Here’s When You Should (And Shouldn’t) Look In The Back In A Race

By Alessio Lorandi, 2013 CIK-FIA World Champion, KF-Junior. Updated on 22 October 2026.

Have you ever heard your mechanic, your dad or your coach telling you, “Hey man, don’t look back, just look ahead”? This is exactly what I tell my drivers at BabyRace and here at Senndit. Because the reality is that we pick up this habit early on in our careers, we struggle to get rid of it, and we really need somebody to tell us what to do.

But at the same time, I hate the common advice of “you never have to look in the back”. You do have to look in the back. But only at the right times.

Should you never look back in a kart race?

When I hear coaches and mechanics saying “never look in the back”, I just cringe. Because it’s not true. That’s wrong advice, because you do have to look in the back, but only at the right times. That is the reality.

I mean, what if you’re on the last lap of the race, you’re leading, and you don’t defend in the last corner? Somebody is going to dive bomb you and pass you. Or maybe take you out. And only half a defence would have given you the win easily.

So yes, you’ve got to look in the back when you need it. But look in the back on lap four, when nobody is defending in front of you? It’s not like the guys behind are going to disappear. They’re going to stay there.

In karting you can’t have rear view mirrors. The only thing that lets you watch the back is your head. So one thing is to look in the back at a time you need it. Another thing is to look in the back needlessly, which is useless and is just going to distract you.

When should you look behind you in a kart race?

Lap one, lap two, the second last lap and the last lap. In those laps it makes sense to look in the back.

Even on the last lap there needs to be a reason. If everyone is telling you there is a huge gap and you’re leading the race, you don’t even need to look in the back.

In the middle of the race it sometimes feels like, oh, I’m tempted to look in the back, I want to see where the others are. The reality is you shouldn’t even look. You should only do it when the drivers are defending in front of you and you’re not able to pass them. Because if you’re not defending as well, you’re going to get passed by the driver behind. So in that case it makes sense to know where the others are around.

Same in the very high importance laps, where the stakes are so high. If there’s a massive fight group in front and behind, you’ve got to be situationally aware of what’s around you. When the drivers are right behind you and it’s a high risk situation, you need to close. Otherwise you’re going to get passed by five drivers.

When do I look back myself?

When I’m testing on a random day, I never look in the back. Unless I have to roll and get space from the drivers in front that are going to hold me up. Then I want to roll in a way that I’m not getting passed by the drivers behind. Because what’s the point of rolling if you get behind slow drivers again?

Otherwise, if I’m just randomly testing, why would I do it? In practice, don’t look behind at all. In a race, the bare minimum.

How often is looking back in a race actually useless?

Most of the times, 90% of the times drivers look in the back, it’s basically useless. You need to look in the back only when you truly need it.

If you are on lap 5 of 10, or lap 10 of 20, what’s the point of defending? I would rather have the driver being overtaken without looking in the back than looking in the back and then starting to defend.

The other case is the high risk scenario. Any time in the race where some random driver is defending in front of you and you can’t get past him, it bunches up the whole group. You’re stuck in this massive field of drivers all attached to each other. And so you’ve got to defend too, because if you don’t, you’re going to get passed by everybody. I hate those kind of races. I hate them a lot. But what can you do? Sometimes it’s like that.

Why are brake-checking races getting worse?

I see those kind of races a lot nowadays. In juniors this kind of racing is getting more and more popular. Drivers braking super early, brake checking. I just hate this. It’s honestly unethical. But I see it all the time.

What does looking back cost you in the next corner?

Looking in the back is for sure probably the number one way drivers lose focus during races. I am fighting this battle every day with my drivers at BabyRace. It’s so tempting for them to keep an eye on who’s behind and check the gaps. And many times it’s just out of pure curiosity, pure boredom. I go through the rest of it in how racing drivers train focus and concentration.

I’ve seen so many times kids looking in the back and then missing the next apex. Or looking in the back and then forgetting to use the track on the entry. Because you fractionally move the focus from what’s ahead of you to what’s behind. And once you look to the front again, you have a little time lag where you have to reset your focus.

