Trail Braking — Why, How, When?
Trail braking is an advanced technique used to balance a car when entering a corner and to maintain as much grip as possible at the front wheels.
Here Be Dragons! — if you’re new to driving on a track, this isn’t a technique to try immediately. Get it wrong and you’re likely to lose control in the corner by carrying in too much speed and winding up in the gravel.
In Time Attack racing, braking is one of the strongest forces acting on the car with the exception of downforce (depending on what aero package you are running). When you step on the brake, the weight of the car is instantaneously transferred forward. This reduces both rear grip and decreases steering force that the tires can accept. Although when properly used, your brakes can give you an advantage and the ability to increase grip at the front and assist turn in at the corner with greater speed.
So, what is trail braking?
Trail braking is simply maintaining constant and gentle brake pressure as you turn into the corner.
When properly applied it gives the driver the advantage of braking slightly later into the turn, hopefully giving you an advantage in traveling through the corner or attempting to overtake another driver. Daniel Riccardo (Last of the Late Brakers) has nearly perfected trail braking in Formula One.
You must be in-tune with your car and it’s braking and handling under load conditions, and you’re going to be missing that corner many times while attempting to get it right.
Stages of trail braking
We can split trail braking into a few stages:
1. Brake in a straight line using maximum deceleration without locking the tires.
2. Smoothly ease off the brakes before turn in.
3. Turn!
4. Reduce braking force as steering angle increases.
5. Re-balance the car through the corner.
Scrub off as much speed as you can as you approach the corner before you turn in. As you close in on the turn in point begin to reduce the pressure on the brakes as smoothly as you can. Smooth is key here. The last thing you want is a clumsy weight transition at this point as the car is already off-balance.
Focus on the apex as you turn in and make sure your steering inputs are smooth. As you increase more steering lock, continue to smoothly reduce the pressure applied to the brakes. Keep in mind that braking reduces available grip and you definitely want to keep as much of that as possible!
At the point of maximum steering lock you should be off of the brakes or gently feathering them. When you hit the apex you need to be 100% off the brakes and preparing to get on the accelerator.
How does trail braking improve your lap times?
Trail braking is about extracting everything from the grip of the tires — the best drivers will be near the limits of grip throughout each corner without losing control.
It’s all about getting everything from your front tires. We’re talking GRIP. You can run the same line as another driver and still loose time as you’re not on the ragged edge. Trail braking is hard enough to “master” but even harder to be consistent. It’s all about finesse. You’re trying to maximize the use of available grip, which will give you more speed though the corner, and as a result higher exit speed.
When to use trail braking?
Trail braking is the most effective on slower, tight corners when you need to rotate the car to achieve a more beneficial angle before getting on the throttle. Fast corners or bends rely on the momentum of the car to carry it through for best results. Walk the track! This will tune you into what corners you can apply trail braking for the maximum result.
In conclusion
Trail braking is an advanced track driving technique and is hard to get right. This is not something you will pick up overnight, but comes with practice. When applied correctly, it can be the difference between first and third.
