Circuit Of The Americas presents a big challenge to racecar drivers in any car or of any experience level. All 20 corners are unique, but our pro racecar coaches at Blayze consistently see these three errors.
Turn 1
To be fast at turn 1 it is all about staying on full throttle as long as possible into the braking zone and getting back to full throttle as early as possible on exit.
In this video you will see our driver apexes slightly too early and hits the apex curb. This mean he can't unwind the steering wheel as much as he should be able as he approaches the exit curb which delays the point that he gets back to full throttle.
We also need a long trail brake through turn 1. As the road crests we have a nice slow turn in and we ideally are trail braking all the way down to the apex. We do not want to touch the initial throttle until we can start the process of unwinding the steering wheel.
Esses
To be fast through the esses we need to really focus on our line through the first left hander. We want to apex the start of the orange curb and most importantly after that we need to continue to turn to the left.
We want to follow the painted red and while curb and keep our left front tire on it until the end of the curb.
By following the curb we are opening up the radius of the next right hander. This will allow us to roll in more speed and keep it to the right to setup to maximize turn 5 and 6.
"Trail braking is a real key for turn 1 here at COTA." Dion von Moltke
We have a great free article on how to trail brake for you here!
Turn 8
The most important thing at turn 8 is to get back to full throttle as early as possible at exit and hopefully keep full throttle through turn 9.
That means our priority here is getting the car all the way to the inside at the end of turn 8 so we maximize our radius through turn 9.
A lot of drivers look to sacrifice turn 7 to swing left to setup for turn 8. This does us absolutely no good at all. We want to maximize our run through turn 7 and use all the road on exit. We can work the car about a car width back to the left before we start our braking into turn 8.
We want a very light and long trail brake through turn 8. At about the second red strip on the red and white curbing is where we ideally want to start getting onto the curb. After that little by little we want to bleed off speed and let the car come more and more inside on the fully red painted curb.
We don't want to touch the throttle until we have the car starting to turn towards turn 9. That is going to get the rotation we need to keep it as close as possible to full throttle in turn 9 as possible.
