Where Am I Losing Time? My Self-Review Routine After Every Session

Unless you're driving three, four tenths faster than everybody else, you'll always be looking for lap time. I mean, let's talk about it. We are always looking for lap time as racing drivers. Every time — even if you're on pole position, you're always looking for lap time, and you're always looking to the next session, because you know the track is going to change and you have to get ready for that.

The real goal is that you need to find lap time. You want to find lap time, especially when you're two, three, four tenths off the pace — or even more. Imagine if you're one second off the pace. For a racing driver, that's almost the worst feeling on earth, right? You can't really think about the other problems in the world — global warming, people starving in Africa — when you are five tenths off as a karting driver, that is just your biggest problem and you want to fix it now. It's the only problem in that moment and you don't care about anything else. And if you're like me, you're probably going to get very moody and very upset. Of course, that shows you're passionate and competitive as a person and you want to win — that's always really good to see in drivers.

My operating procedure: data plus video, every session

Once you realize you're off the pace and you have to find lap time — how do you go about doing that? Are you just looking at the results sheet from whatever event organizer you're racing with, whether it's WSK, CIK, or any other event like SKUSA? Are you looking at your onboard video? During the races you can't really do that in Europe — I know you can in the US, which is really cool, I wish it were possible here — so the only thing you can do is look at your telemetry data from your data logger, whether it's your MyChron, Alfano, Unipro, whatever. But during free practice, the best thing is to match your data analysis with your onboard video analysis.

That's pretty much my standard operating procedure, from running my team at Babyrace as well as when I go driving myself. The first thing I do is download my telemetry data, and then I download my onboard video if it's me driving, and I try to look at both. Obviously it depends how much time I've got between sessions — if I'm driving on a random day with an open pit lane and I only have 20–30 minutes between sessions, I may only have time to do just data, or just video. But most of the times I do both, and I'd start probably by looking at the video alongside the data.

What video shows you — and what data proves

First I want to see if I'm taking the right lines. In my case, due to my experience and racing knowledge, I tend to take the best lines most of the times — but I may always have to fix a few things here and there, and I have to go and identify that in the onboard. But I also match it with telemetry, because on the data I can see: okay, my line was a bit tighter in this lap than the other lap. You can see very small differences on the data — 30, 40, 50 centimeters of line — which you can't really see on the video. Unless it's an obvious mistake, you will rarely see a major line mistake on video, whereas the data can tell you exactly how many meters more you covered in a specific corner if you missed the apex. On video you have an assumption of how much extra distance you made; the data gives the real number. Video gives you a perception — data lets you back it up.

If my lines are right, then I look at my hands — steering technique. I try to see if I'm pushing nicely with my outside hand or pulling with my inside hand, and I fix that too. Then, through the video, I always pay attention to the moment I hit the throttle — whether it's before the apex, at the apex, or after the apex. The video gives me an idea, and I double-check it on the data for the real value. And I really want to see how much I'm using the track — specifically on the entries, how close I am to the limit on entry. On top of that, I want to read the kart's behavior, because I can quite easily tell it from video: whether I'm using too much steering input and I have understeer, or the opposite — massive snap oversteer as soon as I turn in — or whether I'm not able to stop the kart efficiently.

Whereas on the data, you see far more pragmatically where you're losing time, in a more scientific and proven way. There are no excuses in data. You can try to fake it, you can try to find excuses — but once you get to the data, the numbers don't lie.

It's the same thing I say to my drivers: remember, mate — data doesn't lie.

And they realize it. They may say, "oh, you know, I have no top speed" — and then they come to see the data of their teammates, and their teammates maybe have even less top speed. On the data you're able to unveil the areas where you're losing lap time — or where you're finding lap time on the others — just as if you were Sherlock Holmes, a detective identifying the hidden places where you were losing time. That's really the coolest thing about telemetry analysis. Especially if you have the benchmark of a reference driver — your teammate, ideally a quick one, more experienced than you — then it's awesome to see where he's gaining or losing against you. I've written before about why data doesn't lie — this is that idea in practice.

The rotten mentality of the fastest driver

Once you have your laptop open, or your iPhone or tablet open on PURPL, and you're able to see — okay, let's have a look where I'm losing time — remember: the whole point of opening up data is to understand where you're losing time. There's no other reason to look at data.

