Lap comparison is one of the most powerful tools in LapBrain. By comparing your fastest lap to a slower one, you can see exactly where time is gained and lost — corner by corner, phase by phase.
When to compare
The most useful comparison is between your best lap and a representative lap — not your worst. Your worst lap might have a mistake (missed a corner, went off track) that makes the comparison noisy. Pick a clean lap that's 1–2 seconds off your best.
What to look for
Corner-level deltas
The lap comparison view shows a DeltaDeltaThe time difference between two laps or between a lap and a reference (such as your personal best), measured in seconds gained or lost. for each corner. Look for corners with the biggest time difference — these are where you're leaving the most time.
A corner where you're 0.3 seconds slower on your average lap than your best is a bigger opportunity than a corner where you're 0.05 seconds slower. Focus on the big gaps first.
Phase-level differences
Once you've identified the high-delta corners, look at which Turn phasesTurn phasesThe five stages of every corner: Entry, Decel, Maintenance, Accel, and Exit. Each phase has distinct techniques and metrics. differ between laps:
- Entry speed difference — are you carrying less speed into the corner on slower laps?
- Braking distance difference — are you braking earlier? That's often the single biggest time loss.
- Exit drive difference — are you getting on the throttle later or less aggressively?
Consistency patterns
Compare 3–4 laps, not just two. If your ApexApexThe point in a corner where the bike is closest to the inside edge of the track and typically at the lowest speed. speed varies widely in a specific corner, that's a consistency issue — you're sometimes getting it right and sometimes not. The fix is practice, not technique change.
Reading the line-divergence panel
The line-divergence panel shows how far your lap moved left or right from the reference line at each point around the lap. Use it beside cumulative time: when the line moves and the time gap opens in the same range, that section is worth reviewing.
Positive values mean your lap was right of the reference line; negative values mean it was left. Treat small wiggles as noise. Look for sustained wider or tighter patterns through an entry, apex, or exit.
The provenance badge tells you which reference line was used:
- vs track centerline means the trace is measured against the track's resolved centerline.
- vs smoothed baseline lap means the track does not have a resolved centerline yet, so LapBrain uses a smoothed copy of the comparison lap. This is useful for seeing where the two laps diverged, but it is more pair-specific.
What to do next
- Pick your biggest-delta corner and tap into the corner detail to see the phase breakdown.
- Identify which phase is causing the time difference — entry, maintenance, or exit.
- Focus your next session on that specific phase in that specific corner. See Acting on Coaching for how to translate this into on-track practice.