You may think that you’re fast when sliding the kart around, almost like in a drifting state, but the reality is that if you’re sliding in a way that is too much, you’re definitely going to be leaving lap time on the table. Now let me explain you could be sliding because you’re pushing to the limit, all right? And you should be constantly on the limit of sliding and having a slightly bit of sliding, but when you are sliding too much for many reasons, okay, it could be one of the reasons could be you are missing the line. Okay, Wrong line when you’re missing the line. And let’s say this is the corner right, this is the ideal line, and you’re just, like, missing the turning point.

We’re missing the turning point, and you’re just going off the grip. Of course, you’re going to be sliding here, but that’s a bad way of slide, like that. It’s a negative sliding, all right. You’ll be like, Oh, why is there a positive? So let me actually define this. So let’s pretend we have two separate way of sliding, so

Good sliding vs bad sliding

So good and bad. So again, this is sliding, so let’s pretend this you’re like, oh, but Alessio shouldn’t be Shouldn’t it be just good, or shouldn’t it be just bad to like, no, let me explain to you so sliding is most of the times a mistake. That is, for example, let’s put it here on the bad side, Wrong line, as you already said. So, W, l, Wrong line, because, yes, if you miss the optimal grip level, you have sub optimal grip. You have not enough grip, and you’re just sliding around. You make more meters. You have less speed because you’re sliding and off the grip. And so it makes the lap team worse.

Another reason why you you’re sliding is because you’re too abrupt to the steering,

Well, I think it’s quite clear, right? If you’re going into a corner, and instead of using, let’s say this is a steering wheel.

So let’s actually make, okay, let’s say this is the steering wheel, and instead of, you know, using just a tiny bit of steering wheel. We are going to, let’s say you’re using a lot. So okay, let’s say you’re using like, okay, so this is you’re using this much steering wheel, okay? So I’d say this is the steering wheel, and it’s like, like, this is a little bit like, bent, like that. But instead, let’s say if you’re using too much of an input, all right? And let’s say you are this is like your steering, your steering level. It’s like, oops, not wrong, not the right one. So let’s say, instead of being like this, your steering level is like that. So imagine that you’re like steering too much. You know it’s like steering so much, and you’re like pointing this. So if you’re over like, if you’re steering too much for what the grip level is and for the kart can allow, you’re going to slide. And that’s not because of the kart. That’s because of you most of the times. So again, if you’re too dirty on the steering, you’re going to create some sliding. The rear is going to slide all right, and it’s just because you’re going past your the tire slip angle, the tracking traction circle we already discussed. So remember, I think we discussed about this when you are this has been more complicated, but I think we already talked about it. So this is what it’s happening. So this is the traction circle. Let me draw it out. So this is the tire. This is the longitudinal and this is the lateral G force.

If you are, okay, let’s say this is the, this is your tire grip level. So it’s like that. It’s almost like this, okay, this. And you’re like, What is this? So this is a tire traction circle we have already talked about. This is in one in one lesson. If you don’t remember this, just go and re watch it. Otherwise, you can search on YouTube or other like links on Google. But yeah, this is the traction circle, basically, if you are, let’s say, turning to the right, so lateral to the right. What happens is, you. Well, if you’re turning to the right, by the way, the lateral is going to be to the other side. So this is going to be in this way. So turning to the right, the g4 is going to go to the left. So this is basically how it works. So if you’re turning too much, all right, and you have a little bit of acceleration, so remember, when you’re here, you’re decelerating. So the when you’re here, you’re accelerating when it’s going up. So let’s say you’re a little bit on this side, and you are right at the traction circle. Then all of a sudden you are turning too much for whatever reason, going into the corner, and so you try to go beyond the traction available from the kart. And what happens you’re going to slide, and then you’re going to have less grip, because you slide it all right? So if you turn instead more smoothly, and you turn like that perfectly on the traction circle, then you would have had the optimal grip. Now, I know this is a little bit more advanced, but I already discussed this. And if, again, if you don’t have, if it’s not clear for you, just ask me a question. We can talk about, talk about this in a in a live call. So again, Wrong line to the steering wheel and to the steering basically cause you to go outside the grip limit. Okay, outside, yeah. Traction, circle, traction, DC. It’s basically this, when you go to white, when you go like that, okay, so when you try to go and ask too much from the tire, think about it. The tire has a certain amount of grip. If you ask too much from the tire, again, by turning a bit too, too aggressively, and the tire does not sustain that, you’re going to basically make the car slide. And that’s again, because you’re pushing it beyond the optimal tie grip again here, so it goes hand in hand, but is like out DC, which is like traction circle, so you’re going outside the traction circle. All right. Sweet. So we have these three major reasons, but there’s more, okay, let’s mention one of the good ones, actually, that I like to talk and you know, again, sliding is not always bad. So let’s talk about one of the good, good ways to one of the why sliding can be good in one way. For example, when we are trying to warm up the tires, we’re basically sliding. Okay, so

