Mads Ostberg

[Antony Warmbold]

Really nice! Many thanks for all these info!

I have two questions for you:
How easy is it to add more and more info in your pace notes? By adding more details (like Loeb in your example) you must have the mental ability to analyse all that in the stage and drive accordingly. Although a more simplistic system (e.g. Petter) will allow to concentrate more on driving than analysing the pace notes.
Have you ever come across places where you wanted to add more info, but you know beforehand this is too much to process while driving in the stage? (out of curiosity, what system did you use?)

I appreciate that processing pace notes while driving is second nature to rally drivers, but I am not convinced that everyone (even among the current top drivers) can do it equally well.

I believe the key things are:

1. enough time for the co-drriver to read the info.

2. that the info follows an order and a logic that your brain can process efficiently.

3. a lot of work learning to process the info as you are driving. My wife is a pianist and when I see her read a classical partition (which is extremely complicated) and play at the same time something different with each hand plus her foot sometimes pushing the pedal I understand the skill required and years of practice it took to get there!

4. you need to start early in your adulthood to train your brain to listen to lots of info and be able to take it in and use it as you're driving. This will help understand what I mean: http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/lea...growthcyc.html

I started practicing listening and acting on it with Colin McRae Rally on PC when I was a teen.

My system was angle based with lots of corner shape descriptions and lots of speed details. I included a page of my notes as an example. It reads:

left entry little faster right ninety four keep out and
caution shorter left ninety entry immediate slower second right ninety three into ninety fast entry over crest left bad 3rd gear ok
and 100 faster left ninety in and triple caution special right entry over crest into 50
special much slower third right ninety three entry into twenty super short right ninety three and ...

-->just as an example the last line explained:

special - it's a tricky corner / much slower - self explanatory / third - the apex is 3 times farther around the corner than "normal" / right ninety three - it's a ninety degree corner in third gear / into - it's a combination corner and there is no direction change / 20 - distance until that next corner / super short - very sharp corner / ... "plus sign" - and (direction change)

The underlining tells the co-driver to read fast and the double underlining very fast. These notes were derived from my dad's, I modernized them and adapted them to my preferences and added gear indications among other things. I also got inspired from others. For example "Go" right something indicates it's a full throttle corner no matter what and "Braking" as in "flat right braking into 100 turn right ninety two". I got those from Richard Burns of whom I was a big fan.

[Antony Warmbold]

Lundefaret and SubaruNorway:

Thanks for the info and not surpised that Ostberg's notes are very simple. With notes like that it is a huge disadvantage to be fast and especially on tarmac where you cannot drive sideways, in my opinion.

As soon as I have more time I will start a thread to compare pace notes. Good idea.

[Lundefaret]

Really nice! Many thanks for all these info!

I have two questions for you:
How easy is it to add more and more info in your pace notes? By adding more details (like Loeb in your example) you must have the mental ability to analyse all that in the stage and drive accordingly. Although a more simplistic system (e.g. Petter) will allow to concentrate more on driving than analysing the pace notes.
Have you ever come across places where you wanted to add more info, but you know beforehand this is too much to process while driving in the stage? (out of curiosity, what system did you use?)

I appreciate that processing pace notes while driving is second nature to rally drivers, but I am not convinced that everyone (even among the current top drivers) can do it equally well.

I will add on Warmbolds respons.

The way Petter could add info was because the info was action orientaded, and required little or no prosessing. This way You can also rescieve the pace notes much later.
But to be able to di this the pace notes have to be transformed to aqiuered reflexes, and this You can only do trough repitition, and thus programming Your brain. Like a classical pianist

[Juha_Koo]

Thing that has to be taken into account are different languages. Loeb's pacenotes would be nearly impossible (I said nearly ) to be used in Finnish. I give an example by using three first rows of Anthony's example of Loeb's notes. Examples are written in the way of the spoken language (grammatically correct versions differ quite a bit).

Oikee täys pitkä ja pitkä nyppy suoraan.

