would do in a formation lap, because in a formation lap, as I said, you have to weave because you can't go fast and push like you would do in a qualifying session. So the thing that I want you to understand is that you shouldn't warm up the tires in the exact same way between a qualifying session as well as a practice session, compared to a race, whatever, whether it's the final, race qualifying, heat, you know, whatever, pre-final, superheat, in those kind of scenarios.

Even though you may be driving shifters, or juniors, single speeds, whatever karts you're going to be driving, you can't warm up the tires the exact same way, because in a formation lap you will be going a lot slower, and you have to respect the procedure. And so, because you're going slower, the only way to build up the temperature is to try to go and do as many zigzags and tire weaving as possible, going left to right, right to left, so you can at least build some temperature using the brakes, using the throttle, using the body, trying to put literally the kart on three wheels all the time, so you can literally work and stress the tires. So I feel this is really what the, the actual focus of drivers should be in a formation lap of a race. But in a qualifying scenario, or in a simple session scenario, you aren't going to warm up the tires like the race procedure. So I hope that is clear.

My qualifying outlap procedure: combine the G forces

So in a qualifying, or whatever pre-practice session, my standard operating procedure is, okay, I go out of the pits, and what I want is to use every millisecond I have. And what I mean is that I don't want to waste any time. I want to get out of the pits and I instantly want to build some tire temperature, because every little extra warming you do early on into the outlap, it compounds, it really adds up.

So if the initial warming up, it's not good, and you're too little warming the tires up, you will arrive at the end of the outlap, or beginning of the first push lap, lagging behind the driver who actually warmed the tires up a lot more proactively. So it's really the difference between being lazy at warming the tires and being proactive and being very strategic about it.

So you come out of the pits and you instantly start to do a bit of weaving. You start to use the brakes, you get on the throttle, you get on the brakes, you get on the throttle, and you try to combine doing these things. Okay, you try to brake while turning left, then you accelerate while turning right, and then you brake while turning right, then you accelerate while turning left. You know, you try to, you know, um, do a lot of combined, combined.

The goal is to combine lateral and longitudinal G as much as possible. What does it mean? What's the translation of that? Well, you want to combine acceleration and turning. Then you want to combine braking and turning, you know. And you want to try to get all four tires to be warmed up. You don't want to warm up only the, let's say, outside tires. In a clockwise circuit it's going to be the outside tires, which means the left tires, okay? Whereas in an anti-clockwise circuit, it's going to be the right tires, the right-hand tires, like in a track like Le Mans, where they're going to hold the world championship in 2026, the shifters.

That's, for example, important to really get those outside tires in the optimal operating temperature, because that's basically where you're going to do the most laps, and therefore you need to get the most grip there as soon as possible. If you have to choose, you're going to obviously prioritize the side of the tires, the side of the kart where you're going to have more corners, so the actual loaded side. Even though it's counterintuitive, because you may say, oh, but those tires are going to warm up a lot faster and easily because you got more corners in that load, so, yeah, it's a bit of a controversial topic. But what I like to do, obviously, I want to get as fast as possible those outside tires, for where you have the most corners, warmed up the quickest, as first. But then, when those are feeling good and they feel like, okay, I have grip, then I will immediately shift focus into getting the inside tires, which will be the right-hand tires in a clockwise circuit, because those are going to be struggling for most of the laps if those are not hot. So, of course, prioritize first the tires that will have the most load and most corners on them, but also don't forget about the inside tires that are still going to be very important, which most drivers neglect.

So this is not too much of a science. It's more of an art. It's hard to exactly quantify how much effort you should put on one side of the tires and how much effort you should put on the other side of the tires. But you should also really build a feeling and self-correcting adjustments. You know, you should just really feel, okay, I need to, I need to warm these tires more, because I feel they're not there yet. Or, oh no, I think these are already quite ready, so let's warm the other side of the tires. But you really need to be mindful and aware of that at any given time. You have to think about that in the first outlap as well as the first push. But I think now we spoke too much about the actual tire preparation in the outlap. Let's think instead about what you should do in the first push lap.

