A few questions about driving technique… experienced drivers chime in!!!

[crash32]

Hey guys I am very new to the world of motorsports and only have 2 HPDE under my belt. Now…. don't laugh, but both of them were in my old Audi A5. I had sold my M3 to fund my Ariel Atom and now am back in a M3. I understand that driving a 3,600 lb vehicle with 400 plus hp will give me a much different experience than a 4,500 lb AWD with a measly 220 hp rating.
With that being said I had a few questions that seem a bit confusing to me. Of course we all know that smooth is fast. To me it seems as if once you get up serious lap times that even smooth driving won't feel so smooth although in reality it is smooth driving.
First question is in reference to smooth driving and braking. I am hearing very mixed feedback as far as braking from my instructors (both of them told me different things) and some of you guys here on the forum. My first HPDE I would gently engage the brakes at the very beginning and progressively brake harder as to approached the point where I started to crank on the wheel for the turn. Of course this is wrong and wears out the brakes and results in slower lap times.
Some of you guys recommend at very first hit the brakes very hard and get most of your braking done asap and then as you go into the turn the braking should be minimal. Others have said at first brake pretty firm at first, but not too hard as it will upset the balance of the car.
Should my first contact with the brakes be hitting the brakes very hard deeper into the straight and then be at the point where I am braking very gently right before the turn?
I guess the issue with that for a novice like is is that if I misjudge the amount of braking needed that I could very easily go into the turn going too fast.
Second question is about overdriving the car. I completely understand the term as it clearly means that you are pushing the car beyond it's optimal abilities thus slowing down your lap times. What I do not understand is how to recognize that you are overdriving the car. As I started to build confidence I was going into turns much faster and the tires started to squeal pretty good. I talked to my instructor and told him that I felt as if I was not driving smooth because the tires were squealing and he told me that it was perfectly normal and that it was the "sealant" on the surface that was causing that. I asked him if he felt as if I was pushing the car too hard around the corners and he told me no. After my track time I went on the stands to watch the more advanced groups go and I heard very little squealing…. very little. Maybe it was because I am on street tires and they are on R compound tires???
After the weekend I noticed that my tires were pretty badly worn on the outside. Now keep in mind that my car was 4,500 lbs with no camber. I have been told that the condition of my tires after the HPDE was indication that I was overdriving the car. Can you guys help me with this concept? How do I know the difference between overdriving the car and simply going fast and the tires are giving me a bit of feedback?
For example, when Randy Pobst drives a factory M3 on the track is he able to drive it for the best lap time with no tire squeal or is some tire squeal required in order to go fast especially with street tires regardless of skill level?
I know dumb questions, but those were a couple things I was a bit confused about.

[redpriest]

I assure you Randy is probably getting tire squeal if the stock car is running Michelin Pilot Super Sports. Those things squeal like nothing else at the limit. What're your tire pressures like? I manage tire pressure as aggressively as I can to ensure I'm not going overboard or putting too much stress on the tire.

RE-71Rs squeal but it's very quiet - nothing like MPSS. Nitto NT01s howl as you brake and accelerate with a supercharger-like whine. They also squeal pretty decently at the limit, but again, nothing like MPSS.

My braking habit depends - I like to get on the brakes hard (but not hard enough to trigger ABS) and gently ease them off into the turn, depending on the turn. I would say that braking is probably where I would stand to gain a lot of time from - I don't consider myself an expert on it. I'm still learning things 30 track days into this hobby. I often find myself braking too early into a turn.

[Redd]

Tires - Most street tires are designed to squeal any time you get remotely close to the limit. It's normal and doesn't indicate that you are over-driving. UHP tires will squeal less and semi slicks /slicks might not squeal at all at the limit.

Over-driving - I generally know I'm over-driving the car if I'm constantly having to fight under-/oversteer. There'll be a lot more steering work than is necessary, and laptimes will deteriorate.

Braking - As you learn advanced braking techniques like trail-braking, you will see that it's important to do most of your braking at the early part of the braking zone. You will still be on brakes inside the turn but that's more to shift weight than really slowing the car down. How hard to brake for how long? Well, that's something only experience and a lot of practice will teach you.

Good luck!

