Red Bull Motorsports
Rally
Find out how the world’s best rally drivers brake
Being fast is about knowing when to apply the brakes. Here’s how the best rally drivers do it.
2 min
Watch how these WRC drivers take on a hairpin
Learn how to get around a hairpin in the quickest way possible in this masterclass from WRC drivers.
Known as the Rally of 10,000 Turns, Rally France is all about braking. Find out how to tame the hairpin and how to drift, slide and skid your way up and down a mountain pass in this masterclass from the WRC drivers, and read on for tips from Jari-Matti Latvala on how to brake like a boss.
A braking masterclass from Jari-Matti Latvala
© Volkswagen Motorsport
Racing cars is all about how hard you squeeze that throttle pedal, right? Afraid not. Those in the know will tell you that good braking technique is more important than being able to stomp on the loud pedal.
If you master the brakes on your racing car, then you can carry more speed into a corner, while also keeping your car more balanced. As WEC champion Mark Webber explains, on a circuit, the first rule of braking is that you start braking when you're in a straight line, before turning into the corner and then coming off the brake pedal.
But how do you brake on a slippery gravel Finnish rally stage, with your car's back end fish-tailing all over the place? Or in the snowy forests of Sweden while trying to stop your car from barrelling into a snow bank?
2 min
Mark Webber's masterclass: Hairpin
Let World Endurance Champion Mark Webber show you how to take the perfect hairpin bend.
To find out, we asked Volkswagen World Rally Championship driver Jari-Matti Latvala. Here's the Finn’s ultimate guide to braking in a rally car.
The secrets of left-foot braking
The first time you try and left-foot brake in your road car, you'll usually end up giving yourself whiplash as your clumsy, untrained left foot slams on the anchors. But for a World Rally Championship driver, it's an essential skill to master, for one very simple reason.
"When you left-foot brake, you don't lose time when you go to the throttle," explains Latvala. "Sometimes if you have a slippery place and you start to slide, then you have to go full throttle. And if you have to move your feet, it takes a fraction of a second more, and that can make a difference."
Grip levels are always changing on tarmac
© Volkswagen Motorsport
No two rally drivers brake the same way
Latvala has studied the telemetry of Volkswagen team-mate and triple world champion Sébastien Ogier, and made some interesting discoveries about the braking differences between him and his French stable-mate.
"Ogier is doing this with left-foot braking and throttle," says Latvala, using his hands to mimic Ogier alternating quickly between the brake and the throttle. "He's all the time braking a little bit, then coming off – like he’s feeling the grip."
Ogier and Latvala have very contrasting styles
© Citroën Racing Media
Latvala's way of braking, by contrast, is less gentle. “My style used to be hard braking, [pedal] up, then back again [onto the brakes]," he says. "I had this hard way of braking, putting the maximum load straight away on the brakes. That was upsetting the suspension a little bit. As I've gotten a bit older, I've tried to be a bit smoother with the braking."
The Loeb effect
Sébastien Loeb's impact on the World Rally Championship at the beginning of this century was monumental. Here was a driver who wasn't just quicker than everyone else; he was quicker than everyone else because he'd invented a whole new way of driving a rally car, Latvala explains.
Loeb and Citroën changed the way of rallying
"In the earlier days, you'd brake, turn before the corner like on gravel, leave the car a little bit on the angle, make sure that it was starting to turn and then you'd have a nice drift out [with the throttle]. Nowadays, you brake straight and you turn straight [i.e. not sliding into the corner], then you control with the throttle how much you make the back end slide.
Loeb changed the way rally cars are driven
© Citroën Racing Media
"It was Loeb and Citroën who created this style. They changed the way of rallying 11 or 12 years ago with that technique, and that was something that Ogier was following. Then the whole concept of rallying started to change; it went from a more aggressive style to a racing style, like what you'd do on a race circuit.”
So does less drifting mean less fun, we ask Latvala.
"Yes," he replies with a rueful grin. "Yes."
How to brake… on asphalt
"On asphalt, it's the same basic [technique] as on the race circuit. I try to drive the same way – smooth braking up to the apex. There are rallies where you cut and bring dirt onto the road. But you can't brake where there's dirt, because if you brake, you lock the wheels and you go off the road. So what you do is brake until the dirty place is coming, come completely off the brakes, keep maybe 20–30% of the throttle and drive over the dirt. Then, when you come back onto the Tarmac, you go full throttle again."
How to brake… on gravel
"On gravel, what you do is you brake, feel [the grip] a little bit, and then when the corner comes, you come off the brake and full throttle."
How to brake… on snow
"On the snow, you try and drive more with a straight car. We used to have a narrow snow tyre; that meant you were always putting load through the studs and you were always able to find the grip, whether you were on ice or snow. Nowadays, we run as wide a tyre on snow as we do on gravel.
"When you have a bigger tyre, you transfer the load on the studs to a bigger area. So now, if you have, say, ice with snow on top, the studs don't bite as well as with the narrow tyre. So nowadays you really follow the cleaner line. If you go off the line, it will be very slippery with those tyres. So it's become the same as gravel: brake straight, turn straight."
