What's the fastest way through a hairpin on a B road?

I end up doing it normally -- slowed right down in 2nd gear, engine lugging a wee bit on the exit because speed is so low. I don't think the car i use on this road can turn any faster (Mk4 Golf) so i'm pretty sure adding speed is just going to cause understeer.

I'm thinking to get through it faster i'm going to have to cause oversteer and slide a bit round the corner. I've tried coming in too fast, turning pretty sharply, then because the car isn't going round enough i yank on the handbrake and that does sharpen up the corner and the car turns round, but it also stops the car momentarily on the exit until front wheels drag it onwards the handbrake in the turn is just wiping off all the road speed.

Feels crap, looks crap, is crap.

How do i flow round the corner, can i do it with the handbrake or do i need a new technique? Preferably i'd like it all to be one sweeping movement.

The Road

It's a quiet, 2 car width B road and the surface is tarmac. Visibility is pretty good, there's only fences, no hedges and the road after the hairpin is higher & keeps climbing up a hill -- you can see well in advance if there's any cars, cyclists or walkers going the same way as you or coming down the hill, so it's good in that respect. The tarmac is pretty old but somehow it's also really grippy which makes the handbrake turn harder for me.

Be good to see a pic?

Personally I'd perhaps trail brake through to the apex, i don't think using the handbrake in that kind of situation is going to achieve the fastest entry and exit through the corner..

Kev

If you can actually see as far through the bend as you indicate, I'd suggest that off-siding your entry , possibly trail braking after your turn-in, and using the full width on exit, applying power as your line starts to open would be fastest (and still legal unless it's solid-whited on entry). Handbraking on the public highway is at least technically illegal, because you're inducing a skid, and hence deemed to be "out of control".

slowed right down in 2nd gear, engine lugging a wee bit on the exit because speed is so low.

If you're going too slow for 2nd why don't you use 1st gear? It's not that difficult, after all.

Tyres screeching

Use as much road as possible and don't get caught in a higher gear especially on an incline.

Cheers for all the replies guys much appreciated. Pretty new at this kind of thing so im really grateful for the info you guys have posted.

The trail braking thing i've now done a bit of research on, but (surprise! haha) i can't get it to work for me.

I think i'd have to go in at a (much) higher speed for this to be effective - which i can't really commit to. I'll need to lay out some stones to mark out the inside of a hairpin in a big featureless car park to be able to try a higher entry speed.

Or, am i just doing something wrong. Should i be able to feel the benefits of trail braking at ~25 mph ? I'm finding 25mph just before the apex a bit hot, but maybe i just need to adjust / familiarise.

In case it helps someone spot where i'm going wrong, the way i've been trying it is:

• Approach as normal but hold off on braking until a split second later
  
• Squeeze the brakes up to the threshold as quickly as possible (i'm not very good at this so i always end up under-braking rather than risk ABS kicking in), amateur but i try!
  
• Turn in and release the brake, i'm turning in a split second before my foot starts coming off the brake pedal
  
• The car is most definately understeering right at this point, although it is turning, just not enough
  
• Bring my left foot onto the brake pedal and starting with a fairly light dab on the pedal then getting lighter on successive dabs. I'm not sure what to do with the throttle here, i've tried no throttle & half throttle but can't really tell the difference in the effect it has (dab the brake harder?)
  
• Right about this point my mind really struggles to concentrate on anything else because of the understeer and all i can think about is grabbing the handbrake to get the car turning and avoid trouble
  

I know someone's probably sitting howling with laughter at this but self learning is hard -- for every "golden nugget" of information on the web there's 10 "nuggets" posting "information" if you know what i mean....

Thanks again guys!

From what you've described in your sequence of events there's not really much there that i can see which relates to trail braking, possibly some left foot braking, but left foot isn't going to help too much at this speed... Left foot is great for high speed entry stuff.

When you're turning in on the brakes don't release them fully, carry a little more speed initially but you want to stay on the brakes, albeit not hard on brakes, throughout most of the turn in & apex process. You're trailing on the brake pedal so there's still some weight over the front of the car.. Use inputs smoother, dont jump on and off pedals or use sharp turns..

Slow in, fast out

That's my personal opinion anyway...

Kev

When braking, the throttle is effectively killed electronically so you cannot left foot brake on a car with a DBW throttle.

The whole point of left-foot or trail braking (leaving aside the whole thread on why you can't LFB with a drive by wire throttle) is to load up the outside front suspension so the car will turn in faster. Accordingly, you should be back on the throttle by the apex anyway.

