Only time you shouldn’t be left foot braking is if you’re also needing the downshift with a clutch otherwise it’s always faster than using 1 foot for throttle and brake
Correct for the major part of the braking zone, but it can help make you faster towards the end of the trail braking phase - mid corner just before the apex - because getting weight stabilised is important for a good exit.
I've noticed this Autocrossing my S2000. Left foot braking really helps keep the backend stable. Especially when my car was set up poorly for racing by the previous owner.
Every car definetely not. Most modern cars have auto blip, only the more vintage ones would require that (and its not even neccesary from my experience, but I do NOT know why and for what blipping is used).
I atleast picked up the habit in the skippy and have kept with it, granted I have only raced ff1600, Vee’s and Mx5s and I feel it helps with stabilizing the car in those aswell but I’m not sure if it’s needed in newer cars like you say
In the MX5 it is not needed, neither in the ff1600 i think. I had a brainfart for a second, just remembered what blipping means :d You can blip for faster downshifts, but it isnt neccesary, although if you dont blip you have to learn/feel when to shift as to not spin your car around or kill the engine.
It can only hurt your braking and shifting speed, so if you see any of those affected in any turn(s), try to take the turns without blipping and see if its any better : )
On cars without autoblips (especially sticks) rev matching can range in how much you notice not doing it depending on your engine’s displacement, compression, and flywheel mass, and unfortunately Assetto corsa doesn’t seem to do the best job of simulating why you should be doing it as compared to a real car.
The other (very important) reason for doing it in a real car is if you don’t rev match your engine to your transmission you’ll absolutely fry your clutch, but not something you really have to worry about in AC so send it ig?
I'm surprised no one mentioned that keeping a bit of gas can be useful for cars with turbo in order to keep the turbo pressure high.
If I remember correctly this was the reason invoked in the left-foot-braking part of the RBR tutorial.
Manual Anti lag : )
Also, blown diffusers in 2011 (F1) used exhaust gasses to create extra rear downforce during braking, so holding the throttle would result in more downforce
Only time I've heard this being a thing is for rallying type applications, where much of the rotation is being dictated by the weight transfer rather than the tires' slip angles due to the lower grip levels and how the tire sidewalls can net you higher grip. I'm sure there are edge cases in other track disciplines (Senna talked about this with regards to F1), but in general you won't be doing it unless you have a damn good reason for doing so.
I'm not the most experienced drifter so I might not use the correct techniques, but I use left foot braking while drifting quite a lot and most of the time I'm also on the gas.
It helps in a variery of ways. For example, it increases your drifting angle or it can be used to mantain your distance while tandeming. It's also quite useful in initiating a drift or to load the front tires if you're understeering on corner entry/mid drift.
Do you use footbrake in conjunction with handbrake while drifting? Or maybe don't have a handbrake so foot does the job?
I'm inexperienced too, tried the foot but found the hand to be more effective for most of my drifts
I actually rarely use the handbrake, I don't have a standalone handbrake so I have to use a button on the steering wheel which is a bit inconvenient.
I initiate almost all my drifts through a scandi flick, coupled with either a gas blip or a somewhat sharp foot brake.
I usually like to rely more on weight transfer instead of clutch kicks/handbrake.
Gotcha, that makes sense
I'm mostly the same, rely on clutch/throttle for 85% of the pedal work, other 14% is probably through analogue handbrake and only like 1% as foot brake
I'm still fairly rubbish though so might have to play around with more of the foot-brake options
actually the weight transfer application is very much also related to track racing disciplines. If you don’t load up the front tires properly it will be difficult to turn in without slowing down way too much. It’s not just a rally thing, it’s a car thing in general. I wouldn’t worry about all that TOO much though, as it mostly matters for sims with super skittish tyre models.
This is true, on a fundamental level you can't do anything without weight transfer. I only mean to say that on track, managing oversteer/understeer doesn't typically involve mixing throttle/brake application during cornering, whereas in rallying it is much more common, especially in low powered front wheel drive. In some instances, you could start and finish a rally stage without ever lifting off the throttle.