[jphughan]

For braking smoothness on initial application, there are different opinions even among pros about this. I personally try to get on the brakes quickly but not catapult my foot onto the pedal (so maybe 0.15-0.2 seconds from no brake to full brake depending on speed), then I hold maximum braking force that doesn't trip ABS until basically turn-in, then I release smoothly either right before turn-in or more gradually as part of trail braking down toward the apex. Whether I trail brake at all and how far into the corner I have any brake input if I do trail brake depends mostly on the corner and the car I'm driving. The biggest mistake novices make is actually being too light on the brakes upfront and then braking harder as they get closer to turn-in. It's understandable since that's how people brake on the road, but it's wrong for the track. But don't misunderstand the people who say "brake firm but not so hard you upset the balance of the car" to mean that you should maintain lower braking force for a prolonged period of time at the beginning of the braking zone. They're talking only about the very tiny window of time when you first start pressing the brake pedal, i.e. catapult vs taking that 0.15-0.2 seconds to reach max braking. It doesn't sound like much, but it matters.

But then as you say, if you brake too late, you'll be going too fast at turn-in. If that happens, then you should keep braking in a straight line past turn-in to get your speed way down and then just crawl through that corner. You should NOT turn in if you know you're going too fast and expect the rules of physics to make an exception just for you in that moment. If on the other hand you find yourself reaching the appropriate speed too early, then don't keep braking up to turn-in. Instead, try coasting up to and even into turn-in so that you still have a little extra weight on the front (which should be enough if you already coasted a bit after reaching proper turn-in speed), and remember to brake later next time. I've done this with students when I want them to start trusting that their car will get through a corner faster. If they keep braking early, I'll say that I want them to take their foot off the brake when I say so, and if I say "off" far sooner than turn-in, they coast up to the turn-in, and then when they see that their car will in fact get through the corner at that higher speed, before too long they've moved their braking point forward so I'm saying "off" right at the turn-in point, which is basically what you want for a novice driver. Also keep in mind that early in your track experience, your speed will be improving by leaps and bounds, and as you achieve higher exit speeds out of a corner, your speed coming up to the next corner will be higher, so you'll need to adjust your braking point even if you've already started braking consistently -- and that's before you do things like change brake pads and tires and such. It's a constant learning and adjustment process.

For overdriving, if you're referring to my post about chewing up your front tires in a weekend, first off I assumed you were talking about your E92 M3 on new PSS tires. If you were in fact talking about a 4500-lb Audi, which I have no experience with, and running on tires that may not have been all that new before your track weekend, then maybe that was appropriate wear for that setup. It's not for an E92 M3 though, at least not on tracks I've run or read others' impressions about. But anyhow, if you find yourself adding more steering input without getting tighter cornering out of the car, you're needlessly chewing through your tires. And on street tires the line is that you want them to be singing but not screaming. If you don't already understand that difference, believe me you will when you go way past the grip limits. The sound changes very noticeably. R-comps and especially slicks, however, give little to no "auditory feedback" before they break loose, which is partly why novices shouldn't be using them. Advanced groups tend to run such tires, which may be why you didn't hear them, but I'm not sure it's realistic to expect to hear tire squeal from the stands even if they were on street tires. If you do, those stands are either very close to the corner or those tires are screaming rather than singing. As for videos, a lot depends on where the mic that captured the audio for the segment you're watching was placed. Just because the VIDEO was shot from a particular spot doesn't mean that the sound you're hearing was also captured from that spot.

Other symptoms of overdriving include finding yourself counting on your cornering to slow you down, being unable to start getting back on the power by the apex (or sometimes even before the apex depending on the corner, your line, and your skill level), and being unable to start unwinding the steering wheel at the apex. In those cases, unless it's caused by an improper line, chances are that means you charged the corner on entry and you're paying for it with a lower exit speed, which costs you all the way down the straight. This is something that should be easy for an instructor to spot though.

And properly fast driving still feels smooth because the throttle, brake, and steering inputs are blended so well together. It can be scary, but it's still smooth both in reality and in actual feel. Not all smooth driving is fast, mind you, but all fast driving is smooth.

[Sleeper519]

As for the braking I'll agree that most beginners either brake too early and softly, or they absolutely slam on the brake pedal and shock the calipers, which upsets the balance of the chassis, or acitivate ABS which is undesirable.
I have a trick that I tell students which is to say the word "brake" but say it in 2 syllables, (ie) "brrr-rake". This takes about 1 second to say in normal conversational cadence. Anyway, the "brr-" is when you take your foot off the gas pedal and move it very quickly over to the brake pedal and engage the brakes about say ~10%. This serves to clamp the pads onto the rotors in a rapid (split-second) and controlled (non-shock) fashion. The "-rake" portion is the big "squeeze" on the brake pedal from that 10% level down to 95% effort, to threshold level without activating ABS (which would be 100%). The key is to to pre-load the system with the first move. So, you can go from foot-on-gas-pedal to threshold-brake effort in about a second or so, without shocking the brake rotors and upsetting the car, just split it into 2 separate moves. As they arrive at the brake point I have them say or think "brrr-rake" until its becomes a repeatable rhythm for them.

