Of course you need to drive fast if you want to win a race, but it's only a necessary condition and not a sufficient one. You don't win a race by driving the fastest lap time, you win a race by driving the fastest average lap time measured over the full race.

There are many parameters that can attribute to this fastest average lap time: consistency, managing tires and fuel, penalty systems and overtaking. Each section is described below, ending with the overall concept of racecraft.

This article on racecraft is the 6th article in the Getting Faster series.

Consistency

Consistency in the sense of just not making stupid mistakes and losing time. So basically, this is about staying on the black stuff. You'll reap the benefits of your hard work to slowly building up your pace, so that you can drive endless lap without mistakes, almost like on autopilot.

Sometimes this is just what you need in a long endurance race, where fatigue will kick in at some point. Fatigue as in loss of concentration. It wouldn't be the first time that I start mowing the lawn on Kemmel straight in Spa-Franchorchamps because I lost concentration for just a second.

Tire wear

You could be the fastest car on track but if this is at the cost of ruining your tires in 5 laps, you won't win a lot of races.

Before you jump into a (long) race you should know how long your tires will last. This depends on car and track combination but also on your driving style. You must practice seeing how you could change your driving style to conserve your tires better. in iRacing you can check tire temperature during driving, this could give you an idea. After a practice session you can read out the tire wear in the garage.

Finding the balance between speed and saving your tires is a skill you must master. In sim racing it's very hard to feel that you're abusing the tires. This "feeling" will mostly be from visual and audio cues. Over a long stint, it will start showing in your lap times.

Tip: If you want to test tire wear by doing long simulation runs, don't forget that in iRacing in a test session you can pause the time with the pause key.

Fuel saving

Like tire conservation, you should also be aware of fuel consumption. In an endurance race, avoiding one extra pit stop could be the difference between winning or losing. Some cars have fuel map settings you can change to save fuel. Again, it's about finding a good compromise between speed and fuel consumption.

If your car has no fuel saving options, then you could still adapt your driving style to save more fuel. You could lift and coast, you could shift gears a little bit earlier, you could draft more behind other cars etc.

Penalties

In iRacing and most probably in other sims, there is a penalty system in place to encourage fair and clean racing. You get incident points ("incs") when you cross the track limits, when you hit other cars or when you loose control over your car. Each race format has an incident limit before you get a stop and go penalty or even get disqualified. For example, after 17 incident points you'll get a stop and go, and after 30 incidents points you'll get disqualified.

In long races chances are high that your competitors are close to their incident limit, making them more cautious on track limits (so going slower) and more careful in close battles. If you have very little incidents points, this can be in your advantage at the end of the race because you can push harder on the track limits, and you can be the braver one when battling for position.

Overtaking

If you wan to win a race you must be able to overtake other cars, unless you start from pole. This means you must be faster than the car before you and you must have the skill to overtake that car without crashing both of you.

How do you know where you could overtake or where your chances of overtaking are highest? Practice and experience. By doing deliberate practice and learning the track, you should also explore alternative racing lines. With other cars on the track, you are often forced to drive on different racing lines compared to the ideal racing line.

In general, good overtaking spots are corners where you must brake hard or long straights where you can draft other cars.

In multiclass races overtaking is even more important: overtaking lower class cars is part of your overall racing pace in an endurance race: it's possible that you are the fastest car in qualifying, but not in the race because other drivers are better in overtaking those cars.

Luckily in sim racing, you can learn to overtake on a given track even before you start your official race. By racing against the iRacing AI (or computer in other sims) you will learn by doing where you can overtake and even more important where not. You'll soon find out where the risk is too high to attempt an overtake. Another approach (but less fun) would be to be a spectator of a race and see where others make their moves.

Once you start to have a better feeling where to overtake, you could join a practice session and try to overtake others but be careful not to ruin someone else's practice. Not everyone likes to be raced in practice, but it will be rather obvious if they want to play with you or not.

Racecraft

What is racecraft? It's not so easy to give one good definition, and many people use different ones. In my opinion it's all the above combined with displaying professionalism and intelligence while racing. Apart from using your steering wheel and pedals, also use your brain to win races.

