Anyone who has been around high performance driving for any amount of time has likely heard the phrase "slow is smooth, smooth is fast".

We teach this regularly at our local High Performance Drivers Education and Car Control Clinic events, but it applies everywhere: on track, on the road, and even offroad. The concept being that slowing down a bit can help a driver smooth everything out, which ends up being faster, safer, and less stressful.

But is it really true? I mean, it's a nice saying, great for novice drivers who may try a little too hard. But surely when you're good, fast is fast, right?

I once got a unique opportunity to find out up close at the BMW Performance Center West. For those not familiar with that facility, check out Andy's review in a previous Zündfolge article. But to summarize: it's a high performance driving school run by BMW NA that puts you behind the wheel of the newest BMWs on their awesome tracks, led by professional racecar drivers.

You may have heard that these pros drivers are known to give "hot laps", showing off just how exciting and capable modern BMWs are around a racetrack. These are very impressive and a ton of fun. But did you know those aren't their fast laps? BMWs can go even faster. "Hot laps" are kind of "showing off" a bit, deliberately overdriving and even drifting to make the experience more exciting. Don't get me wrong, they're still driving faster than most people can, and that takes a lot of skill. But there's more speed possible.

The unique opportunity I had was getting to ride with a couple of these pro drivers driving proper fast laps for time on their large track. You may have seen parts of this track when IndyCar drove it (though we were running a different configuration). I rode with two pros back-to-back, driving the same car on the same track. And I got to run some data logging while doing it. I'm going to omit their names but let me describe the laps:

The Author at BMW Performance Center.

Pro Driver 1 was amazingly precise. I'm no pro, but I've been doing and teaching track driving long enough to at least recognize the limits. And I can tell you this guy was on the limits everywhere, every second. Not sliding, but perfect slip angles. Absolute last second braking approaching every corner, on the limits all the way through every turn, on the power as early as possible, tires squealing the perfect amount constantly. I can tell you I haven't puckered approaching corners like that in years; there was no margin left. He was perfectly on it at every step. And I have no doubt he'd stay perfectly on it every lap. This is what many of us strive to do on track: driving the perfect lap every time. But I had never seen a driver do it as well as him before. That said, I definitely wouldn't use the word "smooth" to describe his driving.

Then Pro Driver 2 hopped in. I wasn't expecting faster, as I didn't believe that was possible. But it's very instructive to compare driving styles, so I was excited to see the differences. He was quick through the corners and fast down every straight. I don't think he was quite at the limits most of the time, but very close. He was braking a bit earlier and a bit softer, and his turns felt more smooth and blended. I didn't pucker once, it was almost relaxing riding with him compared to the first driver. (He jokes this is how he drives his mother to the airport. I'm quite sure the authorities wouldn't like that… not that they could catch him to tell him) He even made a couple small mistakes each lap, which he admitted, so he drove a few laps. Don't get me wrong, he's a pro driver, still way more capable than I'll ever be. But even I could see he had a bit more to improve. That said, I really appreciated just how much he embodied "slow is smooth, smooth is fast". I can still learn a lot from him, too.

So to see how much I have to learn and where, I checked the data logging system:
Pro Driver 1:
1. 1:10.89
2. 1:11:18
Amazingly fast, and about 1.5 seconds faster than me at that point.

Now let's see how much slower Pro Driver 2 is:
1. 1:09.69
2. 1.09.99
3. 1.10.13
Wait, what? 1.2 seconds faster?? The "how I drive my mother to the airport", “not even at the limits” driver was consistently faster than the most on the limits, perfectly precise laps I've ever experienced? How can that be? It's the same car, same tires, same brakes, same track, same conditions.

"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast" happened. Pro Driver 1 focused so much on late braking, he optimized his braking zones at the cost of cornering speed. He was then perfectly effective at jumping back on power to fight for every bit of speed in the corner, but that couldn't compete with carrying more speed into the corner which reduced his exit speed. Pro Driver 1 might have been faster in certain phases of the corner, but in total it added up to slower in every corner. This is why we always teach the prioritization order of optimizing phases of a corner:
1. Exit
2. Entry
3. Mid-corner
4. Braking zone

To be clear, both of these pros are amazing drivers. Both better than most drivers will ever be. But this just shows, even among pros, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" wins out. By a lot. 1.2 seconds is a huge gap among pros. So it's not just a trick for novices not to try too hard, it applies at every skill level. Smooth is faster (lap times), safer (I never worried we would go off the track), and more comfortable (easier on the driver). Smooth is better in every way.

But what about those mistakes Pro Driver 2 made? This is what I realized is the other half of why "slow is smooth" works so well. We all strive to drive a perfect lap, to be perfect drivers, all the time. But even at the pro level, that's nearly impossible to do. Maybe 1 in 10,000 laps for most pros are perfect. So is that really a good goal to have? I'd argue no. The better goal is to drive in a way that makes it easier to minimize mistakes, since we're going to make them. That's what backing off just a bit does for us. Pro Driver 2 made mistakes, but he was just far enough under the limits that he could fix them and learn from them without sacrificing much lap time. In theory, he could be faster, but in practice trying to be much faster would likely just make his mistakes bigger. He admits his qualifying laps for races are driven at about 90% of his capability for exactly this reason.

The Author at BMW Performance Center.

This experience also taught me another good lesson about learning: the best way to learn lessons like this is with an experienced instructor raising your awareness. Practice is great, but practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. It's too easy to just practice overdriving your car when it's just you driving. I've seen it in others, and I learned this from my own driving, too. Only someone else can point out what you don't yet know or realize. So despite being an instructor myself, I'm still regularly seeking out opportunities to get instructors in my right seat. And I believe everyone should.

If you want to give track driving a try, we've got great opportunities to experience this and more first-hand with our club locally. Check out our High Performance Drivers Education or Car Control Clinics in your own car where we put our experienced instructors in your right seat. No special parts or upgrades needed, just an open mind to upgrading yourself as a driver. Check out our new HPDE video to learn more. And if you have friends or family that might be interested, check out our gift card and early sign up discount options.