Brake pedal release (super important)and trail braking (which I do on most every corner except maybe very fast sweepers) is a whole nother topic...

[crash32]

Good input here. There was not once that I lost steering input/feel which made me think that maybe I was not over driving it, but the tire squealing and chewed up tires made me think twice.
My instructor told me that I was not overdriving, but at the same time I wasn't quite sure if my driving was smooth. I am at the point where I am still quite unsure of what is smooth and whats not.
Guess I am still confused as to what position you want the car in as you enter the turn. If you want the weight on the front tires then it would make sense to be braking decently as you crank the wheel. It seems as if you brake hard early and kind of coast into the turn that the weight would have by then transferred off the front tires causing understeer.
I am not at this point quite yet, but I competely understand the concept of trailbraking and it makes sense as you want the rear to whip around helping get the car around quicker. Wouldn't releasing the brake before cranking the wheel create the opposite effect?

[crash32]

@sleeper519.... Great way to put it. It makes sense that you would want to establish the pads on the rotors before really squeezing them.
All of these suggestions and input is helping me understand what my instructor is trying to tell me. Sometimes it is hard to know exactlu what the instructor is wanting out of you when you have a million things on your mind.

[Richbot]

Originally Posted by Sleeper519

As for the braking I'll agree that most beginners either brake too early and softly, or they absolutely slam on the brake pedal and shock the calipers, which upsets the balance of the chassis, or acitivate ABS which is undesirable.
I have a trick that I tell students which is to say the word "brake" but say it in 2 syllables, (ie) "brrr-rake". This takes about 1 second to say in normal conversational cadence. Anyway, the "brr-" is when you take your foot off the gas pedal and move it very quickly over to the brake pedal and engage the brakes about say ~10%. This serves to clamp the pads onto the rotors in a rapid (split-second) and controlled (non-shock) fashion. The "-rake" portion is the big "squeeze" on the brake pedal from that 10% level down to 95% effort, to threshold level without activating ABS (which would be 100%). The key is to to pre-load the system with the first move. So, you can go from foot-on-gas-pedal to threshold-brake effort in about a second or so, without shocking the brake rotors and upsetting the car, just split it into 2 separate moves. As they arrive at the brake point I have them say or think "brrr-rake" until its becomes a repeatable rhythm for them.

Brake pedal release (super important)and trail braking (which I do on most every corner except maybe very fast sweepers) is a whole nother topic...

Funny thing is, great as this is a teaching tool to get people thinking about their footwork, this is actually a pretty terrible habit for fast laps. Comparing data traces from pro to hack show a pretty much instantaneous ramp from 0-100% threshold braking for the fast guys, where hacks tend to "rrrramp" up to threshold if they ever get there.

<- hack

\/ doing hack stuff 8 years ago \/

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by crash32

Guess I am still confused as to what position you want the car in as you enter the turn. If you want the weight on the front tires then it would make sense to be braking decently as you crank the wheel. It seems as if you brake hard early and kind of coast into the turn that the weight would have by then transferred off the front tires causing understeer.
I am not at this point quite yet, but I competely understand the concept of trailbraking and it makes sense as you want the rear to whip around helping get the car around quicker. Wouldn't releasing the brake before cranking the wheel create the opposite effect?

Weight on the front axle is one of those things where there's a sweet spot, and you can end up with understeer either by dropping below it OR by going above it. The location of that sweet spot depends on the car's static weight distribution and the front tires you've got. Too little weight on the front and you're not setting your front tires up for as much cornering grip as they can offer, but put too MUCH weight up there and you'll overwhelm the tires because not only will they be dealing with more weight (which would also be true in a car that's nose heavy to begin with even if you weren't braking) but you'll also be asking them to brake too much for the amount of steering input you're dialing in. Or in extreme cases you can end up with OVERsteer by turning in with too much weight on the front because your rear will be too loose. But fwiw, even coasting into the turn is better than entering on maintenance throttle because coasting is a very light form of deceleration. After all, that's why mid-corner throttle steer works, where trailing off the throttle allows you to tighten up your line without adjusting your steering input -- although that too can lead to oversteer if you reduce throttle too much, depending on the car. This is why instructors will tell you never to lift completely off the throttle in fast corners.

