Some people believe that an occasional spin or crash is essential to learning to drive quickly. This is not true. A spin or crash is the result of an extreme case of exceeding the limits of the car and driver.
Losing control of the car is a hazard to the car involved as well as other cars on the track, and the driver usually learns very little as he or she tries to save the car in a panic. Consider this technique, instead.
Enter the turn at a speed that is well within the capabilities of the car and driver. Observe the braking points, corner entry speed, establish a “line” through the corner, and observe your corner exit speed. Make sure you can repeat this.
Now, without changing your braking point, slightly decrease your braking to bring your corner entry speed up, in small increments, and observe your speed at corner exit. You will know you have optimized the corner when increasing your entry speed any further has a negative effect on your corner exit speed. You now know the maximum speed you can carry through the turn, that gives the best drive off the corner. Next, move your braking point closer to corner entry, in small increments, to maximize your braking.
No spins, no crashes, but you have found the limit.
You have still not found the limit, you’ve just increased your speed through the turn.
It makes perfect sense: in this case the limit is the threshold of over driving the car, not loss of traction. That’s a more relevant limit for lap times. My experience was leading me in the same direction, but not as explicitly. I was just finding it peculiar that the slower I went — where slower is of course relative — the faster my lap times became.