Let’s face it, if you race in a series where you are usually on the track all by yourself and never have a need to pass someone, when it does happen you aren’t going to be as “practiced” as you might want to be. Think about it, NASCAR and Formula 1 guys pass each other dozens of time during a race and sometimes they can’t even do it right. Road racing guys, especially those running endurance races with multiple classes of cars on track at one time, do a lot of passing and are usually pretty good at it but sometimes even that goes wrong. And both of those are on a race track that they have been around a jillion times before having to pass someone, not public roads they have never been down before.
So when Rally racers have to make a pass, they have to scope out the terrain, size up the situation, and make a move when they can. And if they don’t do it very very quickly, they will lose time and might as well have stayed behind the person. World Rally Championship drivers are some of the best in the world, and they drive flat out almost all the time, which means that when their passes go wrong they go wrong in a big way.
Here are some not so good examples of how to overtake a competitor, from our friends at Redbull.
