Wow! Insane to see that so many people can relate to this. Tension is an incredible underrated problem in motorsports (both real and sim). In Music, it's a very well-known issue and we work on that a lot. Great to see some musicians also finding this relation between instruments and race cars! Hahaha I have received lots of questions about coaching recently, and I recommend getting the Motor Racing Checklist (my online course) before doing the sessions. The course is an incredibly well-organized material that will allow the coaching sessions to be much more time-effective, so we can go straight to the racetrack and try things in practice instead of spending too much time in theoretical stuff. But ofc you can just do the coaching if you prefer. I do around 20 sessions per week and the differences are clear when the student has done the course before the sessions! Keep working hard and let's drive faster and healthier ;)

It's a hard technique to master but it works. I taught myself to do this in karting. It really does help.

I had a similar epiphany during the last 12hr of Bathurst, in my case it was the fuel saving technique to make me realize something very close to this. I didn’t push into that because it was 12hr race… but it worked a lot. And you somehow confirm and put me much more in the right direction. Kudos mate, you’re awesome.

yeah, I get very tense in my shoulders. i feel it all the time

Hey Suellio! I started with Sim Racing 3 months ago and I try to improve everyday. Unfortunatly i cant afford paying monthly for IRacing and thats why i got Asseto Corsa. I see improvements every week or two, but i have a problem for 2 weeks now, and that is that i cant get a better lap time in Laguna Seca with a Mazda Mx5 Cup. But this tipp helped me alot and i actually got some .5 secs out of it! I just wanna Thank you so much for all that help you are giving. Keep it up! :)

You started saying "don't tense up" but saying "relax" is much better. Always tell yourself what you want to do. Not what you don't want to do. If you say what you don't want to do now that's what your mind is thinking about and you're more likely to do it. It's an old trick I learned while golfing. I used to think "don't hit the ball into the water" and it would go in the water. But as soon as I started thinking "hit the ball over the water" it would go over the water. It's freaky but true.

I think this exercise is also good for not letting other thinks distract you while driving. So it's another reason to do that. Because if you are focusing on relaxing, than you will automatically focus more on the forces on the wheel and the paddels and don't think about other thinks that came randomly in your mind. I think this is also a big part why this technique is so powerful. Most of the people in modern world have focusing issues because of the mass of distraction we get on a day. Our brain is trained to get distracted, or in a more friendlier way: Our brain is trained to try multiple thinks in one. But most of the times this is leading to less efficiency. So we also have to learn to focus more on the thinks we are actually doing.

This highlights another key aspect of sim racing that is overlooked; physical fitness and warming your body up before a session.

First person shooters require the same. Relax and you will be better

Iracing noob here (1k irating). Something that i've realized is that the way you grip your wheel can make a huge difference in your relaxation levels. Notice that he holds the wheel with thumbs on top of the central structure. This prevents the middle, ring and little finger to wrap all the rim, therefore, less power is applied on his grip. Also, this way of grabbing the wheel make impossible to turn the steering excessively, forcing to use more the breaks for a better steering. I realized this things somedays ago and its improving my drive and consistency. Sorry for my english. Your video was a delightful coincidence

You are so right about this! I always used to hold my steering wheel so tight, especially on an intense track like Mount Panorama. My hand were so sore after an hour of racing that I couldn’t do anything after a session. I learned myself to be less tense and I gained massive laptime after that

OF COURSE you're a music guy ! Every video i watched from you I was like " idk this guy has an approach i already encountered" Music. That was music.

I can’t wait until my direct drive gear arrives. My TS-PC Racer provides little useful feedback, and when I’m driving I feel like a deaf person who is trying to play in a symphony. I will keep this lesson in mind as I get used to my new Moza R9. 👍 Thank you.

This is so interesting Suellio! I’m a musician as well, I have a master’s in double bass performance and I’ve been playing music since I was 8. I remember being told a lot to relax and the let the weight do the work. The video Cameron Das put out of your coaching session where you told him to relax his arms during braking and let the car find the grip has definitely helped me. I had to laugh when you said “it feels like tending the shoulders will make the car gain grip on the front.” That’s the struggle of every musicians who’s told to “play louder!” So it makes you think “If I pressed more or muscled the sound out more maybe it would be louder” but it’s not. Or if it is, it sounds forced.

