Finally a racing school that takes you a step up

You should do Formula Renault. There are lots of schools. The best value is in China where many of the European kids come to learn. The best team in China is run by French - Asian Racing Team based in Zhuhai and Macau. I keep my Formula Renault with them and also get my coaching from them

 

If I were going to progress beyond basic FF school, I think the way to go is a school that teachs how to use data aquisition to "train yourself".
After that there are individual coachs.
This is a trainable skill assuming the student has the right stuff to begin with.
However like Lombardi said "practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect".

 

I almost went to Russell years ago but life and finances didn't allow(growing up in the crappy part of brooklyn without a pot to pee in). Now that I'm a bit older and finances are looking better I might just get it done soon. The car looks awesome.

 

I gather he means this school:

http://www.art-motorsports.com/

If you contact them, can you let us know the likely costs.. it looks like bit of an adventure!

 

Yeah I race karts up at Infineon, so I'm quite familiar how all this works. Unfortunately, to race the series you have to drop 100k lol. Anyways, just for a school, it should be fun, just don't wreck the car, or you'll be crying looking at the bill. They say these cars are "only a couple steps down from F1" and "they produce enough down force to run upside down" etc. I'm definitely going to do a school in those cars, later in the year, but for now all I can afford is the karting and the occasional Skip Barber regional race.

 

115kg is just the engine weight.

I think you meant this car?
http://www.jimrussellusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=90

Overall weight 465 kg (unladen, without driver)
Weight 580 kg (with typical driver)

Far less power-to-weight at .34.

 

+1. Data acq has improved so much it is no longer a "black art" that requires the services of a dedicated data geek (oops, I meant "engineer" ) to make good progress with it.

That said, any coach worth his salt uses every tool available to improve their client's performance. Heck, I was able to find a great deal of time for Dr. Who yesterday just with two forty-five minute sessions working with data he generated in his two practice sessions for the SBRS MX-5 Series yesterday at VIR. Now, he will be able to take the files home, download the software, play with and arrange to his heart's content, and even have a pretty good clue of what he's looking at and where he should focus his energies.

OTOH, we spent quite a bit of time just talking about the circuit. Twenty-two corners and losing a few tenths in each slower corner and one or two tenths in the faster ones add up in a hurry! Course knowledge is key, encylopedic course knowledge is best. If you don't have the time, inclination or experience to dedicate proper study to achieving that, a good coach can yield that much more improvement.

 

I'm a bit skeptical about the new Russell car. I wonder whether many of Russell's middle aged clientele will be able to get even close to the capabilities of this very powerful car. Also, I wonder what Russell will have to charge per race, especially for crash damage. There certainly are many series and car choices for folks willing to spend $10 a weekend +. I wish them luck, but will be interested to see how it all turns out.

 

No worries, I thought the same thing too when I landed on that page. I didn't read the header section and saw the 115 first too and thought that's awfully low and just scanned the rest of the page till I saw the actual weight at the bottom.

Either way, it's still great that they're running F3.

 

Lots of Europeans come to China. Most of the places in ART's schools are filled by Europeans. Kimi and Massa both went directly from Formula Renault to F1. Formula Renault is widely considered to be the best training ground for drivers on the way up and gentleman drivers. I believe that Formula Renault is the most widely used single make formula car in the world. Chassis numbers are now in the 800's I have heard. Formula Renault is hugely different from SB...

 

My car uses AIM Evo and I have DaVid. The data logging is plenty powerful. Before I can even get out of the car data is downloaded. No need to even speak, it is all there is black and white. Data alone is dangerous as it does not tell you about line. DaVid fills in that blank. All of the Formula Renaults in my team use the same AIM system and it is very easy to overlay data and see exactly where the differences are. When I am practicing i am acutely aware of what my data will look like and it is real pressure on every lap, corner, braking zone, acceleration zone. This is the only way to get fast IMO. The kids coming up are fantastic at data interpretation. In my last race my 3 team-mates (from Israel, France and Indonesia) had a combined age of younger than me

 

+1! I now can envision the peaks, troughs and even shifts as I'm driving... No more lazy!

I'm looking forward to working with Joe Hulett and getting up to speed on the AIM Evo, MXL and Mychron systems. I've got Stack, Pi and Traqmate training and believe me, I won't coach without the client having something in the car so I can "ride along!"

 

there is stil a problem in being ble to relate the knowledge to "feel". Old school when i ran michael A, he had learned from Dad, he could relate the rpm in, mid and exit for the whole lap plus give a rating of understeer/oversteer for same places. Add that feedback to the data acquisition now and a good engineer and you have an F1 seat. You can drive the perfect line, brake points, gas points etc. but still be slower. As said, a 10th here and there are the difference.

But, seat time with the ability to record data (electronically or other) will definitely help anybody. But "flat" is still relevant to previous corner, car set up, gonads and all.

 

True also. People need to be careful that they focus primarily on developing their own internal "data acq" or evaluation process. The "feel" is still more valuable than all the black and white traces, visual reference points and "blades of grass" landmarks combined. It's what makes a good driver great.

A majority of people I work with are talented, but not gifted. Their primary problem is lack of seat time. Using all the tools at your disposal shortens the "learning" and "reacclimation" curves, that's all. Now, when you get close to the podium, traces take on new meaning. There is a reason why the F1 guys (and Marco) spend hours into the night poring over their data...

Knowledge is power and speed!

 

Speaking of schools that actually help promote drivers and Formula Renault, whatever happened to the Elf Winfield School in France? For those who're unaware of that school they used to give the top two individuals of each class an invitation to an end of the year run-off. The winner of that would get a fully sponsored drive in the French Formula Renault series with their team. Prost was a former winner.

 

Lack of sponsorship, sound familiar? Mike and Richard had been at it long enough. mike still has his lemans cars out on occasion, not heard of Richard for a while now.

 

As is the "pucker" factor. That is ever shown each year at the Speedway, how many times do people climb into a 220mph car and can't go over 200, that's pure "pucker".

 

I'll be attending the Pilota Advanced program at Mont Tremblant this summer. They told me they will have data acquisition. So I am anxious to see what kind and how they apply it.