A really important part of driver development and car development is to sit down after the event and assess how you really performed.
I didn’t follow my usual weekend process, with the non-existent time we had to prepare the car and mostly my girlfriend and friends actually finishing the car and packing all of my stuff I didn’t want to add an extra burden on to them by having them run around organising extra things.
If you’re serious about improving your driving and car then these are a few things that you should have (the last suggestion is more of a nicety);
- A Datalogger
- These can vary in pricing from basic software that can be used off your phone for next to nothing or for those clever individuals an Android Tablet can make a cool dash and logger on the cheap up to a few thousand dollars. Obviously the more you spend the more data you can obtain however for most average competitors a basic datalogger will suffice. A lot of the channels that you’ll be able to receive will simply be gibberish without an engineer or an experienced driving coach running you through it.WARNING – LOOKING AT DATA TO MAKE SETUP CHANGES IS USELESS UNTIL YOU ARE IN A POSITION WHERE YOU CAN DRIVE THE CAR CONSISTENTLY AT THE LIMIT (THE CARS LIMIT NOT YOURS) A Decent engineer/suspension guy should be able to set up a car to be driven relatively quickly and be somewhat safe on the limit.
- A setup book or program
- Understanding where your car is and how changes affect the performance of the car is imperative. You should have a setup book/chart for each track as setup will vary. There are some chassis programs as well that are quite effective for this. For someone just beginning or not particularly tech savvy I find a book with the following information a good place to start.
- Camber/Toe/Caster
- KPI/KPA (More as a reference point for caster)
- Front and Rear Ride Height – Rake
- Corner Weight (You may not be able to measure this at the track but if you have made changes you can go back and measure it later to see the difference it made)
- Sway Bar position
- Cold and Hot Tyre pressures
- Hot Tyre Temps.
- A number of copies of a track map to make notes of how the car is behaving, break them up into 4 sectors.
- Braking
- Turn In/Corner Entry
- Mid Corner
- Corner Exit
- These are the major items I usually like to keep a record of. When I am not working with an engineer I find keeping track of anything more than that is way too difficult and you really need a friend with you to keep track of tyre information.
- Understanding where your car is and how changes affect the performance of the car is imperative. You should have a setup book/chart for each track as setup will vary. There are some chassis programs as well that are quite effective for this. For someone just beginning or not particularly tech savvy I find a book with the following information a good place to start.
- In Car Communication
- This sort of follows on from the track map suggestion above, some people (I know I do occasionally especially when I am getting my head around a new car) sometimes you get out of the car and think, how the hell was it handling in each portion of the track. In Car Comms can be a great way to relay information back for someone to make notes.
What did I actually bring?
Absolutely nothing other than my QStarz 6000S Datalogger. So a lot of this analysis is from my somewhat poor memory and from assessing how the car was performing, we even forgot to pack a tyre gauge, fortunately they weren’t in short supply over the weekend.
Here is my lap with data overlay from the final session on Saturday. I’ll go through my laps and make general notes.
Lap 1
Turn 1 –
Braking: N/A
Corner Entry:(Note: Car goes light in the rear under light braking, likely still okay but lacking confidence to drive it in further. no brakes this lap just lift off. Turning in slightly too early, need to drive the car in further before getting on the brakes (very light brake just to balance car), car handles bumps poorly, likely dampers and springs poorly matched for high speed bump. Feels like steering is binding when under high loads through portions of the track. (Losing time here from driving)
Mid Corner: Car well balanced
Exit: corner exit wants to push under power, too fucking slowly to accelerate.
Turn 2 –
Braking: Too early on the brakes, should be able to leave it later in to the braking zone before getting on brakes, looking at the G-Meter, G-Force remains consistant even when starting to turn indicating not enough force earlier on, should be trailing off towards first apex. (Losing time here from driving)
Corner Entry: Not much to note
Mid Corner: Struggle to get the car rotated, possibly needs more rake or stiffen up the rear. Have to be patient on accelerator feels like it wants to push.
Corner Exit: Struggles again with the bumps on the inside at the second apex. hops a little, pushes a little would be exaggerated with more power.
