All race cars can only take so much acceleration, based on the traction of there tires, if we review from the circle of traction, we find that we can think of the car as being on a two dimension vector system.  Since the car can only take a finite magnitude of acceleration, if we graph this magnitude its force is the radius of a circle.  If we we are driving, and our resulting vector sum of the forward acceleration and turn is greater then the radius of the circle, we are going to skid....  Not where we want to go.

If we have a curved right turn on a race track, mathematically we know the shortest way around it is to take the inside track.  But this is not optimal, because if we are turning, we have less traction available for accelerating, or de-accelerating since the unit vector would the sum of the acceleration and the turning.  The optimal solution on a gentle right is to start on the outside, go to the inside apex and then go back out to the outside.  This adds 5% greater distance, but our exit speed is 37% faster since as we can enter the corner faster, and get on the gas sooner since we will not need to turn as much.  This is something you can try driving at normal highway speeds on turns in your own lane, if you start off on the outside of your lane, work in and pull out, your turn will feel amazingly gentle.

Things get more complicated when you consider multiple turns.  For example, if we take a hard right and hard left, we can't just go outside, apex, outside, as the entrance to the second corner is on the opposite side of the track!  Since there is no optimal way around the track,you don't have to drive at the limit of traction so this would be a good place to pass, since all the drivers will be compromising the line here. (Physics of Racing)  I would go slow in, apex late, pass in the middle of the turns, apex early, and hope I don't get passed on the exit!