Almeida Racing Academy

How much time PER LAP do you lose with each mistake?

1: Fake Trail Braking

Releasing the brakes too much before adding any signficant steering just makes you waste available grip.

Even high downforce cars only need a small and slow brake release on a straight line, and most of the faster and most significant brake release should happen when you start adding steering.
Releasing the brakes like in this video is a very common beginner mistake, and can cost up to a tenth or more per corner, which adds up significantly on a whole lap.

2: Early Throttle

Trying to accelerate too early is an issue because it kills mid-corner rotation and prevents you from pointing the car enough to fully commit to 100% throttle.
Solution: continue trailing and increasing rotation more and more until you have rotated at least 50% of the corner, and then committing to throttle at once.

3: Adding Brakes and Steering at the same time

This mistake is dangerous. In some cases, it causes front ABS and understeer, but it can cause immediate oversteer and spin.
This is one of the biggest causes of inconsistency in beginners and can cost severely on your performance and laptimes.

4 is another example of adding brakes and steering at the same time.

5: Turning in too fast with GT cars

GT cars can't handle immediate turn in. The fronts need to load the rotation progressively, creating a more V-Shaped line.
Turning in too fast overloads the front tires, causing understeer.

6: Ignoring elevation changes
The grip on elevation changes changes DRAMATICALLY. Ignoring crests on exits is one of the most common causes of spins. Even without spinning, being unaware of this effect can cause many seconds per lap.

7: Turning in too early.
You run out of room to turn more. If you can't turn more, you don't find the limit. No limit, no speed.

8: Adding steering before releasing the brakes
Forgiven in ABS cars, but is still slow. Adding steering without releasing the brakes overloads the front tires and causes severe understeer. Oversteer is also possible once you release the brakes and get off of ABS.

Unwind the steering before power or after power?

I say after power. But depending on the torque delivery and how the car behaves to the stress on the rear tires, this "after" can mean literally fractions of a second after the power is delivered to the tires.

Also, don't blindly unwind the steering. You still need to do more of your remaining rotation as the car gains speed, and only then unwind more and more, because if you unwind too much, you might go wide and end up forcing some extra steering at the late exit phase of the corner, where the car will be already way faster and the risk of oversteer is dramatically increased.

This is a small portion of the Light Hands Technique explanation from our online courses inside the Almeida Racing Academy. We show drivers how to become top 1% in the world ranking with proper and efficient practice.