Turn 3 –
Don’t really have to do anything in car, it’s flat.
Turn 4 and Turn 5
Braking: Car feels unbalanced under brakes, a little coming down the hill, mostly feel it in the back, could be geometry changing as rubber bushes. (Losing time here from driving)
Corner Entry: Car settles well but probably on the brakes too early costing time, allows for a good run, car turns in well although pushes a little.
Mid Corner: Car is poised, smooth surface so nothing upsets the car. Patient on the throttle so it doesn’t push.
Corner Exit & Braking: Goes straight into braking zone for Turn 5 – Car struggles with the change of direction and light braking. (Losing time here from driving)
Corner Entry: Car is well balance once again wants to push unless really throwing it in.
Mid Corner: Push, have to be patient for car to be able to accelerate up the hill. need to try and maintain as much speed as possible a scar struggles up the hill.
Corner Exit: No issues.
Turn 6
Braking: Same issue, probably not braking late enough, not sure if lack of balls or lack of confidence/performance in the car. (Losing time here from driving)
Corner Entry: car handles turn in well here,
Mid Corner: Does not like the mid corner bump over the kerb, hitting the bump makes the car hop a little bit, occasionally this can lead to oversteer or at the very least bogs acceleration down. (Losing time here)
Exit: As a lead on from corner exit, can hop and bog the car down or cause oversteer, occasionally it will push when not enough weight over the front at mid corner.
Turn 7/14
Braking: N/A
Corner Entry: Feel like I need to throw the car in too hard or need to lift which shouldn’t have to. Doesn’t want to start turning.
Mid Corner: wants to push under power (whole corner should be flat, probably causing me to chicken out and not run it out to the edge of the track. Losing time here.
Corner Exit: Car feels okay just inherent issue from the understeer from mid corner.
Turn 8/15
Braking: Car feels good under brakes here but G Reading indicates I may be a little light on the brakes.
Corner Entry: Takes so long to rotate the car Continues onto the middle of the corner, would like to be able to rotate the car quicker and get on the power for the run up the hill.
Mid Corner; Well poised but still not rotating amazingly, the balance is okay just would just like car to be more pointy through corner entry and mid corner.
Corner exit: Way too slow to be an issue, poorly geared for the corner, in between 2nd and 3rd.
Turn 9/16, 10/17
Braking: Don’t feel confident again, rear feels like it moves around, could just be driver. Car doesn’t handle being driven over the kerb of 9/16 very well, split friction surface and kerb feels like it unsettles the car a little.
Corner entry: Car feels good on corner entry.
Mid Corner: Doesn’t handle inside kerb well at all, crashes over, occasionally really unsettles the car.
Corner exit: no issues if car handles Mid corner kerb well.
Turn 11/18
Braking: N/A
Corner Entry: I’m probably turning in too early, turned in later on lap 2 and got the car rotated better, gained .2 tenths on lap 1.
Mid Corner; Long mid corner, turning in too early is causing a lot of time to be lost through scrubbing/understeer.
Corner Exit: No issues .
Overall
Car handles medium speed corners quite well, a little bit of turn laziness, not enough power for there to be any issues on exit. High speed, turn in feels a little unbalanced but sorts itself out well. Low speed, feels like it struggles to get rotated.
Issues to address:
Front Sway Bar, Lack of rear adjustment, damper settings for bump and rebound plus spring rates, coilovers initially purchased for street use. Address brakes, pedal feels spongy and long travel. Investigate binding through steering.
An Honest Opinion of My own Driving.
Frankly I didn’t think my driving was up to scratch or my own standards. Realistically this probably came from a lack of seat time in the last two years. The car was fresh to me however it took longer than I would have liked to become comfortable with it. Looking back at the data I can see a number of points where I was losing time and I struggled to get the best out of the car. We managed a 1:51.9 but I think that could have quite easily been closer to a 1:50.X. Particular points that I struggled in where Turn 1, over slowing the car through turn 4/5/6 and 7, picking braking points and being aggressive enough in some braking zones.
I’m not disappointed with how I drove it was more a kick in the ass that I needed to spend more time in the seat.
