Lesson
Lesson
71
of
of
Master Keys
Lesson by
Suellio Almeida
Lesson by
Suellio Almeida
Mark as Finished
Written in Collaboration with Coach Kane Halliburton
Key Number One: Keep Momentum and Avoid Tire Scrub
The MX-5 is a momentum car, so you have to protect your minimum speed in the corner by avoiding scrub at all costs—front and rear. But what is scrub? Front scrub is understeer, and rear scrub is oversteer. Front scrub or understeer is the most common type that beginners experience. It's easier to see, easier to hear, easier to understand and feel. However, if you are an intermediate or advanced driver, the stealth killer in this car is actually rear scrub or oversteer. Because of things like the short wheelbase of this car, the lightweight, the differential, and the beginner-friendly baseline setup, the MX-5 is very easy to get sideways but also relatively easy to save. This is exactly why so many intermediate and advanced drivers fall into this trap: because you allow the car to live in too much slip angle, too much slide angle. Being sideways feels fast. It's even fun. It feels like you're dancing with the car right on the limit. It feels like a hero, but a lot of the time what is really happening is you're quietly killing mid-corner momentum and your exit speed. Right from the start, let's implement the right instinct in your head: do not confuse drama with speed. Protect momentum, avoid front tire scrub, avoid rear tire scrub.
Key Number Two: The Rotation Comes From Braking and Downshifts First—Steering Is Only Third in This List
Now that we've talked about momentum and scrub, the next big key here is where the rotation actually comes from. There are three tools for rotation:
The steering
The brakes
The engine braking (which comes from the downshifts) In most cars, the steering is the main tool for rotation and it's also very intuitive to drive like this. But in the MX-5, your best rotation usually comes from the combination between braking and downshifts, with the steering only as the third tool. That's a very important mindset shift.
Achieving True Neutral Steer at Corner Entry
If your goal is to be on the limit of all four tires, then in many corners in this car that usually means aiming for true neutral steer at corner entry. Focus on corner entry—this is very important. That means that the steering wheel stays very close to zero while the car just glides, and you help guide it to the apex gently with minimal steering inputs and minimal corrections. This is where one of the big MX-5 traps appears. Drivers often think that they are neutral steering when they're actually not—they're just sideways. You might be sliding, but just at an angle that's so high that you're not extracting the highest cornering force the car can offer. If it needs a lot of opposite lock corrections or prolonged opposite lock, that's not fast, it's just dramatic, oversteery, and slow.
Corner-Dependent Neutral Steer
This is also corner dependent. How much neutral steer is available depends mainly on:
The corner's speed
The corner shape
The corner length
How much straight line braking there is before the corner
How high the brake pressure can be
Whether downshifts are even needed
This is the other trap: trying to force neutral steer when it's not required or not possible without sacrificing a part of the corner, whether it is the line, the entry speed, or car balance and so on. In a fast corner with barely any brake required and maybe no downshift at all, you won't be able to get true neutral steer on entry without losing too much time. In that kind of corner, the steering actually has to do most of the work. An extremely slow or short corner entry might not require either. The goal is not to force the same look or the same style in every corner in the same way. The goal is to let the brake and the downshift rotation do as much of the work as the corner allows before the steering has to take over, without sacrificing your speed and the line. But how do you know if you're sacrificing something or if you're over or under the limit? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this course.
Key Number Three: The Progression Path
Neutral steer is real—it's a thing—but it's absolutely easier said than done. So don't force the advanced version too early. Start traditional. Do not worry about the rear tires too much yet. Use minimal trail, use late downshift, prioritize a clean steering trace, and learn how to live on the limit of the front tires. That is the first step before anything else. Then, once you have developed that feeling and control of the front tire limit with the steering alone, you start adding the brake release and the downshift timing to extract more rear tire grip as an added layer on top of that. Eventually, you can then blend it all together. The more rear tire you can use properly, the less steering you will need to initiate the rotational entry. This is exactly why we learn how to induce understeer first before we learn how to induce oversteer. We will get there step by step.