Also, as a personal point, I don't really notice as much turn-in understeer as some people complain about, but I suspect I tend to be very assertive about how hard and fast I apply lock (and I certainly do trail brake). Being smooth doesn't stop you being fast and hard with your rates of change; it just means you have a transition rather than a binary input.

The car's not DBW (as above & user info thing at the side of my posts, '98 mk4 1.6 golf)

Glad i posted my steps because i've misinterpreted how to go about trail braking. Wish i could buy some decent instruction locally. So tomorow morning i'll give this a shot with the new info learned here, see how i get on.

How should i be handling the apex? Ken seems to suggest late apex, Kev seems to suggest ideal line (or am i reading between the lines wrongly here)

Thanks again!

I'd agree with Ken about a late apex..

Kev

A RARB might help you....

The key thing is that a tyre has a finite amount of grip. A nice analogy is that you have £10 worth of grip to divide up between braking, accelerating and steering and spending more than this will result in the tyre breaking traction and understeering. Reality is not quite as black and white as that as shifting weight over the front tyres can increase their grip slightly but the trade off is grip is reduced on the rear.

On a hairpin, steering is going to be "costly" so ideally you want to minimise the amount of steering or at least minimise the amount of prolonged steering freeing up some cash for accelerating out of the corner. Approaching the hair pin wide and then tightening the line to clip the apex and aim for a wide exit might achieve this. The question then is what entry speed do I need to allow for this amount of steering. If you're currently doing 25mph and the front is running wide, then it suggests that either there is too much steering too late (ie a sudden turn of the wheel), or that more speed needs to be scrubbed off to free up some grip for steering. Once the speed is right, come off the brakes and build up the throttle and begin winding off the steering. As you get on the throttle you can allow the car to run wide for the exit.

http://www.oneshift.com/articles/article.php?artid=28 is interesting reading

Chris

vRSLen, i'd have a total cheek to fit one -- it's riding on 80 profile winter tyres just now! Summer (rain tyres) go back on end of this month (although even they are still only 65 aspects…).

Can ARBs wear out? Reason i ask is i can't really do much in terms of twisting the front ARB on the BMW no matter how much i swing on it (one sway bar unbolted from a strut), but the golf front arb i can distort pretty easily by hand.

Chris, that's a helpful analogy. With what you said at the end of your first paragraph i can't help but draw parallels with my original idea of maybe going into debt at the rear and slide round to allow reduced spending on steering at the front and use the steering money saved to buy more grip for acceleration.

I took a detour on the road home tonight and had another few runs round. I think i can say trail braking requires a level of skill i don't have yet.

It's too much of a balancing act, if i brake too much after turn in, i *know* all thats going to happen is i will understeer out of the corner with 0 chance of recovery. I can't get that thought out of my mind. It's pretty much the first thing i learned about cornering, brake in the corner and you'l understeer off. I've experimented with it in a car park before and it'd be a horrible thing in real life.

If i don't brake enough i'll still understeer out of the corner regretting coming in too hot and this is pretty much what happened on my 4th attempt. All other attempts i just lost road speed and nothing else worth talking about happened.

Late apex, braking up to turning in point. Car lurched into the corner as i let off the brakes 90%. Maintained light braking then eased off and the turn did widen. So while thats not really the wanted outcome, it does suggest that the light braking was actually helping the turn.

Too difficult for now. I think i've learned i need more basics work, and possibly to start using the BMW for this stuff because it's much stiffer and doesn't roll or dive like the golf does. Although i'm conflicted on this because a bad workman always blames his tools.

Thanks again guys!

Chris, that's a helpful analogy. With what you said at the end of your first paragraph i can't help but draw parallels with my original idea of maybe going into debt at the rear and slide round to allow reduced spending on steering at the front and use the steering money saved to buy more grip for acceleration.

It's an option, but it may not be the quickest - all the time you're sliding you're waiting for grip to return. Probably feels fast though

I took a detour on the road home tonight and had another few runs round. I think i can say trail braking requires a level of skill i don't have yet.

It's too much of a balancing act, if i brake too much after turn in, i *know* all thats going to happen is i will understeer out of the corner with 0 chance of recovery. I can't get that thought out of my mind. It's pretty much the first thing i learned about cornering, brake in the corner and you'l understeer off. I've experimented with it in a car park before and it'd be a horrible thing in real life.

