Hi Guys,

Any tips you can offer to someone who sux on Okayama? I've only done 3 races, although I'm very happy to be able to finish them. 2 with positive safety ratings, 1 with negative.

But I want to do better.. so far I'm using the last man standing approach, i.e. I finish but I'm coming last of the people still "alive". I'm insisting on using no aids to learn the car, I have a clutch pedal and learning heel toe downshifts and they seem ok.

My cornering I would brake before the corner, then glide through the corners in 4th, change to 3rd on the way out and power out of the corner. I've also tried changing down to 3rd while I brake before the corner, and gliding through the corner on 3rd.

But I just watched the replay from the cockpit of the winner of my last race, I noticed he does ALOT more gear changes than me during corners, and is putting ALOT more gas pedal during the corners.
He is almost drifting his corners, and I thought the MX5 wasn't meant to be slid/drifted around corners..

So I tried some left foot braking, giving a little power round the corner and going faster than before but little taps on the brake. It seems a little faster but need more practice especially combined with left foot clutch.

What is the CORRECT way to drive this MX5? Should I be braking under power around the corners? Should I slide a little (it tends to whip back the other way HARD)?

On Okayama, should I be taking corners in 3rd gear (downshift while brake) or in 4th gear (downshift while exit corner)?

Thanks guys

I'm far from any expert on the road side. However I was always under the impression that you want to be in the gear for exit. You want the car to be settle for the drive off, so downshifting on your exit is probably not the best approach. My method is apply brakes, then mid way between brake point and turn in, I downshift. Sometimes I need to downshift twice but I always make sure I'm in the gear before the drive off.

I think I'm not hitting the apex enough actually. Maybe braking wrong.

You can find fast laps on youtube...watching them might help you.

Yeah I should do this. I know I need practice too, lack of time is frustrating.. Trying to make up for it by research like this when I'm not home. Would be good to have some solid hours I'm sure it will help

Also make use of the split timer and set it for sectors. This way you can quickly see if what you are doing is quicker or slower than what you were doing via the green/red bar across the top of the display. Keep this on sector only (not laps) because it breaks up the lap enough so you can see where you are improving.

The MX-5 is a very low horsepower car so being smooth and maintaining momentum is crucial to a good lap time.

I'll try that. I've been using it on lap mode only.

I've been hitting the apex better and downshift just before exiting the corners, got some more time off down to 1.05 lap, 1.04 optimal. Need to do some more work to get down to 1.01.

Hard to do this in a race while keeping good safety rating! Going to look for some good youtube videos today.

One thing I noticed different in the race - the tires don't heat. Is that because of fixed setups?
Praciting they get slippery when they get up to 140F but in the race it's all good.

I assume once I do a non-fixed setup race that tires will heat..

Check this video, I learned a lot from it : Mazda MX5