Asphalt training

[Sulland]

What is the best training to start trusting the asphalt tyres in rally, for drivers with predominently gravel/snow experience?
Driving many asphalt rallies is the obvious answer, but will driving on a track with a gokart, single seater, tin top racer or a rally car help getting the trust sooner?

What is in your opinion the best option?

[tommeke_B]

I don't think anybody here is going to give a great answer to your question, but I hope I'm wrong. :D First you have to question who it is for, experienced driver or not in other rallying, what are the ambitions etc...

Asphalt driving is more than "trusting the tyres", obviously. Depending on which events, circumstances etc, the grip of the asphalt can vary a lot, then there's the pacenotes, the lines etc. If it were simple everyone would be good at it. ;)

I've heard there's some Rally School in Italy, which helped a lot of drivers, even experienced drivers learned a lot from him. From one driver who told me it was very interesting, and even after years of driving, he learned a lot. I think it's interesting to find out from somebody (who was gravel/snow driver first and who did this "school") how helpful it can be, and if you need some asphalt experience before going there, or not. http://www.canevarally.it/Caneva_School_en.pdf

[racerx1979]

karting is great for your reflexes and driving lines.

[Munkvy]

For me personally the bit I struggled the most with on tarmac rallying was trusting the grip levels of the car. This isn't just the tyres, but the suspension and the road surface/weather that impacts too.

So doing mileage in differing road conditions helped, but also driving with low grip options (used tyres and/or poor handling suspension) and progressively moving into more grip/better optimised suspension setup and exploring the limits helped me a lot to have confidence. And confidence is a pretty big part in any rallying. I also tried this at race tracks as you often can get away with falling off there without risking damage to the car, so can explore the limits more safely.

Definitely once you are confident in how the car handles and grips depending on setup, road conditions is an important one to be able to read and manage, especially if you are competing in places where the surface changes regularly, like Rally Germany for example.

This is just an amateur opinion of course, I am no expert! Just done a few rallies and quite a few sprints with some moderate success.

[Zeakiwi]

Depends how much money is available for driver development.
Which rally drivers had/ had a back ground in motocross, skiing etc before driving rally cars?

Both the asphalt karts and the dirt karts are good for young drivers before they can drive on the road and at full size race tracks.

Production road car racing on race tracks can be useful. Does Scandanavia have tar seal race tracks rally events where road cones and tyres are used to make extra curves in tar seal race tracks?
Tar seal hill climbs?
Canadian, Australian, NZ targa events - a week of driving on tar seal stages in one go.

[janvanvurpa]

Ass-fault is treacherous... Somebody at Malcom Wilson --Loriaux I think said "On asfalt we are chasing handling....on gravel we are searching for grip"
Now in another sport I did a couple of years of International racing..all on dirt, clay, stones, sand, mud..
I was happy.
I knew some guys who were elite roadrace guys and here I knew some guys who were the best in the world in 1/2 Mile and Mile--
They all said "There is a line and you have to be on THAT LINEor you are nowhere...>

That makes it i grunden
different from loose surface where we can 'fake it' a little more...and we can choose to break traction to square a corner or not depending..Ass-fault you better have LOTS of springs and shocks and struts and a semi-trailer full of different tires becuase even if you're a good driver--if you are wrong in the set up maybe 2mm high, or 2n/m off on the spring or your tires are 9 months old---and the other guy has better STUFF, he'll be faster..
Gravel: skill is the Key
Ass-fault: equipment is king

(This may explain why over the last 40 years only one or 2 "super heroes" from asfalt circuit tracks can do only modest results.

Personally I hate asphalt..tur nog I only have done maybe 5 SS on asfalt..scary shit.

[janvanvurpa]

Depends how much money is available for driver development.

Canadian, targa events - a week of driving on tar seal stages in one go.

The Newfoundland thing is essentially a touring thing, cruise around and go 80% in something really expensive and stay in luxury hotels..like most things in the Americas its mainly about showing off, not driving

[dupanton]

As Tom already said, Caneva has a very good reputation.
Competing in an asphalt rally with a codriver who has a lot of experience on Tarmac can help too. He can give tips in driving lines, techniques etc.
Asphalt is really about reading the conditions. On a gravel stage the grip doesn't vary that much (although I only competed in 1 gravel rally). On asphalt (certainly in Belgium) it varies a lot. Concrete, old asphalt, new asphalt, dirt on the road from cutting, damp or wet patches etc.

[Mirek]

Gravel: skill is the Key
Ass-fault: equipment is king

Not totally. On circuit it applies quite a lot. On rally stages much less. Anyway what is interesting on asphalt events is how few drivers actually can be on THE right line. Even plenty of drivers considered very good ones on the international level take very strange or completely wrong lines on asphalt. The most frequent mistake I have seen is to brake too late - that means they drive sharper corners than they actually need. The other frequent mistake is wrong pacenotes which results into wrong lines into series of turns. To take first corner right is rather easy but to take a blind section from corner into corner on asphalt is very very difficult. Another very common mistake is overusing of brakes, especially left-foot braking resulting in loosing brake power halfway into stage. We can continue with another stuff like how to take slow corners on wet etc. I would say that driving skills on asphalt are very important and very difficult to learn especially for people who were grown on gravel (the opposite way from asphalt to gravel is easier imo).

[racerx1979]

Caneva seems like a great option for Tarmac rally. There are some great rally schools in Finland for gravel as well.

[br21]

For sure driving on circuit with tarmac spec rally car will help to adapt to grip levels, etc. On circuit there is much bigger room for error than on tarmac stage, so it's good to start.

[Suusameister]

Stumbled onto this pretty interesting video about racing lines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8qBdOs0s1E)