If i don't brake enough i'll still understeer out of the corner regretting coming in too hot and this is pretty much what happened on my 4th attempt. All other attempts i just lost road speed and nothing else worth talking about happened.

Late apex, braking up to turning in point. Car lurched into the corner as i let off the brakes 90%. Maintained light braking then eased off and the turn did widen. So while thats not really the wanted outcome, it does suggest that the light braking was actually helping the turn.

Too difficult for now. I think i've learned i need more basics work, and possibly to start using the BMW for this stuff because it's much stiffer and doesn't roll or dive like the golf does. Although i'm conflicted on this because a bad workman always blames his tools.

The main problem, imho, is the entry speed is still too high. If the road is quiet, why not slow down to a walking pace (eg 10mph), make sure you're happy with the line and go through the motions, getting used to applying the power earlier and being smooth. Remember also that on the approach you'll need to make time to select the gear for the corner so if you're trail braking, you'll need to overlap this so that when you transition from brake to accelerator, you can feed in usable power.

Speaking of transitions, one of the fundamental principles to maximise the amount of grip available is to be smooth and manage the weight transfer around the car. So going from 100% to 10% braking quickly will lurch and "throw" all the weight to the back of the car and away from the front. This reduces grip available for turning and as a result may lead to understeer. If you can taper the braking such that the car isn't lurching, then you'll be able to steer effectively and apply power earlier. It also takes 1/2 second or so for the tyres to "wake up" when you turn the wheel so you might find starting to steer earlier is useful too...

Personally, I wouldn't bother trail braking into the corner and would aim to slow down enough that I could start feeding in power from the start of the corner to settle the car , and then firming it up for the exit as I wind off the steering. Whether that's the quickest way is probably debatable, but round here we're not blessed with many open hairpins that I can practise on

Chris

Here's where (prompted by Chris) we have to start examining braking techniques. Mute, I'm betting that you just "jump" on the brake pedal. If so, try this repeatedly on a quiet straight. We're practicing "how to apply the brakes smoothly, and with practice you can build up a muscle memory so that you can brake hard but smoothly, and believe me, this means you can actually brake harder because you don't get the spike of effort that initially locks the wheels.

1) Travelling at a steady speed declutch (normally bad practice but we want to observe the effects of the service brakes, not the engine braking).

2) Once only, jump on the brakes hard and feel the spike of effort.

3) Repeat (1).

4) Transfer your right foot from throttle to brake and adjust your foot position so that the ball of your foot is over the point where the bar of the pedal attached to the footplate.

5) Now push as hard as you can. You shouldn't feel the same shock spike, but you should find that you can push harder before the wheels lock (or ABS kicks in).

6) Repeat from (3) until this feels automatic.

Not only will this let you brake harder when pressing on, and in an emergency, but it will make you smoother the rest of the time as well.

Not only will this let you brake harder when pressing on, and in an emergency, but it will make you smoother the rest of the time as well.

Good point, Ken. Braking should be made up of 3 phases ideally.

1. Take up the slack in the pedal and "prime" all the calipers

2. Build up the braking pressure - once braking has started, you can really firm up the brakes without it feeling uncomfortable or unstable (sudden transitions are what passengers object to! )

3. Taper off the brake application ready to get back on the power

I did have a nice graph/telemetry showing this, but I can't fnd it so it may have been in a book. :(

Chris

Many thanks for the replies guys, i'm really grateful for the detail you've been putting into your responses.

I'm Craig by the way, Mute's just a name i picked because i was fiddling with the TV remote just before i finally registered on this site...

Chris, i think i'm going to go back to this method and make better on my basics. I'd like to come back to trail braking eventually because i can see the value of having that technique.

First though, i now recognise i need to get to a level where i can do this corner normally (late apex), with my eyes closed (metaphorically speaking!). Really i need to be smoother. I thought i was smooth (i was trying to be) but Ken's exercise kinda put paid to that idea...

Ken, i've never come across this exercise but i think i can see why it works -- in the same way that pushing the steering wheel into the corner rather than using my wrist to pull the wheel down into a turn helps make my steering smoother -- this is encouraging smoother control by all but eliminating the leverage in the ankle, and forcing me to use my leg instead.

I've played with this technique now and i prefer it because i feel i am now more in touch with the brakes -- specifically i can feel the difference quite easily in the car as i vary my brake application. I need to play more with this, and i'll need to mark out braking distance the old way vs. the new way.

It feels like there is more feedback, or at least a stronger correlation between what i think i'm doing to the brake pedal, and what's happening. That's been a really top tip.

