High-Speed Corners

High speed corners are clearly the most dangerous ones and the ones where we benefit the most if we know how to approach the limit in a safe way. Getting into a slide on high speed corners can lead into bad crashes and naturally we tend to be overly cautious with them.

The problem is that the lack of confidence itself can be the actual cause of spins and crashes because by hesitating and being afraid of staying on throttle, what do we do? We lift and turn or we brake and turn and we shift the weight to the front tires unintentionally inducing oversteer. Any deceleration mid-corner causes more rotation so it needs to be extremely conscious and planned.

The Safest Way to Approach High Speed Corners

Method One: Do the Whole Corner While Accelerating

This means lifting or braking on a straight line before the corner and then holding half throttle during the whole corner so you can actively control the weight transfer and stay on top of the balance of the car.

Even if you know that the corner will eventually be flat because someone is doing that, do this process so you can build up the feeling of that grip lifting less and less until you feel that the grip is there and you can do it flat without any panic lifting mid-corner.

This is also extremely useful if you have cold tires because they do snap very easily and it's very easy to just lose the car with no chance of correction if you lift mid-corner. Instead lift before on a straight line and do the whole corner while on throttle and then lift less on the next lap until you can feel 100% confident that you can do it flat.

Remember that as long as you have some throttle the car will be way more stable so don't hesitate to turn the steering and feel the grip of the front tires working because if you hesitate and you don't turn enough you already know what happens. You go wide on exit and then you will be in big trouble.

Method Two: Progressive Deceleration Mid-Corner

If the corner is not flat then the fastest way to do it will eventually be while decelerating slightly mid-corner which will undoubtedly induce more rotation so we have to progressively approach that.

You can start by lifting early first but then slightly later and closer to turn in until you start lifting during the corner which will require precise steering and relaxed hands as you do it.

Don't forget that you still need to do a good amount of turning before the first half of the corner to be able to distribute the workload between entry and exit so make sure you rotate 50% of the corner before the apex.

Key Takeaways

• You should never guess the entry speed of a high speed corner but rather approach it with the system to be 100% confident of each increment of speed you carry as you're practicing

• If you guess the speed and you end up going too fast you will have to lift a little and you will have to be ready to handle the extra unintentional rotation that comes with that deceleration and weight transfer

• Lift-off oversteer is the most common name for this effect

• You think you can do it but then you have second thoughts you end up lifting just to be sure but the lifting itself is what will cause the extra rotation and make you even less confident about the corner over time

• Whenever you're actually lifting mid-corner try to do that very consciously and automatically relax your hands to control the balance of the car more precisely