Ferrari’s Formula One driver Kimi Raikkonen had to state over race radio “Leave me alone; I know what I’m doing.” A straightforward yet literal statement was letting the new crew chief know that Raikkonen was experienced and proficient in racecraft. It was direct and well-defined because the sharply honed and finely tuned race car driver is the result of countless hours spent practicing and building muscle memory. As you watch your next race, take note the next time you see a cockpit camera view as the driver runs the car through its paces. Every control input, small and precise, every gear shift or switch that is manipulated is done so with a skillful hand that has made that motion a thousand times before. Race car drivers don’t fumble around the cockpit looking for what they want because it’s already ingrained into their head. This results from disciplined practice and frees the driver up to focus on more important things, like driving the car in this relentless situation that some might say is a rather abusive environment.

The following accumulated bits of information are introduced to give you an idea of some of the driving techniques that the world’s best race car drivers use every time they get behind the wheel; some of them are rally techniques, some of them road racing techniques and some are just principles of driving that racing necessitates a fundamental understanding of.

Race fans please note: Although the content here outlines some ideas briefly, it is NOT a complete guide to performing any of these maneuvers. You are responsible for ensuring that you understand completely any high-performance racing technique before attempting it. You are also responsible for ensuring that anything you try is done so in a safe, controlled environment and in a law-abiding manner. It is not implied or recommended here that you attempt anything other than normal, legal driving on public roadways. Always put your safety and that of others at the top of your priority.

Racing lines are absolutely critical to low lap times. Know your braking point and your turning point as they vary from car to car. Once you reach your turning point, you’re going to be aiming for the apex of the turn, which is usually the geometric center of the turn but not always. Drivers will memorize every aspect of a Formula 1 circuit that they are racing on. It’s not just about the track layout though. Other elements can be crucial too, from the kerbs to the elevation changes and the bumps on the surface of the tarmac. These are all factors that drivers need to keep in mind when racing on a track.

You’re aiming for the shortest line possible through the corner and trying to keep as much speed as your tires will allow you to keep as you power through it. Carrying Speed: Fast in, Fast out.

If you enter a corner too hot, that momentum will catch up with you on the exit and force your line wide and possibly off the track. If you don’t enter fast enough, you’re just throwing time away for no reason. The perfect racing line for one particular corner may look very different from the line for a similar corner elsewhere in the circuit; depending on the track leading up to and out of the turn, it may affect your line substantially. Thorough track knowledge is critical for setting you up through each turn for the next segment of the track. Drivers will memorize every aspect of a circuit that they are racing on. It’s not just about the track layout though. Other elements can be crucial too, from the kerbs to the elevation changes and the bumps on the surface of the tarmac. These are all factors that drivers need to keep in mind when racing on a track. All of these aspects are crucial to driving the car on the limit and as fast as possible.

Acceleration is almost a topic that doesn’t need coverage here, but fundamentally it should be mentioned for the fact that it is half of racing. Whether you’re a straight-line racer or racing at Circuit of the Americas, acceleration is a crucial factor in race-winning. In a drag race, you get one shot; if you screw-up your launch by a split second or fail to hook up, you’re done as quickly as that. Getting the holeshot on any starting line is critical. 

If you’re racing a closed circuit, then you have any number of corners and turns to negotiate; every exit from a corner is another chance to gain or lose a fraction of a second. It’s essential to learn how to carry speed. Fast in, Fast out.  

The racing line plays a significant role in when you can start to power out of a turn again; if you are on a good line you should be able to power out relatively quickly and allow it to push your car from the inside of the apex to the outside of the track by the time you’ve reached the exit. In higher-performance vehicles, throttle usage may need to be applied gingerly to avoid wheel spin and over-steer. Sense of speed: estimating speed, based solely on sensory input and not on the speedometer, is extremely accurate and, most importantly, consistent at judging and establishing a specified speed by the feel versa a gauge.

Slamming through your gears while mashing on the gas pedal is one way to do it, and an extremely satisfying way to jump off the line with the tires a blaze just for kicks, but it isn’t necessarily the best way to extract all the performance from your car as you possibly can. To do this you must understand your torque curve and gear ratios. The ideal shifting point varies per car per situation, but you want to essentially put the maximum amount of torque through the rear wheels as possible at all times. The most significant thing is to feel for the grip and traction.

You could break this down into a complex mathematical equation to figure out the torque at the wheels multiplied by the radius of the tire and fill an entire whiteboard with numbers and ratios to figure it all out, but keep in mind that you want to stay in your power band to maximize output, it’s that simple. MotoGP riders are brilliant at keeping their bikes in the effective power band.

Rev matching is a downshifting technique used to smooth the transition between gears. This prevents shock loads through the transmission, undesirable forward weight transfer while downshifting and reduces the chance of wheel lockup due to engine braking. You never want to rely on engine braking as it’s not an efficient way to quickly slow down and if you are using it then you’re not driving as fast as you can be.

To rev match is essentially to give the engine a bit of throttle while the clutch is depressed in a downshift to increase engine RPM to the speed the transmission input shaft will turn in that gear. It’s not a complicated principle, but a million words could be used to describe the proper technique. Basically, if you can downshift and not feel the transition between gears, you’re doing it alright. Other passengers should only know you’ve downshifted save for audibly hearing the engine speed increase, it should not be felt.

The heel-toe shift aligns with the rev matching technique and will take more time to master. A fully synchronized and properly executed heel-toe, rev-matched downshift is like watching a tightly choreographed performance; the driver uses the muscle memory of a master guitarist Eddie Van Halen to time his movements in what seemingly looks so simple until you try it on track.

To combine rev matching with heel-toe downshifts, you’re going to rev match while double clutching, and maintain pressure on the brake pedal to maximize braking during the downshift. 

