Squeezing your opponent while attacking or defending is a must-have technique. While it may appear that you're simply trying to intimidate the other driver, there are actually many practical benefits to squeezing your opponent while overtaking or defending.

Benefits of Squeezing on the Inside

Let's say you're on a straight right before a braking zone and you're on the inside. If you limit the amount of space you give to your opponent by squeezing them, your main benefit is that your car placement is less compromised for the corner. In addition, there is an element of getting in your opponent's head as well. There's nothing worse than being squeezed. It feels violating and your focus can be disrupted, so you end up having to split your attention between your reference marks and the fact that you can't go where you want to go to maximize your own line.

Of course, this must be executed with respect in following the code of what is considered acceptable driving.

How to Execute a Squeeze Safely

One very important tip to squeezing is to do it slowly and smoothly. Try to not make too many quick changes of direction if you're already close to the other driver, because if both drivers end up moving towards each other very quickly at the same time, you can crash even before getting to the braking zone.

Remember that if you're driving side by side, on the outside, on a straight line, parallel to the track, the driver on the inside cannot open up and hit you. This is a very clever way of squeezing, but it's a high risk move that can cause contact. This is why it's important to try to do a slow squeeze where you're not moving around too much, so you can minimize the chance of a crash.

Strategic Objectives of Squeezing

Remember that the main benefit of squeezing is that you want to improve your own line and hurt the line of your opponent. The strategy differs depending on your position:

When You're on the Inside

• You're trying to squeeze so that your line is better

• You want to open up as much as possible

• Don't just stay on the inside and hurt your own line yourself

• You have to try to open up because just staying on the inside on your own is going to make it very easy for the driver on the outside to keep the position

When You're on the Outside

• You're trying to squeeze so that their line is worse

• You already have a disadvantage by default

• You want them to be on a very tight line so that they can slow down more

• Then you can pass them on the outside by either doing an outside move or by doing a switch back

• Try to give them some kind of disadvantage so that you have a chance of winning that fight

Why Squeezing Makes Racing Safer

If you're not used to squeezing, it might feel a little bit sketchy at first, but you will realize that it's actually going to make it safer for your racing. First, if you squeeze people, you kind of send them a signal that hey, I'm actually going to fight for the position. I'm here and I'm not going to be an easy victim.

Also, because you have a better line, there's a much better chance you're going to make the corner. There's much better chance you're going to gain that track position and finalize the fight so you don't keep fighting for more corners. And you're going to be more confident that you're not going to just spin the car and exit because your line is terrible.

Learning to Squeeze: Initial Challenges and Results

It's an extra effort on entry to shift the focus from your braking zone, shift the focus from your lines, and focus on squeezing someone that's going to be a little bit difficult at first. But as soon as you do that, you will realize that one, they will not be pushing you back big time. I mean, some will do, but good luck. Most of them will allow you to put the car where you can and it's just going to be much easier after that.

So it's an extra effort at the beginning. And then after that, you have a much safer chance of doing that fight without crashing or without losing the position, which will just allow you to enjoy the races a lot more and just it's going to feel easy after you get used to it.