Kakssataaviiskyt metriä, vasen satanelkyt miinus puolipitkä, älä leikkaa alussa, vähän soraa lopussa.

Sata metriä, huomio, merkiltä oikee sataviiskytkuus kirraa sata puolipitkä.


For my brains and mouth it doesn't work... Especially the "metres" part doesn't work in Finnish. But I examined the subject a bit deeper and made the following findings:

The Finnish version contains 28 words and 208 characters, while the French version contains 33 words and 218 characters. So in the light of numbers, Finnish version should be better (more condensed) but it is not so straight-forward. While in French e.g. the word "metres" is pronounced like "metr" (100 metres= "SaMetr") in Finnish it's "metrii" or "metriä" (100 metres="sata metrii"). So actually Finnish words are longer to pronounce.

Small edit: I have always believed that pacenotes have to reflect driver's personal affections, so it's very very difficult (impossible?) to completely revamp the system while it's been used for many years. For example in my opinion Novikov had the most crappy pacenotes I have ever seen (90% of the notes were "right one, left one gas, right zero, left one"). Only time I heard other number than 0 or 1 was on a tight junction "left three, out road". BUT still the guy managed to do 15 WRC stage wins, two podiums and 173 championship points. THEN AGAIN, he was very accident-prone and I can bet that pacenotes were partly to blame. But in my opinion it comes to show, that if you're a fast driver and on top of that have a good "road-eye" (like drivers in Finland have, because of the blind rallies) you don't actually need über-precise pacenote system to clock top times. You sort of "attack into the corners without knowing the shape exactly, you just have a raw idea of the (speed/turn)category of the corner" and drive it through. I could argue that this is one reason why many Finns haven't been able to make progress on tarmac.

[Antony Warmbold]

Thing that has to be taken into account are different languages. Loeb's pacenotes would be nearly impossible (I said nearly ) to be used in Finnish. I give an example by using three first rows of Anthony's example of Loeb's notes. Examples are written in the way of the spoken language (grammatically correct versions differ quite a bit).

Oikee täys pitkä ja pitkä nyppy suoraan.

Kakssataaviiskyt metriä, vasen satanelkyt miinus puolipitkä, älä leikkaa alussa, vähän soraa lopussa.

Sata metriä, huomio, merkiltä oikee sataviiskytkuus kirraa sata puolipitkä.


For my brains and mouth it doesn't work... Especially the "metres" part doesn't work in Finnish. But I examined the subject a bit deeper and made the following findings:

The Finnish version contains 28 words and 208 characters, while the French version contains 33 words and 218 characters. So in the light of numbers, Finnish version should be better (more condensed) but it is not so straight-forward. While in French e.g. the word "metres" is pronounced like "metr" (100 metres= "SaMetr") in Finnish it's "metrii" or "metriä" (100 metres="sata metrii"). So actually Finnish words are longer to pronounce.

That's a very good point Juha. My wife who's a Finn and a linguist from Universirty education would agree with you on that !!

[Lundefaret]

Thing that has to be taken into account are different languages. Loeb's pacenotes would be nearly impossible (I said nearly ) to be used in Finnish. I give an example by using three first rows of Anthony's example of Loeb's notes. Examples are written in the way of the spoken language (grammatically correct versions differ quite a bit).

Oikee täys pitkä ja pitkä nyppy suoraan.

Kakssataaviiskyt metriä, vasen satanelkyt miinus puolipitkä, älä leikkaa alussa, vähän soraa lopussa.

Sata metriä, huomio, merkiltä oikee sataviiskytkuus kirraa sata puolipitkä.


For my brains and mouth it doesn't work... Especially the "metres" part doesn't work in Finnish. But I examined the subject a bit deeper and made the following findings:

The Finnish version contains 28 words and 208 characters, while the French version contains 33 words and 218 characters. So in the light of numbers, Finnish version should be better (more condensed) but it is not so straight-forward. While in French e.g. the word "metres" is pronounced like "metr" (100 metres= "SaMetr") in Finnish it's "metrii" or "metriä" (100 metres="sata metrii"). So actually Finnish words are longer to pronounce.

