How to Get Over the Fear of Hard Braking

We all have been in that situation where either your mechanic or coach told you to brake later, brake harder, but you are maybe at the beginning of your career, maybe one of the first few days on the track, and you didn't quite feel like doing that. Like maybe you tried once to brake hard and you almost spun and you felt like, oh, not going to do that again. But the reality is that you got to build that confidence and you got to overcome that, let's say, scary moment by getting used to that feeling.

Because if you want to become the next world champion, either a karting world champion or a Formula 1 world champion, you need to become the strongest driver on the grid on the brakes. I mean, there's no way around it. Like the braking is a skill of his own. You cannot expect to, again, become the number one in the world for your age, whatever category you're going to drive, if your braking is poor.

Where you actually need it (and where you don't)

So you will need to use the brakes hard. Obviously, when you need to, for example, in the slow speed corners of coming at high speed, that's where you need to smash and hold the brakes, but in the fast corners you will not need to use the brakes, you'll be flat out. In the medium speed corners you probably won't need heavy braking as well, you may need just a tap. So you only need to learn using the brakes hard and late in only those corners that you need to, again, you don't want to be doing it everywhere. So in order to overcome that fear of hard braking, you want to just go through a, let's say, journey where you're pushing yourself session by session to getting, let's say, accustomed to that.

Confidence is built, not switched on

It's like, you know, the first time you try to ride a bicycle, I mean, think about it. You're not really riding that bicycle properly. They're going to put like those extra wheels laterally so that you don't fall off with the bike, in order to pick up a bit of confidence initially of literally how it feels like going, you know, straight direction without falling down. And then once you pick up the confidence, I remember my father was removing those extra wheels, and then he would kind of hold me like with him, and he would like let me try to go by myself, and then of course I would fall, but then he would like, he would stay next to me and try to kind of support me, so before I would fall, he would pick me up.

So, of course, you can't really quite do the same there in karting, but you need to expect that the only way to build that feeling of hard braking and that confidence, it's gonna only come from you repeatedly trying, trying hard, trying hard, trying harder and harder, and by expecting to make mistakes and expecting to spin, because it is not going to happen overnight. But most importantly, you're not going to become confident on the brakes, you're not going to become confident on braking really hard and late if you are staying within your comfort zone. I will repeat it: the comfort zone is not going to turn new drivers into champions, only pushing yourself beyond your limits will. And to be honest, that's even the fun part, you know, what's fun about going slow and not pushing limits? Like, you get the adrenaline only by pushing the limits and carrying a lot of speed into the corners. You don't get the adrenaline by driving slow on the entrance.

Fear is a handbrake

Now I have to say that, uh, there are two major skills that you need to possess, almost like you need to be born with them, but you can't quite expect to be successful if you are not having these two skills. The number one skill is fearlessness, the second one is coachability. You gotta be willing to listen, and listen for real, not just like pretending to listen and then not really caring, no, it's listen to, to feedback, to advices, and of course if people are giving you the right advices then you have to go out and do them, and just, you know, of course you gotta make sure you are highly coachable. Formula 1 drivers, um, you know, are listening to their race engineer all the time, even though they are way better than their race engineer to drive their car. I mean, the same as tennis players, they have their coach, and they kept getting coached by their coach, which isn't as good as them. And so, you know, you kind of have to, um, listen, even though you may be feeling like, oh, but he can't do it, or he hasn't been doing it himself. So you need to have this sort of idea where you've got to be as coachable as possible. And so that every other skill is going to be on top of that. Of course, you've got to listen to people with high experience, and they know what they're talking about. You don't want to just listen to everybody. So, of course, you need to ideally be surrounded by people who you should listen, and not by just random people who don't know what they're talking about. But anyways, let's go back to the number one skill, which is fearlessness.

And that includes, you know, the fear of braking. You don't want to basically have the fear of braking, but anybody may start with, oh, what is that? So I'm not saying that if you're feeling like, oh, I'm afraid of braking, then it means you don't have the, what it takes, you know, you don't have what you're supposed to have. I'm not saying that. You can build that skill, of course. But in general, like, you need to be a fearless guy. I mean, there's like, I see kids at three years old, they're like going with the motorbikes, they're going with quads, they're doing stunts, they're doing crazy things with going down the hills skiing. Like, that's basically what I used to do. I remember, like, I was quite, uh, frenetic and, like, fearless, and, to be honest, I generally feel like that helped me a lot, because I wouldn't be afraid of making a dive bomb from far away, you know, I would maybe be 10 meters away from the car in front of me, or I would go for double overtake almost easily sometimes. And, uh, you know, that happens with confidence and fearlessness. Like, if you're afraid of speed, if you're afraid of crashing, if you're afraid of getting hurt, if you're afraid of, you know, spinning or whatever, of rolling over, if you have all these fears, then it's, it's going to be very hard for you to push your limits, because fear is like a handbrake. It really is.

And so I'm not saying you shouldn't have the fear, because, I mean, there's still a chance to address those fears. I mean, there's some kids who just naturally have no fears. There's other kids who do have some fears, and it's all about breaking down those fears and find a way to just win those fears. Like being afraid of the dark. Many kids are afraid of the dark. Many kids are afraid of thieves. Many kids are afraid of strange animals like snakes or spiders, you know, there's all sort of fears. But, like, you can fix them in a way, you can work on them with psychologists, etc. And normally the way you win over those fears is by experiencing those fears that you're afraid of.

