Leaning out is such a good tip. Gave that tip to my family last time karting (and it was a really long corner covering almost a quarter of the track) and they all gained at least a second per lap.
Yes I found this tip very insightful and actually logical from the physics standpoint. Hearing that it can make such a big difference gives me hopes for the future.
plus, on the overdriving part, when someone is right behind you, they'll put lots of pressure on you which leads to stress. and the stress might cause you to overdrive yourself and screw up on track. therefore you need to stay calm and drive fast but responsibly.
On the flip side it is a great way to encourage the driver ahead of you to overcook their corner and open the door for you to slip past.. as long as you’re ready for it.
Braking point is such a slippery meaning. It depends on many conditions: weather, your weight, condition of the kart you are driving, but most important thing that changes throughout the session is the tyre temperature. The longer you drive, the closer is the braking point to the corner.
Very good point. Time of year and time of day can play such a huge factor in my experience and I’m still in my first year of league level karting lol. The cooler evenings have surprised me in really slowing down tire warmup. Becoming proficient at feathering the throttle has helped a whole lot.
It really is slippery, my karting coaches and even their head say that nobody can teach me the exact braking point, they can only say where they brake or the point where many people either brake or close to the many people's braking points, but to find my braking point, they say that only I can find it.
The circuit you show is way better than what we have. That's the issue... I love Karting but on that circuit you can't go to the top speed of the kart... We had a good circuit near my city, but then porche bought everything and decided "nah ah, porche center for car testing..." it was not a bad decision, but we loved that circuit... On the circuit we have now it is so hard to overtake because the space is small and they had to make lots of 180 degrees curves
@@Wetzwagen in theory, it is. because the rental kart places need to make profit... but then again, it's a lot cheaper and easier to just rent one if you aren't karting regularly, and don't have a track right outside your door.
Some of us renters drift on purpose- I usually do this toward the end of a session after I've gotten comfortable driving the Kart. My last few laps are always junk! But they're the funnest laps!
When the Eurobeat kicks in. Also same. When the tires have started to degrade a bit and you just start to drift through every second corner, it's really fun.
I have no idea why I found this but I really want to go karting again now 😂 Learnt something on the lean though. I was always the fastest in my group but was leaning into turns (my group are not necessarily very good 😅) interesting to see the physics behind it have to give that a try now
The most important part (which is not mentioned in this video) is that gokarts have no differentials. Therefore you get a lot of friction during a turn that brakes the kart, also working against turning the kart. If you put more of your weight on one side, the other side will lift off easier and you get less tire friction (on the inner tire) during a turn. This is also the reason why you want to steer as little as possible.
this is all good advice for someone who wants to do it as a hobby or even wants to start karting for real. for the occasional race with your friends (first or second timers) this doesn’t work at all. brake? they’ll slam into you and complain. out-in-out? they’ll slam into you for “cutting them off”. want to be slow-in-fast-out? ahah good luck! some fast-in idiot is going to pass you mid corner (if he manages not to slam into you) and then you can’t be fast-out if you got a slow-out prick in front of you
I think it would be worth it to mention how certain corners reward a good exit more than others. Like the example you had at milton keynes daytona, that corner is a perfect example of "critical" exit speed because its huge straight and uphill so every mph you hold on to it is time down the straight, but some corners are tighter and lead straight in to the next corner and some times some agressive rotation and sacrifice of ultimate exit speed will win you time by track positioning.
Thank you for your videos. I learned so much from it and with a lot of practices I can shave a second off my fastest time at my first ever session and only 0.6 seconds behind the fastest time of the month. I might invest on a camera so that I can learn more about my driving style
Another technique is "indexing the corners". That is where you analyze your performance on a corner or turn sequence basis, not on lap times. This helps you drill down into places you can improve.
Great video, really practical tips, really well illustrated. I need to work on the leaning, I think instinctively I keep bolt upright! Your point about working at it, not getting disheartened, is well made. Driving a kart fast is a skill and like any other skill, progress comes only from working hard and being prepared to learn. It's a tiny percentage of racers that have so much natural talent that they can win without the work!
I'm 68 so will never be a F1 driver but have rented karts all over the world in the past. I wish I'd had these tips 50 years ago and been able to practise in the meantime 😁 Great video, thanks. My last karting session was in Puerto Princesa, Palawan at PIC (Palawan International Circuit), Philippines ~6 months ago where I did a video of my GF (first time) trying it out - fun. She needs to watch this before next time. Say hi to Jon (Manager) if you ever go there.
Great vid. It's hard for me to do karting often because it's a bit too expensive where I live. I basically do maybe three 8 minute sessions a month. But I got myself a simracing setup as of late and now I basically have unlimited track time whenever I want. It's not a perfect practice for karting which is very different to more "proper" cars you can drive on the sim, but even the universal things that carry over to every single type of race car or kart are enough to cut a few tenths easily. It helps especially with properly using your brake and throttle. You learn this quickly on the sim where you can see a lot of people on the kart track try to use these just as if they were driving a road car. It also helps with track awareness and dealing with slower drivers quickly because you do that very often on the sim in rookie categories. I drive Formula Vee on iRacing for now and let me tell you, it's a lot closer to a kart than to an F1 car, even if it's a bit more complicated.