And it’s not good, because when you arrive into a corner, you’ve got to have max focus. Yes, you should be able to do a corner almost with closed eyes, for how well you have trained that track, with repetition, with visualization and so on. But looking in the back too often is just going to give you worse lap times and more mistakes. Even the most experienced drivers lose the pace and lose the focus, even so slightly.

What should you do instead in the middle of a race?

Your only focus has to be on putting your head down and delivering the best lap times possible, doing every single corner as well as you possibly can.

By doing so you will gap the drivers right behind you. You’re going to pull away from them and catch the drivers in front, if you have anyone in front. And by doing it repeatedly, you build the habit and you build the confidence. You get even better pace, because when you’re looking forward, you’re not losing the focus.

The other drivers are one of the most common sources of mistakes, because drivers start reacting rather than driving to the best of their abilities. If they look behind and a driver closes up on them, they get anxious, make more mistakes, or even worse, start to defend halfway through the race. And if you want to know whether a gap is really closing, I go through it in how to tell a real gap from the concertina effect.

Why do drivers look back in a race?

There are many, many reasons why drivers look in the back. The main ones, to be honest, are three.

Reason 1: fear of being overtaken

The number one reason is that they’re afraid of being overtaken. If you have nobody behind you, and your mechanics are telling you there’s a massive gap, most of the time the kids follow the instructions and don’t look in the back. The fear is taken out of the equation, so the driver is relaxed.

But when there is no gap and you’re afraid to get overtaken, especially on a weekend where you don’t have so much pace, or the kart is not performing, or you are not performing, you don’t have much confidence in your package and maybe in yourself. That’s when you see the body language change. The driver starts to look in the back more often.

And again, it’s a short term decision. Looking in the back is not going to help you. The driver behind is not going to disappear. You are actually giving him the signal, the body language signal, the psychological signal, that you are afraid of him and afraid of being overtaken. You are signalling your lack of confidence in that moment.

Reason 2: wanting to know if they are fast

The second one is crazy, really. So many kids tell me they look in the back because they want to figure out whether they’re fast or not. It’s a way for them to assess their pace. Even adults, to be honest. And I think I made the same mistake.

But I’m like, mate, shouldn’t you just look at the driver in front and understand if you’re closing up or not? And they say, “Yeah, but if I’m closing up on the driver in front, I don’t know if the driver behind is closing up too.” Mate, if you’re closing up on the driver in front so much, you’re probably pulling away from the drivers in the back. It was a never ending argument.

Who cares? It doesn’t matter whether you’re the fastest on track or not. Put your head down and close the gap to the driver in front. If the driver behind is quicker and overtakes you in the meantime, no problem. You wish it didn’t happen. But now let’s follow him, and let’s go and catch the driver in front.

I’ve seen it so many times. A driver without the ultimate pace gets overtaken by somebody quicker, follows him, they both overtake the leader, and then it’s a one against one fight in the last couple of laps. And with experience, even with little pace, he’s still able to win the race.

I think I won a race like that, a long, long time ago in juniors. Those races are the most rewarding, because you realize you did the best strategy. You didn’t have the best pace, but you took all the right bets and it worked.

Reason 3: checking whether the gap is safe

The third reason is that they want to check the gap, to see if it makes them safe from being overtaken for the next few laps. Essentially it’s still related to the number one reason, the fear of being overtaken. And it’s linked to knowing whether to defend or not.

On the last lap that makes sense. You’ve got to know whether someone is close enough to you to have to defend. But remember, you don’t necessarily need to defend on the last lap. If you defend and there’s no need to, the drivers behind are going to close up on you, and at some point there will be a need.

What does looking back tell the driver behind you?

It signals to the drivers behind that you are afraid. That you are fragile, that you’re not very confident in yourself, that in that moment you don’t feel very strong mentally. And if you look in the back a little too often, they’re going to start to notice. Oh, this guy is struggling. I have to pass him as soon as possible.

If I’m coming up to a driver and he’s looking in the back, that’s the first thing I do. I just want to pass him as soon as possible, because I know he may start defending. So you looking in the back is actually giving an edge to the driver behind you.