I transitioned from real life on track driving to sim racing. My first instructors on track would tell you that any chance you have on the straights, take one hand off the wheel and wiggle your fingers or tighten down my harnesses, that is why you see a lot of professional drivers pull the harnesses over and over again in car. It’s to help not death grip the wheel and relax!

My racingcoach also teached me this, when i'm unrelaxed i'm not smooth on the steering, i'm still working on this, it takes alot of time to manipulate your brain and get rid of a habit. Great video, i think, this will help alot of people.

You play piano at a masters level too?! Bro honestly you are insanely talented. Bravo man, wish you the best. And great advice

This is a winners mentaltity, hands down. Understanding the downfalls is important, but while doing it DURING the race is such a helpful tool. You are one of the few iRacing competitors i would love to see give Pro 4 Trucks a chance. I think you would have a blast disecting the truck and the tracks.

A breathing technique that will actively help you relax is to inhale with three short , sharp inhales and then slowly exhale...then repeat intermittently when you're aware of feeling tense or anxious.

Great video man! Can‘t wait to try it tomorrow. Funnily, I just became a bit more confident driving the PCup last week and was able to observe my driving a little more with the freed capacity. I noticed how tense I was driving, but didn‘t go beyond focusing on keeping light hands. I guess I‘m in for a treat. Thanks Suellio!

I was just reminded of this the other day. There are so many transferrable skills between racing and music making!

I have been struggling with this a long time. It's gotten better. before i got so tense on my shoulders that they felt numb. Going to focus more on relaxing and dont care if i'm slower in the beginning. Gonna think about your lesson everytime i drive from now on

The way I put it (to my self) is, “drive slow to be fast”. The more relaxed and casual I am the faster I go.

As always... fantastic coaching, fantastic content!! Thank you, Suellio!

It's something that I learned for myself the past year. Going tense up is do more errors and can affect the people around up to crash directly Going relaxed is go safe and faster. No matter if someone is 2 seconds per lap faster than you, just relax and learn the track

Speaking truth young man. Tension leads to stress which kills you faster. Be easy, have fun, feel the road. Sage advice.

So smoke a big fat joint before driving. Got it.

Learned how to manage arm pump from motocross, it was essential and definitely translates to sim or karts. Once you focus on relaxing your arms and your body everything else comes together or you have the calmness to focus on the things you’re doing wrong

I kind of realized this like a year ago, and you are damn right, its a game changer. And this not only apply to sim racing but most sports / games or even playing instruments (probably this is where i got the idea from). Amazing tip.

This is some good sh*t! Tried your little hack today and it definitely helped! Been doing a lot in the rig lately and feeling quite tense and sore afterwards. Did this today for a couple hours and I feel much better after! Great tips... keep em coming! 👍 Enjoying the irl journey too! 👀

This is great advice, I'm looking forward to applying it in my own driving. I often end up sending myself to the shadow-realm from P1 because I feel pressure to push my own delta rather than just running consistent and relaxed.

After watching your video I realized I was stiff as hell while driving and I was squeezing the wheel like crazy, tried relaxing for the next training sessions and races and I didn't gain much time but I gained what I needed the most: CONSISTENCY. My Irating is very low cause I either win a race or make a stupid mistake and crash out (I rarely finish 2nd or lower without crashing out). Mistake count went down a lot and lap times started to come closer to each other, no more 1 sec difference from one lap to another. I am a complete beginner but this is one of the best advice ever for me.

Holy cow! I just played a couple of laps on Assetto Corsa Competizione after watching your video and I never noticed just how bad i was tensing up. This is something I need to play with during my practice runs because I was all over the track while trying to relax it made me even more tense. Back to practicing.....

A fellow musician!!! I am myself a guitarist, and i know exactly what you're talking about! Especially cause im about to purchase my first ever sim racing setup, thats exactly why i watch your videos, to keep improving🏎️🎸

So important to stay relax in any endeavour. Tension clouds the brain.