Why are the front tires the hard part?

Because yes, even though I mentioned that you don't want to really slide the tires, especially when the tires are soft, and there's a lot of grip on the track, and you start with low tire pressure, you don't want to really stress too much the tires, going beyond your slip angle. But equally, you want to really get those tires heated up in the most efficient and fast way possible. And one way I like to do that is to attack the entries of the corners.

If you attack the entries of the corners, especially heavy braking zones, you will get a huge amount of warm-up, especially on the front tires, because you have to think about it. The rear tires have an easy time getting warmed up, because at the end of the day, especially if you have a lot of power in your kart, like a shifter kart with 52, 53 horsepower, you're going to have a lot of torque, and so you just, by purely getting on the throttle with traction, you're going to get a lot of rear grip and rear temperature super soon. But the difficult part is going to be on the fronts, because, you know, it's a rear-wheel drive kart.

And so you won't get the fronts to be warmed up unless you push them a lot on the braking, because when you weave you're warming up more the rears, and the fronts, actually you do warm a bit the fronts, but not so much. The moment you warm up the fronts is when you have that weight transfer going forward on the braking, that's really when you get the fronts to be warmed up, and also when you obviously use the steering angle in the mid-corner. But you wouldn't really want to oversteer, I think that's not really what you can do in karting. In formula cars, yeah, you will purposely use extra steering angle in the formation lap and in the warm-up laps to actually get those fronts scrubbed and literally create some extra grip. But in karting you really don't want to do that, like it's not something that you do, and I don't think that's right, to purposely scrub the fronts.

But the best thing I like to do for the fronts is to literally push a lot on the braking and carrying a lot of entry speed by, yeah, transitioning from rear to front with the weight, because when you brake deeply, especially with front brakes in shifter karts, but also with the other categories that don't have front brakes, you know, single-speed cars like juniors, seniors and mini, when you brake, the weight is gonna shift forward, and so the front tires will have a lot of work to do, and that's at the end of the day what you want. You want to get those fronts to do a lot of work.

So I really want to do this procedure in a formation lap, or in a preparation lap. In a shifter, for example, I'll try to be smooth on the throttle. I don't want to push too much, because then the fronts are not going to be ready and the rears are going to be ready, and so you will have understeer, and it's not going to be good for the balance. I just hate having understeer. So what I'd like to do is, like, I try to be very gentle on the throttle so that I don't hit the rears too quickly, but equally I try to push a lot the fronts so that the front is going to get in temperature.

And again, it's not just about tire pressures, believe me. It's more about tire preparation in terms of driving. And it's not much you can do in terms of setup, you can't put so much negative toe-out so that you can warm up the tires fast on the front. That's not really what you should be doing. Like, you should really do it more with your driving style, rather than relying on the setup or relying on the tire pressures.

So what I would suggest is to be, let's say, very calm on traction, especially with shifter karts, in the first two laps, but attack a lot the entries, so you get the rears to not get ready too soon, and the fronts are gonna be, you know, hurried up a little bit. Because the goal is to get to the peak, peak performance at the same time between, left tires and rear tires, front tires and rear tires, that is really the goal. You don't want to have those two axles getting up to temperature at the different times.

And if you don't think about that and you just drive instinctively, you'll notice that the rear tires are gonna be ready super early, the fronts will not. The first two, three laps you will have understeer, and then, while the fronts have arrived in lap three, then the rears are gone on, and then you will start to pick some oversteer, and just the lap times won't be there anymore. So you want to be strategic, especially with shifter karts, very strategic, I would say, with juniors and seniors karts, you also got to think about that a lot. The goal is to get the fronts warmed up very fast, because the rears are anyways going to get there inevitably. So push deeply on the braking, you won't slide the tires that much on the braking, you'll see that you're going to slide the tires more in the fast corner. So I wouldn't push too hard in fast corners.