Small edit: I have always believed that pacenotes have to reflect driver's personal affections, so it's very very difficult (impossible?) to completely revamp the system while it's been used for many years. For example in my opinion Novikov had the most crappy pacenotes I have ever seen (90% of the notes were "right one, left one gas, right zero, left one"). Only time I heard other number than 0 or 1 was on a tight junction "left three, out road". BUT still the guy managed to do 15 WRC stage wins, two podiums and 173 championship points. THEN AGAIN, he was very accident-prone and I can bet that pacenotes were partly to blame. But in my opinion it comes to show, that if you're a fast driver and on top of that have a good "road-eye" (like drivers in Finland have, because of the blind rallies) you don't actually need über-precise pacenote system to clock top times. You sort of "attack into the corners without knowing the shape exactly, you just have a raw idea of the (speed/turn)category of the corner" and drive it through. I could argue that this is one reason why many Finns haven't been able to make progress on tarmac.

Very clever insight regarding the language!
In Norwegian pace notes we often use Swedish words that are shorter and easier to say, like "krön" would be "bakketopp" in Norwegian (crest.)
The way we work with our talent, trying to further develop the pace notes (under the watchfull eye of Olav Bodilsen, so we dont end up fixing what isnt broken), we use mostly English words, but with the numbers spoken in Norwegian.

Regarding Finnish pace notes.
The last Finnish World Champion was in 2002. And he had some accidents.
Tommi Mäkkinen was four times WRC champ. But had his shear of accidents.
The finns used to have the best pace notes, but now they seem left behind.
And since Loeb, Petter etc took the ball game even further, You can not be WRC champ with unpresice pace notes (at least not when You are fighting some french guy that has precise ones, and knows how to drive Nose End First)

But this is a circle. Pace notes affect driving, the understanding of driving affects pace notes, the better or worse understanding of driving and pace notes affects how high You can have the treshold of Your set up, etc.

I have said this in the Nose End First thread, and it awaked a small uproar: "Going off is old fashioned." If You are up against a guy like Loeb, You cant afford to go of the road. The pace notes are instrumental in this.

Thank You again Juha_Koo, Your language insight was a mind opener

[Frostmourne]

Nice discussion about the pace note system. I was wondering for sometime. If the driver is the one who is making the pace notes for the stage, what is the co-driver input into this? just write them down, and read it to the driver?? I mean what makes co-driver X better than co-driver Y? the ability to read the notes loud and clear?

[noel157]

Wrong post, ignore. No delete option any more?

[seb_sh]

Great thread, I'm enjoying the insights and examples. Pace notes have fascinated me since I started to watch rallying and play various rally games on PC.

It would be great to have a side by side comparison as Antony suggested, between Loeb and Ogier but also others as well.

[raybak]

Nice discussion about the pace note system. I was wondering for sometime. If the driver is the one who is making the pace notes for the stage, what is the co-driver input into this? just write them down, and read it to the driver?? I mean what makes co-driver X better than co-driver Y? the ability to read the notes loud and clear?

As an experienced codriver, I do have input while writing the notes. And have the ability to write quickly during the stage if a change is needed for the second pass.

I codrive for several different types of driver, some like lot's of info in the notes and others like very little. Over the years I have developed my own language (codriver shorthand) and it works well for me but may be useless to others.

I think a major thing is that you are intune with your driver, you need to understand them, what speeds they are capable of, when they want their calls. Analysis of incar is very important as well. Before events I get my drivers to look over the videos of others doing the same stages. Your notes should always be evolving, as Antony has said he has developed his notes from his father's system and it will continue to evolve. I have seen some of my notes from 6 years ago running with Derek and our notes from now are totally different, in some stages we have more info and in others we have less.

The major thing is that no actual way is wrong, it's just different. It's finding the style to make you go at your fastest without crashing.

Ray