The Power of Visualization

One of the best mental training exercises you can do is visualization. In addition to that it’s basically the one type of training in motorsport you can do completely for free. This should be enough reason to at least give it a try.

Visualization simply comes down to your ability to imagine. You can do it with both your eyes open or closed, but if you are new to this technique it will be most effective if you start out with your eyes closed. 

When you are sitting with closed eyes, the exercise is that you now have to drive a lap on a racetrack of your own choice. It might be the one you practice on most often or the one you are racing on next. With your eyes closed, you begin imagining how the track looks when you drive around.

The more senses you can add to your visualization the better. How does the car smell? Is the engine sounding the way it should? How does the track feel? How’s the weather?

Gradually you add more and more impressions on top of each other as you begin driving around on your imaginative racetrack. It’s important that you are as precise with your gear changes, your steering and the way you approach the throttle and braking as possible. The more tiny details you can add to the exercise, the more effective the exercise will be. 

When you have practiced visualization enough you can also use it when evaluating your driving session with your engineers after you have done laps in your physical racecar. It’s a lot easier to recall small details of what you did on track and how the car behaved, when you can see everything clearly in your mind.