Original Authors: PB Motorsports All Stars | December 11, 2020
"Any idiot can step on the gas on a straightaway; victory is decided in the braking zone."
We once ran a poll among a group of drivers: "If you could go back to your beginner days, what is the one skill you wish you had mastered on your first track day?" The runaway winner was correct braking technique. As the saying goes, even a monkey can floor it on a straight — but a driver's race is won or lost in the braking zone. So how should a track beginner approach braking? We collected answers from the veteran drivers at TOP-GT on three key questions:
- What is the correct braking principle for a beginner?
- What are the most common braking mistakes beginners make?
- How should you practice braking during a track day?
A spoiler before we start: even though we repeatedly asked them to keep it simple, the veterans went far deeper than expected. Their answers touch on advanced concepts and hard-won personal insight, and a few may leave beginners scratching their heads. If anything is unclear, leave us a message — we will answer questions in future articles based on your feedback.
01 What is the correct braking principle for a beginner?
- "Brake in a straight line first, using maximum pressure. Add trail braking only once you are proficient."
- "Brake in a straight line before the corner. Don't overthink trail braking until you have a good grasp of vehicle dynamics."
- "It differs between FWD, RWD, and AWD, but the brake must be applied firmly before corner entry — you can't wait until you are mid-corner to start braking."
- "In my opinion, the correct principles are: a) Familiarize yourself with the track and find a braking marker for each corner. That marker will move — if the tires lose grip after five minutes or the brakes overheat, you need to brake earlier. b) Find the rhythm of braking. Pressing and releasing the pedal too quickly or too aggressively unsettles weight transfer and tire grip. Experiment until the rhythm feels right."
- "Patience, patience, patience. Braking takes practice and cannot be perfected quickly. The theory is easy to study; execution is not. Keep a calm mindset and improve incrementally — overdriving is neither safe nor fast."
- "The key is to apply the pedal smoothly, building pressure gradually and continuously. Decelerate smoothly until your braking points are consistent, then hold the pressure and observe your line and the car's speed changes. Brake pressure is not an on-off switch."
- "For a beginner, the principle is safe and effective braking, not blindly chasing speed. Slow to an appropriate entry speed — that is the only way to corner safely and drive out effectively."
02 What are the most common braking mistakes beginners make?
- "Braking too late. Not braking hard enough on the straight. Releasing too quickly when trail braking."
- "Over-reliance on ABS — it overheats the brakes and does nothing for developing pressure-modulation skill."
- "Braking too late, for one. Another is being hesitant on the pedal: press a bit, feel it's too much, release, feel too fast, press again — back and forth, never smooth. And when releasing, people often snap off the pedal instantly, throwing the weight transfer into chaos."
- "Thinking that braking late automatically means driving well. Stabbing the brakes hard and releasing them abruptly. The result is rough weight transfer — and a slower lap."
- "First, over-braking: either slowing so much that entry becomes too slow — killing any chance of trail braking and making the car understeer and refuse to rotate — or realizing you over-braked, releasing early, then finding at turn-in that you haven't slowed enough and stabbing the pedal again. Both ruin rhythm and waste time. Second, braking hard while turning, or dumping the brakes mid-corner. The first starves the front tires of grip and the car understeers off line; the second shocks the weight transfer and makes the car hard to control."
- "Misjudging vision and speed before a corner, missing the braking point, then panicking — sometimes even locking up. Remember the golden rule of car control: slow in, fast out."
- "Braking too late and braking too early are equally common, along with misapplied trail braking — usually paired with bad habits like insufficient initial force and inconsistent pressure."
03 How should you practice braking during a track day?
- "Progress step by step toward the correct braking point. Practice feeling how trail braking changes the car's balance mid-corner — release the brake smoothly."
- "Don't chase lap times, and don't worry about being slow. Use threshold braking as much as possible and gradually find the braking point that gives you the ideal entry speed for each corner."
- "Pick a few low-difficulty corners first and work on them with a consistent, progressive approach. Don't try to master every corner at once — conquer a few, then move on to the rest."
- "Practice threshold braking — braking right up to the point before ABS intervenes. And practice consistency: the same braking point, pressure, and distance, lap after lap."
- "First, learn the track and find a braking point for each corner that slows you to exactly the right entry speed without trail braking. Then, for corners that suit trail braking, keep that same braking point but begin releasing the pedal earlier, trailing the brakes into the corner and feeling the dynamics change. Finally, practice a multi-stage release: quicker through the first half of pedal travel, slower through the second — and depending on the car's suspension, avoid stabbing the pedal violently on the way in as well."
- "A corner has three stages: entry, apex, and exit. Braking before entry shifts weight from the rear axle toward the front, helping the driver rotate the car into the corner. The apex is simply the junction between entry and exit — not necessarily the geometric middle of the corner. Different corners call for different apexes, and different entry lines require different ones; even the same driver in the same corner may choose a different apex depending on the situation. The exit begins as the steering unwinds and the car accelerates — ideally, carrying the highest possible speed right at the edge of grip. Grip is the great variable, so the most important thing a beginner can practice is judging braking in real conditions and feeling the car's weight transfer."
- "Start by choosing an early, safe braking point with enough initial force to just trigger ABS. Hold that pressure, release at the right position, and steer in. As you improve, move the braking point later — same operation, but adjust the turn-in position to use more of the tire's grip, until you simply cannot make the corner any faster."
The veterans' answers are full of jargon — threshold braking, trail braking, weight transfer, balance. Do you understand all of these concepts? Do you have your own insights, or questions? Leave us a message — in the next chapter we will share more drivers' answers and explain the concepts everyone found confusing.