Why the MX-5 Is Worth Mastering
What It's Good At
Before we go deeper, it's worth quickly answering a simple question: why even bother mastering this car at all? The MX-5 driving style at the true limit is a bit unique and does not transfer directly to many cars. But the way it helps to develop a feeling and instinct about the limit, comfort with slip angle, precision, and smooth inputs really builds great fundamentals. These skills can be adapted and transferred to anything else. This car is great at building driving skill.
What It Punishes
At the same time, this car punishes hidden overdriving, but not in the way you expected. It punishes your overdriving precisely because it doesn't punish you at all for doing it, which makes you create bad habits that can last forever if you don't fix it. Why is that? Well, ABS and low power will often let you survive mistakes that would immediately punish you in other cars, so you do not always get instant feedback. On top of that, the feedback itself is already tricky:
The steering feels very light and vague in general, so when you're far under or far over the real limit, the force feedback is a little bit muted—it's not really telling you exactly what's happening
The tire sound window is narrow with a relatively constant volume and screaming pitch, whether you are slightly under or slightly over or anywhere near the limit at all
Then you add in the fact that the MX-5 is so easy to get sideways and so easy to save, and you get the perfect trap. Drivers start translating the information wrong. That combination is why the MX-5 can quietly build bad habits: because it lets you overdrive and it makes the correct driving style harder to find. Many drivers end up with a dramatic driving style that feels fast but does not translate well to other cars, or they fix the problem in the incorrect and inefficient way. For example, heavily overlapping inputs like lots of braking and lots of steering at the same time, or using the wrong corner structure. For these drivers, there's always a ceiling, a plateau. They can drive for years, even become quite quick, and still never break through to that next tier of truly top-level drivers. That is what makes this car so valuable. Your own challenge here is to prevent the bad habits that the unnoticed mistakes create.
Top Three Common Mistakes
Now with that in mind, let's make this practical and look at the three most common mistakes in this car.
Number One: Too Much Steering Angle
The telltale signs are:
A lot of steering lock
Not being able to unwind after the apex because of your understeer
A static, flat steering trace that carries over through a long distance The cost of that is:
Front scrub
A lower minimum speed
Understeer and corrections with the throttle
Lift at the exit
Bad cornering speed
A messy and slow exit speed I'm going to show you the fix to this over the next few lessons.
Number Two: Braking Too Long or Releasing Too Early
The telltale signs are:
Still being close to peak brake after the rotation phase and eventually doing a quick release with no real useful trail
Heavy braking at corner entry and then quick drops to zero The cost of that is:
ABS
Bad rotation
The car pretty much straight-lining the entry, missing the apex, or just compromising the entry angle just to hit the apex but then having a terrible angle
Bad cornering speed and bad exit speed Again, I'm going to show you the fix over the next few lessons.
Number Three: Using Maintenance Throttle
We can also call this balance throttle or going to throttle too early. The telltale signs are:
The throttle coming in before apex while steering is still significant
Using the throttle to hold or save the car instead of maximizing and finishing that nice rotation first The cost of that is:
The car will just not rotate cleanly because you take the grip away from the front and the car pushes wide
Because of that, you have to lift to regain some of that rotation, but then you lose exit speed
The whole corner becomes a chain of small repairs We will show you the fix over the next few lessons. In the next lesson, we will talk about the car's DNA and exactly where the lap time is.
Written in Collaboration with Coach Kane Halliburton
Key Number One: Keep Momentum and Avoid Tire Scrub
The MX-5 is a momentum car, so you have to protect your minimum speed in the corner by avoiding scrub at all costs—front and rear. But what is scrub? Front scrub is understeer, and rear scrub is oversteer. Front scrub or understeer is the most common type that beginners experience. It's easier to see, easier to hear, easier to understand and feel. However, if you are an intermediate or advanced driver, the stealth killer in this car is actually rear scrub or oversteer. Because of things like the short wheelbase of this car, the lightweight, the differential, and the beginner-friendly baseline setup, the MX-5 is very easy to get sideways but also relatively easy to save. This is exactly why so many intermediate and advanced drivers fall into this trap: because you allow the car to live in too much slip angle, too much slide angle. Being sideways feels fast. It's even fun. It feels like you're dancing with the car right on the limit. It feels like a hero, but a lot of the time what is really happening is you're quietly killing mid-corner momentum and your exit speed. Right from the start, let's implement the right instinct in your head: do not confuse drama with speed. Protect momentum, avoid front tire scrub, avoid rear tire scrub.
