TXE36

I'm not sure why it took so long to notice it, but last night I was reviewing video from my last weekend at COTA with a data overlay, and it occurred to me that during a lap at COTA one takes off a lot of speed with the brakes. So I did a quick and dirty analysis between COTA and TWS:

T1: 110-40 Down 50 70 MPH
T11:105-35 Down 70 MPH
T12:125-38 Down 87 MPH
T20: 90-40 Down 50 MPH

T1: 125-80 Down 45 MPH
T3: 100-60 Down 40 MPH
T8: 105-70 Down 35 MPH
T10: 95-50 Down 45 MPH
T13: 90-55 Down 35 MPH

I'm a reasonably quick driver, but I can't drive my car to it's full potential yet. In addition, my car, and E36 M3 isn't particularly fast by today's standards. However, clearly there is a lot more braking at COTA in the major brake zones as compared with TWS. It also fits with the characterization that COTA is a technical track with long straights and TWS was a more of a "flowing" track. Brake heat and usage must be astronomical for the really powerful cars.

I suppose its also fitting that COTA is hard on power trains as well, as my last COTA visit appears to have popped the head gasket on the M3 but that's not completely COTAs fault. The sun rises in the east, S52s blow head gaskets.

-Mike

ExMB

FIFY

TXE36

While there are risks of doing math with insufficient caffination, 125-38 is 87 MPH for T12 is correct :-).

-Mike

HA: Ninja edit.

claykos

I was 160 down to 40 after the back straight in the 996....

definitely a killer track on brakes. With no power assist my right leg was dying after a 1 hour enduro.

claykos

This is what a lap looks like on the brakes - this the 2:15 lap from the video. I have room for improvement on the brakes. Especially the big brake zone at the end of the back straight. Definitely could go deeper there but my brain won't let me.

mark kibort

Now, you need to submit the KE change per lap! it sure does look like Cota is hard, but the key thing is really the time between these big braking zones.

breljohn

Maybe you are slowing down too much

CosmosMpower

Holy crap 2:15 that's moving. COTA is pretty hard on brakes but there are some decent brake cooling zones inbetween.

Veloce Raptor

True but as we discussed at the time, there is more time available via a slightly better car set up and some slightly higher level of patience in a few of the slower corners

Brian C in Az

I was comparing your minimum corner speeds to that of one of my students.

In my opinion, you are slowing too much and that excessive reduction in speed was making the brakes do more work than necessary.

Your speeds: Compared to:
T1: 40 MPH 44 mph

T3: 60 MPH 76 mph

T12: 38 MPH 48 mph

T13: 55 MPH 62 mph

The biggest problem with a track like COTA is everyone wants to go mach 1 down the straights before they learn the maximum minimum corner speeds. It is much easier to learn the fastest line through a corner when you limit your max straight speed to 95. Take the first couple of sessions and learn the proper line and maximum speed for each corner, then increase your straight line speed and adjust your braking accordingly. Thing happen very fast at triple digit speeds and most of us are too old and lack sufficient hours on the track to learn a track at warp speed. You had 3 days, 12 on track sessions. Had you taken the first two at a much lower speed and focused on corner speed, you would have be much faster by end of Saturday and would have had more fun all day Sunday.

mark kibort

Another data point is that your time on the brakes vs off the brakes for a lap is about 15sec vs 2min... at a track like laguna, that proportion is 20 seconds vs 1:15 no brakes. Laguna is a shorter time period, with a shorter rest time for cooling. this makes it possibly even harder on brakes.... over all KE change per time, thats a good question. i would guess to say that possibly cota might be more, but because of the extended rest, it seems easier on the brakes than Laguna for example.
Laguna:
T2 135 to 40mph
T3 100 to 70
T4 100 to 80
T5 125 to 70
T6 120 to 80
T7 120 to 40
T10 110 to 65
T11 100 to 40
lap time 1:35

claykos

To completely hi-jack this thread :-) .... here is a lap at Laguna. High 1:31. It's the 2nd or 3rd lap in this video. Interesting that Kibort's speeds are quite accurate to my data except for T10 I am crushing your 65 mph min by about 20 mph!

Akunob

^ This...

claykos

Some different views because I think they are cool:

mark kibort

awesome laps.......especially for your first time there. love the fact that yours is still a stick! great to watch!!!!...thanks for posting. regarding turn 10... i was going off memory and RPM sound and figured turn was about 65.. double checked, its about 75+.

if you look at the dwell time for rest between brakng zones, its easy to see why laguna is so hard on brakes.

COTA looks amazing. definitely on the bucket list.

mk