The Perfect Corner: A Driver's Step-By-Step Guide to Finding Their Own Optimal Line Through the Physics of Racing (The Science of Speed) Paperback – March 18, 2016

Brilliant book that removes all the confusion and myths surrounding navigating a corner on a race track in the fastest manner possible.

I'm primarily a sim racer, but I have done some track days as well in my s2000. I'd really like to start racing for real some day, but not sure that's ever going to be in my budget and I never really had the money to hire a driving coach. I heard about this book on Reddit when they were giving it away for free, but I prefer hard copies so got the paperback version to keep on my shelf. I haven't read every driving book out there, but I definitely have all the major ones like Speed Secrets, Going Faster, and the older Carroll Smith books. To my fellow driving knowledge seekers out there, this book blows them out of the water and is my new holy grail of racing books. I got some good stuff from reading those older books, but always had the feeling that there was something missing. Like the writers had a general idea of how to drive, but not a total understanding.This book is showing me exactly what to do, and not just what, but why. It's not just some person telling me what to do and expecting me to take their word for it. This book explains the real science behind the racing line and how things like checking my speed at corner exit to see how I did doesn't work. I love how they used an astronaut with a fire extinguisher as an example and feel like that part helped me to really "get it". I've already seen a big improvement in things like my trail braking and times but the nicest part is I'm not always having to just try different cornering lines or trying to copy the weekly hotlaps that are posted. I could never really figure out the hairpin at suzuka in iRacing and I've already gotten faster in that section by almost a quarter of a second and can almost do it as quick as the really fast guys. Just like they said I really can start to see where even those guys are making mistakes. I can't wait till the next books come out so I can start learning about bus stops and compromise corners.

The main strength of this book is that it gives you a thorough and intuitive understanding on how to optimize any "standard" corner. This is presumably any corner with a single apex where the entire track width is used. The book is fairly well written and organized. Especially the first half of the book. Examples are given of different types of corners, and different mistakes drivers make and how to correct them.For an Autocrosser, the weakness of the book is that many of the corners on a course are not "standard" (the outside limits of the corner are often not well defined). So, much of the information in this book is not applicable .The reason that I don't believe this will ever become a definitive resource is that there is no actual math, real world testing, simulation results, etc. backing up any of the claims in this book. From my understanding of physics and math, I'd say it's reasonable to believe that most of the information in the book is accurate, but there is nothing to back it up other than intuition.Many reviewers are criticizing the "astronaut" examples used in the book. I thought they were an interesting way of thinking about the forces the car will see. Reading through this section, I got a little too hung up in trying to understand the exact angles of the forces, speeds, and shapes of the curve. I'd recommend readers not worry about these details too much. After getting farther in the book, I realized this section is just a loose analogy to get you thinking about the general direction of the forces. (For example the author refers to the curve shape as a parabola, but later in the book, he reveals that it's actually an Euler spiral).

I landed on the Amazon page for this book from one of the suggested items that was below another book I was looking at (can't remember which one) and the reviews were very compelling so I decided to take a chance since it was relatively inexpensive.I really enjoyed the book and felt like I got a lot out of it. On a recent track day at Roebling Road Raceway I was able to use the techniques in this book (and book 3 that deals with more complex corners like double apexes) to shave some time off in turns 4 and 5. Coincidentally? I also attended a Ron Zitza track walk that same weekend and, in two corners especially the line he recommended for more advanced drivers (the "Hurley" line through 4) was a match to the guidance in this book and in book 3. In turn 5 the guidance (from both the book and the track walk) had me driving a decreasing radius as I went through the turn, setting it up so that I could go full throttle by the apex. A lot of folks make a short straight through 5a/5b at this track and then late brake/rotate the car to power out, and I used to be one of them. Comparing my fastest laps using that approach with my fastest laps using the guidance from the book, I am .43 seconds faster in that corner following the approach in the book, and the corner felt much better as well.So far applying the principles in this book and book 3 (Perfect Corner 2) have been working out for me and I will continue to apply the ideas and guidance and see where it takes me.