Early apexes are always bad, right? Not really. In this video I talk about two different drivers who turn the same lap time, and yet one turns in and apexes earlier than the other (in fact, this driver was slightly faster). Where you apex, and get back to power is all in how you rotate the car on the entry of the turn, and that’s what I’m talking about here.
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To race, you need to know how to do both, and how to use the left foot for the brake
Ross, given that I tend to prefer a neutral to under-steer setup on my RWD car, can you share any points to effectively transition standard trail-braking into more a rotation of the back-end for this desired result?
Emmanuel – I wish I could tell you the one thing to do that would work with all cars, in all corners, on all track. But that would be too easy! And not true, since every car, corner and track is a little different. Typically, one would think that trail braking a little longer would help rotate the car more because it’s keeping the front of the car more weighted. But that’s not always what’ll happen. In fact, sometimes you will overload the front tires and actually reduce the amount of rotation.
If you were to set aside at least one full session on track to being aware of how your car responds when you change the timing and rate of release of the brakes, you would learn what it takes. Your goal in that session would be to actually be inconsistent – it would be to experiment. Try releasing the brakes earlier and quickly; early and slow; late and quickly; late and slow. At the end of the session you will have learned what your car needs to make it rotate the way you want, and you will have built up your database of driving techniques.