Hey All,  
  
Like usual, I’ve written a short article sharing my thoughts and experience on a given topic in sim racing. My goal with these articles ultimately is to help give people a bit more information about the hobby we all love, while also hopefully making for an interesting read.

If you don't know me, I'm Tom, and I've been working full-time for the last two years on a sim racing coaching business, so my thoughts in this mini essay draw on the 700+ hours of coaching I’ve done in those 2 years. Just to say that the thoughts I’m sharing here aren't pulled from nowhere, but come from everything I’ve seen during my time coaching drivers of all ability levels.  
  
**Why you’re “Looking to the Apex” Wrong**  
  
I want to preface this article by saying that *obviously* not everyone is looking to the apex incorrectly, but this mistake is something I find myself pointing out to people all of the time during coaching sessions, and it often makes an instant difference in a students driving, so I figured it would be a good one to share in one of these articles.   
  
If you’ve been sim racing for a while, you’re probably familiar, consciously or unconsciously, with the idea of looking to the apex, or looking into the corner you are entering. If you’re not, start by just shifting your focus from your braking point directly to the apex after you begin braking. You should find that it helps to give you more time to judge the corner and execute the line you want to take, rather than feeling like you’re “reacting” to the corner or being surprised by it.   
  
But simply looking to the apex is not the point of this article, instead, I want to cover off a huge misconception in what it means to “look to the apex”. For a large subset of drivers, they incorrectly conflate “looking to the apex” with “looking to the most protruding point of the corner”. Take a look at the screenshots below:

[If your idea of \\"looking to the apex\\" involves you looking at the red circle, you're making this mistake!](https://preview.redd.it/57ywbwfm3khh1.png?width=1557&format=png&auto=webp&s=436e4db193e562ea0e3745635e5e85d2e74411dc)

Think about where you would be looking at this point of the entry. If you would find yourself looking at the red marker, then you are making this mistake. The red marker is the easiest point to find, but it is “the most protruding point”, not the optimal apex. If you watch the video, you can clearly see from above that focusing on this point would lead to an extremely early apex (red driver). Instead, what you should be doing is looking “through” the corner, to the point in the corner that you actually want to apex (green circle). This can take some time to get used to, not least because it often involves looking through walls, but the aim is to keep your eyes looking where you expect the apex to be, and updating where you’re looking as the corner reveals itself. Again in the video, it is clear to see that the blue driver is taking a far more optimal apex position, by looking through the corner. Quite often, correcting this mistake makes it much easier for drivers to place the car where they want, and apex where they know they should be apexing, so give this a go and let me know in the comments if it helps you out! If you find yourself early apexing every corner but don’t know how to fix it, give this a try!  
  
If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to respond to any questions in the comments. As always, thanks for the support on these mini articles, and if you know of someone who would benefit from this article, sharing it with them would be greatly appreciated :).  
  
Cheers  
Tom  
Noakesy Coaching  
  


An iRacing Coach’s Notes on: Why You’re “Looking to the Apex” Wrong