I love this man. This is a real eye opener for me. Felipe Giro told me to breath before the race and that helped so much. I'm going to work on this so hard everything you just explained. Thanks so much man 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🤟🏻🏁

Well, I heard the word "relax" alot of times, it reminds me Heikki360, well I would never told me that so many times, I just rather focus on relaxing, in the steering wheel, it can help to make the corners with the right response, not too much, especially if there is enough steering lock to turn the car too much, losing grip, or if at high speed the car turns with easy. What about the quote "If you think this is boring, it will be less effective" in the past it was happening the same to me, but it was usually because I was driving alone, bah. But yeah, we must enjoy the process, because getting the greatest results as possible takes time, our brain needs time to adapt to what we are doing. It is very good to experiment also, smooth driving, and aggressive driving, and pay attention to the grip of the car, how aggressive you can be without losing grip, to be as fast as possible, depending of the speed, steering angle, and the power and torque at the RPM we are driving, but sometimes we have to be a little more smooth on races to reduce wheel spinning and the tire wear. A friend of mine shared this video in a discord server, and it kind of cool, I enjoyed the video. Greetings to you Mr Almeida :) from Valparaiso, Chile.

that is why my first 1-2 laps are always faster than the rest xD. thank you bro

im new to sim racing and ive heard you mention "soft hands" before to feel more feedback. Combining this with "relax" in the shoulders has very much so allowed me to feel the car with a higher fidelity i didnt know my equipment was capable of.

When Suellio said "I'm feeling new things now", I felt it

It's amazing! After I tried this relaxed approach and found 1 second instantly. The car just advises the best way it can go, but when I was tensed - I simply ignored these signs. Love your approach, in fact it's the first time I found that level of comprehension I was missing in racing!

Oh that’s so good, I think I suffer from this. I’ll try to have a look at this the coming days and see if I can relax more. Thanks for the insight, Suellio! 💪

Take a shot for every “relax” Great video! I enjoyed it

This relax method is not only useful while racing but basically for everything that requires focus. I also needed a long time to realize this but thankfully I did. Another method that can help is meditation. I know it might sound weird but it helps me a lot before intense moments.

This is incredibly true when riding/racing motorcycles as well! Perhaps even moreso, because your whole body is a part of the suspension and the pressure you apply anywhere (bars, pegs, elsewhere) transfers directly not only into steering but into the weight transfer of the bike! And tense hands means you not only will have no feeling of steering, but also no feeling of the gas or brake which are also hand-operated!

Karting used to physically kick my ass every time I went out on track. Thought it was a physical fitness issue, but I wasn’t out of shape… It was amazing to realize how much easier (and faster) it was to just calm TF down 💀

crazy the difference this had made with my experience playing Dirt Rally 2 especially, thank you!

Ive always employed a relaxed technique when karting. I basically pull down on one side of the wheel with my back lat muscles, relaxing my triceps, biceps, forearms. Much better corner flow. I just lock my thumps on the wheel like a hook. I actually applied this to riding my jet ski too, avoiding sore arms.

Fun to see. I realized exactly the same thing at exactly the same spot on Bathurst. I just had a much faster lap than my personal record so I took that corner basically looking at that good time from the previous lap and forgot about racing. I do that from time to time, mostly I end up un the wall after T1 but this time I just flew through the corner and the delta said, just like yours, -0.3 and kept ticking down the straight. It is hard, just as you say. I had the same experience when I was playing the guitar. Doing tremolo like in Recuerdos de la Alhambra is impossible if one build up tension (which I did). The reasons are a bit different though. In music it is about speed and fatigue but in racing I think it is more about feeling the wheel better, although saving energy is good in endurance racing.

Yes, have already noticed that, cuz when i drive in a session without stake, i am usually faster…great tips

Suellio, you always bring good technics to us, Im sure I'm so Tense especially when I'm there in the front. I will try it. tks PS: bring some TCR videos for us

How true this is. I am terrible at relaxing my arms and hands. I grip really tightly. I know i am doing but have not been able to stop. I will try you technique and see what happens. Thank you.