You will only gain racecraft by experience. Being fast is most of the time not enough to win races. You must drive intelligently, know when to be aggressive, when to be patient, etc.

The best way to describe racecraft is probably by just giving examples:

Traffic handling or reading the traffic: in busy multiclass endurance races there can be a lot of traffic. If you are the faster car, you should be somehow clairvoyant and predict what the cars in front of you will be doing. Are these cars just trying to finish their race at their own pace? Or are these the number 1 and 2 cars in a lower class that are fiercely battling? In the latter case you'd better be careful because maybe they haven't seen you.

Drafting at the right moment on a long straight: right after exiting the corner you could lift a bit allowing the car behind you to draft faster so it will overtake you faster. This means that you on your turn can draft faster behind the other car so that you can overtake again. Why would you give up your position to take it back? Because if you wouldn't have done it, the other car would have drafted you anyway, just a bit later, but then this would give you not enough time and track to draft the other car and you would have lost your position.

Divebombing or not?: by divebombing someone you could overtake the car in front of you, but most of the time you both lose time and the cars behind you will catch up. Think if there aren't better corners where overtaking would be a much smoother move.

Battling other cars costs time: in sprint races you just have to battle to gain positions or defend yours, but in long races you should think twice. Maybe you could defend really hard to keep a faster car behind you, but at the cost of your tires. Or the chance of making a mistake will be high because you are constantly overdriving the car. Or the attacking car is very aggressive and taking a lot of risks. Better give him an easy pass because those drivers usually take out themselves.

Let others take out each other: say you are attacking 1 car and you are being attacked by the car behind. Sometimes it's better to allow an easy pass and let your attacker attack the car in front of you. Let him do the dirty work ;-) You can watch the show in front of you and at the same time save some fuel and tires. Of course, the usefulness of this tactic depends on each race situation and your racecraft will determine whether to apply this or not. Racecraft is all about context and doing the right thing at the right time.

Use multiclass lower-class traffic or back markers in helping to defend your position or to gain a position. It's not according to the etiquette to block faster drivers deliberately, but you could use other traffic around you to help you in keeping cars behind you, or in gaining positions.

Tip on traffic handling: don’t focus too much on the car right in front of you, it distracts you from your own driving and you run the risks of copying the behaviour of your competitor, including his mistakes. If you drive exactly the same as them, you’ll never be faster! On the other hand, if they are faster (and you are being lapped for instance), then steel with your eyes whilst driving behind them. Why is the car in front of you faster in some corners? What is it doing differently from you? Never stop learning, including when in a race.

Remark: contrary to deliberate practice, in racing mode you are just racing and should be 100% focused on the race and the cars around you. If you are (close) racing you won't have time anymore to think about car dynamics and so on.

Exercises

In the iRacing AI (or in other sims drive against the computer): start last in a field of 40 cars and try to make your way up in a sprint race of 15 min, without getting any incidents points. This means clean and safe overtaking only. Say you finish 23rd, then start the next AI race as 23rd etc, repeat until you can win the race. Then again restart but increase the difficulty of the AI a lot. This will quickly teach you (by making mistakes) which corners are safe and good overtaking corners, and which ones result in a car graveyard.

Same as previous exercise but reverse: start from P1 and use difficult AI settings. Then try to defend your position as best and as long as possible. It teaches you how to defend but also where you are much slower than the other cars, so you'll know on which corners you must work to become faster.

Race against other people in hosted races because real people act differently than the AI. They are smarter and less predictable, but let's face it, sometimes also way more stupid. Keeping calm in a race is a skill that also needs to be trained ;-)

Drive as a ghost car in real races, in your Strength Of Field or higher: you could practice overtaking here as well, but it's not the same feeling because you can't collide. You could also drive behind a group of cars and see where overtaking attempts are done, and how they defend.

Note: when driving as a ghost car you get a tow behind other cars, and of course they don't get a tow when they are behind you. So don't get all excited if you can keep up the pace or gain places in a race as a ghost.

Photocredit: Jakub Sisulak on Unsplash