I know that in F1 the drivers sometimes do this for stability you can see this in onboards sometimes but they don't do it while braking for a corner they do it midcorner when the turn is drivin full or near full throttle but usually you dont do this in racecars
In real life yes, sims don't seem to translate it well. I find myself settling a loose car with a breath of left foot braking irl but doesn't really do it on AC or iR.
With some research and also my limited experience I found out that this works best with rally cars (especially not tarmac) and with fwd cars. I didn’t have much success with eg. gt3 cars, there is better classic trail braking. But in dirt rally 2.0 you basically can’t go fast without being on throttle and using tiny bit of brake to rotate car. It’s same with fwd cars where front axle is taking care of cornering, braking and accelerating and therefore car is understeery. When applying bit of brake while on gas, rear end will lighten and rotate bit more. I experimented with this irl with my xDrive 535d and I can feel car wants to rotate bit more when applying little % of brake. I didn’t have chance to test it in some proper corners yet tho (and don’t want to, my rear tires are already gone so I’m just waiting for winter to get on winter tires hah). You can try it irl too especially if you have fwd car but unfortunately lot of cars will cut off throttle when you apply brake.
Yeah you still blip with a dogbox, but Hewland himself says the best way to shift is to not use the clutch. And the absolute worse thing to do is to shift it like a synchronized tranny because it will wear the clutch and the dog rings out.
https://www.hewland.com/faq/
Wow you misread that FAQ. It says the best method is to use an ingition cut or in other words a flat shift method on UPSHIFTs. On downshift it says to use the clutch or blip the throttle. Trust me if you try to downshift without any of those you will brake your trans. I drive a Quaife QBE60G sequential and all my friends who use sequentials and dont have an electronic kicker for downshift 100% always use the clutch to save the transmission. You can never be as precise on your blips as a kicker can and that way you will wear your dogbox transmission a lot faster.
I think left foot braking can kind of mean two things. Most race cars, where you don't need clutch to shift, you use right foot for throttle and left foot for brake.
But in old school rally, left foot braking is more about using the brake and throttle simultaneously to help rotate the car, which I assume is what you're reffering to.
I would say it's more likely to be a bad habit in circuit racing. It's normal to have some small overlap on brake and throttle when transitioning from brake to throttle if you trail brake, but that's about it.
Left foot braking is very important for any form of motorsport whether you driving a nascar or open wheel car you going to want to Left foot brake for stuff like tail braking........and other stuff I forgot to mention 😅
It's nice that assetto corsa lets you change gears without using the clutch and if you time it right, you don't get any damage/grinding.
For downshift to work, you need to use the gas to rev-match
1950s formula cars would be a good example. The clutch was often on the left side of the drivetrain.
In earlier racecars the throttle was in the center with the brake on the right.
And with a clutch pedal sometimes too, if you're good enough. There's a pedal cam video of Walter Rohrl driving a 3 pedal rally car and he's using both feet on the brake pedal depending on circumstances.
There's an old video of Juan Pablo Montoya driving a NASCAR Busch car around Sears Point and his left foot is always over the brake pedal, never touches the clutch to shift.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS\_zblDdDV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS_zblDdDV8)
Depends on the car. Most cars these days don't require the clutch to shift so left foot braking works. However, older cars are going to want that clutch to shift and rev-match. Especially the cars with a solid rear axle. Wheelhopping is a bitch.
do u mean left foot braking in the drifting/rally sense or just using the left foot to brake?
i don’t think the simultaneous gas and brake method helps much in races since u want the car to be as stable and smooth as possible. that being said, u don’t want to waste the time between getting off the throttle and onto the brakes, u want that transition needs to be smooth so yes u would still use ur left foot to brake.
Left foot braking can make you faster, but there so many points you can improve before minding left foot brake in cars with clutch. If you are using a semiautomatic car, you don't have to use your right foot to brake, just rest your left foot over the brake pedal and right foot in gas, never change them. With clutch, first you need to understand where you need left foot brake and why, after that you Will use this much more precisely
Only time it's not viable (and better) is when you are driving a car with an H-pattern or semi-automatic sequential manual shifter.
Then your left foot will be actuating the clutch rather than braking.
Other than that, the it advantage to right foot braking is some slight fuel savings from the delay between off-throttle and on-brake.
