Understanding Late Apex and Early Apex Techniques

It's important to emphasize that you should never get such an aggressive late apex where you're getting back on power at an extreme point. A late apex occurs when you're getting back on power a little bit before the apex and you're hitting the apex a little bit after. This means there's a bigger distance between the MRP (Minimum Required Point) and the apex. In contrast, an early apex is where we hit the throttle and we hit the inside at an earlier phase and pretty much accelerate at the same time.

Many drivers make the mistake of overdoing a late apex when first learning this technique. They end up braking for way too long and then try to do something very aggressive, which does not work. The amount of time that you lose with an overly aggressive late apex is very difficult to regain unless you have an infinite straight after that corner. The practical difference between a late apex and an early apex should be subtle.

Speed Analysis: Late Apex vs. Early Apex

To understand when to choose one approach over the other, let's analyze the speed graph between these two options:

In the late apex approach, we decelerate and then trail brake a little bit more heavily, then we get back on power and start gaining speed. In the early apex approach, we are able to carry a little bit more speed on entry, but we are only able to get back on power a little bit later, and we end up losing time throughout the exit.

With an early apex approach, you gain a little bit of time on entry by carrying a little bit more speed and hitting the inside a little bit early. However, you get back on power a little bit later and you carry less speed on exit. The amount of time that you gain on entry depends heavily on how much time you would gain on exit, which depends on how long the straight after is and how long you are going to stay on power flat out benefiting from that extra speed.

The General Rule for Choosing Your Apex

The most general rule for late apex and early apex is: how long are you going to benefit from the extra exit speed? Consider this scenario:

• If you lose two tenths on entry with a late apex approach

• But gain two tenths on entry with an early apex approach

• The late apex starts gaining time on exit

If the straight is relatively short, you might only benefit from zero one (0.01 seconds) on the exit. If the straight is longer, you might benefit from zero two (0.02 seconds) by the time you reach the end. If the straight keeps going even longer, the amount of time that you gain because you got back on power a little bit earlier could be zero three (0.03) or zero four (0.04 seconds). In this case, you want to gain zero four here by paying the price of losing zero two on entry.

However, if there's another corner right after the exit, you don't have enough time to benefit from that extra speed. You might lose zero two here but then end up gaining only zero zero nine (0.009 seconds) or something similar. This means you're going to be much slower because you're trying to late apex and get a better exit in a place where you don't really benefit and don't have time to benefit from that exit speed.

Key Decision Points

• Short straight after the corner: Better to early apex and try to gain time on entry

• Long straight after the corner: Better to late apex to benefit from higher exit speed

When experimenting with late apex approaches, make sure you're doing them in a subtle way. If you brake too aggressively, you might lose half a second on entry and not gain half a second on exit. Even if the differences feel very close to you at first because you're not used to how precise these differences are, the delta will tell you the difference. Try accelerating sometimes at the beginning of a curb and then sometimes at the middle of the curb, and you will see the difference in the delta.

Corner Spacing and Apex Selection

The longer the distance we benefit from the straight, the later the apex should be, because then we carry more speed on exit. This principle has an interesting consequence: if corners get closer and closer together, you should early apex even more.

When two corners are very close to each other, you're going to early apex even more and continue to brake after it because you have no intention of benefiting from accelerating in between. You want to gain time on the exit of the first corner, so you continue to brake and continue to turn. In this situation, you can even maybe accelerate a tiny bit before starting to turn into the next corner and then getting back on power super early there.

Double Apex Corners

What happens if the corners are even closer together? If the corners are close enough, you actually create a double apex situation. Now we're going even more to the inside, continuing to brake past the first apex, and only accelerating at the exit of the second apex in an opening spiral. You now officially have a double apex.

To summarize the relationship between corner spacing and apex technique:

• The longer the space in between corners, the earlier the first apex

• The closer the distance between corners, the later the apex

• If corners are close enough, the apex is actually later than the first potential apex point, creating two apexes

• With a double apex, we continue to brake past the first apex and start accelerating only before the next one