Braking Mastery 1

Introduction to the Training Program

For the many next simulator exercises, we are going to do the same combo - the Raticos R8 at Laguna Seca. The setup prepared for these exercises is quite unforgiving, but at the same time realistic. This car has a lot of power, 400 horsepower, and it is very loose by nature. The setup has been made even more over-series so that we can learn all the tools we need to keep this car on track.

Every drill we work on, although we're going to spend a lot of time in them separately, will be built into your brain so that when you actually go on track on the real track, you will be able to apply these things much more quickly and almost at the same time as you learn a new track, as you learn a new car. We are going step by step so that you really make it automatic in your driving and then they're going to start fitting together and you're going to be able to do all of these drills at the same time at different stages of the corner without even thinking about it.

Exercise Setup and Preparation

For this first exercise, we are just going to feel the deceleration. We are going to get a car that has no ABS, this car will lock up if you break 100% in the simulator, so we are going to have to be more precise on our left foot. For now, we are going to just warm up the tires and then we are going to set up an active reset at the beginning of the lap.

Treat this like a real session. The tires are very cold and raising and they actually do represent how the car behaves in your life very realistically. Important warm-up guidelines:

• Not a lot of braking on turning

• Just very, very, very progressive on the throttle as you exit the corners

• Break on a straight line

• If you're not sure what gear you're going to take, make sure you're just over slowing for now because you're just getting a feel

• You really don't want to overshoot any corner

• Break progressively, break a little bit harder and start feeling the car

• Very progressive on the throttle every time

• Make sure you never overshoot any corner and just feel out the car a little bit

Understanding Tire Lock-Up Sounds

With the tire sounds that we have set up in our racing, you can hear a little bit of the sounds when the tires are about to lock. You can hear the sound gets a little bit higher pitch and a little bit louder before it starts locking. And then when you do a full lock, you can really hear the sound of the tires.

Exercise 1: Maximum Braking on Flat Surface

For our first exercise, we just want to stop the car as quickly as possible. We are going to start braking while parallel to the four board, trying to break as quickly as possible. Then we're going to relax our hands and just wait for the car to stop and look at that pressure. Hearing the sound of the tires, just making sure that you're trying to decelerate the car as much as you can without locking to a full stop.

You can do this as many times as you want until you feel very comfortable that you are pretty much on the limit. You can also experiment braking harder to lock up and just see how that feels.

Key Technique Points

As you can see, the goal is to brake almost to the point of locking and maybe adjust the pressure a little bit. You might brake a little bit harder and then start releasing one or two or three or five percent and then just make sure that you're as close as possible to locking.

When you brake too hard and lock the rear first and then the front, the car will do a little bit of a pivot and then it goes straight when the four tires were locked. If you don't break hard enough, you may go off track.

The way this is set up, the car does have enough grip to fully stop if you break at the foreboard before you go off track. Ideally you want to make sure that you apply the pressure pretty fast, relax your hands immediately and then adjust a little bit.

The Objective

The objective here is for you to have a very precise target pressure on your initial braking and a very precise modulation on the threshold area. You don't want to start braking and have your pressure adjust too much where you're going up and down and up and down and up and down so you're over the limit almost locking and then under the limit the car is not stopping over the limit almost locking or maybe even locking and then you release too much and you're not stopping at all.

You want to stay on that area where the tires are slowing down as much as possible without locking. It's fine if at the beginning you end up doing that, just make sure you're trying again and again and again to have this very very very very precise braking.

Proper Braking Technique

The initial pressure is pretty aggressive and then you pretty much stay there with minimal minimum modulation. This car has a little bit of downforce so the initial pressure can be like 75 percent and the final pressure is going to have to be like 70 percent or maybe 65 percent.

Make sure that you brake fast - do not apply the brakes very slowly. If you apply brakes too slowly, the car does not slow down. The car will not slow down as much as it was capable of slowing down on the beginning because if your pressure is ramping up way too slowly, the distance between where you start braking and where you reach your peak acceleration is probably like over a hundred meters and on that distance the car was literally under the limit and not stopping as much as it could stop.

Why This Exercise Matters

Remember the objective of this exercise is for you to really have full control of your speed before the corners. You want to make sure you can decelerate the car as effectively as possible on a straight line to prevent any issues like you being scared of braking and then carrying too much speed into the corner and not having any chance to stay on track and crashing.

You do not want to be afraid. If you're afraid of braking, if you're hesitant, and then when you start turning into the corner you're too fast, you'll just go off track because you had the opportunity to slow the car down and you did not use that opportunity when you had to.

Steering Wheel Grip

Make sure that you're not gripping the steering wheel too hard because if you do that the car will not break as effectively as possible. Even though you're barely holding it with any steering angle, just because you're holding it any change in direction one degree or two is going to make the car unbalanced laterally and you're going to lock.

