Trail Braking

Introduction to Brake Release Technique

For this exercise we are going to practice brake release, slow brake release. We're going to brake and start releasing the brakes slowly and still have some all the way until the middle of this corner. Let's break down this corner real quick. We have a double apex with the first apex being that first red sausage and the second apex being the second red sausage.

The objective of this exercise is to have you carrying some brakes all the way until the very middle of the corner, 50%. So what we're going to do, it doesn't have to be so fast and it's going to feel very difficult at first because it's already a little bit advanced. We're going to brake a little bit and we're going to keep that 1% until the end here and then accelerate.

Developing Brake Release Sensitivity

It's going to feel very slow, you might be under the limit at first, we need to develop the sensitivity on your left foot to release the brakes without dropping. What I don't want you to do is to drop the brakes very fast like this and then turn because as soon as you do that you immediately lose control of the deceleration of the car. If the car is too fast by the time you do that drop then you're now a passenger at that very speed that you let the car be and if it's too fast you will need to reapply the brakes and it's going to be all chaotic and if you don't have the reaction time yet to do that save you go off just like I did.

Instead we want to always cultivate a muscle memory, a habit of releasing the brakes slowly. We're going to brake, we're going to start to handle tiny bit and start to release the brakes a little bit. That transition between adding a little bit of sprinkle of steering right just a little bit of steering and releasing the brakes more slowly that should be a habit that should happen naturally all the time everywhere you go.

Building on Previous Exercises

Remember during the understeer exercise I'll show you hey let's induce some understeer on entry by accelerating early, boom, like this and then control it feel that you're inducing understeer. As we gain speed we're going to brake later to the point we will still need to brake into the corner a little bit to make it point while we control the speed and then we start accelerating out.

We are dividing the corner into at this point and it's very tricky because when you do that you have to control the deceleration on 50% of the corner rather than controlling the throttle so you have to be very very progressive with the line to make that beautiful brake release. You don't want to turn and then release the brakes because if you try to do that you immediately start spinning you have to do both at the very same time.

The Light Hand Technique and Trail Braking

This is where the light hand technique is going to be extremely extremely useful. You turn one degree of steering the car will start wanting to go and now you will have to start releasing the brakes to adjust the balance. The more you release the brakes the less the car will turn so if we for example start turning and drop the brakes very quickly you're going to see that the car is going to understeer. It doesn't want to turn. A lot of understeer right there because I dropped the brakes very quickly.

If I keep too much brakes while turning and don't have any light hands then I'm going to oversteer and spin. You see it's very very precise right now I just wanted to get used to that entry under braking while releasing the brakes and having very relaxed hands so you gain that precision. The earlier you brake the more room you have to adjust these things.

Two Functions of Braking

So right now let's brake a little bit early then I'm releasing and I still have that 1% and I can still do that exercise. It's going to be under limited first and then we brake a little bit later which means we have to decelerate more. So the beginning here the first part of the braking is really to kill the speed. The second part of the braking is to manage the rotation but we are transitioning between that deceleration and rotation.

We don't want to drop the brakes very quickly we want to slowly transition to that and the light hands on the steering always feeling the force it back will help us feel that transition. A little bit of turning, a little bit of turning, now you turn a little bit more. I'm barely touching the steering on corner entry. I'm barely turning because I know that a little bit of steering is already enough. I'm being very precise on corner entry as I slowly release my brakes. I'm starting to release my brakes more when I start turning.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Be careful not to do this for example. You try to trail brake because someone told you to and you're doing it too early. Oh what happens? You try to release the brakes slowly but you forgot to slow down the car. So that transition should only happen when you have already decelerated the car because the brakes have two functions:

• One is to decelerate

• The other one is to rotate

If you only think about the trail braking for rotation you forgot to decelerate the car and you go a little bit too fast and now the car is too fast. You got the rotation but now you're going off because inertia doesn't let you do the corner. Instead you have to remember that the first phase of the braking is to really decelerate the car. Kill, kill the speed, kill the speed, kill the speed. Now you start doing the transition and using the trail braking for rotation.

The Complete Braking and Rotation Sequence

The peak rotation from the trail braking will be at the lowest speed of the corner before you start accelerating where you start doing that micro-inducing understeer motion on the throttle just to control the balance as you get out of the corner. So again start braking lots of deceleration with light hands, it's very slow release and then a little bit of throttle to control and then more and more throttle as you relax your hands again.

You see all the exercises are starting to build up on top of each other as you build this nice muscle memory that is going to allow you to do any corner in any car in any track. If you want a trail brake you can never turn the steering fast. Remember the light hands technique? If you ignore that and you try to turn fast the car spins immediately.

The Light Firm Light Pattern

So that means your first degree again super light hands and then you get a little bit firmer mid-corner and then you start relaxing again as you get back on power. Again this is the light firm light pattern. One of the exercises is only going to be about light firm light. We're going to do the whole lap saying out loud light firm light. That's going to be our next exercise.

Closing Spiral and Opening Spiral

And remember that the line that you're going to trace while doing this deceleration and turning more and more until mid-corner is not a circle it's not a fixed radius rotation it's a closing spiral. The car turns a lot less at the beginning and then it starts turning more and more and more as you get towards the minimum speed and then it starts turning less and less and less as you open in an opening spiral.

So closing spiral on entry opening spiral on exit light hands on entry allow you to begin that rotation very slowly building that closing spiral and then it gets slightly firmer hands mid-corner to get a more closing radius and more rotation towards the minimum speed and then light on the exit as you lighten the hands progressively you will get an opening spiral as you get back on power and the extra speed also pushes the car more and more and more towards the exit in an opening arc.

Integration of Key Concepts

This is why so many of these concepts actually help each other. Light firm light pattern trail braking closing spiral and opening spiral they're all the same thing. I'm just showing you different ways of visualizing how it should be done so that it becomes more and more clear to you and you don't do those mistakes that end up throwing the car into a spin.