Are there any other tips for ensuring smoothness on the controls? From what you've all posted, i think there's still more gains to be made from smoother controls.

My steering i now push rather than pull to avoid snappy wrist movements. Brakes i'm now using the arch of the foot rather than the ball. Gears i generally do try to rev match and smooth out any difference with the clutch.

Thanks again!

Craig

P.S. Ken You're showing 16,000 posts exactly just now, that must be worthy of a celebratory tipple :-)

Craig, you've picked up the point of the exercise wrong; you can still modulate pressure with your ankle (in fact you have to in a formula car, and I was taught this technique by Jackie Stewart (yes that one) The critical point from what I said is to position the foot correctly and consistantly every time (Jackie calls it the "balance point" of the pedal, and you can feel why when you do it), and as Chris says you also load the braking system without actually applying retardation.

Of course, that's why you have to do it clutch out; this is normally bad practice, but you need to be able to feel what the brakes are doing with no distractions from the engine braking.

position the foot correctly and consistantly every time (Jackie calls it the "balance point" of the pedal

Have i got the foot placement right? -- Arch of the foot where the ball of the foot would normally rest in the centre of the brake pedal. I found this to be a total revelation when i used it so hoping this is right.

adjust your foot position so that the ball of your foot is over the point where the bar of the pedal attached to the footplate.

My pedals don't really fit that description so this might be where i have my wires crossed, here's a picture:

MK4 Golf Pedal Unit on Ebay

Have i got the foot placement right? -- Arch of the foot where the ball of the foot would normally rest in the centre of the brake pedal. I found this to be a total revelation when i used it so hoping this is right.

Imho, you want to be using the ball of your foot as this is the point of the foot which can exert most force and the ball of the foot is positioned where it can generate most leverage (which will be the centre of the brake pedal). This also provides a good firm platform for heel 'n' toeing.

I wonder if the reason it feels like a revelation is because you're feeling the pedal through the more sensitive sole of your foot?

It's interesting what you say about leading with a push for the steering feeling better. Are your hands in a fixed position on the wheel as you turn or are you using push/pull? As I mentioned above with phase 1 of the braking where you "hint" to set up the brakes for full application, so too can the steering be "hinted" by turning the wheel gradually until there is some resistance (ie the tyres are starting to turn the car). It might be that to feel this, you'll need to relax your grip on the wheel, or even pinch the wheel between thumb and fore-finger. Once the tyres are starting to turn then you can feed in more steering without costing a large amount of grip. Once common mistake is to leave steering late and turn the wheel a large amount, which results in asking too much of the tyres and understeer.

Don Palmer's handbook is worth a read, although there's no substitute for having him in the car with you.

Chris

This also provides a good firm platform for heel 'n' toeing.

Yeah i couldn't heel toe from this position so logic follows that i have it wrong. So back to ball of foot on pedal :S

because you're feeling the pedal through the more sensitive sole of your foot?

Yeah i'd say so.

on the wheel as you turn or are you using push/pull?

Push Pull -- which previously was difficult for me, i now sit closer and a lot more upright. I see the professionals using fixed position but i've been putting that down to a higher ratio steering rack as fitted to a track car?

The hinting the brakes, i never really did this before but i will now. Just on enough that i start to feel resistance (e.g. just a bit past where the brake light switch triggers).. Then from there apply more effort. This car seems to be over-servo'd and you don't need that much pressure to lock the wheels with the clutch disengaged. I might clamp the vacuum pipe that runs to the servo for some contrast.

With the angles the pedal was shot from, I couldn't really see where the lever attaches to the pad, and it may be different to pendant pedals I have looked at, where it's clear that the centre of attachment is the centre of the pad. So that's where the ball of the foot wants to be. There's nothing wrong (in fact it's essential iof you're heel and toeing) in applying a base effort from the calf and thigh muscles, and using the ankle for detail control. (If you really want to learn about brake pressure control rather than travel control, try a Citroen DS, GS, CX or SM, or a Maserati with Citroen HP hydraulic powered brakes.)

Also, on the subject of steering, I've been told by several race and rally drivers that most people sit too far from the steering wheel in road cars with their low ratio racks. Certainly forget anything you see happening in formula cars, with maybe 1 turn lock to lock. Ideally, you want to be able to place your wrist on top of the wheel at 12 o'clock, whilst keeping your elbow bent (original source Tiff Needell [sp]).

Please let me know when you guys are finding the fastest way around a country road hairpin . I will stay at home that day .