A very common mistake I see happen on a race track (this happens to me all the time too!) is when we focus on trying braking deeper into a corner but somehow manage to over slow it despite actually braking deeper?
How and why does this happen?
It's actually quite simple and relates to our vision! When I see this happen it's almost always a result of low eyes. Trying to brake deeper typically causes our eyes to come down for two reasons:
- Anxiety
- Too much focus on our braking marker
When we are trying to work our way deeper and deeper, it's very normal for us to experience more anxiety. We get that voice telling us, "this is far too deep, no way I can make it!". What does anxiety cause? It causes a fight or flight response which means our eyes come down and we grip the steering wheel tighter - the exact opposite of what we want to happen.
When we're braking deeper, we need to work on breathing to fight off that anxiety.
The second thing that happen is that we get hyper focused on the braking marker we want to get to. We stare it down to make sure we get there, but that causes our eyes to be late to getting up to the turn in point or apex. The eyes being low causes us to hold onto heavy brake pressure for too long and that's exactly what causes our over slowing.
We need to focus on pairing the late braking with a good brake release point!