Now that we can control the pressure precisely, we want to break down the braking techniques in 3 stages: brake application, threshold braking, and trail braking. For now, we will be using a straight line to make sure we master these techniques without worrying too much about cornering. Remember, the more things we add, the more complicated it gets.

Here's a baseline telemetric trace from a regular braking, common braking: application, consistent threshold, slow release. You will learn its variations throughout the course.

Brake Application

Brake application is simply how quickly or slowly you reach the peak pressure. This is how a slow application looks like. On a straight line, this is wrong, and it's a very common mistake. The only reason we should do the brake application slowly is when we are coming from another corner, which will be discussed later in the course in the inverted string theory lesson.

There's no point in applying the brake pressure too slowly on a straight line. You will just be under the limit during the initial application phase, and if you're in a formula car, that will be even worse, because you're going to be under the limit initially, and then you're going to be over the limit later, increasing drastically the chances of locking up your tires.

Medium Brake Application

This is how a medium brake application looks like. It should be useful in soft suspension cars to prevent microlocking on application, and it requires a lot of trial and error, so don't just do it blindly. Make sure you're testing the application speeds.

Fast Brake Application

This is how a fast application looks like. This one is more common in high-downforce cars, where you have stiff suspensions and a lot of grip on higher speeds due to the downforce. Even in fast applications like that, make sure you're never kicking the brakes from a distance. Always touch the pedal with your foot before doing the application. This will enhance your target brake pressure precision.

Impact on Precision and Consistency

The speed at which you apply the brakes initially has a huge impact on the precision of your speed control and your consistency mid-corner. Let me show you why.

In this video, I tested braking with the Ferrari 296 GT3, a car that has ABS, to analyze three braking application speeds: slow, medium, and fast. In all three situations, although the peak pressures were slightly different, I was reaching ABS throughout the braking zone until the cars stopped. In all three examples, I initiated the braking as close as possible to the white line crossing the track.

The main purpose of this exercise is to show you how much distance it takes from initial pressure to peak pressure, depending on how fast you apply the brakes:

• In the slow application, the distance between initial and peak pressure is over 100 meters and the car was under the limit on the initial phase

• The medium application had half that distance

• The fast application had a quarter of that distance

You can see that the fast application was the one that stopped first, but in iRacing, that would probably be a little bit slower than the medium application due to too much ABS overheating the tires and decreasing cornering mid-corner.

Important Considerations for Application Speed

Let me make something very clear here. I'm not telling you to brake as fast as possible. Depending on the tire model, the simulator, or in case of real life, tire compounds, and behavior of the car, suspension, tires, etc., you'll have to adapt your brake application speeds. In iRacing, for example, you will see many professional esports drivers brake a little bit more slowly initially in some cars, what I would call medium application speeds in this lesson.

Reference Points and Peak Pressure

What I wanted to know is that in case you brake more slowly, you will have to think of your reference point. Is your reference for the beginning of your brake application, or is it for the peak pressure? If you don't actively think of that, sometimes you're going to use a reference for an initial application, and then in a different lap, use that same reference for the peak pressure, which could make you carry drastically different speeds into the corner.

On this corner, for example, you can see that I'm already starting to brake here, but my reference are actually these three cones here. I'm starting to brake here because I know that I'm going to build up my pressure, and by the time I get there, I'm going to reach my peak pressure. So I'm using these three cones as a reference for my peak pressure.

So make sure you decide what you're using your reference for. I do both. Sometimes I use a reference to start my brake application. Sometimes I use my reference to reach my peak pressure. It just depends on how convenient it is for that specific corner.

Peak Pressure Precision

Regarding peak pressure precision, the faster the application, the more difficult it is to reach always exactly the same pressure. For example, if you're trying to brake too quickly, instead of hitting 80%, you're hitting 75, then 85, then 82, then 77. If you brake a little bit more slowly, you can hit 81, 80, 78, 82, which will allow you to be much more consistent in your speed control, and you're always going to carry exactly the same speed when you start turning into the corner.

Threshold Braking

Threshold braking is the continuous process of maintaining the car on the limit, decelerating as much as possible without locking up the tires or getting into too much ABS. The threshold braking depends on the total amount of grip the car has, mechanical and aerodynamic. A very low downforce car will have a very similar threshold pressure until the car stops, while a high downforce car will lose a lot of braking performance as the speed decreases creating this shape.

Trail Braking

Trail braking is transitioning from braking to cornering. That means the braking will affect not only the deceleration of the car, but also the rotation of the car. And here's what you should never forget: this will happen whether you want it or not. Braking while cornering will always affect the two things at the same time.

And you have to remember this because it's very easy to carry too much speed, then try to brake a little bit more to slow down the car more, but end up getting oversteer and spinning the car on entry because of it. Don't worry too much about the trail braking part for now. We're still focusing on maximizing that longitudinal grip only.