I see a lot of drivers that, whenever they make a mistake, look behind right away. That signals to the driver behind: okay, the driver in front is under stress, he’s panicking and making lots of mistakes. So he wants to pass him right away.

Body language plays a massive role in what other drivers think of you. You can’t fake it though. If you’ve got confidence in yourself and in the kart, you’re going to appear confident in the eyes of your competitors, and they’re going to treat you differently.

I have used that signal against people

And I have used that so many times to my advantage, when I was behind a driver.

The WSK last lap I won because he looked back

At one WSK round I closed up on the driver in front, but it was the second last lap of the race. I knew that if he didn’t make a big mistake, he would win the race and I would finish P2, because I was running out of laps. I didn’t have the chance to really attack.

But I remember very well. The mechanic in the grandstands gave him a signal to push very hard, because he knew I was coming so fast behind him. I was P2, he was P1. He had been driving alone all race, basically no real threats from the back. But I was three tenths a lap faster the whole race, and I just closed up. And he looked in the back, and realized I was right there, like two kart lengths behind at the beginning of the last lap.

The moment I saw him look back, I could feel he lost some confidence. I could feel he was quite afraid of being overtaken. And that’s when he started to do some crazy things, half moves here, half moves there. And when he made a half move, I just sent it, got him into turn two, and won the race.

The zebra and the lion

If I’m looking in the back, I know I will become more vulnerable. You make yourself more vulnerable. It’s like you are a little prey.

Let’s say you are a zebra and there’s a lion in the savannah, and you’re trying to hide in the middle of the bushes. The lion is there. And you looking in the back is what makes you more vulnerable.

Every time you look in the back, you get more vulnerable, you lose the focus, and you start to make mistakes. Most of the good drivers I know are going to go for you and overtake you as soon as possible. And remember, you looking in the back doesn’t mean the drivers are going to disappear. They’re still going to be there, man. So just focus on what’s in front.

Why does defending after a mistake turn into a vicious cycle?

I don’t want you to be like, “Oh, but Alessio told me I shouldn’t be looking in the back.” You should look in the back when you need it. But say you make a mistake and you have six drivers behind you. You could say, well, I need it, because if I don’t, I’m going to get passed.

But if you keep making mistakes, and you keep looking in the back, and you keep defending, it’s a vicious cycle that’s never going to end. You keep getting worse. And at some point some driver behind you is going to go inside you and make a dive bomb, even if you’re defending. Maybe he crashes into you. But that’s going to be your fault.

I’ve seen this happening to myself once. I was like, I’ve got to defend, I’ve got to defend, I’ve got to defend. And then, oh, somebody drove over me. And it’s so frustrating when you see somebody defending every corner. It happens to me. At some point you just feel like taking that bumper penalty and smashing the guy in front. I’m not saying you should. It’s not right, and you shouldn’t. But you get my point. You do not want to build that kind of frustration.

Now, if you’re struggling in the last two laps of the race, you have some sort of technical issue or you just have zero pace for whatever reason, and you need to bring it home, it makes sense. I give you the green light for looking in the back and defending. But it has to be for a justifiable reason.

If you do it because you made a mistake, and then you keep making mistakes because you keep looking in the back, you can’t escape that. Never ending cycle. Well, that is not how you learn to drive.

When should you defend, and when should you just drive your race?

As I like to tell my drivers at BabyRace, the best war is the one that you don’t even fight. The goal is that you don’t even have to fight this war. It’s really that important.

So you should defend only when truly needed. Because if you defend, they’re going to close the gap on you. On the last lap, even two kart lengths may need a defence, because the driver behind may attempt a crazy move down the inside, knowing it’s the last lap. Halfway through the race, with two or three kart lengths, the driver behind will probably think twice before passing you.

If you defend when there’s no need, you will never move forward. If you defend, you can’t set fastest laps. You can’t pull away from the others. You can’t close up on the leaders. You cannot catch the one in front of you.

So always remember this. Keep it in the back of your mind. The last lap is where it changes, and I go through it in last lap mastery: how to defend your position. For the whole picture, read when to overtake vs when to defend and why defending too much is a losing strategy.

What if the driver behind dive bombs you?