This should be like the #1 tip in sim racing, great video!

Let the force feed back flow through you, focus on the force and it will become instinctive to relax more. You feel more of what’s going on if you use a lite grip. Not so lite you loose grip of the wheel when it sends you feedback through it but just enough so you can resist it, if your fighting the wheel then your stopping the cars natural flow and forcing the car to find and loose grip where it otherwise wouldn’t, causing extra oversteer and or understeer! If your having to fight the car to keep on track, then the car isn’t setup right and in turn your tension is increased because it becomes more of a fight with the wheel rather than a dance and a natural flowing process. Another opinion I have is that distractions can actually subconsciously encourage you to relax, try having a conversation when driving, and focus on when your feeling not what you are watching on the screen, but try to continue a conversation when do this, you will find your movements and reactions to what your seeing on the screen will become instinctive to allow you to continue having a conversation at the same time.

This is a massively under rated tip! I noticed this a few weeks ago, particularly under braking I’d tense up and struggle to feel what the car was doing. Consciously loosening up definitely brought my lap times down and improved consistency 🙌🏼

I need to relax too, I totally feel my self tense up. I'll work on this!

Great upload 😊

This is so true, I hold the wheel so tight sometimes without knowing and my hands start hurting which then causing strain and uncomfortability then mistakes

I’ve just started with iracing and the tension at the beginning of a rookie race when you’re at the front of the grid and you are just hoping to survive the first corner. If I did survive I had to actively tell myself to calm down and breathe once I got to the first straight.

It's amazing that I realized the same thing about two months ago but I could never last longer than two curves :), after this video I will have to :)

Thanks for the video! i discoverd i'm hold my steering wheel really tight. when i try to relax, i felt the rumble motors in my wheel again, FFB feelt less hard. besides that it feels nice to go out on track and practice an issue, without running hotlaps. Maybe after this i'll let a coach looking at my inputs 🤔

I realised the same thing a month ago. Yesterday I had Porsche 992 race on Road America, for the first time I had the mentality "let's have fun with this combination for the last time". I managed to follow the top 3 and when the first two made a mistake, I finished 2nd, my so far best result in that series. I currently have 2580 Irating and I never thought I will ever be able to get another podium in this game again, let alone with one of the most difficult car to drive. I cannot get into this state often sadly

I thought relaxing while driving was known and done by most good drivers, so this shocked me a little. I'm always very relaxed when I drive, and since I started using a lighter grip last year, it's been soo much better. I looked closer at your video Suellio, and your wheel seems to me to be a little too high. Mine is lowered a bit so it gives me a nice 90 degree angle on my elbow while driving. I can highly recommend it. But otherwise good video.

I guess this is similar to a death grip but this explains why intend to be far more consistent and often quicker in endurance races, where I just go into full on autopilot and must be releasing all the tension. I'll try to use this techniwue and see if I improve my driving!

This subject is very much underestimated in a lot of what we do. The body uses up a great deal of energy by being tense. Many years ago this was something I worked on in football and it made an enormous difference. It improves with your confidence but you need to teach yourself to make it natural. Try placing something soft in your mouth, held between the teeth. You will then notice how often you are biting down hard. Give it a try. You will be surprised. 🇦🇺

This is why I drive to music as it helps keep me from overthinking while driving. I call it going on autopilot! When I'm not overthinking or pushing myself so hard, I relax and let my subconscious drive for me and without trying, I set the fastest laps! If you are over driving the car just put on some good music and drive just for the fun of it... That is how I keep my mind off my back pain as well.

This is a very good observation. One thing I find really helps with this, rather counter intuitively, is to increase the force feedback until it's very heavy. The point here is that when the force feedback is really heavy, you're forced to go with the path of least resistance in order to drive properly. It gets very hard to force the car to do anything it doesn't want to. You also learn to apply the minimum needed effort, and then relax your muscles. You should only tense your muscles when needed, and only as much as you need to. If you look at any successful athlete, this is exactly what they do. They expend their power/energy just at the right time, in a precise and focused way.

