Senna Throttle and Karting Technique

Everyone likes to have a crack at what’s behind Senna’s crazy feet throttle technique. People say its about spooling up turbos even though he did it with everything he drove, including karts.

I have my own theories about it, but I don’t think the actual technique itself is anywhere near as important as what it tells us about Senna, and what you can gain out of it. But I’ll get to that later.

First, what’s this crazy feet throttle technique that Senna was using?

When you watch a bit of footage of Senna, especially from outside the car actually, you can very often hear him stabbing at the throttle. bah, bah, bah.

It’s really weird and sounds like the car is knackered, but he’s deliberately on and off the power through corners.

Then you have the famous NSX footwell footage, and it’s all there to see. His right foot is all over the place.

Now, this is a test of a road car so to a degree he’s probably messing about trying to provoke the car to slide a bit and oversteer. But, there are some really strange parts where you can’t really tell what he’s up to but his right foot is fluttering away.

So, in an F1 car he was at it, you can clearly hear it. In a demo lap we can see it, though maybe with some exaggeration to get the thing to rotate.

What’s the Relevance to Karting of Crazy Feet?

First of all, if you find some old karting footage with Senna in it you can indeed see his right foot off and on the power again, so surely he learnt it in karting.

I think it’s fair to say if Senna did it, then we should try to figure it out and give it a try.

BUT, it’s not just Senna.

I’ve seen a handful of kart drivers, totally independently develop an equally inexplicable throttle technique. I know it’s independent because when I told them Senna did the same they had no idea what I was on about.

And for them it worked, despite anyone involved with the kart saying it’s an absolute nightmare to find carb settings that work for them!

It Goes Against all the Advice from Experienced Karting Coaches

Smooth on the power is just about as standard and universally accepted racing technique as you can get. You roll onto the power at just the right time nice and smooth, so you don’t upset the kart. If you have to lift, you were too early on the power and made a mess.

Now with one driver in particular I was asked to get him out of stabbing at the power in his cadet kart. Lucas Ellingham is his name, he’s still lit now, in a KZ. But at the time, he had this habit with his right foot, and we wanted rid of it because it just seemed wrong, and we knew as he went up into the two stroke classes it would play havoc with his carb settings.

Unfortunately for his mechanics and dad perhaps, I instead reinforced the habit calling him Senna feet, crazy feet etc, because frankly he was lightning and why would you risk losing his speed!

Here’s Two Reasons Behind Crazy Feet that May Make it Work