Well, let’s be honest, there’s probably no other sport in the world where a lack of focus for just a fraction of a second can completely destroy your race. Think about, for example, F1 drivers driving around Monaco just the blink of an eye too late on brakes, and they’re in the wall, or even if they turn into early they’re going to be again in the wall.

So it’s a very, very cutthroat sport where focus is an unbelievable important factor, where if you are losing focus multiple times during the race, you are not going to be able to have a perfect race, even though I believe it’s there’s no such a thing as a perfect race, but I feel like you can get as close as possible to a perfect race. And how do you do that? Well, by doing pretty much zero mistakes. And how do you not make any mistakes? Well, by simply having maximum focus and knowing exactly what to do. Of course, you need to have a lot of experience on the track, and overall, you need to know what you’re doing, but knowing what you’re doing and having the experience is nothing if your focus level is very volatile, goes up and down, up and down. It’s easy, quote, unquote, to get a fast lap time once. But what’s difficult, and you’re probably aware of that, is being able to replicate that over and over and over again. That’s really what sets apart the greats like Senna Schumacher or Verstappen to other drivers, that yes, they may occasionally be fast, yes, they may occasionally win the races, but being able to set lap times at the absolute limit time and time again, requires a superhuman level of focus, and the big question is always whether you are born with it or whether you develop it. You know the nature versus nurture dilemma, but in this guide, you will hear about exactly what I think about it, I will answer to some of the most frequently asked questions about focus when it comes to racing. So let’s get into it. Shall we?

Why is focus so important in racing?

Well, think about it, because we are going at high speed. Every fraction of a second matters. In fact, if you think about it, the average human blink of an eye is about 150 milliseconds. And in 150 milliseconds, you are going to travel a lot, a lot of distance on the track, for example, if you’re going at 100km/h . In that case, if you made the calculation, you will actually travel 4.17 meters in just a blink of an eye. Well, that doesn’t seem a lot, but think about it, in four point 17 meters, you may have missed the apex, or you may have made the apex, but in the wrong place, or maybe you attempted an overtake, but you didn’t time it properly, and for just like a blink of an eye, you may have crashed into the driver in front. So you can see that the focus here is just the major part of this sport. Actually, if, if you are not able to maintain focus at the peak level for most of the race distance, which you know, in Formula One, it’s like one hour and 30 minutes, whereas, you know, in karting could be, you know, 1015, maximum, 20 minutes. But still, you know, you have to manage to find a way to develop your focus, to create focus endurance, basically almost like you know, there’s physical endurance when you need to work on developing focus endurance, almost like you know you are gonna work on your fitness to, you know, make sure you stay longer. You run longer. You run more kilometers. You will also need to train your focus in order to maintain focus at a higher state for longer. For example, you could be reading books. You could be doing, you know, focus exercise, etc, as we will see in this, in this full guide, including, for example, like juggling exercises, or, for example, doing a boxing reaction handball, which is quite popular, like a lot of kids are doing nowadays, I think we kind of launched a trend with some of our drivers doing it in the first place, and I do it myself. You know, I’m not racing full time, and I don’t even know if I’m going to race this year, but I am still doing a bit of juggling every day, like four to five minutes a day, and even, like the handball reaction exercises, by like five minutes a day or so, and I still read on a daily basis. On like half an hour a day, I sit myself on a chair, and I literally read, and that helps me a lot to maintain higher levels of focus. And I feel that not only my daily life, I feel like it helps a lot. Also my on my driving.

How long exactly do drivers need to maintain concentration?

