Sometimes we wonder what is the psychological factor that has the greatest impact on the motorsport world, and of course, on Sim Racing. I am convinced that many of you, with whom I have shared the track for many years, will defend, with very good arguments, that the key is motivation, since a simulator like iRacing keeps you active week after week preparing the next race. Others will defend that one of the most important factors in racing is concentration, which is also unquestionable. Even the way you control your ego, impulses and nerves, as these are factors that can play a trick on you. As you can see, it is very difficult to reach a unanimous response, since all concepts are part of a whole.
In this article, I will talk about a skill, which I consider as a final objective for both a professional drivers and a simRacers novice or experienced: consistency.
Nico Rosberg: Mental state is the greatest skill a driver has to develop in F1. Experience is everything, especially in new talent. One lapse in concentration and you have lost everything.
What is consistency?
If I had to define consistency, I would define it as the ability of a driver to always face and respond in the same way to the situations he is presented with.
Drive any race with the same state of mind, no matter what position you start in, track temperature, vehicle number, SoF of the grid and a length etc.
A great majority of professional drivers in real life and in simulation have achieved great feats not because of their ability to score fast laps, but because of their great consistency lap after lap.
When a driver manages to be consistent, all other psychological variables are shown in harmony (concentration, emotional control, control of anxiety and pressure, motivation, self-confidence, security…etc).
Lewis Hamilton: Once I’m inside the car, my mind completely disconnects from what’s outside. Lap after lap it’s like a cassette tape repeating itself over and over again.
Your worst enemy is a monkey and it lives inside you
The monkey’s mind is a concept widely used by Buddhists to explain how our mind handles the amount of distraction it is subjected to throughout our lives.
The monkey is in the forest. From a tree, he turns his head, looking for something. Suddenly his eyes light up and, determined, he jumps. He is on another branch. He stays calm. It doesn’t last long. He is still missing a noséqué. No, this part is not as sunny as it seemed. Not enough fruit. He looks at the trunk next to him. He repeats the ritual and launches himself again. For five seconds he feels calm, until he realizes that his dream place was not what it seemed. From the tree, he turns his head. He looks for something.
Sergio Perez: In the race you have to be aware of the car in front of you, the one behind you, listen to the advice of your engineer, set the parameters of the car on the steering wheel, open the DRS and above all not divert attention from the asphalt. For all this you have to be very strong mentally.
Eliminating distractions
Many of the concentration and consistency problems I see in SimRacing is that most of the drivers are having conversations or listening to their team members who are in the same voice chat room. Even if we are not aware of it we have to be aware of many factors in the race, such as driving itself, gears in each corner, distance from other drivers, mirrors…etc. Avoid all kinds of distractions, remember that it is additional information that the brain has to process in addition to being concentrated at the wheel.
Kimi Raikkonen: “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing
If you need it, disable voice chat as well as text chat in the options menus of your simulator. It’s not nice to be playing a position and at the same time listen to a conversation about an accident that happened 30 laps ago.
Another tip I recommend is that you invest in having stable and well attached hardware, as many SimRacers have problems holding the steering wheel and pedals, which causes extra attention in the race.
Calming the mind
In all the races, minutes before the start, we can observe that most of the drivers are in their vehicles with their eyes closed, looking at a fixed point, alone and without any external distraction. They are emptying their minds, silencing the monkey.
There are many practical exercises to calm the mind, almost all of them are focused on controlling the breath, meditation is the best weapon to control the mind.
Proverb: “If the internal enemy does not exist, the external enemy cannot harm you”.
Remember, your mind is like a flask full of glitter; if it is in constant agitation, the glitter will not stop moving to all sides; if you stop moving the flask, the glitter will fall to the bottom and stop moving. This is how you should see the mind, a chaos of information that leaves you no time to think.
H.H. Dalai Lama:
“When we feel any kind of distraction, if in that instant, that person puts his attention on the breath, and on nothing else, breathing, one, two, three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty and so on, your mind will automatically go from a state of irritation to a state of emotional control. At this time your mind will calm down, your blood will begin to flow more slowly, you will begin to take control of your body.”
Finding the consistency
In the last 20 years psychology has taken a very important role in sport, having a good physical condition is not always enough, mental strength has become the key to success. It is the difference between winning and losing. An error in concentration can cause you to miss a penalty, a free throw, an easy hole or simply in our case to abandon a race.
Mark Webber: “The mind plays a very important role when you’re doing 300 km/h. You never know what you’re going to find beyond the curve, your mind has to be prepared for anything unexpected.”
The union between the vehicle, driver and mind is fundamental to success. Being this last one of vital importance, since the races at the end of the day with races of psychological resistance.
Once we have calmed the mind and found a state of concentration, it is time to work on consistency. To do this, we must set a lap time in which we believe we are as comfortable as possible, without forcing the vehicle or our driving. We should perform as many stints from less to more time so that our mind gets used to long periods of time little by little.
Are you able to be constant within 0.2 of your fastest lap?
Write down everything you think is important, such as the curve number and the corresponding gear, the braking point, turning point, acceleration point…etc. All this information has to be recorded in your mind.
We also have to take into account the parameters that affect our lap times like track temperature, tire wear, fuel consumption…etc. We can’t always be in the same time interval.
| Driver A – Good | Driver B – Bad |
|---|---|
| 1.23.4 | 1.23.1 |
| 1.23.5 | 1.23.7 |
| 1.23.7 | 1.24.3 |
| 1.24.0 | 1.23.9 |
| 1.24.3 | 1.24.6 |
| 1.24.3 | 1.26.0 |
| 1.24.5 | 1.25.4 |
| 1.24.6 | 1.23.9 |
| 1.24.5 | 1.24.7 |
Jenson Button: “My engineers often ask me how I felt inside the car and most of the time I don’t know how to answer. My mind is so focused on the asphalt that I forget everything else”.
Mental Training
Many times people ask me the gear I use to take a certain curve, and many times I really do not know how to answer, I have so internalized every part of the circuit that I do everything automatically. My hands know how to turn at the right time, my fingers squeeze the cams at the optimal time and my feet know when it is time to brake and accelerate. It is the result of experience and acquiring the skill of consistency.
Timo Glock: “It is an automated process, many times you really don’t know what you are doing or thinking, I am just focused on what I am doing”.
An exercise that I recommend and that is used at a professional level by some drivers is to make a mental lap of a circuit, and with the help of a clock or stopwatch stop at the exact moment of arrival at the finish line. If the time is in an interval of 2 to 3 seconds compared to reality or the simulator, you will have internalized the circuit in your mind and you will be extremely consistent. Use your steering wheel to help you.
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