To be honest, if the driver behind wants to make a dive bomb, that’s nothing you can control. If he wants to pass you, let him pass. Unfortunately you cannot control another driver’s decisions. And because you can’t control his decision, you just have to focus on yours.

If somebody wants to make a crazy, silly move on you, let him do that. Honestly, you can’t control that. You need to only focus on what you can control. I learned this the hard way, a long time ago.

So if somebody is two or three kart lengths away and he wants to overtake you, let him do that. If he drives over you, well, it’s not your fault, it’s his fault. You can’t say, “Oh, I wish I looked in the back so I could defend.” No. Because if you reason like that, you will never win a race. You will always be defending when there’s no need.

Control what you can control

My coach at a GP3 race in Budapest told me, “Listen, Alessio, you’ve got to focus on what you can control.” You cannot control if somebody is going to crash into you. You cannot control the weather. You cannot control if the car breaks down.

But you can control your level of focus. You can control your preparation. You can control your fitness. You can control your visualization. You can control how much time you spend on a simulator practising that specific track. You can control the data analysis you do. You can control how you brake, how much steering you put in. Those things you can control.

How do you break the habit of looking back?

I have found a solution for that. One of the only ways I figured out to fix this problem, which again is very common among drivers. It did happen to me. I was not immune to this. I had to swallow the medicine, and my mechanic basically gave me the reality check: if you want to be a professional driver and you want to win races, you can’t keep looking in the back.

So this is what I tell the driver for the next session. You do not focus on anything else besides looking forward every lap. Even if somebody is trying to pass you. Even if somebody is closing up. Even if you’re two seconds off. I don’t care.

You just focus lap by lap on building the habit of looking forward. You don’t care if you miss the apex. You don’t care if you’re off the pace. Don’t think about it. Only look forward. I want you to do a full session without looking backwards. Then we try another full session. Then one more. And then the whole day like that, without looking back.

And you’ll see. You start to pick up better lap times, more consistency, and you build more confidence. So this is my exercise for all the drivers that have this bad habit.

Why the mechanic has to hold you to it

If you have a coach working with you one on one, or a mechanic, it’s easy for them to just look at you. But at BabyRace I work with a lot of drivers. I can’t look at just one driver. I’ve got two eyes, and I need to spread them around ten drivers or so. So I normally get the mechanic and the driver to make this deal, and the mechanic has to be accountable for whether the driver did it or not.

It works wonderfully well, in my opinion. Because the driver understands, okay, somebody’s watching me. They have no expectations about my lap times. They’re happy even if I’m slow, no problem. So the only task right now is to break the bad habit of looking backwards and build a new habit of looking forward.

And once a kid understands that, even adults, to be honest, it’s a new habit being built. It’s going to be second nature afterwards. In my case it has become second nature.

And if you want to work on habits like this with me for good, I’ve got a six months training program.

What do drivers ask most about looking back in a race?

Should you look behind you in a kart race?

Only at the right times. Lap one, lap two, the second last lap and the last lap, and when the drivers in front are defending and the whole group is bunched up. The rest of the race, 90% of the times drivers look in the back, it’s useless.

Why is looking back bad in karting?

It costs you focus. Kids look in the back and then miss the next apex, because after looking back you have a little time lag where you have to reset your focus. And it signals to the driver behind that you are afraid of being overtaken.

Why do kart drivers look back?

Mostly because they are afraid of being overtaken. Some want to know if they are fast, and some want to check if the gap is safe. If you want to know if you are fast, look at the driver in front and see if you are closing up.

How do you stop looking back in a race?

Do a full session looking only forward, even if somebody is closing up and even if you are two seconds off. Then another session, then a whole day. Ask your mechanic to watch you and hold you to it.

Should you defend on the last lap?

Only if someone is close enough to you. If you defend when there’s no need, the drivers behind close up on you, and at some point there will be a need.

I hope this was valuable. If you want me to look at how you drive in traffic, send me your onboard for an onboard review. And if you want to work on your racecraft and your habits for good, that is what we do in the 6 months transformation. Otherwise, I hope to hear from you soon on Instagram @alessiolorandi. Remember to keep sending it. Ciao.