Anytime you're about to break make sure you're immediately relaxing your hands. Relax your hands and the car is not going to lock that easily, but if you grab the steering a little bit, even if you're actively trying to stay on a full straight line, gripping and grabbing the steering too hard is going to make you lock up the tires more easily than if you're just relaxing your hands.

Summary of proper technique:

• Hands relaxed

• Straight to 75 percent brake pressure

• A little modulation as the car is slowing down because of the tiny loss of downforce

• Continue until you reach a full stop

Make sure you can do this easily five times, ten times. If your pressures are moving too much you can always check your input telemetry after your car stops. Make sure you go back and try again until the line looks very very very flat, very very tiny modulation on top of that 75 brake pressure area.

Exercise 2: Braking on a Crest

For our next exercise, we're going to start braking right at the actual crest on top of the hill where the track is going to start falling away from the car and the car is going to get lighter. We're going to try to stop the car at full stop while modulating the brakes and it's going to be more difficult because we're going to have less grip.

You'll need to break a little bit less. It doesn't look like a huge difference but if you try to break the same way you were braking at the flat part with more grip, you'll get immediate locking because there is literally less grip. Your braking pressure has to be related to how much grip the track is giving you depending on elevation changes.

This is a tiny difference but it's important to improve your precision to notice the difference between how much you can break before turn one at the foreboard versus braking at the top of the hill. Just make sure that you're going right and then you turn left so by the time you start braking you're really not having to worry at all about turning the car so you're super straight.

Hands-Off Braking Test

This exercise can be done with no steering. This exercise can be done without hands if your simulator is properly set up. You can literally drop your hands off the wheel and start braking and the car is going to be perfectly balanced. You can see that the steering is making micro adjustments on its own to keep the car perfectly 50/50 laterally balanced.

This is also a very cool exercise you can do even on turn one when you start braking - just drop your hands off and see where the car is going. This is also going to force you to make sure that before the braking happens you are already on the right line that is going to stay on the right line on a straight line before your turning point.

For example, if you're going to break on turn one and you realize that you have to open up a little bit too late, if you're on the inside and try to open up, by the time you start to brake your car is pointed to the outside. If you try to correct that, you're not straight anymore. If you're a little bit too much to the left and you try to adjust your line just to make sure you try to stay on the inside, you can see how the car starts bouncing around and you're not literally balanced anymore and you lock up way more easily.

Exercise 3: The Corkscrew (Advanced Bonus Exercise)

Finally we are going to do a way more difficult exercise. We're going to try to break into the corkscrew. We're going to do the fast left and then we are going to set up an active reset.

The corkscrew is a braking that goes right while braking and on top of that it is a hill so the track goes up then right then down and then you get into the actual corkscrew which is a left right. What happens in this corner is that if you try to just break very hard even if you relax your hands, you easily lock the tires on top of the hill because the car gets super super light on that transition.

Understanding the Corkscrew Braking Zones

We're going to stay left first of all because the braking itself is a curve to the right so we're going to have to start turning a tiny bit. Here we still have some grip but by the time you get to a certain point, you cannot see the track. If we cannot see the track that means the track is doing a crest - the track is going up and then down. Every time you realize that you can't see what's after that means you will not have any grip.

The braking has pretty much three phases:

• A little bit of grip

• No grip at all

• A little bit more grip again

For now, for this exercise we want to break it down into two different braking zones. We're going to try: you break, you release, you break and then you turn into the corner, just so it's clear that the braking has these distinct phases.

Technique for the Corkscrew

You break, you turn a little bit more, you break more. Every time you add brakes, relax your hands. If you start braking and you're still trying to turn, the car gets super light and you can see how easy it is to spin. It's very very very normal here for you to try to go right and because your hands are not relaxed, because you're trying to turn a little bit right even if it's two three four five degrees, the brakes combined with that three four five degrees are going to make the car spin to the right.

Just make sure that the more pressure you have the more relaxed your hands are. If you're turning, release your brakes, then relax your hands and break again. That's going to be the exercise for you to really create that inverse proportion between how much you're braking and how much you're turning.

The pattern: you break with relaxed hands, you turn a little bit, you release the brakes and then you break again.

This is a bonus exercise to show you what's out there and what things we are going to need to learn if we want to drive in real life on this track. It's one of the most difficult braking zones in all of motorsports to be honest with you.

Common Mistakes

Another very common mistake here is to break in the wrong direction and then find yourself pretty much on the inside even before the turn in because you didn't take into account the fact that the track is going right during the braking zone. That is why we have to stay left and start braking with minimal minimal minimal turning staying on the right and not breaking hard because you will have to be turning a little bit right.

The sequence: brake, release, turn, break and turn into the corner.

For now we have this pattern of brake then release and turn and then break again, but eventually this is going to blend and that's going to look more seamless. But you don't have to worry too much about it for now - the goal is to really understand the building blocks that we're eventually going to master and be super precise and settle with it.

Conclusion

For the next exercise we're going to stay on the same car and track so if you're just jumping to the next lesson you can just keep your simulator open.