One visual I like to give my students is to imagine a rope pulled taut between the bottom of the steering wheel and the pedals, throttle or brake depending on whether we're talking about turn-in or track out. The idea is that for trail braking, if you want to start dialing in some steering input, you have to get off the brakes by an equivalent amount to free up some tire grip for the cornering. You can't be devoting 100% of the tires' available grip to braking and then just ask for another 20% grip for cornering, for example; that would break the rope. Then when you start rolling back on the power, you should be adding throttle at approximately the rate that you're scaling back your steering input.

But as for how much to trail brake, that's very car-dependent and also depends on the precise line you take through a corner, which is also car-dependent. My GT4 trail brakes much better than my E92 M3 did, for example, and it pays much larger dividends, which is why I found myself naturally trail braking much closer to the apex when I switched cars. Some GT4 owners who have complained about understeer on corner exit have found that adjusting their trail braking eliminates this issue. One owner who had this complaint actually had a pro driver take his car out and was shocked when that driver said that the car didn't have any understeer. The owner asked how that was possible, and the pro told him to trail brake more to get more rotation done earlier in the corner before getting back on the power, and lo and behold, his understeer complaint disappeared and he stopped chewing up his front tires as quickly. This is where it helps to have an instructor familiar with your specific car.

[M3 Number 86]

Brakes. You can be hard on the brakes and smooth. don't just smash it like you were killing a bug lol. its in a controlled manner. quick hard and controlled.

Everything else practice makes perfect.

[loveskiing]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Weight on the front axle is one of those things where there's a sweet spot, and you can end up with understeer either by dropping below it OR by going above it. The location of that sweet spot depends on the car's static weight distribution and the front tires you've got. Too little weight on the front and you're not setting your front tires up for as much cornering grip as they can offer, but put too MUCH weight up there and you'll overwhelm the tires because not only will they be dealing with more weight (which would also be true in a car that's nose heavy to begin with even if you weren't braking) but you'll also be asking them to brake too much for the amount of steering input you're dialing in. Or in extreme cases you can end up with OVERsteer by turning in with too much weight on the front because your rear will be too loose. But fwiw, even coasting into the turn is better than entering on maintenance throttle because coasting is a very light form of deceleration. After all, that's why mid-corner throttle steer works, where trailing off the throttle allows you to tighten up your line without adjusting your steering input -- although that too can lead to oversteer if you reduce throttle too much, depending on the car. This is why instructors will tell you never to lift completely off the throttle in fast corners.

One visual I like to give my students is to imagine a rope pulled taut between the bottom of the steering wheel and the pedals, throttle or brake depending on whether we're talking about turn-in or track out. The idea is that for trail braking, if you want to start dialing in some steering input, you have to get off the brakes by an equivalent amount to free up some tire grip for the cornering. You can't be devoting 100% of the tires' available grip to braking and then just ask for another 20% grip for cornering, for example; that would break the rope. Then when you start rolling back on the power, you should be adding throttle at approximately the rate that you're scaling back your steering input.

But as for how much to trail brake, that's very car-dependent and also depends on the precise line you take through a corner, which is also car-dependent. My GT4 trail brakes much better than my E92 M3 did, for example, and it pays much larger dividends, which is why I found myself naturally trail braking much closer to the apex when I switched cars. Some GT4 owners who have complained about understeer on corner exit have found that adjusting their trail braking eliminates this issue. One owner who had this complaint actually had a pro driver take his car out and was shocked when that driver said that the car didn't have any understeer. The owner asked how that was possible, and the pro told him to trail brake more to get more rotation done earlier in the corner before getting back on the power, and lo and behold, his understeer complaint disappeared and he stopped chewing up his front tires as quickly. This is where it helps to have an instructor familiar with your specific car.

Dude, your answers rock! It's guys like you that make this forum such a great place to come for information and learning about these great M cars.
I see that you're in Austin but anytime you want to come up to the Pacific NW to teach some rookies how to drive, LMK cause I'll be the first one to sign up

[ayao]

Ok not to threadjack here but what's the "right" way to release the brake pedal? I've never really thought about it before, but now that I -am- thinking about it, my release tends to be abrupt and may actually be unsettling the car on turn in, and this is coupled with some abrupt movement of the steering wheel as I initiate turn-in ...