Key Number Two: The Rotation Comes From Braking and Downshifts First—Steering Is Only Third in This List
Now that we've talked about momentum and scrub, the next big key here is where the rotation actually comes from. There are three tools for rotation:
The steering
The brakes
The engine braking (which comes from the downshifts) In most cars, the steering is the main tool for rotation and it's also very intuitive to drive like this. But in the MX-5, your best rotation usually comes from the combination between braking and downshifts, with the steering only as the third tool. That's a very important mindset shift.
Achieving True Neutral Steer at Corner Entry
If your goal is to be on the limit of all four tires, then in many corners in this car that usually means aiming for true neutral steer at corner entry. Focus on corner entry—this is very important. That means that the steering wheel stays very close to zero while the car just glides, and you help guide it to the apex gently with minimal steering inputs and minimal corrections. This is where one of the big MX-5 traps appears. Drivers often think that they are neutral steering when they're actually not—they're just sideways. You might be sliding, but just at an angle that's so high that you're not extracting the highest cornering force the car can offer. If it needs a lot of opposite lock corrections or prolonged opposite lock, that's not fast, it's just dramatic, oversteery, and slow.
Corner-Dependent Neutral Steer
This is also corner dependent. How much neutral steer is available depends mainly on:
The corner's speed
The corner shape
The corner length
How much straight line braking there is before the corner
How high the brake pressure can be
Whether downshifts are even needed
This is the other trap: trying to force neutral steer when it's not required or not possible without sacrificing a part of the corner, whether it is the line, the entry speed, or car balance and so on. In a fast corner with barely any brake required and maybe no downshift at all, you won't be able to get true neutral steer on entry without losing too much time. In that kind of corner, the steering actually has to do most of the work. An extremely slow or short corner entry might not require either. The goal is not to force the same look or the same style in every corner in the same way. The goal is to let the brake and the downshift rotation do as much of the work as the corner allows before the steering has to take over, without sacrificing your speed and the line. But how do you know if you're sacrificing something or if you're over or under the limit? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this course.
Key Number Three: The Progression Path
Neutral steer is real—it's a thing—but it's absolutely easier said than done. So don't force the advanced version too early. Start traditional. Do not worry about the rear tires too much yet. Use minimal trail, use late downshift, prioritize a clean steering trace, and learn how to live on the limit of the front tires. That is the first step before anything else. Then, once you have developed that feeling and control of the front tire limit with the steering alone, you start adding the brake release and the downshift timing to extract more rear tire grip as an added layer on top of that. Eventually, you can then blend it all together. The more rear tire you can use properly, the less steering you will need to initiate the rotational entry. This is exactly why we learn how to induce understeer first before we learn how to induce oversteer. We will get there step by step.
Why the MX-5 Is Worth Mastering
What It's Good At
Before we go deeper, it's worth quickly answering a simple question: why even bother mastering this car at all? The MX-5 driving style at the true limit is a bit unique and does not transfer directly to many cars. But the way it helps to develop a feeling and instinct about the limit, comfort with slip angle, precision, and smooth inputs really builds great fundamentals. These skills can be adapted and transferred to anything else. This car is great at building driving skill.
What It Punishes
At the same time, this car punishes hidden overdriving, but not in the way you expected. It punishes your overdriving precisely because it doesn't punish you at all for doing it, which makes you create bad habits that can last forever if you don't fix it. Why is that? Well, ABS and low power will often let you survive mistakes that would immediately punish you in other cars, so you do not always get instant feedback. On top of that, the feedback itself is already tricky:
The steering feels very light and vague in general, so when you're far under or far over the real limit, the force feedback is a little bit muted—it's not really telling you exactly what's happening
The tire sound window is narrow with a relatively constant volume and screaming pitch, whether you are slightly under or slightly over or anywhere near the limit at all
Then you add in the fact that the MX-5 is so easy to get sideways and so easy to save, and you get the perfect trap. Drivers start translating the information wrong. That combination is why the MX-5 can quietly build bad habits: because it lets you overdrive and it makes the correct driving style harder to find. Many drivers end up with a dramatic driving style that feels fast but does not translate well to other cars, or they fix the problem in the incorrect and inefficient way. For example, heavily overlapping inputs like lots of braking and lots of steering at the same time, or using the wrong corner structure. For these drivers, there's always a ceiling, a plateau. They can drive for years, even become quite quick, and still never break through to that next tier of truly top-level drivers. That is what makes this car so valuable. Your own challenge here is to prevent the bad habits that the unnoticed mistakes create.
