Thread by @AntonyMarcano

When competing at the top of #F1, looking for the last 0.001s, swathes of real time data matters.

When you start learning the basics in a kart, a stop watch & a pit board are enough... F1 amounts of data will do more harm than good at this level.

Choose team metrics wisely.

At first, you work on basics. The racing line, braking, steering input. Once you can take the kart round reasonably consistently, have visibly good technique and clearly on the racing line, then you want an electronic dash to log sector times (tracks are split into 3 sectors).

Now you see the delta between your actual time and you're theoretical best based on best sectors across all laps. And, which sector makes the biggest difference. You focus on improving that first. What you learn there improves the other sectors. You've improved you skill.

After much practice, you are much more consistent in a lap and in each sector. What you need to improve can't be seen with the naked eye. The variance is too small and open to perceptive distortions and bias.

Now you need to know time deltas corner to corner.

You plug your electronic dash into a computer. Graphs show time deltas. You see lap times are consistent but there's big variance between corners lap to lap. You try to get these consistently matching your best, until every corner does and your overall lap times improve.

You are consistent. You're faster but not fast enough. You know there's more time to find. You start looking at speeds: corner entry, minimum (mid corner), exit & top speeds in your data logging software. You look for where you are going too slow, even too fast into each corner.

You carry more speed mid corner in one. You brake sooner and harder to slow down enough in another. It's about the right speed at the right time.

You slow down more or carry more speed in the right corners to make your overall lap times faster.

Now you need more data... And so it continues. A never ending cycle of new questions, new data, more precise and more focused. Serious kart racing gets super sophisticated, even before stepping up into a race car.

Some orgs and software development teams take on too many metrics too soon. Just because that's what others measure doesn't mean that's what you're ready for.

Focusing on what you need for where you are today will get you better, faster, sooner.