So relaxing 😁

it's great to benefit from your experience!

Mental Control plays a big part here. There is a Very good book about it: the inner game of tênis.

I needed this tip! Went to subscribe expecting to see 100k+ subs and only 7k!

Very interessting, very cool. So its kind of getting yourself 'easy comfortable' even when your inner mind wants to 🤔 'automatically focused'.... 🤔 Your body got used to things it wants to even if they not really help you. And getting rid of such automation can be hard work because (not really yourself but) your body trained it.... Good luck with getting your body doing what makes sense 😉😅

Alot of tracks you can get away with being tense because it's only a short time this one especially in real life can give you arm pump similar to moto cross when you are riding on the edge

I found many people turn their FFB to high causing them to grip the wheel harder and tense up more. For me I tense up in my legs and it causes me to brake incorrectly. I get into the bad habit of not utilizing full break pressure and ABS and trying to brake the perfect amount vs reaching 100% and easing off.. GT3 cars are designed to use ABS and TC. Even Baldwin stated in one of his recent videos the lowest TC setting they used in real life was 2 and that was during qualifying.. the rest of the time it was much higher.

Same in any sport. Relax, try not to feel the pressure. In my real life racing (a long time ago) and sim racing I’m much more relaxed and so often faster in practice. In races I tense up too much. Same when I used to play other sports like soccer. We could all probably benefit from sports psychology sessions

I have this problem as well. Been noticing it a lot in the last year or so on iRacing.

Great advice.. im so guilty of this.. I think you end up fighting the car a lot more instead of going with the car and bumps as they come.

the part where you call out that you tend to tense up when the car goes wide, that's a crucial bit for me; i tend to do the exact same, and have to consciously remind myself not to because, indeed, it's useless. I've noticed that when i do tense up, i tend to push the wheel back while turning it, which obviously doesn't help me getting around the corner. Very strange, and i get annoyed with myself each time i catch myself doing it :P

Absolutely , i tens up sometimes so much , i realize that when its a bit late , i catch myself failing at taking the apex , preety much like my arms dont follow what my brain says

Omg Suellio. You sound JUST like a piano teacher. 🤣 My first two years of conservatory were basically THAT. So now I'll try to apply it to my racing. Shoulders and face. 🤣

I got 1 race before where i completely relax, loose all the tension in my body, arms and that lap i got 0.5s faster than the my session best and rave fastest lap. But after that i cannot replicate it anymore and i cant get back to the zone with most of the time too stress of losing the car until now

Turn your ffb off and do some laps, requires zero tension will teach you to be loose, then turn it back on

You practice what you preach.👍

tension has been my worst enemy at the race specially when being chased or chasing at the last lap

Relaxing video

Since you’re driving gt3 more. I would love to see you drive ACC.

How do I get the braking/ throttle input graph? Is it a video editing thing or am I just not looking somewhere?

How to relax on DirectDrive with LoadCell pedal? 😅 Does it mean it’s better to dial down FFB and reduce load cell force level to be able to achieve that?

Great video! However I still have one question. How can you keep your arms relaxed and still be able to turn the direct drive wheel?

You're a wise young man :)

What settings do you use on the logitech pro in iracing for ff

I have heart failure, and just got a sim rig, and when im racing, i notice i clench the wheel too hard and i dont breathe in tense situations

Legend

I have this issue but for some reason I cannot relax and release the tension. It’s like the tension makes me aggressive far outside of my skills and boom race over just like that

Does it only work with a DD or with a FFB it also work ??

i even stop breathing when someone is 0.2 seconds behind me.

Sounds bit stupid 'relax relax relax' but what you say about the shoulders and front grip its so True. If I go with I have a lot of tension in myn shoulders. I go try this 😁

I'm always trying things in races ffs, P1 on the last lap, last corner and I'll try taking a different line in or exit in a different gear = P9

Excelente! TENSÂO é meu principal inimigo na corrida..rsrsrsrs....boa! Em outros esportes(fisicos) eu me sinto tao bem e relaxado..mas no iracing...tensão toma conta.

I know I do because I can sometimes even get a headache from it.