Top Three Common Mistakes
Now with that in mind, let's make this practical and look at the three most common mistakes in this car.
Number One: Too Much Steering Angle
The telltale signs are:
A lot of steering lock
Not being able to unwind after the apex because of your understeer
A static, flat steering trace that carries over through a long distance The cost of that is:
Front scrub
A lower minimum speed
Understeer and corrections with the throttle
Lift at the exit
Bad cornering speed
A messy and slow exit speed I'm going to show you the fix to this over the next few lessons.
Number Two: Braking Too Long or Releasing Too Early
The telltale signs are:
Still being close to peak brake after the rotation phase and eventually doing a quick release with no real useful trail
Heavy braking at corner entry and then quick drops to zero The cost of that is:
ABS
Bad rotation
The car pretty much straight-lining the entry, missing the apex, or just compromising the entry angle just to hit the apex but then having a terrible angle
Bad cornering speed and bad exit speed Again, I'm going to show you the fix over the next few lessons.
Number Three: Using Maintenance Throttle
We can also call this balance throttle or going to throttle too early. The telltale signs are:
The throttle coming in before apex while steering is still significant
Using the throttle to hold or save the car instead of maximizing and finishing that nice rotation first The cost of that is:
The car will just not rotate cleanly because you take the grip away from the front and the car pushes wide
Because of that, you have to lift to regain some of that rotation, but then you lose exit speed
The whole corner becomes a chain of small repairs We will show you the fix over the next few lessons. In the next lesson, we will talk about the car's DNA and exactly where the lap time is.
Written in Collaboration with Coach Kane Halliburton
Key Number One: Keep Momentum and Avoid Tire Scrub
The MX-5 is a momentum car, so you have to protect your minimum speed in the corner by avoiding scrub at all costs—front and rear. But what is scrub? Front scrub is understeer, and rear scrub is oversteer. Front scrub or understeer is the most common type that beginners experience. It's easier to see, easier to hear, easier to understand and feel. However, if you are an intermediate or advanced driver, the stealth killer in this car is actually rear scrub or oversteer. Because of things like the short wheelbase of this car, the lightweight, the differential, and the beginner-friendly baseline setup, the MX-5 is very easy to get sideways but also relatively easy to save. This is exactly why so many intermediate and advanced drivers fall into this trap: because you allow the car to live in too much slip angle, too much slide angle. Being sideways feels fast. It's even fun. It feels like you're dancing with the car right on the limit. It feels like a hero, but a lot of the time what is really happening is you're quietly killing mid-corner momentum and your exit speed. Right from the start, let's implement the right instinct in your head: do not confuse drama with speed. Protect momentum, avoid front tire scrub, avoid rear tire scrub.
Key Number Two: The Rotation Comes From Braking and Downshifts First—Steering Is Only Third in This List
Now that we've talked about momentum and scrub, the next big key here is where the rotation actually comes from. There are three tools for rotation:
The steering
The brakes
The engine braking (which comes from the downshifts) In most cars, the steering is the main tool for rotation and it's also very intuitive to drive like this. But in the MX-5, your best rotation usually comes from the combination between braking and downshifts, with the steering only as the third tool. That's a very important mindset shift.
Achieving True Neutral Steer at Corner Entry
If your goal is to be on the limit of all four tires, then in many corners in this car that usually means aiming for true neutral steer at corner entry. Focus on corner entry—this is very important. That means that the steering wheel stays very close to zero while the car just glides, and you help guide it to the apex gently with minimal steering inputs and minimal corrections. This is where one of the big MX-5 traps appears. Drivers often think that they are neutral steering when they're actually not—they're just sideways. You might be sliding, but just at an angle that's so high that you're not extracting the highest cornering force the car can offer. If it needs a lot of opposite lock corrections or prolonged opposite lock, that's not fast, it's just dramatic, oversteery, and slow.
