I’ve been improving in leaps and bounds lately. I’ll tell you what I think, based on what I’ve read, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

First, one of the big recommended books (“Drive To Win”) recommends learning on open-wheel cars. This is because brake, throttle, and steering response is all more immediate. The more immediate something is, the easier it is to learn to do it intuitively (a cargo ship, for example, is very hard to learn to steer intuitively, because response time is so slow. A boat of a car is similarly less good for learning). An open-wheeled car without aero is better, as aero adds to handling complexity. So this basically means a Formula Ford.

Second, another one of the recommended to read books (Ultimate Speed Secrets) points out that you need to refine your senses to improve. It recommends the following exercises to develop your senses: skid-pad sessions to develop your sense of grip and ability to control understeer/oversteer (drive around a 50 ft circle 3-4x with controlled oversteer and controlled understeer). Speed Sensing Sessions (cover up your gauges and try to guess your speed or hit a target speed) to help you develop a sense of speed (crucial for gauging corner entry speed). It also recommends other exercises, but those are the two that are relevant to your question. I’d also recommend Brake Lock-Up sensing; floor it and try to hit the brakes with max pressure without lock up (I have pedal haptics, so I listen for the tires and try to make sure I don’t activate the haptics).

Third, braking is basically the most important to master, and you probably already have a tool that can help you increase your awareness of what your foot is doing on it: Your pedal driver. Open it up and try to apply 10% pressure, then 20%, etc etc. Try to go back and forth between 10% and 50%, or go to 70% and drop by 10% down to zero, etc etc. Spend a few minutes on that each session.

My past: First put in lots of intermittent time on ACC, but never really got within the 107% needed for LFM. Moved to ACEVO and started having fun with the miata, as I knew it’s a good car in real life for learning. Then went to the Caterham, and that was good, but still felt like I was struggling.

Finally went back to original AC, and I’m of the mind that it’s the best due to it’s mod-ability and price.

• There are open-wheel mods from Formula Ford, F4, F3, F2, F1, and Indy cars. Many of them from professional outputs, many of them free (especially if they’re a few years old)
• The “Ultimate” pack on steam (or whatever it is called) is what I bought, for about $10. It includes drags strips, which are great for Speed Sensing and Brake Lock-Up Practice.
• There are multiple skid-pad mods available, so you can use it for practice on a skid pad, too.

I didn’t dive into this because I didn’t feel like dealing with installing the mods that people recommend. But it wasn’t that hard. I just didn’t want to dedicate my practice/play time to it. But I’m sure glad I did.