Stay off the kerbs, and remember the brakes

And one rule of thumb, I wouldn't use too much the curbs, to be honest, when, especially you're running very low tire pressures in the summer, I wouldn't really use curbs when warming up the tires, I would try to stay away from them. That's something I learned from a test day I did in Formula 3 with Prema Powerteam. I remember they taught me not to use the curbs in the outlap when we were running low tire pressures, because that would have increased the chance of getting a puncture, and they were right. And, uh, and also it would have damaged the tires maybe in some way, with blisters or so. So there's no real point in the preparation lap to really use the curbs that much, so I would be aware of that. But again, I don't want to over-complicate it for you, just remind yourself that the fronts are the, the difficult part to be warmed up.

And don't forget about the brakes, because, you know, you may just worry about the rear tires and the front tires, but the thing you should not neglect are the brakes, and they also play a big factor in the performance, especially if you run very hard brake compounds in the disc or in the pads. And so they need temperature. In that case, you want to really come with a proper brake warm-up preparation, and that again comes by attacking the entries, in most cases, and you will get the brakes to be ready. And that's what basically Max Verstappen was doing, and I remember watching him from the grandstands, looking up to him, when he was one category above me. I was looking at him, I was like, wow, he's really pushing on the entries.

When the race starts, forget everything and push

And that's really the thing, like, when you start pushing, especially in a race, and it's cold, you don't want to think about too much, oh, I don't have to slide the tires. No. In a race, as soon as you've warmed up the tires in the formation lap, you don't want to think about that anymore, oh, I shouldn't slide the tires. No, you just want to push. That's it. You know, forget about what I said about being afraid of pushing and trying to not go beyond the slip angle. No, just forget about that. In the moment the race starts, because that's literally game time, you have to push.

And that's what Max was doing, you know. He was braking so hard that the smoke would come from his rear tires, and, you know, that's really the definition of going beyond the slip angle and generating a ton of work on the tires, and therefore a ton of temperature. And then he would pick up more grip, and he would pull away quite easily from the rest of the field, and it made it look easy on him. But the reality was that he mastered so well the tire preparation, the warm-up procedure, as well as the brakes, and that gave him an absolute advantage compared to the other drivers, which didn't really realize that.

So spend time and focus perfecting your warm-up technique, because it really makes a difference, believe me. In 99% of the times you will need the tires to be warmer than what they actually are in the first lap of the race. And even in the summer, I've noticed, like, when the track temps were 60 degrees, I was like, why do we get the time still in the end of the race, and in the first laps we're driving one second slower?

And the reality is that even though you may feel like tires are hot, they're not hot yet, or not as hot as you would think. So it is really extremely important for you to, um, yeah, just to be mindful about that and remind yourself that if you're not pushing those tires early on, if you're not warming those tires early on, somebody else probably will, and they will kick your ass.

So if you don't want to get your ass kicked, and instead be the one who's going to kick all the asses on the grid, and get P1s, win trophies, win, win championships, get pole positions, well, remember to warm up the tires like a Max Verstappen, like a proper legend, and not only in a qualifying session but also in a race session. You want to really make sure that your tires are the hottest on the grid.

Almost like if you had a gamified statistic, as in a Formula 1, like, literally, that would tell you the tire temps of all the drivers on the track. If there was this chance, this opportunity to see it, it would be awesome, because it would really expose, expose the drivers who warm up the tires the most against who warm up the tires the least, and you'll see some patterns in their performance, especially in the opening laps. You'll see if you have really hot temperatures, you'll be able to pull away from the rest of the field in the race. But also in quali, you'll probably get the peak temperature earlier, and that means you're going to have maybe one or two laps at the peak performance, whereas the others are going to maybe have half a lap, or just one lap, especially in colder conditions in the winter times.

So I hope that was useful. Remember, remember to keep sending it. Feel free to sign up to PURPL and get some awesome insights from your MyChron data. And I can't wait to see you inside the six-month training program of Senndit. I'll see you.