View the in-depth guide on trail braking from Blayze here!
Video Transcript
If you want to learn more about finding low hanging fruit in your data click here!
In this video we will get into what some of the key factors for trailbraking into hairpins. For our example we will be using turn 7 at Sebring International Raceway.
So here's the data at Sebring. Look there, at turn seven. Look at the nice big spike, or actually all the brake zones. Big initial spike and then trailing off. Not just jumping off the brakes, but trailing off the brakes slowly.
So if we're going to now zoom in a little bit, I'm going to show you turn seven and turn 10, both hairpins. The first one's turn seven. See, look how hard it is initially, and then you can see an almost immediate drop about 20% pressure. But the rest of that 50% pressure is a very nice long let go.
And what that does is you're just keeping the weight on the front nose, which is allowing you to carve into the hairpin. That's where the grip is. Wherever the weight is on the car, that's where you've got your grip. So if you're too early to throttle, you're taking the grip away from the front and onto the rear.
So you want to think to yourself, the longer you hold the brakes into the corner, the faster you're actually going, because then you can roll that entry speed. It's a little counterintuitive to a lot of people. A lot of times you're thinking early to throttle, it means your quick out. But most of the time that's not case. The brake release is where great drivers are able to truyl separate themselves.
So here it is going into tyrn 10, there is the hard spike on the brakes and then immediately dropping off, dropping off more and more and more and more and more. Now throttle. See how long that brake zone is, and it's not jumping off the brakes. It's brake, release, release, release, delay the throttle and then go.
That's such a key point to hairpins. So to give you an idea of timeline, let's go super slow mo on the brake zone, overlay the data, give you guys an idea. So right away, here's the brakes. There's the initial spike already immediately 20% off. Now it's that constant about 50% just a little bit of trail off here. And then right here at the end, just at turn is where the big drop off and holding that last little toe on the brakes before getting to throttle.
I hope this was really helpful for you guys. I really firmly believe what separates the best drivers in the world from everybody else is that last part of the brake zone on that last little bit of trail brake. So the key factor is that hard initial brake, almost immediately trailing off that 20%, then a constant pressure and then a very slow trail brake all the way to throttle.
That's what's going to get you through hairpins quicker and hopefully I'll see you to track soon. Hope you enjoyed the Racing 360 trail brake video and we'll see you soon.