Corner-Dependent Neutral Steer
This is also corner dependent. How much neutral steer is available depends mainly on:
The corner's speed
The corner shape
The corner length
How much straight line braking there is before the corner
How high the brake pressure can be
Whether downshifts are even needed
This is the other trap: trying to force neutral steer when it's not required or not possible without sacrificing a part of the corner, whether it is the line, the entry speed, or car balance and so on. In a fast corner with barely any brake required and maybe no downshift at all, you won't be able to get true neutral steer on entry without losing too much time. In that kind of corner, the steering actually has to do most of the work. An extremely slow or short corner entry might not require either. The goal is not to force the same look or the same style in every corner in the same way. The goal is to let the brake and the downshift rotation do as much of the work as the corner allows before the steering has to take over, without sacrificing your speed and the line. But how do you know if you're sacrificing something or if you're over or under the limit? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this course.
Key Number Three: The Progression Path
Neutral steer is real—it's a thing—but it's absolutely easier said than done. So don't force the advanced version too early. Start traditional. Do not worry about the rear tires too much yet. Use minimal trail, use late downshift, prioritize a clean steering trace, and learn how to live on the limit of the front tires. That is the first step before anything else. Then, once you have developed that feeling and control of the front tire limit with the steering alone, you start adding the brake release and the downshift timing to extract more rear tire grip as an added layer on top of that. Eventually, you can then blend it all together. The more rear tire you can use properly, the less steering you will need to initiate the rotational entry. This is exactly why we learn how to induce understeer first before we learn how to induce oversteer. We will get there step by step.
Why the MX-5 Is Worth Mastering
What It's Good At
Before we go deeper, it's worth quickly answering a simple question: why even bother mastering this car at all? The MX-5 driving style at the true limit is a bit unique and does not transfer directly to many cars. But the way it helps to develop a feeling and instinct about the limit, comfort with slip angle, precision, and smooth inputs really builds great fundamentals. These skills can be adapted and transferred to anything else. This car is great at building driving skill.
What It Punishes
At the same time, this car punishes hidden overdriving, but not in the way you expected. It punishes your overdriving precisely because it doesn't punish you at all for doing it, which makes you create bad habits that can last forever if you don't fix it. Why is that? Well, ABS and low power will often let you survive mistakes that would immediately punish you in other cars, so you do not always get instant feedback. On top of that, the feedback itself is already tricky:
The steering feels very light and vague in general, so when you're far under or far over the real limit, the force feedback is a little bit muted—it's not really telling you exactly what's happening
The tire sound window is narrow with a relatively constant volume and screaming pitch, whether you are slightly under or slightly over or anywhere near the limit at all
Then you add in the fact that the MX-5 is so easy to get sideways and so easy to save, and you get the perfect trap. Drivers start translating the information wrong. That combination is why the MX-5 can quietly build bad habits: because it lets you overdrive and it makes the correct driving style harder to find. Many drivers end up with a dramatic driving style that feels fast but does not translate well to other cars, or they fix the problem in the incorrect and inefficient way. For example, heavily overlapping inputs like lots of braking and lots of steering at the same time, or using the wrong corner structure. For these drivers, there's always a ceiling, a plateau. They can drive for years, even become quite quick, and still never break through to that next tier of truly top-level drivers. That is what makes this car so valuable. Your own challenge here is to prevent the bad habits that the unnoticed mistakes create.
Top Three Common Mistakes
Now with that in mind, let's make this practical and look at the three most common mistakes in this car.
Number One: Too Much Steering Angle
The telltale signs are:
A lot of steering lock
Not being able to unwind after the apex because of your understeer
A static, flat steering trace that carries over through a long distance The cost of that is:
Front scrub
A lower minimum speed
Understeer and corrections with the throttle
Lift at the exit
Bad cornering speed
A messy and slow exit speed I'm going to show you the fix to this over the next few lessons.