This combines the best of both elements of driving into the most efficient way to slow down your car for the next corner; you lose no braking efficiency due to momentary releases of the brake pedal, and it’s a controlled downshift that should be as smooth and seamless. It definitely takes some practice, but if you want to up your competition game, you must master it.

Grip is what everything you do ultimately comes down to. Any amateur can rocket down a straightaway with the pedal through the floorboard, but the mastery of braking, downshifting, running the line through corners, and subsequently accelerating again can make or break a race. To perform most all the techniques listed here, understanding your car’s relationship with the road is imperative. Your contact area may be no larger than 8 to 10 inches per tire. Multiply that by four, and that’s all you get to pull you through corners and cling to the road.

There is only so much traction that contact area can offer you, and once it’s broken you have to slow down past the point of breaking the traction to recover. For example, when you have to apply the brakes halfway through a sharp turn, if your tires are already at the edge of their grip limits, you won’t be able to maintain the same rate of turn and apply much braking force before you break traction. Anticipating events like this will help you set up your entry speed and adjust your racing line accordingly. Get to know the grip limits of your tires on your car and learn just how far you can push them under all circumstances. The key is to ride that edge as closely as possible without overshooting it.

Downforce is an aerodynamic principle that may not apply to your Cadillac Escalade; some would argue that you can start to benefit from the effects of downforce and aerodynamics at speeds as low as 40mph, but unless you’re talking about minuscule gains measured in 0.0001″ second range it’s safe to assume you’ll need to be going closer to 60mph-plus at the minimum to see any kind of benefit.

Real race cars use advanced aerodynamic principles to achieve downforce at every possible location. Most people attribute the bulk of downforce to the reaction of the car body when wind comes in contact with it, but it goes much deeper. Becoming an engineering task in the frame of design. Form follows function.

Low pressure zones are created adjacent to high pressure zones to actually use the reverse principal that airplanes use to fly. The high pressure zone above the car pushes it down into the low pressure zone; this is how front splitters work. A car’s rear wing functions like an airplane wing, just in reverse; the wing gets the air moving faster under the wing, creating lower pressure underneath to force the car down (thus creating downforce).

If you’ve ever heard the term “threshold braking,” it’s basically just maximum braking power applied to the wheels, usually used more in racing than in the common world. The idea behind it is to slow the car down as fast as possible while maintaining positive control, i.e. not breaking traction. The limit of the braking threshold is the point at which the tires just barely begin to slip.

Knowing this threshold like the back of your hand will allow you to safely enter corners at maximum speed confidently. This should be done in the brake zone just before a turn and brake pressure should be eased up during entry to allow some of the tire’s grip to grab the corner.

Left-footed braking is generally for racing only, and during normal driving there’s no need for it; in fact, it scares me when I see people do it. In racing however, left-footed braking frees up your right foot for more important things, like punching the accelerator at the exact moment you need it, and not a tenth of a second later. It may not sound like a lot of time, but it’s less about time and more about inertia.

When you are done braking you should be ready to accelerate immediately. Rather than having that hang time without control inputs the engine could already be winding up ready to pull away: you will hear crew chiefs over race radio say GO, GO, GO indicating to GET ON THE GAS! 

This is also a very useful technique to rally racers and drifters to control the car though turns and, once mastered, will take your corner game to a new level, especially in front and all-wheel drive cars.

To even consider using this technique you must be very in-tune with your car’s performance limits and be able to ride that thin line like a PBR Bull Rider. It’s a motorcycle technique that cars also use to maximize downforce to the front wheels by virtue of weight transfer; as the driver maintains his brake application well into the turn, he continues to transfer weight to the front tires helping to reduce understeer. The brakes should be released before the apex of the turn, and power applied as soon as you have the grip to accommodate it.

Entry speed should be sufficient enough and brake application light enough that you don’t have to abort the braking prematurely as doing so would shift weight off the front tires and possibly cause understeer before you can get out of the turn.

Steering a racing line takes you more or less down the shortest path through a race track while positioning your car for maximum speed through the circuit features. Rally cars do this at an angle while road cars grip corners.

Either way, precision entry and follow through are imperative to the disciplined driver if he is to get the maximum performance out of his machine. Understanding understeer and oversteer, and how to correct for it, is also critical. The type of driveline your car has plays a large role in determining the style at which it will perform best.

You should know what oversteer is. If not, Google it. Some racers aim for a little oversteer in their driving technique to help them speed through turns. Whether it’s intentional or not, constantly living at the edge of the performance envelope allows drivers enough experience to predict traction loss and oversteer conditions before they happen. Advanced oversteer technique involved intentionally over-rotating the car into the turn after a fast entry that would normally force you into an understeering situation. You must enter with a balanced weight distribution.

As you’re cornering, apply a bit of throttle to transfer some weight to the back and as the front wheels get lighter, you should start to understeer (uncorrected for, this will limit your exit speed so follow through is essential).

Lifting off the throttle will transfer some weight back up front, the front tires can bite into the curve as the rear wheels get light enough to break traction and rotate the car around the corner to align itself with the exit of the turn. Your exit line will be very similar to the line of an equal car with a traditional racing line but you were able to enter at a higher rate of speed having not made such a tight turn into the corner.

Probably one of the lesser-considered factors by many casual race fans, the principle of weight transfer is rooted in just about every aspect of the car’s performance; it doesn’t matter how powerful your engine is if you can’t apply that power effectively when and how you want it. Whether transferring forward, rearward, to the side or a combination thereof, weight transfer affects the amount of grip each tire will offer you.

Understanding how to manipulate this will assist your proficiency with other maneuvers and allow you to manipulate the car’s rotation with throttle and brake inputs. Although it may be less exciting than other concepts, it’s essential for maintaining positive vehicle control and driving to the limit.