Well, I mean, it obviously depends on what races they are doing. I mean, if they are in Formula One, and that would be a great thing for them, I mean, they would have to focus for, you know, between one and a half hours. Is up to two hours, for example, races like in Singapore, where the races normally are very, very long. Maybe in Monza, yes, it’s a bit less because you are traveling at faster speed, and so maybe it’s one hour and 20 minutes. But still, it’s still very, very much. You know, you know, having the ability to focus for that long at your maximum state, yes. Well, you can argue that on the straight your mind is not going to be focused 100% like you are going to be focused in qualifying, in, let’s say, a fast corner in Spa Franco shop at or Rouge ready on, yes, for sure, it’s not going to be like this in every single place on the track, in every single lap. You know, there’s going to be laps where you’re going to need to use more focus, for example, to, I don’t know, make an undercut, or maybe you have to make an overtake, or maybe you have to defend position, or you’re going through the start for sure. During the start, when there’s lights out and all the cars are around you, you need to, for sure. Need to have the maximum level of focus that you will not have, for example, in like halfway through the race. And you may, you know, have like five seconds from the car in front and maybe like 10 seconds from the car behind. In that case, maybe the focus a bit less. But again, you do not want to relax in moment, because if you do then, of course, you may start making mistakes in karting, it’s, for sure, quite a bit easier because the race distance is a lot shorter. For example, 60 mini races are just like 10 laps, which is about eight to nine minutes, whereas talking about like juniors is, what, like 1213, minutes the last race, whereas the seniors are like, What 15 minutes, and the shifter is occasionally like 20 minutes for C, i, k, FIA races. But normally it’s just not that long, but still it’s very, very intense. Why? Because, well, karting drivers, you know, are going through a lot of G forces. Yes, f1 drivers too, but you know, you still, like consume a lot of mental energy, and you have not much time to wait to think during the straights, like you do in f1 car or any other car series, like GTS Formula Two or Formula Three. So of course, in that case, yes, you have long straights where you can kind of like, relax a little bit, even though you still, like have to get the perfect shifting, etc. Whereas, yeah, in karting, yeah, you don’t have those long distances. But of course, you have basically no breathing time from corner to corner. It’s like, especially in the twisty circuits, you’re, like, going from corner to corner, and so, yeah, you just have to be completely immersed. And just like, eternal vision, you know it’s gonna be like, the race is gonna go super fast if you’re in the flow, and of course, if you’re also having a good one, and if, if you’re, like, leading the race, etc, then, then, yeah, it’s gonna be even better. But if you’re like, you know the front and everybody’s closing up on you, it’s like, gonna feel those, those remaining laps are gonna feel like ages. But still, anyways, going back to the original question, like it’s, it’s very hard to tell exactly how long the driver needs to focus. But yeah, normally I feel that. You know, kids play a lot on the PlayStation, on their on their computers, playing, I don’t know what you know, Formula One, Minecraft, etc, but the funny thing is that they can spend a lot of time focusing their playing games, but then when they’re on the track, they almost feel like they are not going to be able to stay focused for even just like 10 minutes, which a bit of a controversial topic, to be honest. But anyways, I think that being able to extend a driver’s focus threshold level, so being able to, like, increase the focus endurance, in a way, is going to be a massive, massive competitive advantage compared to other drivers who can maybe, you know, focus for a qualia, you know, get everything right for the quality lap, but then the difficult part is putting all together for for the race. You know, in in a race, you basically need the what, like 15 quality laps. That’s what you mean. But if you cannot do 15 quality laps, well, it’s, it’s something that you gotta fix.

What actually causes drivers to lose focus during race?

I don’t think that there’s many things that can actually make you lose focus while driving during a race. I think it’s more that when you come to make mistakes, is that your muscle, your focus muscle, basically, almost like, look at it as a muscle. It’s like you are not trained enough, and you’re a bit too weak, and so as soon as maybe you try to push a little bit too hard and are not fully focused, then you’re going to start making mistakes. Or simply, maybe you’re pushing the same but you’re trying to repeat and repeat the repeat. But you know, in the repetition, if you’re not able to maintain the same level of focus, you’re going to start making mistakes. But, yeah, I have to say that one of the most iconic ways that drivers actually unconsciously do that actually destroys their focus in the moment is looking in the back. I mean, that is the worst I am fighting this battle every day with my drivers at the baby race, and I feel like it’s it’s just crazy to see that it’s hard. Them to stay focused on the front and look only in the front. And it’s almost like, so tempting to them to just keep an eye on who’s behind, check the gaps. But it’s like, honestly, what the hell? Why do you need to do that? It makes no sense. And you know, many times it’s just out of pure curiosity, pure boredom. Like, honestly, like, Okay, I’ve an entire guide on that where I address the reasons why drivers look in the back and how to stop them. But I feel that, yes, looking in the back is, for sure, probably the number one way drivers actually lose focus during races. Another way, of course, is just thinking about the results. You know, just looking at the result and like, oh shit, I’m doing, like, too bad. And I’m like, what, maybe P 15, and I want it to be p1 and that’s obviously one of those things that is going to disconnect them from the moment and actually makes them lose the focus. So I think that is one of the negative ways, obviously, and that’s always related to, you know, thinking about the results, which mean, overall is bad. And if, for example, you have this kind of stock while driving, it’s going to negatively affect. Another thing that could be negatively affecting your focus while driving is thinking about the kart. You do not want to think too much about the car when you drive. You just want to drive whatever you have. And as soon as the session ends, you just need to report your feedback to the mechanic, to your team and just, you know, tell him or her, you know, whatever, whatever happened on the car and but during the session, you just need to give your everything and don’t get distracted by the car, even if the car is not performing to the best, whether the chassis, whether the engine, the tires, or whatever. You do not want to get influenced by that. You don’t want to be distracted by that. Just keep your focus. Do your best, and people will notice that. But again, you’re not doing it for people. You’re doing it for yourself. Okay, so whatever happens, just look forward. Don’t look back. Don’t think about the kart. Don’t think about this result. Just put your head down and think about the next corner, the next corner, the next corner.