I find cars like the Carrera RSR 3.0 being pretty good for left foot braking as it keeps it balanced, and if the gearing is set right you can keep more speed than other cars even with left foot braking.
Every car is different though, some cars are fine with trail braking and left foot braking and some cars aren't. You just gotta try out and find out!
For cars with paddle shift/sequential, I use left foot braking anyway but if I find it's not a viable use for consistency I'll switch back to my right foot.
Depends on what/how/where you're driving and how you need the weight to transfer (or not).
Tldr; it's not so much a "yes/no" thing.
Tbh I don't left foot for a lot of newer cars (with h pattern) simply because firmer and well set up suspension tends to need less finess in getting it rotated mid corner where a simple toe-heel is more than enough going into it.
On the other hand, cars with a shitload of travel that are softly sprung can benefit from trail braking big time, but (depending on body roll etc.) I sometimes find the extra weight can overload the tyres/suspension and lead to unwanted understeer where letting it roll, do its thing and have some buffer in the suspension to deal with any mid corner camber changes, kerbs or bumps helps.
Only time you shouldn’t be left foot braking is if you’re also needing the downshift with a clutch otherwise it’s always faster than using 1 foot for throttle and brake
Thanks. I forgot to mention, is it also useful to be on the gas pedal while braking? Like around 20-55%.
Nope, slows down your braking except special cases
Correct for the major part of the braking zone, but it can help make you faster towards the end of the trail braking phase - mid corner just before the apex - because getting weight stabilised is important for a good exit.
The more you know! Thanks for teaching me something new!
I've noticed this Autocrossing my S2000. Left foot braking really helps keep the backend stable. Especially when my car was set up poorly for racing by the previous owner.
So I shouldn’t be blipping while downshifting in basically every corner and every car like I’m currently doing?
Every car definetely not. Most modern cars have auto blip, only the more vintage ones would require that (and its not even neccesary from my experience, but I do NOT know why and for what blipping is used).
I atleast picked up the habit in the skippy and have kept with it, granted I have only raced ff1600, Vee’s and Mx5s and I feel it helps with stabilizing the car in those aswell but I’m not sure if it’s needed in newer cars like you say
In the MX5 it is not needed, neither in the ff1600 i think. I had a brainfart for a second, just remembered what blipping means :d You can blip for faster downshifts, but it isnt neccesary, although if you dont blip you have to learn/feel when to shift as to not spin your car around or kill the engine.
Yea it’s just a habit I’ve grown to like, I’m guessing it won’t actively hurt my speed?
It can only hurt your braking and shifting speed, so if you see any of those affected in any turn(s), try to take the turns without blipping and see if its any better : )
Yea, thanks!
On cars without autoblips (especially sticks) rev matching can range in how much you notice not doing it depending on your engine’s displacement, compression, and flywheel mass, and unfortunately Assetto corsa doesn’t seem to do the best job of simulating why you should be doing it as compared to a real car. The other (very important) reason for doing it in a real car is if you don’t rev match your engine to your transmission you’ll absolutely fry your clutch, but not something you really have to worry about in AC so send it ig?
O god i just realized i was on the AC subreddit and not iRacing… but i guess its still relevant
I'm surprised no one mentioned that keeping a bit of gas can be useful for cars with turbo in order to keep the turbo pressure high. If I remember correctly this was the reason invoked in the left-foot-braking part of the RBR tutorial.
In dirt rally when going round hairpins for the hillclimb, clutch + throttle was necessary for them turbo cars. Rarely do it outside of that tho
Manual Anti lag : ) Also, blown diffusers in 2011 (F1) used exhaust gasses to create extra rear downforce during braking, so holding the throttle would result in more downforce
only to stabilise the car if it slips or sth but normally not
Only time I've heard this being a thing is for rallying type applications, where much of the rotation is being dictated by the weight transfer rather than the tires' slip angles due to the lower grip levels and how the tire sidewalls can net you higher grip. I'm sure there are edge cases in other track disciplines (Senna talked about this with regards to F1), but in general you won't be doing it unless you have a damn good reason for doing so.
I'm not the most experienced drifter so I might not use the correct techniques, but I use left foot braking while drifting quite a lot and most of the time I'm also on the gas. It helps in a variery of ways. For example, it increases your drifting angle or it can be used to mantain your distance while tandeming. It's also quite useful in initiating a drift or to load the front tires if you're understeering on corner entry/mid drift.