I thought I won't learn anything new, but I was leaning incorrectly(although I do remember last time I went Karting that by the end of the session I was just chilling into the seat, letting it swing me), and it definitely makes sense to try to put pressure on the outside tire, just like skiing - it is a bit counterintuitive because you would think improving contact on all 4 tires should be better.
Started (very) late at karting... Still... I did all those things (but for the written log, eheh) out of instinct. Ended up going up into 2 stroke racing karts but never had money to hire a professional assistance team, so I was my own engineer and my own mechanic. Still, I managed to win 2 tournament titles in my country before I retired due to not money enough to go up to Formulas and not young enough either, eheh, but it was worth it, some of the best days of my life. Your advice is quite correct, I'll just add another trick... Usually rental karts have WIDE seats, in order to accommodate all sizes of drivers so, as an improvement to leaning I also jumped a little from left to right, adjusting my body on each corner in a way that I was always on the "out" side of the seat, relative to corner, it's just a tiny adjustment, lift my arse just enough to slide the weight 1 inch or so to the correct side before I enter the corner, but it works too, together with leaning out. Also, I used another rule which I think it applies to ANY motorsport: "on a chained sequence of corners you enter the first in a way that you are optimizing the exit of the last" From time to time I still race in rental karts, for fun, mostly a few races in SWS (Sodikart World Series qualifying races), I'm 60 now, I should be wiser, lol... But the virus of speed is still there. Keep up the nice videos.
being an ATV driver, you always need to lean into the corner, when i did karting it was so strange that doing the same make me slower, now i could see why i was doing a bad job since i preffer much more other type of racing instead of open wheel thanks for the video and info
The over speeding for a corner is a big one. Many newbies don't understand, the limit of cornering speed is a real thing. A tyre can only generate so much cornering force and if you exceed the speed carrying capacity of that cornering force, you will slide which will make you understeer or oversteer (depending on whether it was the front or rear tyres that dropped off in cornering force first...seating position being the significant deciding factor of which of the two will occur), causing you to then run wide of the racing line and make you miss your apex and to bring the kart back under your control you then have to spend time slowing down again with another braking phase and straightening your steering wheel to regain grip and then reapply steering lock after grip regained to complete the a second mini turn in phase to complete the turn needed before finally returning to a proper full unwind of the steering wheel on exit, non of which you would have had to additionally do if you had just slowed down more and/or earlier in the first place. So instead of now speeding up and unwinding the steering wheel out of the corner, you're having to perform a second braking phase at the mid portion of the corner with a second turn in phase, completing ruining your exit and losing valuable multiple tenths of a second (if not more than a second) down the following straight. Aka....slow in-slow out.
Leaning out effectively makes your kart have a limited slip differential. Around a corner the inside wheel has to turn in a tighter space and has less grip. By leaning on the outside you're giving max grip to the tire going the long way around and removing the stress from the inside tire which needs to travel less distance and more likely to lose grip. Top tip.
Good tips. Our rental kart track only has one zone where you really need to brake though. It's kind of frustrating but you can keep the gas mashed the whole way around.
Saw so much videos about how specificly in Karting drifiting is a thing you SHOULD do and not avoid. But I guess it depends on what kind of track you are on.
I always thought that that leaning in helped a lot, as it made the cart bounce much less in the corners and keep grip. Keep neutral or outwards leaning made it bounce much quicker at the limit, while leaning inwards kept it clean of sliding and bouncing? I assumed the carts do have a diff...
i recently went gokarting the first time since i was a child, and on that track i drove a personal best of 31.14, while the track record in general is:28.52. a difference of 2.62sec. i know this would be a terrible split for a pro driver but i feel pretty good about it. i wonder how much practice i would need to close the gap by half
I'm here after having lost to my little brother AND my girlfriend. Total hummiliation. So now i'm ready for the next time, which is probably years away, but better to be prepared than to be crushed again.
I am a freshman for BA ( Hons ) Language Studies ( English and German ) at The Open University London, as non resident student living in Hamburg. I am doing a crash-course-like for karting, presently in RS Kartcentre in Lüneburger Heide.
I travel alot for work and i hit any track with good rental karts i can find all over the country. I can generally post a top 5 time for the week within 3 sessions if that is being tracked. Rarely am i not the 1st or 2nd best lap of the session. I have never even thought about the way i lean in the corners, but im pretty sure im leaning into them instead of out. I will be applying that tip going forward.
My karting coaches say that it significantly gets more difficult during the early parts of the session in indoor karting rentals if you're the first customer and you're practicing alone because the tires and track are cold which really reduces the kart's handling which is why they suggested that I do it in times when there are also other customers, but not too crowded, just enough to ensure that the track is warmed up at least, but preferably if both the track and kart tires are warmed up.
Practice lines / out in out to learn the track, then work on braking and keeping up corner speed. When you get good you'll be mashing the brake as late as possible coming up to a braking zone.
Leaning out is really important because the car has no diff. In addtion, you can try shifting the seat a bit forward or backward. I feel I'm fastest with the seat a bit too forward compared to the typically recommended position because I get bit more weight to the front wheels and I get less understeering. Don't overdo it or you lose time sliding, though.