And here's the thing: most of the drivers who are fastest are not looking at data. Why? Because they're not interested in finding time. That's wrong — I'm just saying what it is. Once they're P1 and they're purple on the timing screen, why look at data? That's unfortunately the rotten mentality many drivers have. Even if you're quickest in that specific session, you should always look at data, because you can always go quicker — you can always find lap time in some corners. The fastest drivers in a session skip the data because they think they're fast enough and don't need to change their driving. Whereas the ones lagging two or three tenths behind are forced to find lap time, and they're going to spend their time analyzing their data. Thankfully, PURPL's AI can do it for them: okay, I'm losing here, I'm losing there — awesome, let's fix it on the track.

Data is backward-looking — the track is not

The goal is to first acknowledge and understand where you're losing the lap time, especially the corners where you're losing the most. Once you realize — I'm losing here, I'm losing there, because of X reason — you go out on track, you memorize everything, you implement those things, perfect, you find the lap time.

But I always say: data is really useful, but it's always backward-looking. It's looking into the past, not into the future. If the track changes next session — it gets more slippery — you may have to drive differently. The insights from the previous session would have worked really well if the track stayed the same; if the track changes, you may lose time again unless you're adapting yourself. In F1 they have live telemetry, where they can coach the drivers on what to do based on the track conditions and the weather — the wind, the track temperature, the tire temperatures. In karting, data is really valuable too — but it's not going to be the thing that wins you the race by itself, because you always have to adapt to the conditions.

Data is backward-looking. It serves you well for the next session only as far as the track stays the same — after that, you adapt.

If the track gets faster, you may have to brake even later, carry even more speed — you have to trust the grip and use more grip. Your braking point from the session before, when the track was half a second slower, will not be the right one for the next session when the track is half a second faster. The track is going to change a lot during the day, and as I always say, you need to develop the feeling of the limit — sensing the grip and adapting from session to session. If there's more grip: okay, carry more speed and drive a certain way. If there's less grip: carry a bit less speed and drive a different way. The data from the session before is useful, but it won't let you drive the next session perfectly, because the track is never going to be exactly the same. Still — what you did in the past, you'll probably repeat in the future. If you brake 10 meters early, you're going to keep braking 10 meters early unless you change your approach. That's why there's always value in analyzing the data.

Fix the three biggest losses — not corner one

My standard operating procedure is to look at the three biggest areas of time loss across the lap. I always start from the area where the driver is losing the most, then the area where he's losing the second most, and the third most. I don't start from turn one and work through in track order, as other coaches do. I used to do that in the past — turn one, turn two, et cetera — but now, if it needs doing in a hurry and there's not much time, it's better to go straight to the point.

And honestly, sometimes it's not even good to give more information. When there's too much information — focus on too many corners — the driver ends up unable to focus on any corner at all. Too many things to focus on becomes information overload, and he won't fix the ones that really need it. So if there are a few corners where the driver is one hundredth, two hundredths, three hundredths off — I wouldn't pay too much attention to those right away, unless the driver is really experienced and only a tenth off the pace overall. If the driver is six tenths off, I focus on the corners where he's two or three tenths off, not the ones where it's a couple of hundredths. It's common sense, and it's the way it should be done: focus first on the corners where you lose the most.

Three corners at a time — the three most valuable ones. Fix those every session and by the end of the weekend you'll be up to pace.

PURPL lets you do that easily through the app — you can see the sections where you're losing the most, ranked. And once you're able to detect the areas you lose the most, it gets easy, because then you can implement the fixes. Of course, knowing where you lose is not the same as actually going out there and doing it — it takes time, it takes kart control, it takes a lot of skill. Knowing you have to go flat out through a corner is one thing; actually going and doing it is another. And sometimes the reason you can't is you, not the kart — that's its own conversation. So: know first where you have to improve, but don't take for granted that you will. You need to push yourself, because it's not going to happen automatically.

But going out in the next session, when you put your helmet on, with your focus on the three areas you were losing the most — that is definitely going to help you massively, increasing your chances of finding the lap time and closing the gap. Much better than having no idea which corners to focus on, or focusing on too many corners and creating information overload. I wouldn't recommend that, especially for younger drivers. It's better to focus on three corners at a time — the three most valuable corners. If you do that, by the end of the day or the weekend you will definitely be up to pace — if you apply those changes to your driving, okay? And there's no such thing as "fixed forever", because the track always changes, sessions and conditions always change. But if you fix the three major corners every session, you'll get there by the end of the week — unless there are 70 corners per track like the Nordschleife, and that's not the case for you racing drivers in karting.

So: focus on the three major corners. You can find them easily in the data on the PURPL app. Go ahead and do it.