How to trail-brake?

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AdamA998

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This is not a tutorial but a question. Firstly, I'm assuming that I'm about to describe is known as 'trail-braking' due to an event in Career mode that explained this technique. If it is something else, please mention that. So apparently this technique is where you brake while turning into a corner so that you decrease your lap time. So let's say you're approaching a corner, you brake from 130 to 60 then begin steering taking the right line and it all goes well. However, with trail braking, this person brakes later and is braking while turning and is able to take that corner quicker than you can. I notice fast drivers do this online and they are not losing traction most of the time and don't go wide most of the time. I try to do it on some corners where it seems difficult, and I struggle with it and end up going wide or fishtailing.

Some people are simply braking late and recovering unto track somehow, using this technique unintentionally. But, for those who employ this technique, how do you approach it? I've noticed it a lot in Asseto Corsa, drivers would catch up to me and it was really frustrating.
 
Trail braking doesn't really make you take a turn faster, per se. Trail braking is where you press the brake while you are on the gas. What you described is just late braking (if I'm following you right). Fast drivers follow the apex and sometimes the apex is late, so you brake late. Sometimes its early, so you brake early.

Trail-braking can be more useful in Rwd cars where you can slow the car down without her getting 'squirrely'. It may also benefit slower cars because you keep your rpms up. I start to trail brake at the same time I typically brake and I find it can help minimize weight transfer and keep the car planted so to speak. But as far as being able to take a turn faster, its really dependent on the car/track. I'd say it's faster 5-10% of the time, unless you drive a car that needs it more often.


Jerome
 
Trail braking works on the same principle as accelerating out of a corner, but in reverse...

When you accelerate, the amount of gas you can apply is inversely proportional to the amount of steering angle you have applied.. less lock = more gas.

With braking, the harder you are braking, the less you can steer.

To trail brake, you brake hard in a straight line, then as you start to turn you reduce the brake pressure... proportionally reducing brake pressure as you get closer to the apex.

Tyres only have so much grip - the more you ask them to brake or accelerate, the less grip they have available for turning.
 
Yes, I forgot to mention trailbraking usually introduces understeer too.


Jerome
 
I always find it incredibly difficult to trail brake, it is an area where I feel I could improve my virtual driving, some of it is me and some down to the dead zone of my pedals...Bad workman tools and all that ;)
 
I use the double cone marker as my trail brake indicator, ignoring the on screen Brake warning. full brake at the double cone, after I pass the blue turn indicator I cut in while slowly releasing the brake trigger. before the apex I'm coasting for a split second, and then half throttle when my nose touches the apex marker, flat out when my rear bumper clears the apex marker.

when someone is in front of me I let off the throttle before the brake warning and then hit the brake halfway between the brake warning and the double cones.
 
The driving school example is a very good one of trail braking. It's a technique that requires training.
Braking (mildly) while turning, you keep reducing speed, but also keep putting weight on the front, helping you steer.
Like Stotty mentioned, is kind of like you accelerating while still cornering. And the principal is the same, there are corners where you gain with the technique, others don't.
Usually early accelerating is more beneficial in corners with early apex and trail braking is more beneficial in late apex corners.

Trail braking could be used as a late save to failing a braking point, but with loss, specially hurting your exit speed and how early you can accelerate out of the corner.
 
A lot of really bad info here, trail braking is staying on the brakes while applying steering angle, period. Traditional braking is taking your foot off the brake and then applying steering angle, the problem with this is that there are parts of the corner that you're not using the tire to its limit and that causes slower lap times. You don't necessarily brake any later with trail braking, depending on the corner. If done correctly, trail braking will keep weight on the front tires and cause the back end to become very light, it's a great technique for cars that suffer from understeer especially fwd cars. There are multiple reasons that it's faster than traditional cornering techniques but the biggest reason is that you are able to use your tires to the limit at all points of the corner.