The point of leaning into the corner is to evenly load the tyres. A higher individually loaded tyre loses efficiency and decreases the maximum available traction. It is similar reasoning to why fatter tyres provide more grip.
I used to live near the IMI track in Colorado and went semi regularly for a while. I was getting ok and qualified to move up to their shifters. But I moved to Washington and there’s no good tracks for high performance carts anywhere:( I miss it… especially since now I have some cash I would consider buying a decent cart.
The direction you lean in depends on the weather conditions, the corner and where others are compared to you. In optimal conditions you lean outwards to increase the grip through the turn.
Technically, you lean outwards to decrease grip on the inside rear tire, to allow it to slip easily. Otherwise, a grippy inside rear will be trying to send you straight.
@@zqzj but leaning to the outside can cause skidding also, remember that. You can start to drift instead of grip, and drifting make you lose time. It really depends of the track and weather conditions
Hi, i struggle with my body. I feel very tired after racing. I dont practice i just done it a couple times in my life, is it because of one of the points you mentioned on the video (going against the force g) ? I really appreciate your videos, Im a new sub.
In New Caledonia where I live, there's only one karting track... And the biggest issue that prevents lap time improvement is that they make people of every skill level race at the same time. So when someone is braking way too much in a corner and you can't overtake, your lap time goes to trash 😂
i would like more explanations on the "lean out" advice cause every single other sports needs you to lean in to balance the G force and maintain your torque, even in bike/moto you can see them leaning in and puting a knee on the ground, so go cart would be the only one exception ?
I personally was never a consistent driver on track, but i was a fast one. I've always understood what a good racing line would be and i always experiment and drove to the limit wheter itd be a karting or a car, but i was horribly at passing others. I never found the balance of being bold and stupid with overtakes. Still i have a blast at racing others sense i think ill get the hang of it someday
If you not able to lean out of the corner and leaning in, check that you sitting relaxed. Don't use the steering wheel as a handle bar especially in the corner.
Accelerate gradually in petrol karts otherwise you’ll flood the engine with revs and get bogged down. In electric karts you can be more aggressive with the accelerator because torque is instant.
Is this track in Qatar? I used to live there for a few years and really enjoyed that track! Back in the UK now and using the Lakeside vid to get better! 😊
I tried to apply the tip of leaning out where I practice, but turns out when I lean into the corners I get more grip while leaning out I tend to slide too much. Is there a tip for that? Am I doing something wrong ( which I believe ) or it could be possibly the kart I'm driving? Thanks in advance. And thanks for your nice videos :) I love'em.
Great feedback! It's interesting the challenge you're facing. Are you driving at an indoor or outdoor track? And are the karts petrol or electric? I recommend do a session with NO leaning, just let your body go with the natural force when cornering. Sometimes when you lean too much to the outside it can unsettle the kart. Also try a different kart out.
Don't forget, there is a solid rear axle, and the tyres on the outside of the turn need to turn faster than the inside tyres to maintain the speed. If you are leaning in, you will trying to use the inside tyre's linear velocity dictate the speed that the axle rotates, and the outside tyre will scrub. It is not a huge amount, but it affects your corner exit speed. And of course the natural grip is on the outside and you want the inside tyres to scrub - faster axle rotation and faster corner exit speed
And dont hold the wheel high up like the old 10/2 positions. Hold it lower. The higher you hold it the harder it is to make small adjustments to your steering through corners. As you end up "pulling" the wheel to the right or left. If you hold it lower down it's just gentle little "pushes" to correct the steering.
First few times on a kart track I was exhausted from "pulling" the steering wheel - switching to a lower grip position and "pushing" the steering wheel helped a lot!
I have a question: In sim-racing (with cars) trail braking is really emphasized. One professional IRL and sim racer promoted early, and light braking, in order to make the lift-part of the braking longer, or more important. In this video, obviously concenring carts, you teach hard braking, and making the cart rotate on entry, from braking. Is the turn-in with the wheel sort less important than it is with cars? And when does it happen?
Hey! I use GoPro Hero 10 and Insta360 X2. GoPro is sharper quality but Insta has wider FOV. I attach both cameras to my helmet using GoPro curved adhesive mount.
...and remember, as your laptimes improve, your braking points will change and you will have to account for this increase in speed by either lifting or beginning your braking sooner than under your slower laptimes. Finally, identify who have the best laptimes or even who has the track record and talk with them about their techniques and lines around the circuit. If possible, schedule a session with them and ask if you can shadow them for a few laps.
Hi! I'm nit a fast karter, but regulary had the much slower, opponent porblem. When I know of my kart was can do more speed, but the guy in front of me just turn into me when I go to overtake him. And because I usualy drive on tight tracks go out and overtake here is impossible vecause the walls. And when I change for the inner line to the outer and accelerate alongside of my opponent he decide to put me on the wall. The Verstappen mentality. "You back of or we crash." Sometimes they get black falgged but... I'm not aganist a racing, but do it normaly and not use the kart like a weapon...