Warming up the tires

That’s what you need. Basically, you need to warm up the tires. And you gotta be sliding. The only way to warm up the tires is to slide the tires. If you drive under the limit, you will not warm up the tires, promise you. So again, so again. So in here we’re going to put warm warm up. Okay, so this is on the good column, all right. So another way to do it is another good way to slide. Because, by the way, why are we warming up the tires? Because we are when we’re stressing that when we’re warming them up, you’re like, like that, putting a lot of steering, braking hard, the white The reason we are warming up the tires by doing that. So by sliding is because you’re pushing yourself beyond the traction circle of the tire. Imagine that you’re asking to break more than what it could. So use like like that. And so it’s like sliding, then you’re asking it to to accelerate while turning a bit more. So it’s like this, and it’s gonna be sliding. If you’re asking it to slide a bit more, that turn a bit more, and it’s sliding. But that’s fine, because we that’s what we want, remember, we can use sliding in a strategic way, but when the tires are up to temperature, you should be driving clean so that you’re not sliding. And for example, if you’re missing the line, Wrong line. That’s the worst way of sliding. Too dirty. Steering wheel is another worst, very bad way of sliding, unless you are in the in the warming up lap, for example. Of course, if you go outside actual circle, we already mentioned, it’s good if it were with the tires, but if you’re driving too aggressively, you’re not going to have any positive lap time out of it. But then we talked about the the warming warming up procedure. Okay, so these are the negative ones, and here’s the good ones, the positive ones. So warming up the tires, that’s a good way. Pushing when it’s cold,

Pushing in cold conditions

Why does it mean pushing cold? Well, if you’re driving in the winter and it’s super cold, the tires super cold, I would say, plus hard tires. Okay, because think about it, if you’re driving with very hard tires in the cold conditions, let’s say is, you know, December, and you’re driving in, I don’t know, the UK, and you’re driving with Max’s or with MGS or comets, you know it’s going to be hard to generate any grip. So the only way to for you to generate grip is to push more slide the tires go beyond the traction circle, and that’s going to be a good way of sliding, because it’s going to basically allow you to warm up with. Tires, cold plus hard tires. Okay, so in those cold conditions, it’s very, very good to slide, actually. But again, you don’t like the absolute worst way of sliding is by just missing the line. If you’re just missing the line and you’re just going completely off, this is the worst way. This is the second worst way, being too dirty on the steering.

And then, okay, that’s just a consequence.

Another way is also being too dirty with the pedals. I would say we can add it up. So too dirty with the pedals, too dirty steers, plus pedals, for example, if you are too abrupt on the brakes in a fast corner, for example, I always tell my drivers in a fast corner to barely touch the brakes, just okay. Depends from corner to corner, but let’s say the pedals is least bad, the steering is more bad. Let’s say that’s why I put the yellow inside of orange. But if you’re going into fast corners, imagine that you are going in a fast corner. You don’t need to smash the brakes. If anything, you have to lift or maybe tap the brakes a bit. If you smash the brakes, you’re going to slide the kart so much, right? And that’s not because of the chassis, it’s just because of you. So yeah, you just have to be mindful about that. You got to be clean with the steering, clean with the pedals, if you don’t want to slide, of course, if you want to slide, because, again, we want to warm the tires. We want to push in cold and hard conditions. I mean, which are related, to be honest, with, warm up the tires. That is a good way of sliding, to be honest. Another way of sliding, which is good is when you, for example, have a little bit too much grip in the rear, okay, you have a little bit too much grip in the rear, and you want to kind of make the rear slide a bit so that it’s less stuck. Okay, so one way of sliding is to induce rotation.

That’s how I like to call it. So inducing rotation. So you’re gonna get more rotation, and more attention will mean, would mean, like, a little bit more rear sliding, inducing rotation with driving style. So again, a good way of sliding is inducing rotation. Again, he shouldn’t be doing it if the kart is already rotating on its own, but if the car, for whatever reason, is not rotating on his own, he got to make it slide in the rear, for example, in the wet, sometimes it’s like that, and it’s very important that the driver understands when he needs to, so that he’s just able to, he’s just able to, yeah, make the kart turn a bit earlier and rotate a bit earlier. And, you know, just get earlier on the gas thanks to some induced rotation. Because if it takes you so long to rotate the kart, instead of just waiting, waiting, you can just carry more speed, use the brakes, a bit more on the entry, carry a bit more speed. And maybe a little like the turning input to like to get the karts rotate pump, and that makes the rear side a bit, but again, that’s the positive sliding. But again, the absolutely three worst ones are the wrong line, dirty string and pedals, and which obviously brings you outside of the traction circle. But yeah, honestly, or you know, another, another very bad way of sliding is when it’s for example, which is very related to this is very related to what we said about two dirty steering and pedals,

is when it’s hot and grippy. Hot and grippy. You don’t want to slide when it’s hot and grippy. It’s the opposite for when it’s cold and it’s just not grippy. You don’t want to make it slide in that case, because it’s gonna overheat the tires over heat, and then you’re gonna be sliding even more.

