The path forward is inward.
It appears that you have some natural aptitude for karting, which can be a blessing and a curse; a blessing when you get fast very quickly, and a curse when the aptitude takes you as far as it can and you don’t realize you must put in the work to keep moving up the learning spiral.
Just guessing, but it sounds like the hit you have taken to your ego, has caused you (your conscious self) to start interfering with the subconscious driving process you have established over the past two seasons. Think of it this way, driving and cornering theory, line, weight transfer, etc. is a well known process (aka a ‘white box’ process). But the actual driving, the perception of what’s happening, the coordination of muscles, etc. is a mystery. Ask a fast guy or coach what to do, they can probably tell you some things, ask why, they can probably explain it, but ask them how they do it (how they actually ‘drive’) and I doubt you will get a clear answer because the act of driving is not a knowable step-by-step ‘procedure’, it’s a mysterious emergent process (a black box process).
We all start out ‘consciously’ driving around the track (usually by connecting the dots - brake, turn-in, apex)… and we are SLOW. If you have a strong aptitude for driving you subconsciously ‘understand’ what your experience is teaching you about energy movement, tire load, traction, etc. and your driving moves into the subconscious realm where it continuously self optimizes with further experience (hopefully). If you get pissed because you don’t like the results that are being produced, and ‘consciously’ step in to ‘fix’ things, you will screw everything up. You can ‘influence’ the black box process, but you must do so by impoving the breadth and depth of you sensitivity to the results you driving is producing (the perceptual results not the lap time or finishing position results).
Try this the next time you brush your teeth. This activity is likely highly optimized (try brushing with your other hand if you want to see how well optimized it really is). Anyway, when you are brushing, don’t interfere, don’t control the brushing, just observer in great detail. How are you holding the brush (how many fingers, where are they, is the end of the brush pressing against your palm, etc. See if there is a particular ‘pattern’ you brush to (upper-left first, then upper-right, or whatever) if so, why do you think you settled on that pattern? Is there a particular movement you use (side-to-side, up and down, circular - if so, what direction), and why… did the dentist tell you to do it that way, or did you just self-optimize to that method. How much pressure are you using, how do you transition from upper teeth to lower teeth, how do you do the transition from left to right (does you head move… how much). On and on, there is always more to observe and more to learn.
Next time you hit the track, do so with the same mindset; dissect your driving (but remember OBSERVE, do not try to change/control it). If you do this, you will likely find some areas of your driving that you’ll want to learn more about, and the more you learn, the more opportunity you give your black box process to self optimize.
Good Luck!