Iam allready in the Top 5 on my local Track and its getting incredibly hard to improve but ill try to alternate my leaning the next time im there. Maybe i can gain something from that, because im leaning in heavy. My main Problem however seems to be that im super small and sit far forward which means i got less weight on the backaxle.
If you go to one of these in a group, and all the karts are the same, as well as equivalent driving skill, the person who weighs the least will have the best lap times.
I remember when they had better karts at lusail, I went earlier this year and felt disappointed in the new equipment. The pandemic really seems like it hit them hard
SOMETHING REEEAALLY IMPORTANT> In the slow in fast out method, the karts are too weak, so the acceleration is generally slow (in my local area). WHAT DO WE DOOOO
At my local track at edmonton the fastest way around the track is not use the full width of the track on entry in some corners but for all other tracks i use the full widrh of the track. Should i still shorten the width in some corners at my own track even with different performing karts?
For some indoor karting tracks, taking a narrow line will actually be faster if the karts are electric because they have instant acceleration (Here's my experiment: th-cam.com/video/gXyLN-Ecl0c/w-d-xo.html).
How I do sometimes when the opponent is parallel is I apply brakes a bit hard and hit the gas once to the full so that the tires scratch will be a bit controlled and I gradually in seconds to accelerate faster.
lean out is massive on speedway surface dirt like aidka its the difference between WOT and gaining rpm in a sweeper vs WOT and not gaining rpm on a sweeper also lean forward for mad weight transfer on the front if u feel the mid engine setup cuck you in a drift
I also think a persons weight is into play.. as i have done sessions in rental carts and a kid who was half my weight pulled away from me exitting the corner.. and we where both making beginners fails like leaning inwards.. but if 5 to 10 hp will pull 50 kg better then 115 kg..
I only went carting once and it happened to be a 1 hour race (I didnt know this, someone else signed me up). I was drifting through every corner, didnt brake at all and still was in the middle of the group... 🤷🏻♂️
today I was go-karting for the first time and I had a distorted straight on which I was giving the gas as much as possible and at the end I braked and from the last place I overtook everyone and won in 1st place, sometimes I also drifted because I was going fast
i used to go for karting sadly the track has been destroyed because they sold the land to someone else and now the other track i can go to is quite far .
How much do you think does additional body weight impact laptime? We drive at a smaller racetrack and the karts are somewhat weaker. If one looses momentum, the kart basically is like down to 0 speed.
Last time I went karting the staff there were excellent at helping us. However there was an utter moron (brought his motocross helmet type) on the track taking the kids out by smashing up the inside and spinning them, racing around full speed on yellows, did 3 laps after the chequered flag as he never saw any flags and then tried to go 3 abreast into a corner the next race and ran out of tarmac and hit the wall and tried to fight the other 2 he was along side. This approach stopped anyone on the 2 sessions getting better as the kids just spent the sessions spinning and being scared and the adults were just trying to get out his way all the time
Leaning out is such a good tip. Gave that tip to my family last time karting (and it was a really long corner covering almost a quarter of the track) and they all gained at least a second per lap.
Yes I found this tip very insightful and actually logical from the physics standpoint.
Hearing that it can make such a big difference gives me hopes for the future.
the leaning bit is a new one for me. thanks for pointing that out!
plus, on the overdriving part, when someone is right behind you, they'll put lots of pressure on you which leads to stress. and the stress might cause you to overdrive yourself and screw up on track. therefore you need to stay calm and drive fast but responsibly.
And resist the temptation to look behind.
On the flip side it is a great way to encourage the driver ahead of you to overcook their corner and open the door for you to slip past.. as long as you’re ready for it.
I really don't like when slow drivers hug the corners. Especially in these small indoors.
Just give them a little encouragement to dive into the corner faster and use the good ‘ol cutback move on them.
What’s behind me doesn’t bother me. 😂
Braking point is such a slippery meaning. It depends on many conditions: weather, your weight, condition of the kart you are driving, but most important thing that changes throughout the session is the tyre temperature. The longer you drive, the closer is the braking point to the corner.
Very good point. Time of year and time of day can play such a huge factor in my experience and I’m still in my first year of league level karting lol. The cooler evenings have surprised me in really slowing down tire warmup. Becoming proficient at feathering the throttle has helped a whole lot.
@@JJPelszynski hot weather isn't good either. Myself, I did my fastest laps during something like +18 sunny weather.
It really is slippery, my karting coaches and even their head say that nobody can teach me the exact braking point, they can only say where they brake or the point where many people either brake or close to the many people's braking points, but to find my braking point, they say that only I can find it.
The good part is that this doesn’t only apply to go karts, but actual racing pathing or sims as well. Great stuff!
Agreed. My single biggest improvement in iRacing came when I stopped leaning in to corners.
@@patrick4520 bruuuuuh
@@patrick4520lol
The circuit you show is way better than what we have. That's the issue...
I love Karting but on that circuit you can't go to the top speed of the kart...
We had a good circuit near my city, but then porche bought everything and decided "nah ah, porche center for car testing..." it was not a bad decision, but we loved that circuit...