 
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Notilloc27
A lot of really bad info here, trail braking is staying on the brakes while applying steering angle, period. Traditional braking is taking your foot off the brake and then applying steering angle, the problem with this is that there are parts of the corner that you're not using the tire to its limit and that causes slower lap times. You don't necessarily brake any later with trail braking, depending on the corner. If done correctly, trail braking will keep weight on the front tires and cause the back end to become very light, it's a great technique for cars that suffer from understeer especially fwd cars. There are multiple reasons that it's faster than traditional cornering techniques but the biggest reason is that you are able to use your tires to the limit at all points of the corner.
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Which is exactly what I posted.
 
Thanks for the info guys, will just have to practice this technique and try improving my driving overall. Not going to buy new pedals until my wheel gives up, at that point see if I can get a G29 or T300 for sale.
 
Trailbraking, when done right, gives you more traction on turn in allowing you to enter the corner faster.

Trailbraking is lifting of the brakes on turn in to apex. I'l try to explain why its done.

When u brake the weight of the car shifts forwards and is pushing down on the front wheels. This allowes the front tyres to brake harder (tyres stop a car not brakes) as this force is keeping them planted. The more forward you can put the brake balance without locking up the shorter your brake distance will be as your extracting the most of this force of weight to help stop the car. But when using all that traction of the tyre to stop the car there will be no traction left to turn causing understeer on turn in. By putting brake balance a bit less to the front and more to the rear you have a longer braking distance but on turn in you will have more traction on the front wheels available for turning. When you are straight and full on the brakes all the weight is pushing on the front and all tractrion of the tyre is used to stop the car. Now when u turn in u lift the brake, by not using all traction to stop you can use some to turn, but still having some braking done also keeps the weight pushing down on the front tyres giving them more grip for turning. Its all about the weight being used for traction. Without any braking on turn in there is no weight on the front so less grip. With full braking on turn in there is allot of weight on the front but no traction to turn. Somewhere in between is that sweet spot of how much brake can still be aplied to allow for the needed amount of steering. And it decreases as your speed goes down.

Ideal you want max braking to turn in, lift brakes from turn in to apex. And from apex immediately build up throttle.
 
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Shottah072
Ideal you want max braking to turn in, lift brakes from turn in to apex. And from apex immediately build up throttle.
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I would just like to add, some overlap is also helpful to reduce the extra load (off the front, on the rear) on the tyres during weight transfer. In motorcycle racing coming off the brakes at the apex when trail braking can result in the front washing out and the rider going down because the weight went off the front too quick.
 
AdamA998
This is not a tutorial but a question. Firstly, I'm assuming that I'm about to describe is known as 'trail-braking' due to an event in Career mode that explained this technique. If it is something else, please mention that. So apparently this technique is where you brake while turning into a corner so that you decrease your lap time. So let's say you're approaching a corner, you brake from 130 to 60 then begin steering taking the right line and it all goes well. However, with trail braking, this person brakes later and is braking while turning and is able to take that corner quicker than you can. I notice fast drivers do this online and they are not losing traction most of the time and don't go wide most of the time. I try to do it on some corners where it seems difficult, and I struggle with it and end up going wide or fishtailing.

Some people are simply braking late and recovering unto track somehow, using this technique unintentionally. But, for those who employ this technique, how do you approach it? I've noticed it a lot in Asseto Corsa, drivers would catch up to me and it was really frustrating.
Click to expand...

The best thing to do is not think about it mathematically, but of course you need to have points of reference that define approximately where you are going to trail brake, by which I mean where you are going to carefully control the removal of the weight over the front wheels and try to 'steer' rather than slow down with the brakes on corner entry. These points of reference to define where you are going to release the brake pedal would typically be anywhere between your turn-in point and the clipping point (or apex as most call it).

Doing this too quickly can result in turn in oversteer, or doing it for too long will result in slowing the car down too much. If you use a wheel, you ideally want to try to get into the mindset of making the car rotate just with your left foot by blending out the brakes whilst controlling the front end with a suitable amount of steering lock.

