What is an Apex?
There are many important aspects of discovering the racing line and the one that tops them all is finding the apex of a corner. Without making things too complicated, the apex is the point from when the corner closes or gets tighter, to the point where it starts to open up.
In some cases, you will hear the term, “slow-in-fast-out”. This refers to the momentum of the speed you’ll be carrying through the corner. Slowing down before the corner to hit your apex and picking up your pace through the exit of the corner. The term, “momentum”, will be covered throughout the “Discovering the Racing Line” series but it is important to start to grasp the meaning early on as it will help define your racing line and how you will approach the apexes.
The apex of a corner may be different from the apex that the pilot will take while driving the track. When the apex changes location from the corner apex, we call that an “early apex” or “late apex” depending on how you want to drive your racing line. The image below shows a series of corners and there are examples of each type of apex. The blue “X” represents the apex for the kart but the green circle represents the apex of the corner. Corner one is an example of an “early apex”. Corner two is an example of a “late apex”. Corner three is an example of a normal apex.
Finding the apex of each corner will become second nature with practice and soon you will have a knack for connecting those apexes with a flowing line. The flowing line that I’m referring to is the racing line! Next, we will be looking at the snap-in and track-out concept and putting these pieces together to finish completing your racing line.
Adoreeeei!
Just loved how a usually complicated topic became easy to understand with the drawing. Great work!
Cant wait to see Senna racing at Interlagos!