On the circuit we have now it is so hard to overtake because the space is small and they had to make lots of 180 degrees curves
the main reason is because it costs $15/10 mins
I sometimes think its cheaper to just get your own kart
28$ for 10 mins near me
@@Wetzwagen in theory, it is. because the rental kart places need to make profit...
but then again, it's a lot cheaper and easier to just rent one if you aren't karting regularly, and don't have a track right outside your door.
30€ for 15min for me😭
15$? try 30$ per ten mins. 💀
Some of us renters drift on purpose- I usually do this toward the end of a session after I've gotten comfortable driving the Kart. My last few laps are always junk! But they're the funnest laps!
When the Eurobeat kicks in.
Also same. When the tires have started to degrade a bit and you just start to drift through every second corner, it's really fun.
I have no idea why I found this but I really want to go karting again now 😂
Learnt something on the lean though. I was always the fastest in my group but was leaning into turns (my group are not necessarily very good 😅) interesting to see the physics behind it have to give that a try now
Same for me, what he says make a lot of sense however
The most important part (which is not mentioned in this video) is that gokarts have no differentials. Therefore you get a lot of friction during a turn that brakes the kart, also working against turning the kart. If you put more of your weight on one side, the other side will lift off easier and you get less tire friction (on the inner tire) during a turn. This is also the reason why you want to steer as little as possible.
this is all good advice for someone who wants to do it as a hobby or even wants to start karting for real. for the occasional race with your friends (first or second timers) this doesn’t work at all. brake? they’ll slam into you and complain. out-in-out? they’ll slam into you for “cutting them off”. want to be slow-in-fast-out? ahah good luck! some fast-in idiot is going to pass you mid corner (if he manages not to slam into you) and then you can’t be fast-out if you got a slow-out prick in front of you
I think it would be worth it to mention how certain corners reward a good exit more than others.
Like the example you had at milton keynes daytona, that corner is a perfect example of "critical" exit speed because its huge straight and uphill so every mph you hold on to it is time down the straight, but some corners are tighter and lead straight in to the next corner and some times some agressive rotation and sacrifice of ultimate exit speed will win you time by track positioning.
Another tip is setting your seat forward, it really helps
Depends on how the kart is handling in the first place.
@@rlong749go karts are usually understeery
I learned something new. I never knew about leaning out to get better grip and minimising oversteer. Thank you.
Thank you for your videos. I learned so much from it and with a lot of practices I can shave a second off my fastest time at my first ever session and only 0.6 seconds behind the fastest time of the month. I might invest on a camera so that I can learn more about my driving style
Another technique is "indexing the corners". That is where you analyze your performance on a corner or turn sequence basis, not on lap times. This helps you drill down into places you can improve.
Great video, really practical tips, really well illustrated. I need to work on the leaning, I think instinctively I keep bolt upright! Your point about working at it, not getting disheartened, is well made. Driving a kart fast is a skill and like any other skill, progress comes only from working hard and being prepared to learn. It's a tiny percentage of racers that have so much natural talent that they can win without the work!
I'm 68 so will never be a F1 driver but have rented karts all over the world in the past. I wish I'd had these tips 50 years ago and been able to practise in the meantime 😁 Great video, thanks.
My last karting session was in Puerto Princesa, Palawan at PIC (Palawan International Circuit), Philippines ~6 months ago where I did a video of my GF (first time) trying it out - fun. She needs to watch this before next time. Say hi to Jon (Manager) if you ever go there.
Great vid. It's hard for me to do karting often because it's a bit too expensive where I live. I basically do maybe three 8 minute sessions a month. But I got myself a simracing setup as of late and now I basically have unlimited track time whenever I want. It's not a perfect practice for karting which is very different to more "proper" cars you can drive on the sim, but even the universal things that carry over to every single type of race car or kart are enough to cut a few tenths easily. It helps especially with properly using your brake and throttle. You learn this quickly on the sim where you can see a lot of people on the kart track try to use these just as if they were driving a road car. It also helps with track awareness and dealing with slower drivers quickly because you do that very often on the sim in rookie categories. I drive Formula Vee on iRacing for now and let me tell you, it's a lot closer to a kart than to an F1 car, even if it's a bit more complicated.
Great video because you got straight to the point, no long winded intro to each point, explanations are short, sharp, simple.
I thought I won't learn anything new, but I was leaning incorrectly(although I do remember last time I went Karting that by the end of the session I was just chilling into the seat, letting it swing me), and it definitely makes sense to try to put pressure on the outside tire, just like skiing - it is a bit counterintuitive because you would think improving contact on all 4 tires should be better.
