Hi everyone,
I’m working with a driver, trying to make him faster. He’s training with a national top driver. and I’d like to have some thoughts on these data. They are with the same chassis (KZ 32mm), same engine (R2), same tires (Vega White) with similar usage and same run, so the conditions are equal for both. It’s the KZ2 category.
From the outside it seems that my driver lose time on the braking point and in mid corner, when it’s time to shift from brake to gas, but here we see something very different.
My driver (the green one) lose ton of times during the braking, not in the braking point that is pretty the same. You cane see in turn 1 and 2 that he brakes a lot and carry less speed in the first part of the corner. He has in turn 1, 2 and 4 higher min speed and he applies gas earlier but he doesn’t recover the time he lose during the braking. (3 tenths in 4 corners)
Here the same, he’s the blue one on another lap. Higher min speed, gas earlier but he’s a lot slower. Very strange that in this case “slow in, fast out” doesn’t work for him.
In this hairpin similar case: higher min speed, but he lose one tenth in this corner.
Seems that he needs to literally throw the kart inside the corner with lot of more speed, and then think about trying to take the apex and apply gas in the same point.
Hi, generally with a shifter kart, you would prioritize getting the most out of the braking zones, sacrificing the minimum speed, rotating the kart quickly mid corner and using that to maximize the corner exit. He needs to “V” off the corner It seems like he is trying to drive it closer to a singlespeed kart.
He’s gaining time mid corner as a result of trying to “roll” the corner more. But he’s losing a lot of time on entry by not charging the brake zone, and on the exit as the kart isn’t set up to get on throttle. He also seems to be letting off the brake early.
Generally, braking later, rotating and pointing the kart more mid corner, and having the kart a bit straighter on exit and getting to full throttle quicker will help him.
Apologies for the long winded reply, hope this helps.
Pretty much what @AndreLafond said. Looking at the data, it seems your driver is used to TaG karting, as he is braking earlier to apply throttle earlier. He needs to trail brake more while braking later
Totally agree about the V line in the hairpins, that’s what I said to him. But what about the first corner? Is a fast one, in 4° gear followed by a straight, having more min speed could helps but here we see that the faster driver brakes a lot over the apex, that’s very strange for a fast corner
Trail brake or hard short brake and than release to coast the apex? What’s best to load the kart correctly?
I am in no way a KZ expert, but from my limited experience and what I heard, you may not want to do threshold braking like a normal kart, but more constant braking, then release gradually when turning to the apex
Dont’ want to to question what you say, just to have a good discussion, seems that the fast driver brakes as little as possible, than at the apex he doesn’t release but he brakes stronger and shortly in order to rotate quickly. You can see this in the last screenshot I posted
The first corner may be a quick corner, but it also seems to be a relatively short run out of the corner, especially in a shifter. So prioritizing entry would yield better results.
And generally because of chassis setup and the very high hp, shifter karts tend to get upset when you get on throttle before you have it rotated correctly. And usually that means you’d have to wait on full throttle longer than if you did it in one go.
As far as braking goes, it would likely be a relatively aggressive brake initially, gradually reducing pressure as you start to turn the wheel, but still holding onto some pressure so you can rotate the kart on the nose quickly mid corner, and then fire off on exit.
The speed trace is the result of a lot of decisions by the driver. Can you post the same laps, but include lat g, long g, and radius? If you are comfortable with math channels, include GSum too. With those, we can tell why the speeds were different.
It could be, but I don’t see that he release pressure when he goes into the corner. The speed line is linear and decrease in the same way till the apex
Agree with the above comments. Red is making the corner more of a V, driving more pointed to the apex, rotating the kart and then powering out. More typical KZ driving style. Green is driving more of a U typical of a single-speed line. It looks to me like Red is easing the kart into the turn more initially, but as they get closer to the corner, they add more and more steering to get that V shaped line. You can see this in how Red’s LatAcc trace loads up sooner than Green, but peaks later, and drops off sooner. Green has the wheel turned for longer.
Red could get more out of the brakes possibly, as they have a shallower deceleration curve and hold the brakes longer. Green could brake later which will naturally force them into the V shape line too. Green appears to have more apex speed in places, but it is possible they are trying to carry too much apex speed which is delaying their throttle input. Green needs to brake later so they don’t lose time on entry and then rotate the kart more at the apex rather than trying to rotate it earlier in the corner. Because they are trying to rotate the kart single-speed style, they are rolling into throttle early but never are able to really get to full-throttle until later as the kart is holding sustained lateral load for too long. Red is point-and-shoot.
I also notice more noise in Green’s GSum channel which generally shows that the driver is not as smooth with loading the kart and isn’t as direct with their inputs; some hesitation or steering corrections maybe. But also GSum can be pretty noisy if the track isn’t super smooth.
Here are a few quick points on the graph. Speed you know. Lateral Acceleration is the side G Force (cornering), Longitudinal is the front/back (brake/throttle), G Sum is those added together and show the overall grip your using, and the radius the the size of the circle your driving on (how sharp or open the corner is). For Radius, you really need to zoom in because the straights are a giant number and the corners will be pretty small in comparison.
You can use Lat G to see turn in and how the kart is responding. The “lumps” in the graph show the kart building and releasing grip which is most likely oversteer and catching. That is where a steering sensor or SmartyCam really tells the rest of the story.
If you zoom on radius and look at the shape of the curve, you can see early vs late apex which can really help in seeing the differences in the driving lines and styles.
Thanks a lot, you open my eyes with these data. Could you tell me how I zoom the radius or if there is a way to “normalize” it escluding the straights?
