PB

In motorsport, PB stands for Personal Best, which is the fastest time or best result that an individual driver has ever achieved at a specific track, in a particular session, or during a certain type of competition.

Think of a personal best like your own high score in a video game. Just as you might try to beat your previous best score, racing drivers constantly work to improve their lap times and beat their own records. A PB represents a driver's benchmark against themselves, showing how much they've improved over time.

Personal bests can apply to different measurements in racing. The most common use is for lap times, where a driver completes one full circuit of the track faster than they ever have before. For example, if a driver's quickest lap around a circuit was 1 minute and 30 seconds, and they later complete it in 1 minute and 29 seconds, they've set a new PB.

Drivers can also set personal bests for sector times, which are portions of the track divided into segments. A track might be split into three sectors, and a driver could achieve their fastest-ever time through just one sector even if their overall lap isn't a personal best. This helps teams identify where the driver is improving and where they might still need work.

Setting a new PB is always a positive achievement in motorsport. It shows that the driver is getting faster, the team has made improvements to the car's setup, or the driver has learned more about the track. During practice sessions, drivers focus heavily on achieving personal bests as they prepare for qualifying and the race.

It's important to understand that a personal best is different from other racing records. While a PB is specific to one individual driver, a track record belongs to whoever has driven the fastest lap at that circuit regardless of who they are. A rookie driver might set a PB that's still several seconds slower than the track record held by an experienced champion.

Teams track personal bests carefully using timing data and telemetry. This information helps engineers understand whether changes to the car are making it faster and helps drivers see concrete evidence of their improvement. Celebrating a new PB, even by a fraction of a second, is common in motorsport because those small improvements can make the difference between winning and losing.

You'll often hear commentators mention when a driver sets a PB during qualifying sessions, where the goal is to record the fastest possible lap time to secure a good starting position for the race. The term is used across all forms of motorsport, from Formula 1 and NASCAR to motorcycle racing and rallying.