This is the best karting video for any beginner
Started (very) late at karting... Still... I did all those things (but for the written log, eheh) out of instinct. Ended up going up into 2 stroke racing karts but never had money to hire a professional assistance team, so I was my own engineer and my own mechanic. Still, I managed to win 2 tournament titles in my country before I retired due to not money enough to go up to Formulas and not young enough either, eheh, but it was worth it, some of the best days of my life. Your advice is quite correct, I'll just add another trick... Usually rental karts have WIDE seats, in order to accommodate all sizes of drivers so, as an improvement to leaning I also jumped a little from left to right, adjusting my body on each corner in a way that I was always on the "out" side of the seat, relative to corner, it's just a tiny adjustment, lift my arse just enough to slide the weight 1 inch or so to the correct side before I enter the corner, but it works too, together with leaning out. Also, I used another rule which I think it applies to ANY motorsport: "on a chained sequence of corners you enter the first in a way that you are optimizing the exit of the last"
From time to time I still race in rental karts, for fun, mostly a few races in SWS (Sodikart World Series qualifying races), I'm 60 now, I should be wiser, lol... But the virus of speed is still there. Keep up the nice videos.
being an ATV driver, you always need to lean into the corner, when i did karting it was so strange that doing the same make me slower, now i could see why i was doing a bad job since i preffer much more other type of racing instead of open wheel
thanks for the video and info
Finally, I can now start putting my extra weight to my advantage knowing to lean outwards.
time, effort... and money :/
I bet you’re fun at parties
Tf u mean. Carting is literally the cheapest autosport
@@earlymorning00 the cheapest motorsport is expensive.
I went rental karting yesterday and this video is perfect for some questions I had! Thank you.
The over speeding for a corner is a big one. Many newbies don't understand, the limit of cornering speed is a real thing. A tyre can only generate so much cornering force and if you exceed the speed carrying capacity of that cornering force, you will slide which will make you understeer or oversteer (depending on whether it was the front or rear tyres that dropped off in cornering force first...seating position being the significant deciding factor of which of the two will occur), causing you to then run wide of the racing line and make you miss your apex and to bring the kart back under your control you then have to spend time slowing down again with another braking phase and straightening your steering wheel to regain grip and then reapply steering lock after grip regained to complete the a second mini turn in phase to complete the turn needed before finally returning to a proper full unwind of the steering wheel on exit, non of which you would have had to additionally do if you had just slowed down more and/or earlier in the first place. So instead of now speeding up and unwinding the steering wheel out of the corner, you're having to perform a second braking phase at the mid portion of the corner with a second turn in phase, completing ruining your exit and losing valuable multiple tenths of a second (if not more than a second) down the following straight. Aka....slow in-slow out.
Leaning out effectively makes your kart have a limited slip differential. Around a corner the inside wheel has to turn in a tighter space and has less grip. By leaning on the outside you're giving max grip to the tire going the long way around and removing the stress from the inside tire which needs to travel less distance and more likely to lose grip. Top tip.
But fanging it into the corner and sliding is so much more fun for casual karting 😎
Good tips. Our rental kart track only has one zone where you really need to brake though. It's kind of frustrating but you can keep the gas mashed the whole way around.
Mile End in London is like that, only need to brake for one corner. Can just chuck it into the others and let the tyres scrub off speed
I always thought i had to lean in, this trick will definitely help thank you
Saw so much videos about how specificly in Karting drifiting is a thing you SHOULD do and not avoid.
But I guess it depends on what kind of track you are on.
I always thought that that leaning in helped a lot, as it made the cart bounce much less in the corners and keep grip. Keep neutral or outwards leaning made it bounce much quicker at the limit, while leaning inwards kept it clean of sliding and bouncing? I assumed the carts do have a diff...
Exactly! I went this morning and was playing around with leaning in vs out, and I bounced around so much by leaning out.
i recently went gokarting the first time since i was a child, and on that track i drove a personal best of 31.14, while the track record in general is:28.52. a difference of 2.62sec. i know this would be a terrible split for a pro driver but i feel pretty good about it. i wonder how much practice i would need to close the gap by half
I joined the girls' karting championship. This tips will benefit me. Thank you ❤❤
While I knew about the other tips, I had no idea about the leaning one! Thanks.
I'm here after having lost to my little brother AND my girlfriend. Total hummiliation. So now i'm ready for the next time, which is probably years away, but better to be prepared than to be crushed again.
I am a freshman for BA ( Hons ) Language Studies ( English and German ) at The Open University London, as non resident student living in Hamburg. I am doing a crash-course-like for karting, presently in RS Kartcentre in Lüneburger Heide.
I travel alot for work and i hit any track with good rental karts i can find all over the country. I can generally post a top 5 time for the week within 3 sessions if that is being tracked. Rarely am i not the 1st or 2nd best lap of the session.
I have never even thought about the way i lean in the corners, but im pretty sure im leaning into them instead of out. I will be applying that tip going forward.
My karting coaches say that it significantly gets more difficult during the early parts of the session in indoor karting rentals if you're the first customer and you're practicing alone because the tires and track are cold which really reduces the kart's handling which is why they suggested that I do it in times when there are also other customers, but not too crowded, just enough to ensure that the track is warmed up at least, but preferably if both the track and kart tires are warmed up.
Ive never EVER heard someone mention body positioning with a kart.... thats awesome
Practice lines / out in out to learn the track, then work on braking and keeping up corner speed. When you get good you'll be mashing the brake as late as possible coming up to a braking zone.
Very good video straight to the topic and of course thanks to this video I managed to do it 2 seconds faster 👍👍
Amazing, I’m happy to hear that 🙌
this is an excellent video dude, good job.
Fantastic tutorials. Clear, detailed, and specific. Thank you!