How can drivers train their focus outside the track.

Well, I’m not gonna lie. I think there are so many ways driver can train their focus outside of the track. And by the way, they should be doing it outside of the track. I mean, they cannot expect to improve their focus on the track. Yes, I mean, the more driving you do normally, the more focus you build. But at the end of the day, where you really craft your focus is outside of the track, for example, first of all, you want to remove all the things that break your focus and weaken your focus, for example, like watching tik toks, social media, you know, playing watching cartoons, or, like too much, YouTube and stuff like that, that’s going to, you know, break your focus actually, and having all that stimuli, it’s not going to be good for you. So staying away from screens Overall, it’s a great strategy to, first of all, not hurt your focus, or avoid protecting your focus. Then once you do that, once that time is being removed from all the screen time that you may have been doing before, and I mean, the average driver has unfortunately, what I then suggest to do is to simply, you know, start doing sports, start reading books, you know, doing some reaction time exercises such as juggling, such as, you know, the boxing reaction ball that you know, you lace it on your head and stuff like that. But again, like if you do tennis, if you play ping pong, if you you know, play puddle those kind of sports are going to be great because they’re going to simulate your competition level, which is great. I mean, you need to have that you want to be a competitive beast. But at the same time, they are going to stimulate your focus overall. They’re going to stimulate your focus and they’re going to increase that muscle. Okay, it’s not, of course, a muscle. I mean, let’s be honest. We can’t, we can’t say Focus. Focus is a muscle, but it kind of works like a muscle. You know, it’s, it’s muscle memory at the end of the day and and being able to train your brain to stay at high peak performance for longer times, you’re gonna basically stretch your focus every time you do that. If you’re playing puddle, you’re not gonna play it for like five minutes. I hope you’re gonna play it for for 20, 3040, 5060, minutes and even more. And you’ll see that you’re gonna spend more and more time, and you’re gonna get better and better. You’re gonna make less and less mistakes so well as reading books at first, you’re gonna struggle to keep the focus for more than like 10 minutes. You’re gonna feel like distracted, you feel like bored, and you feel like you can’t read anymore. But again, that’s your focus giving up. And if your focus is giving up after five minutes of reading a book, Imagine what’s happening when you’re driving. It’s gonna happen even earlier. So you need to be able to get to a point where you’re like, able to read the book for like, two hours straight in a row or so and and I noticed on myself when I’m overly like a present, for example, on social media, because maybe I have to do some work for send it or for babies, and I maybe have to spend a bit of time on my phone, bit more than usual, which I hate spending time on my phone. If I could leave without my phone, I would love it. But yeah, I noticed when I. Spend a bit more time on my phone. I’m spending less time on my books, for example, or doing some sports. I noticed that my focus decreases. And it’s not like permanently gone, it’s like temporarily gone, but it’s gonna come back as soon as I put the focus back. So I just feel that, yeah, it’s it’s something that you can create it, you can build it, you can extend it. You can stretch it. You have to have a growth mindset and not think that everything is fixed and you’re not born with that.

Can video analysis improve focus?

Well, yeah, for sure. I mean doing video analysis and reviewing your race onboard videos, or even just like your free practice onboard videos, or even just like watching videos on YouTube from past races can help your focus, but again, you don’t want to spend too long on screens. I think that should be minimized. What you should do instead is really do something that is unrelated to racing, which is, again, reading books, playing sports, etc.

How does physical fatigue affect concentration?

It’s incredible how interconnected the physical side to the mental side is, and in racing, you can see it very clearly. That is the reason why I stress so much the importance of getting extremely fit, like super fit, that driving feels easy to you. Because the problem is that, I would say 80% of the drivers are not fit enough to race in a way that they can drive, of course. I mean, you can put anybody in a kart and you can drive. I mean, I’m not saying about that regarding an f1 car. Of course, you can’t put anybody. But if you go, if you drive very, very slowly, you can put pretty much anybody. But the point being is that you are not going to be able to maintain the peak performance. If you’re gonna start feeling tired after like lap five and start feeling like out of breath and like you honestly feel like the kart is driving you, whether you driving the kart, I have experienced very few times in my life this kind of feeling, only, for example, when I was away from my kart for a long time, but, you know, not when I was regularly driving, but like, like, few years ago when I was not driving full time, but I was just, like, casually driving, just to get fit and just, like, because I wanted to, because it was my passion. Still, like, Okay, anyways, I was still driving, and I would not drive for a long time. And I remember the first time I would be like, holy cow, the truck, the kart is driving me. And because I was not track specific fit, I was fit for the gym, I was fit for the you know, for running, etc, but I wasn’t fit for the kart. That’s the reason why you need to have a lot of KART fitness. So you need to drive the kart actually. So it’s really sport specific fitness and and, yeah, I remember that I was like, doing four or five laps, and then I would start to really feel the,

