3 reasons why you'll be faster with left-foot braking

You’ll reduce the time spent doing nothing.

Moving your foot from the throttle to the brake pedal takes time. Not much if you’re doing it right, but enough not much over time can add up to something real pretty quickly.

As we see from so many of our data analyses, on most track or autocross courses, going fast requires always applying some sort of force to the chassis in the longitudinal axis. Even in the longest sweepers, true steady-state cornering is quite rare, and even steady-state cornering requires maintenance throttle to overcome friction.

This means that you’re always applying the throttle or brake at every point on track, and if you’re using a single foot for both those controls, it takes time to switch between them.

Let’s say you’re quick and can make the switch from throttle to brake in 0.05 second. Now extrapolate that out for a track with 10 turns requiring braking, and you’ve spent half a second coasting. How many events have you wished you could find half a second?

Ha, but I fooled you, because I just made up that 0.05 number! The reality is it’s more like 0.15 second for truly skilled drivers with well-placed pedals, and even more for normies with big pedal gaps. Now do that math again and tell me you don’t want that full-throttle time back.

You’ll reduce driveline and chassis lash and have better initial brake application.

Particularly on street cars, there’s a lot of second-order load transfer taking place within the driveline and suspension. When you’re placing a high torque demand on the engine, that torque is winding up the driveline against compliant bushings and compressing the rear suspension and loading its bushings while unloading the front suspension and stressing its bushings.

When you release the throttle, you don’t simply take away those loads, but you release the tension of acceleration, then begin a slight engine-aided deceleration, then hit the brake and introduce a new set of loads. So you have three load periods just to slow for one corner.

By applying the brake with the left foot and reducing that lag between throttle and brake, you can transition more smoothly from acceleration loads to braking loads and reduce the risk of destabilizing the chassis from additional oscillation.

We’re splitting hairs a bit here on how big a deal this benefit is. Modern cars and good shocks do a wonderful job of dealing with these load oscillations and minimizing their effect on stability, but the laws of physics still apply regardless of how much your shocks cost. Making your load transfers more efficient is never a bad idea.

You’ll have more control over cornering attitude.

Left-foot braking is particularly beneficial when you need to apply multiple loads to the chassis at the same time. Now, look, you can’t actually make a car accelerate and decelerate at the same time–this  column obeys the laws of spatial physics, as previously discussed–but you can reduce the time between those forces and limit the effects of those forces more precisely to what you’re trying to accomplish by employing ol’ lefty on brake duty.

Let’s say you’re in that aforementioned long, steady state corner. You’re applying some considerable maintenance throttle to overcome the friction of your sticky track tires, but you also have a bit of understeer developing. A full lift might tuck the nose a bit, but it’s also going to unload the drivetrain which you’ll then need to reload a moment later to keep up momentum. And the rear tires are doing exactly the work you want them to be doing at the moment, so you don’t want to remove torque and thrust from them because you like how they’re performing.

But coupling no lift, or just a partial lift–enough to reduce driveline torque but not completely unwind the tension in the driveline–with a gentle brush of the brakes to get some load on the outside front tire that’s developing too much slip angle can get things back in line with minimal loss of momentum.

That example assumes a RWD car, but FWD cars also benefit immensely from left-foot braking. In a FWD car, those front tires are doing most of the work of getting you around a track, whether it be braking, accelerating or cornering. Managing the transitions between and balancing of those directional forces therefore becomes even more critical.

 

Look, I know you’re convinced here, so now there should only remain one question: “How do I learn this valuable technique?”

Same way you get to Carnegie Hall, kid. Practice.

And, I admit, this is going to be much trickier for drivers in three-pedal manual cars. Autocross is a great place to dip your toe into the left-foot braking pool, as once you shift up into second gear, you’ll likely be staying there for a while. Plus the complex nature of autocross courses make a great intensive training ground to develop some left-foot touch.

For road course drivers of manuals, there’s no easy answer. But left-foot braking is particularly beneficial in those areas where light braking is needed, and light braking frequently means no downshifting, so maybe concentrate on building the skill in those areas.

Fair warning for those just starting out: You’re going to stand the car on its nose the first time you try it, especially if you’re driving a manual. Our left foots are tuned for that clutch, and we tend to stomp on the clutch hard and fast, and that portion of your lizard brain is going to take over the first time you use that same foot on the brake. Or, you’re going to miss the brake altogether, step on the clutch and wonder why you aren’t slowing down while screaming internally. Or perhaps even externally.

Nothing worth doing comes easy, so play through it. But please do this in a safe manner–closed course and all that.

Best of luck in developing your new skills. But also remember that plenty of folks do just fine without employing both feet on multiple pedals. MX-5 Cup superstar Selin Rollan won the 2018 MX-5 Cup Rookie of the Year and numerous races throughout his tenure in the series (which, ironically, features sequential transmissions that can be shifted clutchlessly) while using his right foot on the brake pedal. So if the skill doesn’t resonate with you, there are plenty of other paths to success.

But if you haven’t even tried, how do you know it works for you or not. Let’s make 2025 the year to at least attempt to add this valuable skill to your go-fast toolbox