Leaning out is really important because the car has no diff. In addtion, you can try shifting the seat a bit forward or backward. I feel I'm fastest with the seat a bit too forward compared to the typically recommended position because I get bit more weight to the front wheels and I get less understeering. Don't overdo it or you lose time sliding, though.
Great video. Any advice on how to practice when it costs $23 for a single 12-lap race?
The point of leaning into the corner is to evenly load the tyres. A higher individually loaded tyre loses efficiency and decreases the maximum available traction. It is similar reasoning to why fatter tyres provide more grip.
I did Karting for the 1st time this week and i did pretty great. My best lap on session 1 was 1,17 min but on the last round my best lap was 55.7 sec.
I used to live near the IMI track in Colorado and went semi regularly for a while. I was getting ok and qualified to move up to their shifters.
But I moved to Washington and there’s no good tracks for high performance carts anywhere:(
I miss it… especially since now I have some cash I would consider buying a decent cart.
Yooo, this track looks fire, where do y’all usually go for the nice outdoor tracks?
The direction you lean in depends on the weather conditions, the corner and where others are compared to you.
In optimal conditions you lean outwards to increase the grip through the turn.
Technically, you lean outwards to decrease grip on the inside rear tire, to allow it to slip easily. Otherwise, a grippy inside rear will be trying to send you straight.
@@zqzj but leaning to the outside can cause skidding also, remember that. You can start to drift instead of grip, and drifting make you lose time. It really depends of the track and weather conditions
I'll try to remember that next time I'm at St Eval track, although it's a lot smaller than that track...
Hi, i struggle with my body. I feel very tired after racing. I dont practice i just done it a couple times in my life, is it because of one of the points you mentioned on the video (going against the force g) ?
I really appreciate your videos, Im a new sub.
In New Caledonia where I live, there's only one karting track... And the biggest issue that prevents lap time improvement is that they make people of every skill level race at the same time. So when someone is braking way too much in a corner and you can't overtake, your lap time goes to trash 😂
i would like more explanations on the "lean out" advice cause every single other sports needs you to lean in to balance the G force and maintain your torque, even in bike/moto you can see them leaning in and puting a knee on the ground, so go cart would be the only one exception ?
I personally was never a consistent driver on track, but i was a fast one. I've always understood what a good racing line would be and i always experiment and drove to the limit wheter itd be a karting or a car, but i was horribly at passing others. I never found the balance of being bold and stupid with overtakes. Still i have a blast at racing others sense i think ill get the hang of it someday
If you not able to lean out of the corner and leaning in, check that you sitting relaxed. Don't use the steering wheel as a handle bar especially in the corner.
Is it necessary to accelerate gradually when exiting the corner?.. thanks for the video!
Accelerate gradually in petrol karts otherwise you’ll flood the engine with revs and get bogged down. In electric karts you can be more aggressive with the accelerator because torque is instant.
@@kartingtips thank you very much!
Thank you for the video
Where cab i find a driver log book?
Very useful advice, best regards from Spain
I learned most of this playing granturismo 😂 the cart specific stuff is super interesting though
Is this track in Qatar? I used to live there for a few years and really enjoyed that track! Back in the UK now and using the Lakeside vid to get better! 😊
Yup, it’s Lusail Karting Track 😁
Great Video! Is the first Part from Blindenmarkt Austria? it looks so familiar

It’s actually Lakeside Karting UK
I tried to apply the tip of leaning out where I practice, but turns out when I lean into the corners I get more grip while leaning out I tend to slide too much. Is there a tip for that? Am I doing something wrong ( which I believe ) or it could be possibly the kart I'm driving?
Thanks in advance. And thanks for your nice videos :) I love'em.
Great feedback! It's interesting the challenge you're facing. Are you driving at an indoor or outdoor track? And are the karts petrol or electric?
I recommend do a session with NO leaning, just let your body go with the natural force when cornering. Sometimes when you lean too much to the outside it can unsettle the kart. Also try a different kart out.
Thank you for your quick answer 🙂
It's an outdoor track and petrol karts
Don't forget, there is a solid rear axle, and the tyres on the outside of the turn need to turn faster than the inside tyres to maintain the speed. If you are leaning in, you will trying to use the inside tyre's linear velocity dictate the speed that the axle rotates, and the outside tyre will scrub. It is not a huge amount, but it affects your corner exit speed. And of course the natural grip is on the outside and you want the inside tyres to scrub - faster axle rotation and faster corner exit speed
@@0b1i0 thank you. I'm experimenting some changes in the way I lean. I'll def try to apply your tip too. 😁
And dont hold the wheel high up like the old 10/2 positions. Hold it lower. The higher you hold it the harder it is to make small adjustments to your steering through corners. As you end up "pulling" the wheel to the right or left. If you hold it lower down it's just gentle little "pushes" to correct the steering.
First few times on a kart track I was exhausted from "pulling" the steering wheel - switching to a lower grip position and "pushing" the steering wheel helped a lot!
I have a question:
In sim-racing (with cars) trail braking is really emphasized. One professional IRL and sim racer promoted early, and light braking, in order to make the lift-part of the braking longer, or more important.