yeah, the pain, not the pain, but yeah, really the physical difficulty. And that’s really reflected in reduced concentration. Because think about it like when you are worried about your body not being fit in that moment, and you’re like, feeling, holy cow. It’s like, I feel pains here, or maybe I just feel like out of breath. In that moment, you’re gonna lose your peak concentration. I mean, in that moment, you will not be as focused as if you were fully, fully fit, as, for example, drivers like Michael Schumacher used to be, or like Ayrton Senna used to be. And there’s a reason why they were the greatest, and there’s a reason why the were the most fit drivers of their age. Because think about it. I mean, like they realized early on that the fitter they were, the more time and energy they had available to think about, you know, the mental side of driving. So it’s like having the energies allocated to the mental side. So which is, you can agree that probably the most important part, you know, it’s the reaction times, the decision making, the end eye coordination. If, if you’re fatigued and like feeling like, Oh, I’m almost about to give up, because I just not feeling fit, you know, either in terms of endurance or in terms of strength, then of course, you’re not going to be able to clearly think that you know the breaking point Apex you’re going to be driving under the limit, but because, simply, you’re not fit enough to race, so you don’t ever want to get to that point, because otherwise you’re really wasting your time. You’re wasting your money, and that’s just essentially a place you would never want to be.

Can sim racing actually help train focus?

Yes, sim racing is a very good ally when it comes to building your focus, because at the end of the day, you’re kind of simulating the real race scenario, especially if you’re getting yourself in online races where there’s some sort of stakes that you have to kind of perform under pressure. But when I talk about sim racing, I relate to, for example, I racing or a set of course combination. I talk about those kind of sim racing from like GT cars or, you know, Formula cars. Why? Because I feel like if you’re a karting driver, I think you’re still better off to drive these kind of simulators instead of driving the karting simulator from. Like kart team, etc, because as good as they can be, but they’re never going to be anywhere close to the realism that you will achieve by driving a kart, because conversely to a car, a kart is so much more difficult to just create a model around it that is realistic enough. So I just would not recommend you to spend time doing, you know, karting simulator. Just would not even bother about buying it. And just like spending and wasting money from that side. I mean, that’s my personal experience. I would instead, like buy a proper sim gear if you want to get into sim racing anyways, and if you want to do that also to train your focus, you could spend, like, up 30 minutes or one hour a day, yeah, just, you know, doing some racing. I racing and playing, I don’t know, whatever car you want, like, a formula four, Formula Three, GT, threes, etc. And that’s gonna train your focus, because you’ll have to deal with, you know, shifting points, breaking points, turning points, apex is, you know, trying to build a consistency. And the great thing is that, you know, when you’re in the simulators this, the conditions are always the same. There’s no variables, you know. And so if you make mistakes, it’s just you there’s no excuses, or the car was was not good, or the, you know, there was a difference in the temperature. Or it’s like all the those my teammates now, you can’t you don’t have any excuses. So it’s a clear reflection tool to know how focused you are and how much focus you have in that moment, and how you can train it using this kind of tool. And I feel this is something that a lot of drivers should be doing, and that’s why, for example, drivers like Max Verstappen do, like, what, five hours of sim racing a day, because, because they feel okay, besides loving it, besides just being purely addicted and obsessed about it, which is, of course, what makes them great. I mean, it also makes them extremely focused, and increase their focus to an insane level. And I mean, it trains them to drive those specific tracks, etc. So I mean, at the end of the day, I feel like it’s, it’s a very good, a very good tool to train your focus. So I hope this guide was helpful enough let me know if you want to receive some one on one coaching on how I can help you find techniques to build your focus you can apply to that service. Or if you want to improve your laptops, you can simply sign up to my onboard review analysis service from remote. You can just send me your onboard video, and I will reply with a proper video analysis giving you practical tips on how to get faster. If instead you want, like the full immersion program, you can sign up to the six-month training where I’ll take you from zero to hero.

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