When a Karting Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Last week was all about keeping your racing brain running on instinct as much as possible, to keep overthinking at bay

If you successfully manage to sort that out, I’ve got the next big trigger that can take you out of driving beautifully fast, and into overthinking again!

Most people call it too much respect for other drivers.

You know:

‘She’s just got too much respect for the front-runners’

Or imposter syndrome, where you don’t believe you deserve to be mixing it with the top drivers - all that kind of stuff.

Now, there certainly is an animalistic power driving us all to fit into social hierarchies - which in racing would be fatal if you adhere to it. If your organism decides you are not the alpha, then you simply will not move up the ranking quickly at all.

But since you got into racing in the first place and got quick, that’s not the primary issue. I reckon you fully intend to hit the front and take over and become the alpha!

When the Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Chasing other drivers is nice. Everyone loves to chase down another driver and then pounce to make a move.

Most drivers feel like they go into a different way of driving, like a predatory mode. There’s no thinking.

Your eyes lock on to the target; the kart ahead - and you start eating up the meters, closing the gap relentlessly.

….until bang, you make your move, and the chase is over.

Chasing Another Kart and Being the Hunter is Easy

Because:

• You are the one in control.

• You see them, they can’t see you.

• You see how you catch them boosting your confidence

• There are lots of affirming ‘yes’ moments - you can see how a better line works, better braking works - rewarded by the gap closing.

• You can even steal their lines and trim them to find time.

If you have a relatively medium level of self-belief, chasing drivers works fine because you rely on them, your prey, to confirm you are doing things right.

Then Suddenly the Rolls are Reversed and Things Fall Apart

When you make your move and get ahead, very quickly the feel good factor of chasing a driver can evaporate quickly. Within half a lap everything changes.

When you become the hunted:-

• You are the one now being observed, assessed and caught when you make little errors

• You now feel targeted, no longer chasing but vulnerable.

• You start assessing yourself, concentration diverts from the necessaries of driving fast, to watching and criticising yourself

• Your mental focus goes from ahead, to behind - to decode the attention of the hidden pursuer

• From instinct driving you start to THINK

• You no longer have your prey as confirmation of how fast you are.

• You start to doubt, and doubts get stronger as you feel the hunter on your back.

• Thinking bad habits start to win again. You have ideas like ‘brake later they are catching’.

• Trying to escape turns in to mistakes, which turns into losing lap time.

Some drivers lose a few tenths, some drivers completely collapse!

It doesn’t just happen with individual races, but championships too. Piastri seems to be an example of how a driver’s status has changed from hunter to hunted, making him vulnerable, as opposed to aggressive and purposeful (further exacerbated by a surreal Kafka-esque team environment).

The core problem is; if you don’t like being the hunted, and prefer to be the hunter, then you don’t like winning!