raymondu999, a lot of what's he's saying makes sense as it pretty much describes how people drive a single seater car. I wonder what would he say outside of F1 context, e.g. in a context of underpowered car. There are some points I would argue about, but for that I need to do a day or two with the guy to properly understand what he's actually saying
timbo wrote:Maybe we should create a separate thread?
Do you think there will be enough questions for the whole thread? I'm cool if there's gonna be another thread, however I would have to put a big fat disclaimer at the beginning of it
timbo wrote:I have a question that would be a bit off topic, but I hope other won't mind -- how do you search for best line(s) when learning the circuit? Is it only by gut feeling, or are there any general rules?
Well, you obviously do your homework -- trackwalk, some data/videos etc. Like knowing gears for corners definitely saves several laps for finding them on your own.
From driving side of things, there's a safe starting point -- you actually drive where the rubber is, which is visually obvious in most cases. Then of course there are general rules like corner/straight combinations and prioritizing one in favor of another. Once you've learnt track configuration and maybe even somewhat on pace, the "quick" line I think you actually find by gut -- trying a lot of things, failing and trying different ones. The effectiveness of the process is defined by the rate at which you can analyze and correct mistakes. Also you should be skillful enough to have things/ideas in mind to try and actually physically try them
I had situations when NOT having (e.g. not remembering or whatever) coach's input on a particular corner I was able to be the quickest through it by doing unconventional line. And normally if you're on a major track, you will have several corners (sometimes even a whole sector) you'll struggle with and it's very important to identify these early and work specifically on them as in a lot of cases it's "free time" (meaning you improve a lot just my doing it right, not even by doing "quick").
Out of the Zen-like stuff, there's a personal "technique" I use sometimes for finding braking points and min. speed in fast corners. The idea is you overdo stuff on purpose, which is in case of braking is to brake waaay too late (you have to have balls for that for sure, it's almost like crashing on purpose) and then, you take small steps backwards. In most cases as a result of this I will never go back to the original braking point, but rather a later one.
Same goes for quick corners, say T3 BCN in Renault 2.0 is not an easy flat, T1 Valencia not flat in anything, T1 hockenhiem or any other balls corner for which you have a run off area... For me I'm sort of making a deal with myself of not lifting (especially if I know it should be physically possible) and dealing with the result of it midcorner rather than planning ahead. Worst case of course you hit the wall pretty hard, so this is why you do this experimental stuff at the end of the day so guys have time to rebuild the car before qualy if they have to
I don't know if anyone else does stuff like this consciously, so it's very much IMHO
Also it's obviously for cases when you struggle to build-up progressively, not as a general "track exploration" approach. You DO need to go on a track walk and analyze run offs in order to try these things during the day, as you don't wanna damage your floor by going wide and hitting some sh*t that was hiding there... then, you know, turns out the mono is f*cked which they don't have a spare for and your whole second day of testing or weekend goes to waste
Track walks are important
One last important thing to keep in mind not only for learning new track, but for driving in a new car, difficult conditions (like dry, but very cold) or for starting a test day: is to be careful not to overdo things on your first laps, not to get frustrated and not try to impress anyone. This is so much the case for younger and less experienced drivers when they put the car into the wall in the morning session on lap 3-4 or something. It's kinda obvious thing to say, but when you need to learn something what you require is track time, and not necessarily P1 in the first session.
Sorry for many words, kinda took longer to describe than I thought
oh no Raymond! Did you have a look at the last posts in that thread? He may take one look at that and think he wants nothing to do with this lot! 
.. just joking.