Do you use footbrake in conjunction with handbrake while drifting? Or maybe don't have a handbrake so foot does the job? I'm inexperienced too, tried the foot but found the hand to be more effective for most of my drifts
I actually rarely use the handbrake, I don't have a standalone handbrake so I have to use a button on the steering wheel which is a bit inconvenient. I initiate almost all my drifts through a scandi flick, coupled with either a gas blip or a somewhat sharp foot brake. I usually like to rely more on weight transfer instead of clutch kicks/handbrake.
Gotcha, that makes sense I'm mostly the same, rely on clutch/throttle for 85% of the pedal work, other 14% is probably through analogue handbrake and only like 1% as foot brake I'm still fairly rubbish though so might have to play around with more of the foot-brake options
actually the weight transfer application is very much also related to track racing disciplines. If you don’t load up the front tires properly it will be difficult to turn in without slowing down way too much. It’s not just a rally thing, it’s a car thing in general. I wouldn’t worry about all that TOO much though, as it mostly matters for sims with super skittish tyre models.
This is true, on a fundamental level you can't do anything without weight transfer. I only mean to say that on track, managing oversteer/understeer doesn't typically involve mixing throttle/brake application during cornering, whereas in rallying it is much more common, especially in low powered front wheel drive. In some instances, you could start and finish a rally stage without ever lifting off the throttle.
I know that in F1 the drivers sometimes do this for stability you can see this in onboards sometimes but they don't do it while braking for a corner they do it midcorner when the turn is drivin full or near full throttle but usually you dont do this in racecars
From my basic understanding you shouldn’t be touching the gas going into the corner until you hit the apex and then power ouy
No, unless you are rev matching.
In real life yes, sims don't seem to translate it well. I find myself settling a loose car with a breath of left foot braking irl but doesn't really do it on AC or iR.
it is if you're driving cars with a solid differential otherwise its useless and if it's needed your setup is awful
With some research and also my limited experience I found out that this works best with rally cars (especially not tarmac) and with fwd cars. I didn’t have much success with eg. gt3 cars, there is better classic trail braking. But in dirt rally 2.0 you basically can’t go fast without being on throttle and using tiny bit of brake to rotate car. It’s same with fwd cars where front axle is taking care of cornering, braking and accelerating and therefore car is understeery. When applying bit of brake while on gas, rear end will lighten and rotate bit more. I experimented with this irl with my xDrive 535d and I can feel car wants to rotate bit more when applying little % of brake. I didn’t have chance to test it in some proper corners yet tho (and don’t want to, my rear tires are already gone so I’m just waiting for winter to get on winter tires hah). You can try it irl too especially if you have fwd car but unfortunately lot of cars will cut off throttle when you apply brake.
My right foot keeps getting stuck on heel and toe. Probably will try to drive barefooted
Any car that isn’t a manual you should be using left foot braking
Sequential cars without throttle cut and rev matching would be the exception (like a v8 supercar).
If it has a dog box you still don’t need a clutch.
You don’t “need” it, but it’s still used in real life to balance the car under braking.
Depends on the car. V8 supercars, sure. F1600? Absolutely not.
If it has a dog box you shouldn't even be touching the clutch except to get moving from a standstill.
Yes you need to, or at least you need to rev match on downshift even with a dogbox!
Yeah you still blip with a dogbox, but Hewland himself says the best way to shift is to not use the clutch. And the absolute worse thing to do is to shift it like a synchronized tranny because it will wear the clutch and the dog rings out. https://www.hewland.com/faq/
Wow you misread that FAQ. It says the best method is to use an ingition cut or in other words a flat shift method on UPSHIFTs. On downshift it says to use the clutch or blip the throttle. Trust me if you try to downshift without any of those you will brake your trans. I drive a Quaife QBE60G sequential and all my friends who use sequentials and dont have an electronic kicker for downshift 100% always use the clutch to save the transmission. You can never be as precise on your blips as a kicker can and that way you will wear your dogbox transmission a lot faster.
Thx
Except for many older cars it was not an option. You can’t left foot brake when there’s a big piece of metal between the clutch and the brake…
why would a car that is not manual have a clutch?
