Racing Psychology Fundamentals

Racing psychology is the ability to induce other drivers to make mistakes, as well as protecting yourself from other drivers trying to make you make a mistake. This skillset can be divided into two main categories: defensive psychology and offensive psychology skills.

In racing, the best defense is the attack. Learning how to improve your offensive racing psychology will simultaneously teach you how to improve your own defensive racing psychology. This is because whatever you learn that you can use on the offensive side will probably be used against you by everyone else.

This module focuses on the mental aspects of racecraft rather than the technical side of how you move your car. The emphasis is on how you should stick to your plans and not be severely disrupted by another driver trying to get into your head, or how you should get in their head while knowing exactly what you will do in case it works.

Offensive Racing Psychology

Because the best defense is the attack, understanding offensive racing psychology is crucial. The main objective here is to make them make a mistake, and then potentially pass them on the next corner. Always think about the next corner—a mistake that's done on this corner will probably not be enough for you to pass them still on that same corner, unless it's a really bad mistake.

The Signals You Send

Remember, the way you position your car always sends a signal. Everyone will tell you to be predictable if you want to do safe racing, but there is a way to be predictable, and there's a way to be safely unpredictable to cause a mistake and make a pass.

In competitive racing, you will get to a point where you're in full control of your car, and you might sometimes be unpredictable on purpose to make your opponent cause a mistake. In other situations, you might want to be predictable and actually send them a friendly signal that you're going to cooperate with them.

Strategic Cooperation Example

For example, if you don't want to fight for a position in a place you know it's going to be a bad idea because you're going to lose a lot of time, and because you want to catch up with the pack, it's better to signal your intentions before a braking zone. Instead of showing up in the mirrors, you can stay behind and start lifting just a little bit to show that you are not going to try anything. This guarantees that the car ahead will not take a defensive and slower line, because they got the message that you're not trying anything. Then you both can carry as much speed as possible through these corners, until you catch the next pack, or until you find yourself with a bigger gap with the guys behind, so you can have a better fight between you two without worrying about a third or fourth car joining the party.

Choosing Predictability vs. Unpredictability

You want to be capable of choosing yourself whether you are going to be predictable or you are going to be unpredictable. In this lesson, we're talking about being unpredictable on purpose in the right way, in the safe way, so that you can make a pass.

Applying Pressure

Apply pressure in the right ways, in the right spaces to induce the right mistake. An important part of applying pressure is the timing. You want to time it when they are the most vulnerable to losing focus, to amplify the pressure and chances of mistakes.

Timing Your Pressure

Right before a braking zone, on hard braking zones, it's very easy to make a small mistake and carry too much speed, and end up losing a lot of time and losing your own line. What you can do is try to show your car right at the moment they need to time their braking, so that you control and disrupt their focus towards you. With the right timing, that focus disruption might be just enough to make them a small mistake that could cause them their exit speed, so that you can finally set up a proper pass on the corner right after that.

Methods of Applying Pressure

Getting Close

The first and most obvious way is to just get as close as possible to them, always making sure you don't hit them by using our lifting before braking technique. Essentially, the closer you get, the more distracted they will be, because they will be thinking, "Oh, when are they making a move? Are they making a move? Are they making a move?" And that already consumes their focus a lot. Essentially, you could be driving on their bumper right before a braking zone, so that they think that they will have to break a little bit later to avoid you, for example.

Showing Up in Mirrors

The second way to apply pressure is to show up in their mirrors. The purpose of showing up in their mirrors is to make your presence very known, which in of itself will apply pressure to the driver ahead. They will constantly have to think about you and possibility of an attack, in turn affecting their decisions, their ability to fully focus on driving, and putting themselves in slightly compromised positions.

This could even affect their race strategy. They might have to use the tires more. They might have to force the car more, and if this is a race with a pit stop, they will have to consume more fuel and do less lift and coasting.

Efficient Pressure Application

It's actually easy to apply constant pressure without having to do too much work. When you're in control of your own pressure, you can still save your tires. You can still be careful with your lines and everything and be consistent, as long as you're just doing the right amount of pressure on the right amount of time, only when necessary.

The Dummy

The dummy is a strategy where you move or position your car in a way that deceives the driver ahead into thinking you want to make a certain move, leading to them defending that dummy move and compromising their line, angle or braking. This reaction and compromise position can then be exploited for an opportunistic overtake after that.

Executing an Effective Dummy

How do you attempt a good dummy or make it believable?

• Clear intent: Seeming fully committed to the dummy, so they fully commit to the defense and go where you want them to go. Just remember, though, to bring your car back to your own line before your braking reference, of course. It's very common to do a dummy, but then you are not capable of bringing the car soon enough for your braking zone, and you end up missing your own braking zone and losing time as well. That's not ideal.

• Good timing: Give them time to make the instinctive reaction to the move, right when they need their focus the most.

The Mind Punt

The mind punt is a dummy move that worked so well that you cause your opponent to make a big mistake, causing them to go off track or spin. All of that with zero contact, of course.

The mind punt happens when you do a combination of dummy moves and just being so much on their mirrors that you exhaust them into making big mistakes, like a last second defense without time to make judgment or a good plan, which can lead to really bad decisions and miscalculations.

Defensive Racing Psychology

When it comes to defense, it's all about knowing what they can do to you, which is learning what you can do to them, and just being aware that sometimes these drivers will just be playing games with you to force you to make a mistake. The more you know what are the possible options, the calmer you will be as a racing driver.

One good thing to know, for example, if someone is trying to put pressure on you, well, they might also make mistakes trying to do so. And in the end, your objective is to try to not fall for it and continue to drive as fast as you can to maybe break the draft and open the gap.