Okay, so in those scenarios, you want to, yeah, just so I will actually add up, because you said pushing in cold plus hard. In this case, I’m going to write over pushing in hot, plus grippy and soft tires, over pushing in grippy, hot and soft tires. Hot, grippy, plus soft tire. I don’t know if you can see that, but anyways, if you have hot conditions, very grippy circuit and soft tires, and you’re over pushing, you’re gonna make tires overheat, for sure. If this was, like the the chart, this was the target temperature, you would slide, slide, slide, slide, slide over, heat the tires. And all of this is extra sliding because you’re overheating the tires. Basically, you’re just outside of the traction circle, and you’re just sliding around because of your mistake, you know? And it’s yeah, you just have to be careful with that. But yeah, these are basically the things that I wanted to explain to you. Sliding can be used as a tool. Can be used in a clever way to find lap time to win races, set, put positions. Uh, by warming up the tires in the formation app or in the quality to get, you know, heat into the tires and to just drive even, even during the race, you should be driving, sliding the kart around. When you’re driving in December or January, you have to slide the kart around, but again, in a good way. So pushing right, not by a wrong making the wrong light. No, you should slide by pushing in cold and hard tires conditions. And again, another way which is good to make it slide is inducing the rotation. I mean, of course, that it’s better when it’s cold and slippery, and with hard tires when it’s hot, you still want to do that. But in that case, I would prefer, not to do too much, you know, because if you use a rotation with sliding, then you’re going to create maybe a little bit too much temperature in the rears. So in that case, I will prefer it to to Instead, try to work on the setup with your mechanic, to try to get an optimal setup, yeah, to not having to slide, you know. But the absolute worst way of sliding is when you are having the wrong line, as we already discussed. You know, if you’re just missing a turning point or just or in the case that you’re being too dirty with the steering wheel, just like you’re turning, you’re turning too aggressively. You’re breaking too aggressively. Your pedals are very, very effective too if, instead of breaking 10% you’re breaking like 100% in a fast corner. Of course, you’re going to be sliding the rear, and it’s not going to be the karts’s fault. It’s going to be your fault. And so in that case, you just have to be a lot smoother. And by doing that, when you go too dirty either with the steering wheel pedals, you’re basically going beyond the actual circle either laterally. So being too much aggressive with the steering and basically the G force is going to look something like that. It’s going to be like like this in the data. And when you see that, it’s because you’re sliding the kart, okay, when you see that, it’s because you’re sliding the kart around. And of course, that is very negative, or this is the lateral G force, so like, you turn it to the left, and it’s doing a deck. Or if you’re doing in longitudinal, let’s say, let’s clear everything up longitudinal. Let’s say this is zero, so you’re breaking and you’re like too aggressively, then you’re going to be like that. It’s going to be like that. Instead of actually being a lot smoother. It could be like, proper braking coming off like that. Or if it was a fast corner, you would break a lot less. It would be like this instead of like a very aggressive braking and having to come off the brakes multiple times. So just just keep this in the back of your mind. Sliding can be good in many cases, but most of the times is bad in a ideal grip condition in terms of track temperature, tire temperature, as well as tire grip, you know, if they’re nice and soft, if you’re doing any of these things here, Wrong line, two dirty sitting pedals, you know, and you’re basically overheating over pushing when the tires are very soft or very it’s very hot and it’s very grippy. If you’re doing these kind of things, you are making the kart slide too much, and which is bad overall. But the worst, absolute worst thing is the wrong line, which is, by the way, what 90% of the drivers do until they become like race winners. But even when they’re becoming race winners, it’s like, it’s the most likely thing, you know, you’re pushing too much in a corner, you miss the line a bit, and you’re sliding, you may feel like, Oh, I’m doing I’m fast, you know, I’m sliding. I feel like I’m on the limit, you know, like the Marcon, right?

The quotes, like, if you’re not, if you don’t feel like it’s easy, if you feel like something was, something like that, it’s if you think everything is under control. You’re not going fast enough, true, but it doesn’t mean you should be sliding like an idiot by just missing the lines and then feel fast because you’re like all the time counter steering. That’s not the way to drive. You should be pushing on the racing line a little bit on the edge of sliding, but you shouldn’t be sliding all the time because of the wrong line or very bad steering or pedal inputs.