Q: “If telemetry tells me I’m over-braking for a turn, but reducing braking creates understeer, is it a steering input issue? To clarify, reducing braking causes me to miss the apex. What is going on here? Do I stink at turning in?”
A: I don’t smell anything, so I don’t think you stink! J
When you say you reduce your braking, I’d have to know where you’re reducing it. If you reduce it towards the EoB (End-of-Braking), then it might be that you’re unloading the front tires too early, and that’s what’s causing the understeer. If that’s the case, then I’d suggest moving your whole braking zone further into the corner – beginning and ending braking later. In doing so, you’ll be trail braking a little more, keeping the front tires loaded a little longer.
The way you describe it, you’re releasing the brakes early – and you’re doing that in an attempt to not over-brake, but it’s causing the understeer. If you move your whole brake zone in further – a later BoB and EoB – then you’ll carry more speed into the corner (not over-brake), and keep some load on the front tires. That’s the first place I’d suggest working on.
From what you say, I don’t think you’re over-braking, but you’re over-slowing. And that’s because you’re beginning your braking too early. Move the whole brake zone in, and I suspect you’ll carry more speed into the corner, and have less understeer. This is a case of getting a double-whammy working in the right direction for you!
Ross — do you have any exercises that Rachel (or the rest of us) can use to become increasingly more comfortable with “carrying more speed while loading the front tires into a corner?” Is it time to ditch the telemetry for the time being, and let our butts and ears (tire-squeal and internal gyro — and tummy, etc.) let us just enjoy going fast while at a yaw?
I’d certainly recommend the Sensory Input Sessions that I’ve shared in other posts/answers here, as that’ll help make a driver more sensitive to what the car is telling them. Focusing on End-of-Braking point will always help with corner entry speed. The problem with telemetry/data is it’s after the fact – you find out what you did or didn’t do after you’re off the track. Yes, focusing on sensing what the car is telling you, and inching up on carrying more speed – lighter braking, maybe – while on track is the way to make a consistent difference.
Ever since Martin Brundle did his pre-race interview with Hamilton a couple of weeks ago, in which Lewis said that he never was one to benefit from closing his eyes and visualizing a perfect lap, I’ve been banging around this idea in my head that we are spending too much time and energy trying to be someone else’s version of perfect. Especially since I am pretty sure that a video/memory of Lewis doing just that same closed-eyed mental lap within a millisecond of his real lap exists! So, even Lewis is better than he thinks/remembers, and there ain’t nobody on the track at this moment equal to him. Of course he’s beatable, but geeze, you gotta’ really be on your game that day, and he has to be off of his game.
Anyway, If we haven’t really been intrinsically introduced to the feeling that the go-pedal and the steering wheel are connected by an invisible string, an instructor or a machine- instructor telling us to “brake now, turn now, unwind-it now, gas-it now…” is kinda’ moot. I love an in-car track-day “passing clinic” video put out by an instructor/friend, on which he comments at the end something to the effect of, “Did you notice how out of line the steering was? I had to keep steering left on the straights!” Bertil Roos even cut a sedan in half, and put hinges on it so that he could instruct potential racers on how to handle a loose car. I personally learned more about trail-braking, and carrying speed while driving 8/10ths with boiled brake fluid for a couple of sessions. And Ross (and maybe Senna) is the reason so many can’t wait for those first drops of heavenly moisture to start falling during the pace lap.