Trackmania: A beginner's guide, skills to master, tips, and tricks & more!

Trackmania is an arcade racer that is brilliant fun to play, and almost impossible to master. Also, the game is updated to this day!

With numerous skills for players relearn, it's easy to see why so many can fall behind.

So, let's take a look at 5 of the top skills you'll need to master to race in Trackmania competitively!

Airbrake

The first element of the game that many should learn and attempt to master is the airbrake. Also, credits to Wirtual on YouTube for an incredibly informative guide!

This shifts the position of your car when you're in the air. As such, you can soften the landing and maintain more speed following some air time.

To do this, simply brake when in mid-air to level the car out. You should land on all four wheels at a similar time, and keep up all that momentum you gained!

Drifting

Firstly, it's important to note that drifting does not work on dirt, grass or ice in Trackmania!

Trackmania Drift
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GOTTA GO SIDEWAYS: Drifting can maintain your momentum!

Drifting can only be achieved at 180 speed, and a drift is started by steering towards to the corner you want to drift in, and then holding brake for a half a second or so.

This should initiate the drift, now the player simply needs to hold it through the corner. Make sure to not dip back below 180 speed!

This skill is much like Trackmania as a whole, easy to learn and incredibly difficult to master. Start off by nailing the simple drifts first.

Keep it on the track

This simply means reducing you airtime, and there are two main ways that you can do this.

Trackmania on track
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NO AIR-TIME: Stay on the track as much as possible!

Firstly, make sure to drive diagonally. When going down slopes driving diagonally and maintaining contact with the track is significantly faster.

Next, slow down when going up walls, and any steep incline in general. Once again, you want to avoid catching airtime at the top!

Finally, try to stay in the middle of sausage blocks. You can lose a lot of time floating between the top of each corner.

No steering when you change gear

Unlike drifting, this exclusively applies to grass, ice and dirt!

Trackmania Gear Change
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GEAR TIME: When changing gear make sure to be moving forwards!

When you shift up in Trackmania (it's automatic, don't worry!) you can lose momentum due to the time spent shifting up.

However, steer just before shifting up and the effect is much more obvious, as it takes longer for the car to shift up.

This applies to all 5 gears. You shift up at 0, 100, 160, 235, 341 speed, so try to maintain a straight line near these speeds.

Bugslide

This is once again easy to learn and very difficult to master, so put some hours into this skill!

Trackmania Bugslide
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THE BUGSLIDE: This move can truly up your game!

To do this, drift into the corner at an angle of 90 degrees. This generally only applies to hairpins, as your goal is to slide through the 180 degree corner with very little loss of momentum.

Once mastered, you can save precious time across a variety of tracks if used correctly!

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