Number Two: Braking Too Long or Releasing Too Early
The telltale signs are:
Still being close to peak brake after the rotation phase and eventually doing a quick release with no real useful trail
Heavy braking at corner entry and then quick drops to zero The cost of that is:
ABS
Bad rotation
The car pretty much straight-lining the entry, missing the apex, or just compromising the entry angle just to hit the apex but then having a terrible angle
Bad cornering speed and bad exit speed Again, I'm going to show you the fix over the next few lessons.
Number Three: Using Maintenance Throttle
We can also call this balance throttle or going to throttle too early. The telltale signs are:
The throttle coming in before apex while steering is still significant
Using the throttle to hold or save the car instead of maximizing and finishing that nice rotation first The cost of that is:
The car will just not rotate cleanly because you take the grip away from the front and the car pushes wide
Because of that, you have to lift to regain some of that rotation, but then you lose exit speed
The whole corner becomes a chain of small repairs We will show you the fix over the next few lessons. In the next lesson, we will talk about the car's DNA and exactly where the lap time is.
Written in Collaboration with Coach Kane Halliburton
Key Number One: Keep Momentum and Avoid Tire Scrub
The MX-5 is a momentum car, so you have to protect your minimum speed in the corner by avoiding scrub at all costs—front and rear. But what is scrub? Front scrub is understeer, and rear scrub is oversteer. Front scrub or understeer is the most common type that beginners experience. It's easier to see, easier to hear, easier to understand and feel. However, if you are an intermediate or advanced driver, the stealth killer in this car is actually rear scrub or oversteer. Because of things like the short wheelbase of this car, the lightweight, the differential, and the beginner-friendly baseline setup, the MX-5 is very easy to get sideways but also relatively easy to save. This is exactly why so many intermediate and advanced drivers fall into this trap: because you allow the car to live in too much slip angle, too much slide angle. Being sideways feels fast. It's even fun. It feels like you're dancing with the car right on the limit. It feels like a hero, but a lot of the time what is really happening is you're quietly killing mid-corner momentum and your exit speed. Right from the start, let's implement the right instinct in your head: do not confuse drama with speed. Protect momentum, avoid front tire scrub, avoid rear tire scrub.
Key Number Two: The Rotation Comes From Braking and Downshifts First—Steering Is Only Third in This List
Now that we've talked about momentum and scrub, the next big key here is where the rotation actually comes from. There are three tools for rotation:
The steering
The brakes
The engine braking (which comes from the downshifts) In most cars, the steering is the main tool for rotation and it's also very intuitive to drive like this. But in the MX-5, your best rotation usually comes from the combination between braking and downshifts, with the steering only as the third tool. That's a very important mindset shift.
Achieving True Neutral Steer at Corner Entry
If your goal is to be on the limit of all four tires, then in many corners in this car that usually means aiming for true neutral steer at corner entry. Focus on corner entry—this is very important. That means that the steering wheel stays very close to zero while the car just glides, and you help guide it to the apex gently with minimal steering inputs and minimal corrections. This is where one of the big MX-5 traps appears. Drivers often think that they are neutral steering when they're actually not—they're just sideways. You might be sliding, but just at an angle that's so high that you're not extracting the highest cornering force the car can offer. If it needs a lot of opposite lock corrections or prolonged opposite lock, that's not fast, it's just dramatic, oversteery, and slow.
Corner-Dependent Neutral Steer
This is also corner dependent. How much neutral steer is available depends mainly on:
The corner's speed
The corner shape
The corner length
How much straight line braking there is before the corner
How high the brake pressure can be
Whether downshifts are even needed
This is the other trap: trying to force neutral steer when it's not required or not possible without sacrificing a part of the corner, whether it is the line, the entry speed, or car balance and so on. In a fast corner with barely any brake required and maybe no downshift at all, you won't be able to get true neutral steer on entry without losing too much time. In that kind of corner, the steering actually has to do most of the work. An extremely slow or short corner entry might not require either. The goal is not to force the same look or the same style in every corner in the same way. The goal is to let the brake and the downshift rotation do as much of the work as the corner allows before the steering has to take over, without sacrificing your speed and the line. But how do you know if you're sacrificing something or if you're over or under the limit? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this course.
