Q: “You have had several posts about braking and have hinted that there is something special you are doing that provides that extra bit of car rotation to maximize speed and nail the apex — my words, not yours. It seems to me that you have talked around what that special trick is, but haven’t specifically told us what you are doing. I have re-read all your Speed Secrets posts about braking late last year and you mention many finer details, but it still isn’t clear to me what that specific detail is to get that rotation. If you said you were ‘stabbing’ the brake pedal to get more load on the front tires just before brake release, I would understand, but you haven’t said that; it sounds more like it is releasing brake pressure. So, what is that little detail?”

A: Sorry for not making this clearer. And I hate to tell you, but it’s not something super trick. But it is subtle.

First, what it is not:

• It’s not stabbing at the brake pedal to put extra load on the front tires.
• It’s not quickly releasing pressure off the brake pedal in the hope that this will give the front tires more grip.
• It’s not something you do with the steering wheel, such as quickly turning it.

So, what is it that helps rotate the car? The perfect combination of load on the front tires, speed, and steering angle.

If you enter a corner, turning the steering wheel while gradually and deliberately releasing the brake pedal (trail braking), and you’re carrying enough speed, the front tires will have slightly more grip than the rear tires do. This will result in the rear tires having a greater slip angle (think of them sliding a bit more) than the fronts do. This is what causes the yaw, or rotation of the car.

I wish I could tell you that if you have 561psi of brake pressure on, along with 4.3 degrees of steering angle, and you’re traveling at 76.8 MPH, then the car will rotate! 🙂 Oh, and then we’d also have to factor in the grip level that the tires and track had at that instant. That’s why I say it’s subtle.

Your goal is to gradually carry a tiny bit more speed into a corner, while gradually releasing pressure off the brake pedal and turning the steering wheel. Every now and then, if you experiment with the three factors (speed, brake pressure, and steering angle) everything will line up just perfectly and you’ll feel the car rotate (or yaw, as engineers more often tend to refer to it).

Here’s the thing: Once you’ve experienced it once, even if it felt somewhat accidental, you know what you’re looking for, and then you can be even more deliberate about causing rotation. Eventually youʻll get so that you can make the car rotate more or less, as much or as little as you want, with most of the fine-tuning done with the timing and rate of release of the brakes.

And just to be clear, rotation of the car is a form of oversteer. But the way I look at it is, oversteer is what the car is doing to you, and is not controlled — it happens to you, and maybe more than or less than you desire. Rotation is what you do to the car — it’s oversteer that you deliberately cause, and use to your advantage.

If there was a special trick, it would be to experiment with how you release the brakes — when you begin releasing them (that’s the timing part — before, at the same time, or after beginning to turn the steering into the corner), and how quickly or slowly you ease off the pedal (that rate of release). So, this isn’t really a special trick, but it’s something you can practice, trying different timings and rates of release. In doing so, you will find that “special trick,” when everything aligns and your car rotates.

It’ll be a big Aha! moment, and your life will forever be changed! 🙂