The Psychology of Racecraft

A strong racer with a strong mind is made by experience, by being exposed to many racing situations. But more important than that, by being aware of what's happening around you and always learning a little bit from each of these situations. A driver with a bigger vocabulary of possible plans and moves will always be mentally stronger than the driver who doesn't really know what is about to happen or what they can do. This is extremely important.

Understanding Fear and Predictability

Fear comes from lack of predictability. If you don't know what will happen or what your opponent can do, you immediately panic and lose focus. But if you know that your opponent has specific choices and that you can counter these choices with specific moves, then you don't panic and you remain calm knowing that you are ready to do whatever is necessary to win that battle. In this case, knowledge is power.

Knowing exactly what is possible makes you focused on choosing one outcome and committing to it. And with this knowledge, you can quickly determine which ideas are good or bad.

Strategic Decision Making

Examples of good and bad racecraft ideas:

• A bad idea is trying to fight for position in a fast corner, knowing there is a slower corner right after

• A good idea is setting up the exit of that fast corner to prepare for a move underbreaking on the slow one

With experience, you will be able to plan moves to three, four, five corners in advance and having those long-term plans will make your race much easier to manage mentally. Which frees your mind so you can focus more on driving fast and just implementing these plans rather than being confused about what you should do.

The Power of Mental Clarity

The secret benefit of having this clarity in your race craft decisions is that if you know you're not going to pass someone in a corner, well, you can still distract them and maybe try to getting their head causing them to make a mistake, even if a small one, so that they can lose a little bit of time and make it easier for you when you actually go for it in the next few corners.

So you have two choices:

• You either go for it fully

• Or you don't go for it but choose to tease and distract the driver ahead

Common Problems in Racing Psychology

Anxiety and Lack of Confidence

These are caused by not having a plan and you might not have a plan because you don't fully understand what are the options. Another cause of anxiety in race craft is when we're still not fully comfortable with the driving side. So going offline and losing our references might make us lose the braking and overshoot the corner or we lose the balance of the car and oversteer and spend and so on.

We spend a lot of time practicing car handling on the racing line. But whenever we have to drive offline due to a racing situation, there's a big chance that our experience offline is a tiny fraction of the experience that we have doing the actual racing line. Therefore, we don't know exactly how to maximize that line.

Hesitation

Just not being 100% sure of what you are about to do. Zero commitment or assertiveness in your moves will make your moves a lot more dangerous and unpredictable.

Root Cause: Lack of Experience

Both of these problems are caused by a lack of experience. A lack of being exposed to these kinds of situations many times. So if you ever have any problems related to being afraid of racing online or you feel anxiety while racing or while getting into these specific moves, just know that not knowing what to do is the actual cause of the problem.

The Solution: Active Learning and Awareness

The solution for you is to try to absorb as much as possible awareness of each race you do. Go back to your replays, watch what you did, what options you had, what you could have done to improve your battles and your outcomes. Every little thing you do can be studied so that you improve more quickly.

Just trying to do the next race and the next race and the next race without trying to extract as much as possible from your previous races could be a waste of time and could actually delay your racecraft improvement.