The mechanism: exposure therapy

Let's say you're afraid of snakes, okay, you should find a, like, place that actually has snakes, that obviously are pet snakes or something, but so you can go and pet those snakes and just, like, stare on those snakes, so you kind of, like, win that fear by acclimatizing and getting comfortable with whatever you're afraid of. So that's, by the way, the most efficient way to win fears, is by literally exposing yourself, so this is like exposure therapy to whatever causes you the fear. So if you're afraid of the dark, you should stay in the dark for long and see that nothing happens. If you're afraid of hard braking, you should expose yourself to hard braking and to see whatever happens.

The drill: one day, no stakes

You know, worst case scenario, you just go out on a random test day, it's gonna be maybe completely, like, free of drivers, open pit lane, whatever. Just go in heavy braking zones and just lock those brakes, hard brakes, as hard and late as possible, lock those brakes and make sure you are able to stop the kart. And even if you spin, whatever, I mean, we're there for, for just practicing that. So you need to have these kind of days where you don't have many drivers around you, you just, like, completely relaxed days with no pressure, no, you know, racing at stakes, no championships. So you just want to go out there and push your limits and get, again, that exposure therapy of braking hard and seeing what happens.

And yeah, you're going to spin sometimes, you may even, worst case scenario, go into the barriers. I mean, it's very, very hard to, but even then, what happens, you know, you will notice, okay, every time you spin, every time you, let's say you have a scare, let's say, it's going to get less and less scary. It's going to be less and less frightening. So that's pretty much the only way to break that fear away. And that's literally going out one day, maximum exposure therapy, exposing yourself to super hard braking. You need to have a coach or mechanic or whoever is going to push you to just literally brake as hard as you possibly can, see what happens. Even if your lap times are so much slower, you don't care about those, you dare just to practice that braking.

You know, you can practice that, by the way, if you don't have a track, you can literally practice that in a parking lot, as long as you pick up some speed, of course, because if you arrive with low speed it doesn't really work. I mean, it's illegal to drive on the roads, I'm not suggesting you to do that, you know, but, like, if you have, like, an abandoned place, or maybe, like, at your home if you have a large space you can, or, like, inside, like, a warehouse, whatever, you just, like, need to practice that feeling of braking hard and just getting used, used to locking the tires.

Chase the lock

I mean, it kind of gets fun later on, and you want to chase that lock, the rear tires locking. When you do that, okay, then it meant you brake at the highest pressure that the grip level allowed you to stop with. So you are maximizing, basically, not only the brakes but also the grip level on the track. So that's basically the most that you can do in a moment.

What it buys you

You need to become a monster in the brakes if you want to become a world champion, remember. And the only way to become a monster under braking is by being the latest and hardest brakers on the grid, which will allow you to gain lap time on the entries and make overtakes effortlessly and defend from the others. Not really by closing the line, but because you're so late on the brakes that people really have a hard time overtaking you. So you're going to be that such of a late braker that people will be like, wow, how is he doing that? How is he able to stop? Okay. It's really that important.

I'm really excited for you. I want you to go out there again, one day, no stakes, no racing, no lap times, just go out there and, and do your exposure therapy, just go out there and, uh, and, and just get used to that, you know, see what happens, accept anything that is going to happen. Just, again, you should actually be happy if you spin a lot of times on the brakes, it means you are, like, really braking really hard. In that case, if you end up spinning, you will notice that the problem won't be the braking efficiency, so the braking force, but it will be the fact that probably you're using the steering, you're not braking straight, because maybe you brake hard, you hear the tires locking, and then you panic, and you, you turn the steering, and that's what makes you, make you spin.

So you'll see that you'll, you fix these things once you, um, just get into that rhythm of practicing, and you will notice that by one or two days doing this braking drill, you'll become a monster, I'm sure about that. So just keep going, keep pushing, go beyond your comfort zone, do this kind of, like, intense days of exposure therapy. You'll see that you kind of make fun of yourself of how you could even be so silly at thinking, how, oh, I was fearing hard braking, I mean, how is that possible? I mean, of course, at first we all have these sort of fears, but then we kind of, like, get used to them. And then, in hindsight, when we look back, we're like, oh, that felt so silly, how could I be afraid of such a thing? But everybody has his own fear, everybody has to break past their fear. And, yeah, it's, it's the unknown that scares us, so once it's not unknown anymore, so you're able to experience that heavy braking, and you know the effects, then you know that the rear tires lock, you know you need to keep the steering straight and just hold on to the brakes, you know that nothing's gonna happen after a while, and it's gonna be fun, and I hope you're gonna enjoy that.

Then check it in the data

Remember, you can check this, uh, hard braking into the PURPL braking area. I'm sure you're going to be able to see the max brake G, also be able to see the braking distance, as well as, uh, yeah, I mean, the braking-point repeatability. That's really cool, I wanted you to, to know that. So, yeah, go out there if you haven't done that yet, sign up to PURPL for free, and let me know how it goes, and always remember to keep sending it. Ciao.