How To Brake?

[Skypalace]

Thanks! Re F1 drivers, certainly they need to brake in non-straight lines, esp. at say Valencia today where they're almost always in a corner.

Now I think I understand better why they're constantly adjusting brake bias - moving bias rearward will let them trailbrake deeper into a corner before locking up. Too far rear though and esp. earlier in the braking zone you might lock up the rears, that's much worse. So at least for mortals like me, I err on the side of front brake bias, better to have front lockup and understeer through a corner entry, than to have the back step out when under any side loading (esp. entering a high or medium speed corner) and swapping ends (spin at best, into something hard at worst). Though if I'm never getting any lockup on the data (easy to see from logging of the four wheel speeds), then I'm just not braking hard enough, I do want to see a touch of lockup at max braking, just minimal (one wheel slowing a little, never full lock) and fairly even front to rear :-)

I did expect to take some time adjusting to non-ABS, I didn't expect to have to change lines etc. either. I honestly didn't realize (except now in retrospect) how late into corners I'd been trail-braking, and how often the ABS in my 996 must have been keeping the inside front wheel rolling.

So I definitely pay attention to braking, but as with the 996, most of the time I make up when improving lap times is in carrying more speed through the corner (ie. getting off the brake earlier), and getting on the gas earlier.