How Can Drivers Make Better Decisions?
There are two kinds of drivers. Intelligent drivers and those not so much. Most make the choice to be one or the other dozens, even hundreds of times, every lap...
One of the greatest challenges of driving on the track with others in a drivers education event, time trial or a race, is making the best possible decisions while behind the wheel.
Even if you’re the only one on track, the most basic control input decisions will allow you to stay on the asphalt, or not. If you’re in a marque club driving school or track day, more strategic decisions to remain calm, maintain a disciplined approach and follow event protocols can accelerate progress and raise your stock among your peers. In racing, the time frame of making these decisions, right or wrong, is supercharged and often has much bigger, more expensive and long lasting consequences.
How do YOU make the best possible decisions and insure the best possible outcome?
The best drivers I know have a healthy, big-picture view of themselves, their capabilities and the world around them. They know why they’re there and what they’re there for. They don’t set unrealistic expectations. They don’t feel like they have a gun to their head.
That doesn’t mean they’re not purposeful, focused and intense. It just means that they KNOW that every little thing is not under their control. They know a lap time is made up of dozens, even hundreds of decisions made WITHIN that lap. And the quality of those decisions all contribute to the cumulative outcome. It means that they are resolved to do the best THEY can with every decision they make.
Let’s start with a system to enhance the most basic decisions, those focused on conducting the car around the track, in the right place, at the right speed, while incrementally increasing their demands on the car, hence their performance. This methodology is something I learned from 2000 Rolex 24 at Daytona class winner, friend and colleague, Ron Zitza, while teaching the SVRA Drivers Orientation Program over nearly two and a half decades together.
Ron calls it his “Go/No-Go” system. It’s a terrific tool!
Every driver should know the most desirable lateral car position placement for every foot of forward travel over the lap.
Every driver should have a good sight-picture or heading (aiming direction) for the car at each critical point on the circuit.
Both measures allow a driver to immediately assess and evaluate whether they are in position, pointed the right way, good to go to the next control input, or not. It’s critical to know the difference, especially as you, as a driver, go faster.
Those drivers that lack these critical pieces of information run the risk of being surprised or caught out, the main reason for an off-course excursion or worse yet, a single-car crash. I’ve spent decades performing and assisting in forensic examination of why people crash, both by themselves or among one another and for the most part, even untrained observers can often see the developing scenario unfold! A minor misjudgment turns into a major mistake.
Ron’s “Go/No-Go” system is a decision-making check and balance that many top line drivers automatically incorporate, most without consciously thinking about it, dozens of times every lap.
As long as all is well, GO to the next control input(s), usually picking up the throttle, selecting the desired steering arc, looking up and focusing forward to the next area or landmark where this assessment will be needed again. This is the goal.
But, IF the car is out of position, steering delayed or “behind,” the car is going too quickly to accept the desired control input or not pointed in the right direction? NO-GO!
DON’T compound the errors that brought you here by adding more. Gather the car back up, extend braking, open up the steering wheel or regain the proper car position. Whatever it takes to get you and the car, quite literally, back on track!
By training yourself to constantly compare your desired path, speed and position to your actual one, before doing something that could aggravate an error (or more usually, errors) and turn that minor misjudgment into a major mistake, the intelligent driver can continue to push incrementally to improve without adding undue risk by following this simple methodology.
Thanks to Ron Zitza for distilling this important decision making concept into a process easy to explain, understand and put into practice. See you at the track!
Russell's crash at Canadian Grand Prix is an example of bad Go/No-Go decision. The car was out of shape in the middle of T8-9 chicane, but he decided Go and held the right foot in, likely because he was in a hard chase to Alonso.
Verstappen jumped the same T9 apex curb later in that race, too. However, his No-Go decision was easier to make because he was not under pressure.