In this video, obviously concenring carts, you teach
hard braking, and making the cart rotate on entry, from braking.
Is the turn-in with the wheel sort less important than it is with cars?
And when does it happen?
2:29 track limits!
KTips, awesome video dude
Hey mate, what camera do you use for filming your races and how is it attached to a helmet?
Hey! I use GoPro Hero 10 and Insta360 X2. GoPro is sharper quality but Insta has wider FOV. I attach both cameras to my helmet using GoPro curved adhesive mount.
...and remember, as your laptimes improve, your braking points will change and you will have to account for this increase in speed by either lifting or beginning your braking sooner than under your slower laptimes. Finally, identify who have the best laptimes or even who has the track record and talk with them about their techniques and lines around the circuit. If possible, schedule a session with them and ask if you can shadow them for a few laps.
Hi! I'm nit a fast karter, but regulary had the much slower, opponent porblem. When I know of my kart was can do more speed, but the guy in front of me just turn into me when I go to overtake him. And because I usualy drive on tight tracks go out and overtake here is impossible vecause the walls. And when I change for the inner line to the outer and accelerate alongside of my opponent he decide to put me on the wall. The Verstappen mentality. "You back of or we crash." Sometimes they get black falgged but...
I'm not aganist a racing, but do it normaly and not use the kart like a weapon...
Iam allready in the Top 5 on my local Track and its getting incredibly hard to improve but ill try to alternate my leaning the next time im there. Maybe i can gain something from that, because im leaning in heavy. My main Problem however seems to be that im super small and sit far forward which means i got less weight on the backaxle.
If you go to one of these in a group, and all the karts are the same, as well as equivalent driving skill, the person who weighs the least will have the best lap times.
I remember when they had better karts at lusail, I went earlier this year and felt disappointed in the new equipment. The pandemic really seems like it hit them hard
SOMETHING REEEAALLY IMPORTANT>
In the slow in fast out method, the karts are too weak, so the acceleration is generally slow (in my local area). WHAT DO WE DOOOO
Excellent! Thanks for sharing your knowledge
At my local track at edmonton the fastest way around the track is not use the full width of the track on entry in some corners but for all other tracks i use the full widrh of the track. Should i still shorten the width in some corners at my own track even with different performing karts?
For some indoor karting tracks, taking a narrow line will actually be faster if the karts are electric because they have instant acceleration (Here's my experiment: th-cam.com/video/gXyLN-Ecl0c/w-d-xo.html).
what type of Karting track do we need to start a career as an F3 driver?
Any ideas on how to attach a go pro the a rental helmet so you can remove it easily after the session?
How I do sometimes when the opponent is parallel is I apply brakes a bit hard and hit the gas once to the full so that the tires scratch will be a bit controlled and I gradually in seconds to accelerate faster.
My question is: when you press the brake do you let off the gas pedal?
lean out is massive on speedway surface dirt like aidka
its the difference between WOT and gaining rpm in a sweeper vs WOT and not gaining rpm on a sweeper
also lean forward for mad weight transfer on the front if u feel the mid engine setup cuck you in a drift
Do you use a karting sim / is there one you recommend?
WHERE IS THIS! IT LOOKS SO FUN
congrats on 25 keep up your nice videos
I feel as if leaning in prevents oversteer by taking weight off of the outside.. i lean in and win tournaments.. I guess everyone is different.
I also think a persons weight is into play.. as i have done sessions in rental carts and a kid who was half my weight pulled away from me exitting the corner.. and we where both making beginners fails like leaning inwards.. but if 5 to 10 hp will pull 50 kg better then 115 kg..
That first point applies to people making left turns at traffic lights on normal roads. Nobody understands how to corner correctly.
Great Video, simple and clear…thank you
I only went carting once and it happened to be a 1 hour race (I didnt know this, someone else signed me up). I was drifting through every corner, didnt brake at all and still was in the middle of the group... 🤷🏻♂️
leaning on the outside wheel is where it's at.
what if i like to drift
KTips great video keep up the great work im new here
today I was go-karting for the first time and I had a distorted straight on which I was giving the gas as much as possible and at the end I braked and from the last place I overtook everyone and won in 1st place, sometimes I also drifted because I was going fast
All of these except #4 would apply to track time with a car, too.
i used to go for karting sadly the track has been destroyed because they sold the land to someone else and now the other track i can go to is quite far .
How much do you think does additional body weight impact laptime? We drive at a smaller racetrack and the karts are somewhat weaker. If one looses momentum, the kart basically is like down to 0 speed.
Not much
Last time I went karting the staff there were excellent at helping us.
However there was an utter moron (brought his motocross helmet type) on the track taking the kids out by smashing up the inside and spinning them, racing around full speed on yellows, did 3 laps after the chequered flag as he never saw any flags and then tried to go 3 abreast into a corner the next race and ran out of tarmac and hit the wall and tried to fight the other 2 he was along side.
This approach stopped anyone on the 2 sessions getting better as the kids just spent the sessions spinning and being scared and the adults were just trying to get out his way all the time
Someone once told me “it’s not the speed through the corner but out of the corner that really matters”
I would have thought that having more weight balance by leaning in would be better???