yes, in the example of turn 8... its a little more complicated in that, as you say, its high speed, not a straight line approach and has camber. and i can think of many examples of this on west course tracks. i do now understand his stability concerns, but its because you are not approaching the turn on a straight line.
as far as your last comment..... Yes, i think it would be unusual for Ross to not agree with what Peter and I had said. most drivers know this and it works out if you look at the data. however, the confusion comes in ,when special turns are looked at. Mike is right about CCW turn 8.... with further proof with your comment about even driving it with NO brakes and just pitching the car, and off throttle to make the turn.. (similar i imagine to the exit of the corkscrew , turn 9 entry. )

 

^^This^^

Of course, the topography and elevation all come into play. And I think the point Dave is making is NOT to "spike" the brakes, which may lead to a DRIVER-INDUCED instability that needs to be corrected, hence delaying brake release AND throttle pickup. THIS is what makes people slow through the corner. A super easy way to see whether peak braking is in the proper place in the data is if peak pressure is earlier rather than later.

We're not talking about that. We're talking about maximizing the deceleration capability as much as possible and blending the brake release into the beginning of the direction change, to keep the use of the tire "at the limit" in the words of Adam, at a minimum...

This is all MEASURABLE, and can be incrementally improved upon.

Problem is, most folks do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

 

Very well said Peter. This should be the gold standard on how we look at braking. However, I was only going on what Dave was saying (with his words ) not trying to start an argument there, but i have a problem with the terms "softer braking", "less intense braking" and " less forward" weight transfer " and "How softly he brakes" this does not imply that he is talking about how fast the brakes are applied (spike, shock, instability, etc). Ill let him clarify, but if that is what he is talking about, we all agree with that too.

 

Peter I agree on both of your most recent posts. I am advocating NOT spiking the brake for exactly the reasons stated. Just trying to use a lot fewer words in a thread that has become way to verbose

Yes, focused braking for a short duration that allows maximum stability and maximizes entry speed and exit speeds.

And you're right, this isn't directly related to the main topic here of brake-turning but it is relevant because brake turning doesn't work well with folks who spike the brakes and then wonder why the car behaves badly

 

Andy did that line with me on the first lap and I asked him specifically about it and he said it was to preserve momentum.

This is the way I do the T7-T8-T9 complex. The classic T8 line is a very late apex and come out far left setting up for T9. Lally's line was to take T8 faster, although he did brake, and exit T8 mid-track. The T9 turn in is tighter and one has to be careful and technically this screws up the "straight" between T9 and T10. Trying to keep the car left at the T8 exit scrubs off a lot of momentum and the T9-T10 straight is too short to make it worth it.

When I compared my data to Lally, both of us driving my street M3, I was 2-3 MPH faster in between T9 and T10, but Lally consumed something like 0.75 sec less time between the entry of T7 and entry of T10. He did this by preserving momentum through T7 and T8.

BTW, this type of approach also works at MSRH at the end of the back straight going CCW. It is actually a lot like TWS T8, only the turn is a sweeper with little camber. The green line there is to slow enough in the sweeper to get full track left for turn in into the Bus Stop. The faster way is to haul *** through the sweeper, let the car come out where it is going to come out (usually almost full track right) and then do what you have to do to bend the car into the Bus Stop. The Bus Stop chicane also has a short straight after it - a straight so short, it's not worth making a sacrifice on the sweeper.

Oh, and that last little bit is still on topic, as one of the thing one has to do to make the Bus Stop is trailbrake the crap out of the last 25% of the sweeper. Actually, this turn has double sided trailbraking. One trail brakes while turning at the start of the brake zone on the sweeper. Straighten out and full brakes for 50%, and then the last 25% of the brake zone is trail braking into the Bus Stop. All while heel-toeing down two gears - it's a fun turn.

-Mike

 

The fact that we're at eight pages and 3500+ views shows me this is a subject of interest to many...

Can't spare words for something this important.

 

At a certain point it's talked to death. Hence my headache

 

That makes sense then. I just didnt want to give the impression that it was ok to not use max braking capability. How you get into Max braking is the key. you are certainly right there! probably harder than the threshold braking part!

Sorry if i mistook the verbiage you used.

 

Topics like this are where the vocab becomes critical. It's also very important to be specific in what aspect of the cornering is being discussed. When using data, it's also imperative to use the proper names so the description of the graph is correct.

Sometimes, pictures really are worth a thousand words.

 

See post #2...

 

I think that is just the beginning and not nearly granular enough.IMHO, to have a good discussion, the corner needs to be broken down to approach (braking), entry, mid, mid-out, and exit. Then, we need more terms in each of those areas - things like brake application speed, total amount (1 to 10 pedal), release, initial turn in, mid corner turn, exit. Then keep drilling down, brake application rate (quantify it), release rate (quantify it), hand speed on turn in, total amount of steering, and on and on. These little nuances become exceedingly important right at the limit.

I was with a couple of real pros at Belle Isle last week for some terrific pre-session planning, post session debriefs, and reviews. Great stuff with loads of material, descriptions, details, and circuit knowledge.

 

Where have we heard this all before? None of this is new... The "1-10 pedal" first became a part of the SBRS lexicon forty years ago to help establish relative brake pressure to threshold braking and explain/compare to other drivers.

The primary purpose of that granularity is to a) improve the quality of EACH event and b) identify and distill opportunities for the most profitable improvement.

At Belle Isle, as at Indy, Le Mans and every other competition venue, time is the most valuable commodity. The better the team works to distribute that critical thinking and review load, the quicker they make the changes required to improve, both on the car and with the driver.

Fun stuff!

 

So, the pro advice would be to brake fast but not too fast and hard but not too hard?

 

FIFY.

Yep!

 

Well, that's what I meant by 'fast', as in quick or not too long.
Also changed the second half from 'a lot' to 'hard'.