sport shift on race track - braking

[jarodw]

Gents,
spring is coming and I already signed up for a first track day in April ;-). My V8 is equipped with the flappy-paddle gearbox. I am wondering if you guys - with sport shift equipped cars - use the left or right foot for braking (on the track).
Any thoughts appreciated.
Cheers, J

[johng39]

jarodw said:

Gents,
spring is coming and I already signed up for a first track day in April ;-). My V8 is equipped with the flappy-paddle gearbox. I am wondering if you guys - with sport shift equipped cars - use the left or right foot for braking (on the track).
Any thoughts appreciated.
Cheers, J

If you are not practised in the art of left foot braking, stay away and practice it first away from the racetrack. You WILL press too firmly and upset the balance of the car and not benefit from it on a track. It is an old rally driver technique that has limited use on the track, especially if you are not practised. Even worse if you drive a clutch car also and you then go into automatic mode and press hard. Modulation of the brake pedal is easier with your right foot because you do it all the time. Learn to heel & toe if you feel it necessary, however as the sportshift does the throttle blip, you dont need to.

You will be no quicker using the technique for all of the above reasons unless you are well practised at it. I only comment because I have done both, racing different cars and honestly lap times were no different and for an amatuer driver I often had more variable laptimes using LFB rather than the normal right foot braking. An expert scandanavian rally driver would tell you that LFB is a must, probably many F1 drivers would say the same, you and I are neither I guess

[yeti]

johng39 said:

many F1 drivers would say the same

I sat in Jenson's old car a while back, there is bulkhead separating your feet! So left foot braking is the only option if you want to slow down

[George H]

yeti said:

johng39 said:

many F1 drivers would say the same

I sat in Jenson's old car a while back, there is bulkhead separating your feet! So left foot braking is the only option if you want to slow down

I can't believe you fit! I tried sitting in Keke Rosberg's FW08C when a friend owned it and couldn't get in with the seat in!

I also don't think left foot braking is needed for driving a road car on a track, especially if you aren't very experienced at it.

[johng39]

yeti said:

I sat in Jenson's old car a while back, there is bulkhead separating your feet! So left foot braking is the only option if you want to slow down

So in fact ALL F1 drivers they probably practice it a lot then

[jarodw]

johng39 said:

If you are not practised in the art of left foot braking, stay away and practice it first away from the racetrack. You WILL press too firmly and upset the balance of the car and not benefit from it on a track. It is an old rally driver technique that has limited use on the track, especially if you are not practised. Even worse if you drive a clutch car also and you then go into automatic mode and press hard. Modulation of the brake pedal is easier with your right foot because you do it all the time. Learn to heel & toe if you feel it necessary, however as the sportshift does the throttle blip, you dont need to.

Fair point. I do practice left-food-braking while manoeuvring in low speed now and then; mainly because my left food "feels" so useless now with the automated transmission ;-).
During my precision and performance trainings at the Porsche sport driving school (back then when I had a Porsche) I learned, that you can not brake hard enough (assuming the car is still going straight) before a corner (brake late but hard), so I am not sure if braking to firmly will cause an issue. In my opinion, using left-foot-braking could provide more stability (assuming your right foot is still on the throttle while braking left), as the throttle lift while braking with the right foot can cause trailing-throttle overseer due to the load shift. Any thoughts…

[DAMIT]

Little doubt that it improves performance on the track otherwise F1 drivers wouldn't use it. But for the average driver I think there would be other areas of driving performance that would bring better improvements before getting down to left foot braking.

[johng39]

DAMIT said:

Little doubt that it improves performance on the track otherwise F1 drivers wouldn't use it. But for the average driver I think there would be other areas of driving performance that would bring better improvements before getting down to left foot braking.

Well said and more to the point than my rambling.

[Lunablack]

Whenever I drive a slush box, I only ever left foot brake.... Never done it any other way, just feels natural to me

[yeti]

George H said:

I can't believe you fit! I tried sitting in Keke Rosberg's FW08C when a friend owned it and couldn't get in with the seat in!

Indeed - no seat

[George H]

yeti said:

Indeed - no seat

Ah that explains it

I had a piece of carpet on the floor/back for me to sit on The owner had to drive it with no seat too