Now it's time to discuss situations where we're fighting with more than one opponent at the same time like a 3 car battle or even more cars. The most efficient way to learn how to race many cars at once is by first mastering battles with one car, then with two, and finally you will be able to deal with pack racing and many cars at once.

Understanding Multi-Car Battles

One interesting thing to think about is you're probably very rarely fighting with more than one car. The fights they get on and off consistently so you're fighting with one car and then the next second as soon as you clear yourself from that car you start fighting with another one and so on. So the same techniques that you can apply in a single battle will apply to multiple cars.

What will happen when you master the race craft is that you will do an outside move into someone and already quickly start thinking about what is the next move against the next person in a race start or how you're going to defend to the third or fourth person. So essentially you're doing single battles but you're alternating between them very quick.

Lateral and Longitudinal Limitations

The new aspect is that now cars are going to be limited not only laterally but also longitudinally. That means a car that is fighting with you may not gain as much track position because there's a car right in front of him blocking his way or there's someone behind him and that adds the extra layer and extra dimension to how the fights are going to go and this is where we need to learn some new techniques especially in pack racing.

Capitalizing on Cars Fighting Ahead

Imagine that we're right behind two cars ahead fighting for a position into a corner. They are side by side ahead which means they are losing a lot of time compared to the ideal racing line and we are doing our line which means that naturally we will be faster than them if we drive on the limit. This is a great situation to be in but it's normal to not really benefit from it if you're not aware about what to do in these situations.

Key Principles When Following Fighting Cars

The trick here is to already know one thing in advance: they will lose time. This way you can already start planning where you could use this benefit to pass one of them or even them both. The second thing to do here is to remember that even though they might be quite close to you, you are still not fighting with them yet. You can take your line, use all the track until you can launch yourself out of a corner with more speed and gain enough track position to officially join the fight.

Positioning Strategy

Try to use all the track here, try to be on all the way on the outside to improve your line. The middle of the track is problematic - you're not optimizing your line and you're not looking for a gap. You're actually creating a barrier by sticking behind cars. You want breathing room. You want to either open and improve your line or you want to find gaps just to stick your car.

You don't want to be behind cars especially when they're on the middle of the track because that's going to make you hyper focus on them. It's going to make you look directly at them which is terrible. If you look directly at them, by the time they brake you need reaction time and then you hit them.

Optimal Line Maintenance

If there's a corner to the left and there's two cars side by side, in this situation your best move should always be to stay behind the outside car and do your line. Do the optimal line because they're fighting which means they will be slower than you. You have a whole track for yourself, they don't. If there's two people ahead, why are you in the middle of the track?

Priority List for Racecraft

There should be a list of priorities in your muscle memory - there is a muscle memory for racecraft as well. Things that you automatically do. In most situations your priority number one is to use all the track to improve your lap times, to improve the time you spend on the corner, especially when there's two people ahead fighting. That's great for you because you're definitely gonna have a better exit than them. Forget a better exit, you can just pass them both or at least one of them after.

Drag Passing

Drag passing someone that is being passed: whenever you see someone ahead being dive bombed into a corner, see if there is an opportunity for you to also make the pass. The car on the outside will be out of the racing line and probably with a much smaller minimum speed, especially if they were caught by surprise.

Boxing Techniques

Boxing someone means preventing them from moving laterally so that you can control the battle a little bit. In one example, when doing a double pass where there's a long straight, the car in second place has a big chance of making a three wide, making the pass a lot more risky and complicated. The solution is to stay in the middle of the track knowing that they are longitudinally blocked by the car ahead, laterally blocked by you, and then they cannot go anywhere. Because of that they could not benefit from the draft and had to lift, which allowed for a safer pass and worrying about only one car during the cornering phase.

Combining Multiple Techniques

Now that you've gone through some different lessons, we can identify them being combined in a single move. You can see techniques like:

• Drafting fully, then moving to the left but still getting some side draft

• The benefit of side drafting while simultaneously boxing the driver and preventing them from also making a move

• Getting the side draft and getting some speed by continuing side drafting

• Blocking, side drafting, blocking, side drafting, blocking, squeezing

• Then opening up and using all the track to make the pass on the outside

You can see at the same time we benefit from many tiny techniques that we've been discussing in this course. You will realize that you will do many of them at the same time when you make them automatic in your racecraft.

Three Wide Situations

Three wides are dangerous situations that make you lose a lot of time and have a high risk of contact, so whenever you can, try to avoid a three wide from forming. You can do that by boxing one of the cars and preventing them from forming the three wide before the corner. This is one of the situations where you need a lot of spatial awareness and a lot of vision because sometimes the fight is not happening directly ahead of you but two cars ahead or three cars ahead.

Spatial Awareness for Multiple Cars Ahead

In situations where you can see two cars ahead of the car that's ahead of you starting to fight in a scary corner, they are going to lose a lot of time. But this corner is absolutely terrible to fight - both drivers will lose a lot of time and the car ahead of you is also going to lose time and you are also going to lose time. So if you just try to drive as fast as possible behind these three cars, you're going to end up having to brake at some point.

The Smart Move: Creating Breathing Room

Here's the smart move: there's no point in getting as close as possible to them at the minimum speed of this corner. What you're going to do instead right here - you should already slow down a little bit and try to launch your car out of that corner, out of that left-hander. This is where the speed is going to matter because after the corner you will probably be able to move around and pass them.

But if you just carry a lot of speed right there, it's all going to end up being clogged up at the apex and you might hit them or you're going to have to brake. And braking at the exit because there's a car ahead of you is absolutely terrible. So what you really want is to think ahead, slow down right here to get some room, and then you finally get back on power and accelerate without being afraid of hitting anyone but at the same time carrying that extra speed so that you can pass one, two, maybe three cars depending on the situation.

Exit Speed vs Entry Speed

What matters is not passing the car or being fast right here - it is carrying speed after this point. So this is why we are braking in this example right here. We generally don't brake here, we generally brake here - apex, power, power, power, power, power. We never brake in this spot, but because we are preparing some breathing room so that we can carry that speed without hitting anyone right here, that's why braking here makes a lot of sense.

But it only works if you already predict that that fight is going to carry all the way onto the third apex of the sector and you're going to be clogged up, you're going to be limited longitudinally by the cars that are fighting. Whenever you see that chaos is about to happen ahead of you, sometimes it's worth it to slow down a little bit to gain that space so that you can launch the car out of the corner after.

Bump Drafting Strategy

Here's what you can do with bump drafting: you can push a car ahead into a fight so that they start fighting, they start losing time, and then you take your line and you try to make a pass.

Core Principles for Multi-Car Battles

In all those situations you have to take your line. You have to maximize the track. You can't be limited laterally. You have to use all the track at entry, use the track mid-corner, and launch the car out of the corners. So whatever move you do, you're trying to maximize your advantage and you're trying to minimize their advantage.

Whenever you push someone into a fight, whenever you back off from a fight so that you can get a better exit after, everything you do is about saving you time, doing your corner faster, and then passing them after the corners.

Final Thoughts

You see that whenever you're fighting with more than one car, sometimes it's about patience. Sometimes yes, you will find gaps and dive bomb into some corners, but remember that in the end you just want to save time. You don't want to get clogged up and do crazy moves that will make you lose more time.