Key Number Three: The Progression Path
Neutral steer is real—it's a thing—but it's absolutely easier said than done. So don't force the advanced version too early. Start traditional. Do not worry about the rear tires too much yet. Use minimal trail, use late downshift, prioritize a clean steering trace, and learn how to live on the limit of the front tires. That is the first step before anything else. Then, once you have developed that feeling and control of the front tire limit with the steering alone, you start adding the brake release and the downshift timing to extract more rear tire grip as an added layer on top of that. Eventually, you can then blend it all together. The more rear tire you can use properly, the less steering you will need to initiate the rotational entry. This is exactly why we learn how to induce understeer first before we learn how to induce oversteer. We will get there step by step.
Why the MX-5 Is Worth Mastering
What It's Good At
Before we go deeper, it's worth quickly answering a simple question: why even bother mastering this car at all? The MX-5 driving style at the true limit is a bit unique and does not transfer directly to many cars. But the way it helps to develop a feeling and instinct about the limit, comfort with slip angle, precision, and smooth inputs really builds great fundamentals. These skills can be adapted and transferred to anything else. This car is great at building driving skill.
What It Punishes
At the same time, this car punishes hidden overdriving, but not in the way you expected. It punishes your overdriving precisely because it doesn't punish you at all for doing it, which makes you create bad habits that can last forever if you don't fix it. Why is that? Well, ABS and low power will often let you survive mistakes that would immediately punish you in other cars, so you do not always get instant feedback. On top of that, the feedback itself is already tricky:
The steering feels very light and vague in general, so when you're far under or far over the real limit, the force feedback is a little bit muted—it's not really telling you exactly what's happening
The tire sound window is narrow with a relatively constant volume and screaming pitch, whether you are slightly under or slightly over or anywhere near the limit at all
Then you add in the fact that the MX-5 is so easy to get sideways and so easy to save, and you get the perfect trap. Drivers start translating the information wrong. That combination is why the MX-5 can quietly build bad habits: because it lets you overdrive and it makes the correct driving style harder to find. Many drivers end up with a dramatic driving style that feels fast but does not translate well to other cars, or they fix the problem in the incorrect and inefficient way. For example, heavily overlapping inputs like lots of braking and lots of steering at the same time, or using the wrong corner structure. For these drivers, there's always a ceiling, a plateau. They can drive for years, even become quite quick, and still never break through to that next tier of truly top-level drivers. That is what makes this car so valuable. Your own challenge here is to prevent the bad habits that the unnoticed mistakes create.
Top Three Common Mistakes
Now with that in mind, let's make this practical and look at the three most common mistakes in this car.
Number One: Too Much Steering Angle
The telltale signs are:
A lot of steering lock
Not being able to unwind after the apex because of your understeer
A static, flat steering trace that carries over through a long distance The cost of that is:
Front scrub
A lower minimum speed
Understeer and corrections with the throttle
Lift at the exit
Bad cornering speed
A messy and slow exit speed I'm going to show you the fix to this over the next few lessons.
Number Two: Braking Too Long or Releasing Too Early
The telltale signs are:
Still being close to peak brake after the rotation phase and eventually doing a quick release with no real useful trail
Heavy braking at corner entry and then quick drops to zero The cost of that is:
ABS
Bad rotation
The car pretty much straight-lining the entry, missing the apex, or just compromising the entry angle just to hit the apex but then having a terrible angle
Bad cornering speed and bad exit speed Again, I'm going to show you the fix over the next few lessons.
Number Three: Using Maintenance Throttle
We can also call this balance throttle or going to throttle too early. The telltale signs are:
The throttle coming in before apex while steering is still significant
Using the throttle to hold or save the car instead of maximizing and finishing that nice rotation first The cost of that is:
The car will just not rotate cleanly because you take the grip away from the front and the car pushes wide
Because of that, you have to lift to regain some of that rotation, but then you lose exit speed
The whole corner becomes a chain of small repairs We will show you the fix over the next few lessons. In the next lesson, we will talk about the car's DNA and exactly where the lap time is.
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