In the process of getting stuck I did some thinking and learned a couple things. Not so much learned, but understood. Might be helpful to someone.
I could not gap the ghost in sector 1. No matter what I did he’d always pull slightly on exit of 1, 3, 4.
But, for example, my turn 1 was good. The line felt correct. I was on throttle early as heck. It felt right. But at best, I was only as fast as the other guy.
Why? I was doing everything right.
I noticed that when I pushed too hard, I’d often feel like the kart wanted to finish the turn wide of the exit. Not at the beginning of the exit, but as speed built, as you completed the turn and were trying to straighten. Indeed, if you weren’t careful and let the right rear touch the run out kerbing with any remaining wheel angle, you’d spin mightily under full accel.
So, the answer wasn’t to change my line. It wasn’t to change my entry speed or anything like that. It was far simpler. It was to accelerate less hard initially!
Being a bit more patient with putting down the throttle allows the kart to finish rotating and get around before you fully commit to power. It’s not a delay to power. You are getting in it early, but you start at 20% as opposed to going straight to 100%.
It’s subtle, but accelerating into a turned wheel is slower than a straight wheel. The tire has to scrub slightly, imperceptibly even. When I delayed the intensity of the acceleration at apex, I found that my wheels started turning faster, sooner. I got rid of some scrub by delaying full power till the wheels were fully straight, basically. It also made it such that I didn’t have to consciously unwind on exit as much.
I think what’s happening is that the slower throttle allows you to finish turning fully and you dont get that push to the outside. I pulled on the ghost on exit finally.
Efficiency!
Anyways, new s1 record for me.