Driving "under the rubber"...yes but how I see it?

Driving, Data & Fitness.
1

Hi there,

I’m a KZ driver, I do regional championship but sometimes I race in national or even european events when they come in Italy.

I really struggle when the track become rubbered more and more, I see that on a pretty green track I can do very good laptimes but when the rubber become to lay down I drive less natural, more nervous, and I can’t improve my laptimes while my opponents improve by far.

I’m trying to stay under the rubber, that means to follow the rubber line with the outside wheel like it’s a binary and let it carry me around the track, but I struggle to see it. Specially in regional events, when there is rubber but not so much, I can’t see it and the blackest line on the track (that isn’t necessary the rubbered line in that day but is the common line used everyday that makes asphalt blackest) confuse me. Any tips to unlock this skill for me? Thanks

2

I’d say it’s more of a feeling. You have to have a sense of what the kart is doing, how it’s reacting. You can feel where the grip is best.

Also, you know that if you have your inside tires as far inside as you can at the apex, you can’t be far off.

Keep in mind that the proper setup for a green track and a rubbered in track are not typically the same.

3 Likes
3

I agree but I’m I use to drive in medium-low grip conditions, so when I feel that the track has grip and the kart reacts nervously I tend to instinctively avoid those sensations by looking for the points where I feel more comfortable with driving, but which inevitably make me slower. It would be useful to visually understand where to put the wheels, especially during the braking line (from the braking point to just after the apex)

4

Rob is correct in that if your inside wheels are down to the curbing or on the curbing if possible, your outside wheels will be right under the rubber as needed.

Even in medium grip you should be driving this line.

What I try and tell drivers is look where the rubbered in part of the track is, and center your seat on the bottom edge of that dark part of the track surface. That’ll put your inside tires just below the rubber and your outside tires right in the sticky part of the track.

5

About that, what’s really upset me is that I take very long time during the day to understand how I should brake on hairpins. I mean, I see top drivers that for example at first stint with low grip do a pretty wide shape (like U line), braking straight and than with a slitghly late apex they turn the kart and flat out using lot of outside kerb. When the track takes grip, they start to do like a diagonal brake, turning while braking pointing the apex (like V line), then rotate the kart in a millisecond and smash out the kart out of the hairpin pointing not the outside kerb but pointing from the apex to the middle of the track.

When I’m lucky to manage to follow them is pretty simple for me, but when I’m alone I can’t understand when and how I should change to this way of braking.