[Richbot]

In like a lion out like a lamb. You can usually tell f you've braked too much or too early by whether or not you're letting the car roll off the brakes through the corner or getting right back on the gas to speed it up to the right cornering speed

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by loveskiing

Dude, your answers rock! It's guys like you that make this forum such a great place to come for information and learning about these great M cars.
I see that you're in Austin but anytime you want to come up to the Pacific NW to teach some rookies how to drive, LMK cause I'll be the first one to sign up

Thanks! I haven't been an HPDE instructor for too long, but before I even discovered this addiction I did some mentoring and coaching, and I even taught a seminar to undergrads while an undergrad myself through a program at my alma mater, all of which helped me find ways to explain things in ways that made sense to people. I also found the experience of working with people and watching the light bulb go on when they all of a sudden grasp a concept very rewarding, so once I'd gotten my driving up to snuff, that all came in handy here too.

Originally Posted by ayao

Ok not to threadjack here but what's the "right" way to release the brake pedal? I've never really thought about it before, but now that I -am- thinking about it, my release tends to be abrupt and may actually be unsettling the car on turn in, and this is coupled with some abrupt movement of the steering wheel as I initiate turn-in ...

Again, this depends a lot on the corner, the car, and the driving style in question. There are some corners where I won't carry my braking past the turn-in point at all because they're fast corners even after I'm done braking, which means trying to trail brake would carry a high risk of oversteer. Then there are other corners where I brake hard in a straight line and then slowly release the brake pedal at turn-in but don't get all the way off it almost until the apex, and still other corners that are somewhere between those options -- but even these tendencies change a bit depending on the car I'm driving. In general, you always want to be using as much of your tires' available grip as possible, which often means overlapping inputs as much as possible without the total amount of input exceeding grip capacity, but that's just in general. Jackie Stewart in an old Top Gear episode said something like one can learn to apply the brakes properly fairly quickly, but can spend an entire career learning how to release them properly, so there's no easy answer to your question.

[Sleeper519]

Originally Posted by Richbot

Funny thing is, great as this is a teaching tool to get people thinking about their footwork, this is actually a pretty terrible habit for fast laps. Comparing data traces from pro to hack show a pretty much instantaneous ramp from 0-100% threshold braking for the fast guys, where hacks tend to "rrrramp" up to threshold if they ever get there.

<- hack

\/ doing hack stuff 8 years ago \/

Richbot, 99% of us here are amateur hacks, even you.
And we're talking about a split-second ramp up, not a ten second. You have to start the noobs off somewhere. I just cringe when a guy rears back and literally stomps on the pedal.

[M3 Number 86]

Originally Posted by Sleeper519

Richbot, 99% of us here are amateur hacks, even you.
And we're talking about a split-second ramp up, not a ten second. You have to start the noobs off somewhere. I just cringe when a guy rears back and literally stomps on the pedal.

its more of a mindset of ramping the pedal - not do it slow.

just like anything else - kick a soccer ball as hard as possible you don't just chuck your foot into it, there is technique. same with a baseball/golf swing, you swing as fast as you can with proper technique.

[Sleeper519]

Originally Posted by M3 Number 86

its more of a mindset of ramping the pedal - not do it slow.

just like anything else - kick a soccer ball as hard as possible you don't just chuck your foot into it, there is technique. same with a baseball/golf swing, you swing as fast as you can with proper technique.

Exactly. Squeeze that mutha down hard.

[1MOREMOD]

I struggle with the phrase overdriving, if you are forcing your car to understeer and beating the crap out of tires you are doing more than the car wants to but are also faster. For me loose is faster. My tires don't like it though. If it stays on pavement and you pick up time can't be wrong

[okusa]

Great advice given above. Beyond that, the only way to really verify if you are doing it right, is to get an AIM and analyze the data. It has helped me a lot.

[1MOREMOD]

Originally Posted by okusa

Great advice given above. Beyond that, the only way to really verify if you are doing it right, is to get an AIM and analyze the data. It has helped me a lot.

+1, like the predictive feature and +/- can see where in real time you just picked up half second.

[M3 Number 86]

Originally Posted by Sleeper519

Exactly. Squeeze that mutha down hard.

Exactly if you don't use the right technique....chaffing.

[jphughan]

Originally Posted by 1MOREMOD

I struggle with the phrase overdriving, if you are forcing your car to understeer and beating the crap out of tires you are doing more than the car wants to but are also faster. For me loose is faster. My tires don't like it though. If it stays on pavement and you pick up time can't be wrong

Fair point, so perhaps a better phrase would be overly aggressive driving, "overly" being defined as a level of aggression that only increases wear rather than speed and might even cost speed, hence my examples of just turning the wheel more hoping in vain for more cornering grip or charging a corner and counting on your cornering to slow you down before you get back on the throttle way later than you would've been able to had you driven the corner properly.