These are some good comments. If you don't mind, I'd like to add to them...
#1. If at all possible, brake in a straight line. (example, first turn at Laguna Seca, Fuji, end of muslanne strait on Sarthe, etc) You should have your car lined up and brake in a straight line without having to adjust your steering. The less steering adjustment during braking, the better) Brake hard, then before apex pump brakes to loosen your rear end
You do want to do most of your braking in a straight line. However, at the end of your braking comes a critical period of time where you transition from braking to turning. Done properly, the end of the braking and the beginning of the turn should overlap with braking smoothly letting off as the turning smoothly rolls on. It's called trail braking, and it's considered one of the most difficult aspects of turning to master.
Pumping the brakes as you describe is an interesting innovation and useful in some cases to save yourself, but it's not actually a good way to intentionally attack a turn. The more time the car spends off balance, the less total traction it has. Intentionally tossing it off balance is lost time. The fastest way around the track involves smooth movements and keeping the car on balance as much as possible. In the long run, weight transfer is the mortal enemy of speed.
There are two primary reasons why a properly setup car refuses to turn in readily at the beginning of a turn.
The most common reason is that you're simply going too fast at the turn in point. You've overshot the turn, and now you're asking the car to turn hard and brake hard at the same time and it just can't. It is not uncommon to want to pitch the car sideways here to force the turn in and scrape off speed in a big sideways drift. This looks and feels cool, but it's actually quite slow. As a rule, sideways motoring on tarmac is to be avoided.
The second and less obvious phenominon is when you reach the turn in point at the right speed, but the car is standing on its nose and refuses to turn in. Often, this will be experienced at only one or two turns and maybe only sometimes. The car seems to turn in fine everywhere except this one turn.
What's happening is you're trying to enter the turn with the front suspension in a fully compressed state and the car completely tilted forward from hard braking... ie. with the car 'standing on its nose'. The suspension geometry is not designed to turn while in that state... the cambers are all wrong. The caster is wrong. Everything is wrong. Essentually, when you try to turn in this state, the tires will only have their edges in contact with the road, and they won't grip. The front tires enter a sliding state and they won't come back out again without dropping off way too much speed.. you slide toward the outside of the turn like your tires were made of butter.
To avoid this effect, you need to give the suspension time to regain its balance just before entering into the turn. This plays into the smooth transition from braking to turning. The suspension can not go from full brakes directly to full turning.
It can be shocking how much of a difference it makes. And the differences in what you do at the controls are subtle. But when you do it right, you almost wouldn't think you were driving the same car.
#2. Test various braking distances and mark with track environment to see which distance is most effective
Yes, that's exactly right. Ignore the suggested gear indicator and learn to measure your position by track elements and points of reference near the track. You'll get much more steady and repeatable results.
#3. To assist understeer blip throttle or lightly accelerate (not full throttle, this will send you into a wall or widen your turning radius greatly)
This depends on whether it's a front wheel drive, all wheel drive, or rear wheel drive car. Front wheel drive and all wheel drive always understeer when you give them more gas. Rear wheel drive understeers given a little more gas, and oversteers given a lot more gas.
This is one of the aspects that make rear wheel drive very fast (at the expense of being more difficult to master). Much of the time, you steer the car with the throttle, not the steering wheel.
#4. Once a turn is completed, immediately maneuver to outside line furthest from next apex
If you've done it right, the car should naturally drift to the outside line of the turn. Or.. to be more specific... you know you've done a turn well when (a) you touched the apex (b) you applied full throttle at or before the apex (c) you were able to hold full throttle without letting up (d) you were able to slowly unwind the wheel as you neared the outside line and finally (e) the car naturally drifted to the outside line on exit without actually having to steer there.
That 'unwinding the wheel' part is typically the most mystifying part of that. But it's absolutely correct. If you're doing it right, you should be able to smoothly unwind the wheel starting from the apex. It's part of the smooth transition from full turning to full acceleration on the turn exit... just like the smooth transition from full braking to full turning on corner entry.
#5. If you run too wide to return to the outside line of your next apex, speed should be decreased or more oversteer is required (throttle adjustment)
You are correct. However, there are three more common reasons to run out of tarmac on corner exit than you have listed. And they are less obvious.
First, your turn in point may be too early. The later your turn in point, the later your exit point becomes. Turning in too early is a very common problem. Conversely, if you find yourself with a lot of room left on corner exit, you may be turning in too late. (Note that all of this is garbage if you're not managing to touch the apex during the turn. If you're not touching the apex, you're turn is junk and that's the first problem you must address).
Second, you may be crabbing the turn entry. You want to start at the outside of the turn, come in to the apex, and then drift out to the outside again. The common problem is that you look for the apex at the inside of the turn as you approach the turn in point under brakes... and there's a strong tendency to drive the car where you're looking. Rather than entering the turn from the outside line, you crab in a little bit... perhaps starting a few feet in from the outside line instead. This will quickly run you out of realistate on corner exit. And you probably won't even notice yourself doing it unless you're watching for it specifically.
The third and perhaps least obvious problem is with negotiating a long turn... circa 90 degrees or more... A lot of folks advocate the idea of always being on full throttle or full brakes and never anywhere inbetween. But here's an exception. On many turns... especially long turns... there is an often brief period where you need to be on what is called 'maintainence throttle'. That is... just enough throttle to hold your speed or increase speed very slightly.
In a very very long turn that takes multiple seconds at constant radius... this can be pretty obvious.. you stay on the inside of the turn at maintainence throttle for a long period until you can go to full throttle at exit and drift out to the outside line.
But there are a lot of long corners where you do this only very briefly.. maybe just a fraction of a second... but you still must do it or you will run out of tarmac on exit even if you did everything else right. You'll find several turns like that on Laguna Seca. And it's not obvious that this is what you must do... instead, it seems like you just never nail the corner entry point and speed correctly no matter how hard you try.
Wow... I've just gone on for a long time. Anyway.. I hope my blabbering is helpful to someone. These are RL techniques I'm talking about here, btw. They just happen to work in GT because it's a pretty awefully good simulator.
- Skant
). And I actually use Gran Turismo to practice when I'm not chewing up expensive tires on the real track.