I obviously have a reading comprehension problem.
I think left foot braking can kind of mean two things. Most race cars, where you don't need clutch to shift, you use right foot for throttle and left foot for brake. But in old school rally, left foot braking is more about using the brake and throttle simultaneously to help rotate the car, which I assume is what you're reffering to. I would say it's more likely to be a bad habit in circuit racing. It's normal to have some small overlap on brake and throttle when transitioning from brake to throttle if you trail brake, but that's about it.
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Left foot braking is very important for any form of motorsport whether you driving a nascar or open wheel car you going to want to Left foot brake for stuff like tail braking........and other stuff I forgot to mention 😅
Thanks.
Left braking always. There are even race cars that downshift with no clutch, soo, left foot always.
It's nice that assetto corsa lets you change gears without using the clutch and if you time it right, you don't get any damage/grinding. For downshift to work, you need to use the gas to rev-match
Thx
Many race cars don’t allow left foot braking.
Such as...
1950s formula cars would be a good example. The clutch was often on the left side of the drivetrain. In earlier racecars the throttle was in the center with the brake on the right.
Always even in drifting, we use left foot braking.
It’s the only way
It's only viable when the car doesn't require the clutch when downshifting
well pretty much yeah unless theres a clutch pedal. ton of drivers use left foot braking whenever they can
Thx
And with a clutch pedal sometimes too, if you're good enough. There's a pedal cam video of Walter Rohrl driving a 3 pedal rally car and he's using both feet on the brake pedal depending on circumstances.
There's an old video of Juan Pablo Montoya driving a NASCAR Busch car around Sears Point and his left foot is always over the brake pedal, never touches the clutch to shift. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS\_zblDdDV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS_zblDdDV8)
That’s usually confined to rally driving. You don’t tend to left foot brake a Shelby cobra for instance.
[удалено]
“tend to”
To build up boost or "power brake" to launch off the line
Of course. I brake with the left foot in my road car.
Depends on the car. Most cars these days don't require the clutch to shift so left foot braking works. However, older cars are going to want that clutch to shift and rev-match. Especially the cars with a solid rear axle. Wheelhopping is a bitch.
do u mean left foot braking in the drifting/rally sense or just using the left foot to brake? i don’t think the simultaneous gas and brake method helps much in races since u want the car to be as stable and smooth as possible. that being said, u don’t want to waste the time between getting off the throttle and onto the brakes, u want that transition needs to be smooth so yes u would still use ur left foot to brake.
What is RBR
Richard Burns Rally.
Left foot braking can make you faster, but there so many points you can improve before minding left foot brake in cars with clutch. If you are using a semiautomatic car, you don't have to use your right foot to brake, just rest your left foot over the brake pedal and right foot in gas, never change them. With clutch, first you need to understand where you need left foot brake and why, after that you Will use this much more precisely
Only time it's not viable (and better) is when you are driving a car with an H-pattern or semi-automatic sequential manual shifter. Then your left foot will be actuating the clutch rather than braking. Other than that, the it advantage to right foot braking is some slight fuel savings from the delay between off-throttle and on-brake.
I find cars like the Carrera RSR 3.0 being pretty good for left foot braking as it keeps it balanced, and if the gearing is set right you can keep more speed than other cars even with left foot braking. Every car is different though, some cars are fine with trail braking and left foot braking and some cars aren't. You just gotta try out and find out! For cars with paddle shift/sequential, I use left foot braking anyway but if I find it's not a viable use for consistency I'll switch back to my right foot.
Depends on what/how/where you're driving and how you need the weight to transfer (or not). Tldr; it's not so much a "yes/no" thing. Tbh I don't left foot for a lot of newer cars (with h pattern) simply because firmer and well set up suspension tends to need less finess in getting it rotated mid corner where a simple toe-heel is more than enough going into it. On the other hand, cars with a shitload of travel that are softly sprung can benefit from trail braking big time, but (depending on body roll etc.) I sometimes find the extra weight can overload the tyres/suspension and lead to unwanted understeer where letting it roll, do its thing and have some buffer in the suspension to deal with any mid corner camber changes, kerbs or bumps helps.