Racing Posture Fundamentals

Racing posture is one of the most underestimated topics in racing. There is no way to drive fast and consistent without having the most comfortable and efficient position while racing. Like most other sports, the difference between rookies and pros is the efficiency and consistency of your posture and form. Since you're practicing for a long time, proper positioning becomes essential.

Knee Angle and Positioning

The angle of your knees is very important, especially if you have a high braking resistance set to your pedals. The harder you brake, the more energy needs to be efficiently displaced. Ideally, you don't want your knee to sustain too much stress when braking hard, and this happens when it's too bent.

If you're braking on a soft pedal where you can easily reach max braking pressures, it's okay to bend your knee more. This applies to drivers who use a gaming chair or a desktop as racing simulator rig and cannot decrease the angle further just because of your limitations.

However, if you're braking on a harder pedal where you need to use a lot more energy, you have to think that the pressure is traveling from your pedal all the way to your back against the seat. The more you bend your knee, the more energy will be stuck in your knee, creating imprecision, stress, and possibly hurting your knee in the long term.

Make sure your leg is not straight when applying full pressure though. Take that as a reference and then bring the pedal closer to you so your leg still bends a bit when applying full pressure. The right angle will allow you to feel your braking pressure through how much your lower back is being pressed against the seat. If your posture is proper, the pressure on your back will be similar to the pressure on the pedal itself, and you're going to be able to have a much more solid braking feeling.

Heel Positioning

Be careful not to glue your heel to the floor when you're braking. When resting your foot on the brakes without pressing, your heel can rest on the floor or pedal plate. But with the energy displacement from the pedal to the seat, no energy should be stuck on the heel and it will most likely go up a little bit, not touching the plate when you're braking hard.

If you have the tendency to keep your heel glued to the floor while braking hard, you're probably not feeling the energy reaching your back and the seat properly. Many students have had terrible issues with braking precision because they were gluing their heels on the floor, and as soon as they let go, their braking technique improved drastically.

Remember the two press points:

• The ball of your foot against the pedal

• Your back against the seat

Everywhere else should be relaxed.

Steering Hand Position

Always use the 9-3 position for steering. It's the most stable position as you're going to spend energy much more efficiently when moving the wheel around. Never do 10-2. Your hands must be as far away as possible from each other. This gives you the best stability for fast moving actions like counter-steering.

Seating Position

Your lower back should always be touching the back of the seat. This is where your core stability comes from, both for turning and for braking.

Relaxation Techniques

Importance of Relaxation

Make sure you're relaxed. This is incredibly underrated and important. Even the most advanced students still have problems with relaxing hands. Even though you already know it and may be tired of hearing it, tensing out too much prevents you from getting those extra tenths that are missing. You may be doing it without noticing, so pay attention to it.

When driving, your energy should be efficiently used. Gripping the wheel too hard or having too much tension in your shoulders and arms is incredibly harmful to improving your technique. Feeling the car comes through communication with force feedback, and this is only possible when you're feeling the details of the force feedback. Especially with lower force feedback wheels, having your hands relaxed allows you to feel the tiny details that are happening and react to it more quickly.

Breathing Technique

You have to relax your breathing and continuously breathe slowly as you're doing the corner. When you're on the limit, your breathing should be unaffected. You're still breathing, exhaling and inhaling. You're not holding it. If you hold your breath while doing the corner, it prevents you from getting that extra percent of precision.

A good exercise for breathing:

• Inhale before the corner

• As soon as you start braking hard into a corner, start exhaling

• Continue letting the air go as you do the entire corner

This is a good reference for how relaxed you should feel. When you're exhaling, you also relax your shoulders. If you breathe very fast, you immediately feel tension. But you want to relax your entire upper body parts because you're not going to use them excessively. You're just going to use them for steering.

Even if you have a lot of force feedback, the muscles that you're going to use are more or less in the back and then your arms, but not necessarily the shoulders. Relax your shoulders by exhaling. This is more important than you think, because that sensation of exhaling should be the sensation of driving on the limit.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are some of the most underrated tips about motor racing, especially because they are so easy to understand in theory, but very difficult to apply when you're thinking about 25 other complicated techniques. More than half of students go through this course and still have:

• Unnecessary tension

• Death gripping the wheel

• Tensing out their shoulders

• Holding their breath while cornering

All of these topics will be revisited in the light hand technique lessons, where they will be applied in a very technical way.