A good way to have got into this mode quickly and to gain confidence would have been to just muck about in some huge fictional car park in the game just to get the feel for very heavy braking and then rotating the car in left and right hand directions so you get a good feel for the car on the left and right hand sides. Then you could quickly establish points of reference on the track that are compatible with your newly learned driving skills.

You often see 'slow-in fast-out' as the fastest way to drive, but this often gets taken literally. You ideally want to brake as late as you can and enter a corner as fast you can, but so long as the trajectory enables you to be fast out, so really the path your car will take is 'slow-in fast-out' but your execution should ideally be "fast-in fast-out".
 
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you can also practice this while driving around in your real world car. even at slow speeds you can feel your weight shift if you let off the brake too early. Clearly the tactile timing between your car and the video game won't be the same but your spatial timing will be similar as all turns have an apex.
 
For those who say brake late, I try that then try less brake input to brake smoothly and without decreasing speed but I feel like I lose more time doing this because I'm not doing it right or I lose traction and go wide and sometimes my brakes lock up. I will do an online race soon and upload it unto Youtube or something to get feedback on how to improve my times. I don't think I'm a bad driver but it's hard to be consistent with braking points and line. One lap I get a corner really well, the other I butcher it. Others seem to be really consistent.
BallPtPenTheif
you can also practice this while driving around in your real world car. even at slow speeds you can feel your weight shift if you let off the brake too early. Clearly the tactile timing between your car and the video game won't be the same but your spatial timing will be similar as all turns have an apex.
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In my real car it's easier and doable, in all sim racing I lose traction like crazy. I don't get it.
 
AdamA998
For those who say brake late, I try that then try less brake input to brake smoothly and without decreasing speed but I feel like I lose more time doing this because I'm not doing it right or I lose traction and go wide and sometimes my brakes lock up. I will do an online race soon and upload it unto Youtube or something to get feedback on how to improve my times. I don't think I'm a bad driver but it's hard to be consistent with braking points and line. One lap I get a corner really well, the other I butcher it. Others seem to be really consistent.


In my real car it's easier and doable, in all sim racing I lose traction like crazy. I don't get it.
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I want to emphasize that you don't necessarily brake later with trail braking, a lot of turns have the same braking point. Trail braking and a clean heal and toe downshift are a couple of the hardest things the average enthusiast will learn and it takes a long time to learn. Another point of emphasis is that you threshold brake in a straight line and as soon as you get to your turn in marker, you are only lightly dragging your brakes and when you get to the apex you are completely off the brakes and back on the throttle. If you're locking up your wheels or going wide, you're probably either braking too late or not letting off the brake enough as you add steering angle. It's pretty advanced stuff to be thinking about all those things at once so start with your braking point and work from there. Kyoto turn 1 is the perfect place to practice, it's high speed and you can feel the forces working on the car more.
 
AdamA998
For those who say brake late, I try that then try less brake input to brake smoothly and without decreasing speed but I feel like I lose more time doing this because I'm not doing it right or I lose traction and go wide and sometimes my brakes lock up. I will do an online race soon and upload it unto Youtube or something to get feedback on how to improve my times. I don't think I'm a bad driver but it's hard to be consistent with braking points and line. One lap I get a corner really well, the other I butcher it. Others seem to be really consistent.


In my real car it's easier and doable, in all sim racing I lose traction like crazy. I don't get it.
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Generally, so long as the exit isn't compromised braking as late as possible and the least amount possible is good although many times how you brake can come down to just driving style with no right or wrong. For instance I looked at some drivers' brake inputs from Brands Hatch the other week and many were braking much harder but much more quickly than me with the result that lap times were comparable even though we tackled the corners differently with different balances (presumably they had less understeer than me as a result, but would have to check). Sometimes in most average car setups it just depends how quickly you want to rotate the car to get back on the power again.
 
BallPtPenTheif
I use the double cone marker as my trail brake indicator, ignoring the on screen Brake warning. full brake at the double cone, after I pass the blue turn indicator I cut in while slowly releasing the brake trigger. before the apex I'm coasting for a split second, and then half throttle when my nose touches the apex marker, flat out when my rear bumper clears the apex marker.

when someone is in front of me I let off the throttle before the brake warning and then hit the brake halfway between the brake warning and the double cones.
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You can turn off the "Brake" warning in settings. I find it off-putting
 
mirial
You often see 'slow-in fast-out' as the fastest way to drive, but this often gets taken literally. You ideally want to brake as late as you can and enter a corner as fast you can, but so long as the trajectory enables you to be fast out, so really the path your car will take is 'slow-in fast-out' but your execution should ideally be "fast-in fast-out".
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Great post 👍

Regarding the section above...

Whilst fast in fast out is a good adage for drivers with a better than average skill set, most below this level continuously make the mistake of pushing far too hard in the entry section and would be better thinking 'slow in fast out'.

(if in reality, we are all trying to be as fast as possible in all parts of a lap.)

The is the biggest killer of lap times is pushing too hard on entry - it causes understeer, and without the skills to use left foot braking to get the front back on line, or the patience to hold their steering angle until the front regains grip, most just wind on more steering angle to try and make the apex.

This absolutely kills their ability to get out of the corner and in turn destroys their lap times.

It's consistently the biggest driving error I see when watching peoples race or hotlap videos... and I'm just as guilty of it when trying to push too hard.
 
mirial
You often see 'slow-in fast-out' as the fastest way to drive, but this often gets taken literally. You ideally want to brake as late as you can and enter a corner as fast you can, but so long as the trajectory enables you to be fast out, so really the path your car will take is 'slow-in fast-out' but your execution should ideally be "fast-in fast-out".
Click to expand...
When someone says 'slow in-fast out', they generally mean to take a line with a later turn-in that gives up corner speed but gains you exit speed because it's beneficial for what follows that specific corner. I don't think I've heard it as general advice.
 
Stotty
Great post 👍

Regarding the section above...

Whilst fast in fast out is a good adage for drivers with a better than average skill set, most below this level continuously make the mistake of pushing far too hard in the entry section and would be better thinking 'slow in fast out'.

(if in reality, we are all trying to be as fast as possible in all parts of a lap.)

The is the biggest killer of lap times is pushing too hard on entry - it causes understeer, and without the skills to use left foot braking to get the front back on line, or the patience to hold their steering angle until the front regains grip, most just wind on more steering angle to try and make the apex.

This absolutely kills their ability to get out of the corner and in turn destroys their lap times.

It's consistently the biggest driving error I see when watching peoples race or hotlap videos... and I'm just as guilty of it when trying to push too hard.
Click to expand...

I've mentioned the problem of the driving assists being default in the game because it definitely clouds beginners' concept of getting all the preparation done before entering a corner in stark contrast to what you are required to do if you take up karting or real motor racing. It's easy to understand why PD have gone down this route (under pressure from corporate Sony!) to make the whole thing very accessible, but in reality, bad habits get perfected on a diet of assists over time which is why you have witnessed many 'over doing it'. And it is very easy to do.....even a week ago after the trail braking/cornering issue was improved I was still over doing it a little bit in some corners in the Cayman. It was resolved by just going back to adding foam packing to create as much feel as possible....it didn't interfere with the on going calibration problem though fortunately, but that's another story.
 
@nndr3w
You can turn off the "Brake" warning in settings. I find it off-putting
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I find it useful. Once it starts flashing, I typically wait one second, and then apply the brakes. Unless I have a proper marker that is.

As for trail braking, make sure to have manual gears, so you can make optimum use of the short losses of traction every gearchange gives. In effect it means that you start braking a little later, and still get the car to turn in. As someone mentioned, practice on Brands Hatch, but use the full GP layout. It gives opportunity to practice other ways of braking aswell.
 

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