Famously Graham Hill taught himself to drive in a road car that had no brakes, using kerb stones and gutters rally-style to cope with downhills & sharp corners.
In such circumstances, yes, the only way to slow the car would be using the engine braking. Some old racing cars do have a handbrake, but those were also connected to the rear brakes, so if all the brakes were shot, that won't work as well... If I remember correctly, in some cases, the drivers try to increase the effect of engine braking by turning the engine off as well. Some of you may be underwhelmed at the solution, but that's not the tricky part. The main tricky part in this is, trying to keep the engine and gearbox in one piece in doing so. Your race is run the moment you downshift a bit too early to the point that something gets undone on the engine, or even gearbox and drivetrain. Can you just imagine getting in this situation on longer endurance races, like Le Mans. Relying more on engine braking might allow you to reduce brake fade, or allow you to slow down in case you no longer had any brakes, but in doing so you're risking on breaking your engine. Reminds me of an interview of 1959 Le Mans winner Roy Salvadori (who teamed up with Carroll Shelby). He said that on Le Mans, their tactic is to make full use of your brakes and tires, but make sure to stick to the engine revs and gearchanges. He reasoned that it's because you can always change the brakes and the tires, but the moment the engine or gearbox breaks, your race is finished.
Just for a bit of perspective using the situation I posted ... At the 1954 Le Mans 24 hours, the Jaguar D Type of Stirling Moss suffered a total brake failure at the end of Mulsanne straight, basically he's doing more than 160mph and at the end of the long straight, no brakes... He had to take the escape road, _where it took him two miles to stop the car using what's left of the brakes with the handbrake and engine braking!_
Honestly, I thought this video will be boring, as I expected at least 30 seconds difference between the lap times... This just goes to show how crappy the brakes were at the time, and how much they care about getting MO POWA BABEH XD Excellent video and editing, plus, loving the "Loafercam" 😀
That Maserati is popular this week, I also featured it in a video! Great concept for a video btw, the brakes on that car might not be great but having no brakes at all is a different challenge alltogether!
Nice, i just got done binge watching your entire 1955 season, so i'm very familiar with the brake problem on these cars :D Love your channel btw., it got me interested in simracing again, and i learned so much about a bunch of sims, classic racecars and tracks. I'm currently looking for 5 hours of free time in the near future, so i could watch your entire Le Mans '66 video in one sitting!
I like to do practice runs in rally sims without using the brakes unless it's a super tight corner and surprisingly I sometimes manage times that I can't get to driving normally.
Off topic, but I just wanted to say I would be absolutely thrilled if you were to demonstrate the BRM V16. I just recently found out that three replica cars have been built based on original hand drawn schematics new with improved reliability by the grandsons of the principal engineer of British Racing Motors 70 years ago. They were demonstrated at goodwood revival and my god is it something else to hear! Im sure you are aware of this particular car but I will express some details below for some that may not know this iconic car: 1.5L supercharged v16, two 750cc v8s bolted together, twin magnetos. 600hp @ 14,000rpm Notoriously unreliable but a visceral monster when it was dialed in Has the most ungodly loud shrieking v8 sound that most agree is the most beautiful sound that has ever come from an internal combustion engine. I think everyone deserves to see this car at full speed to appreciate the awe inspiring sound that this car echoed through the hills of the UK back in the day. It would mean a lot to many people if we could see you take this car to the limit in simulation.
It is a bit of a dog, that car. As noted, it sounds incredible, *if* it runs. Thing is, I think what BRM designed is a huge gamble, then and even now. The engine is a very small unit, with a _lot_ of very small moving parts, all of which were as light as possibly can, and all receiving a huge amount of strain not only from the boost from the centrifugal superchargers, but also from the high revs. And even when it runs, things that can go wrong doesn't stop there... The centrifugal supercharger meant that the amount of boost increases with the engine revs, which meant that the power delivery was very peaky. Anywhere below 6-7,000rpm there's barely enough power to make the rear wheels turn, but anything above the aforementioned rpm, there's way too much that you can spin the wheels (near uncontrollably) at almost any gear, even while moving. As for your dreams of seeing one in a sim, that's getting close to reality... I'm helping as one of the researchers/debuggers of the upcoming 1951 Formula 1 mod for rFactor (1). _And the BRM is one of the cars, I had tested the car in-game as well, and it is really hard to handle..._ Here's some evidence if you haven't seen them yet... ruclips.net/video/Et0tw6OJwMI/видео.html
It's great old school driving. About two decades ago I translated Ricardo Nunnini's guide "How to learn a track in the GPL". There was a part where you had to complete a learned track without using the brakes in "Graham Hill style". Also, he taught to brake using the eversion of the front wheels. Setting them as much as possible against the movement of the car in order to better lose speed. I remember that the time in Monza on BT-24 was about 1:30.7. But without brakes - about 1:32.5. This is a great practice.
Gurney was certainly a colorful character. We've heard all sorts of stories from our friend out at Boeing R&D, Huntington Beach, CA. Fast Lap in the 1956 British GP was a 1:43.2, set by Stirling Moss in a Maserati 250F. It's a bit troublesome, as you only have 1954 and '56 with these cars on Silverstone. The fuel, and therefore car spec, changed for '58. Of course, the GP was held at Aintree in 1955 and '57. Classic Monza would probably be the next best option. Maybe Pescara, if it was available, would be even more hell than the Nordschliefe. Monaco or Pau would likely take the cake though. I do wonder what the 1957 250F "Lightweight" could do here.
Incredible, isn't it? Stirling Moss' 1956 lap record is only 0.8 seconds quicker than the 1951 FL (Farina, Alfa 159), and only 0.2 seconds quicker than Gonzalez's pole time... Jean Behra raced and won at Pau in 1957, and as he drove a works Maserati there, one could be certain that he used a 1957 "Lightweight" car (most likely 2528, his preferred mount). He did 1:35.7 in qualifying, and his fastest lap is 1:35.9... Which is interesting, as even so, Jean Behra actually failed to break his own Pau lap record that he set in 1954 driving a Gordini, when he clocked a 1:35.2...
Nice experiment to watch but not so surprising, although it heavily depends on the track/car combo. Training for an SRS race around Goodwood a couple of years ago I surprised myself pulling pretty fast laps out of a Caterham, not using the brakes at all. Anyway I think is an inspiring challenge, man, as most of your videos. Keep the good work coming!
i may be late to the party, but I remember that late, great Sir Stirling Moss won a sportscar race in America (might've been Sebring or something like Bahamas? Speed week). Anyways, he tells that he would've like to have won with bigger margin but his brakes failed halfway through the race. Challenged by a newsman, he asks him to step in the car, stomp on the brake and then proceeds to singlehandedly push the car with brakes fully engaged. Just as Jim Clark is said to have won a Monaco GP dryshifting because the clutch on his Lotus gave up ghost halfway before the end of race (and there are not a few gearshifts in a lap of Monaco). As an aside, I learned the importance of smooth, momentum driving on Fiat 126p (24bhp, stock)- my father could drive a trip on public, mountain roads of say 130 miles, without touching the brake pedal and make the trip faster than anyone I've ridden with on that route (mind you, as an GPL idiot, I managed to beat that time in the same car- but there were not a few moments of that trip that I'd rather not redo or relive, except for few 4 wheel drifts when encountering a patch of 'black ice' in a corner)
Continuing to race after losing the brakes was routine, in the drum-brake era. The best drivers could do shockingly well in that condition. The great racing journalist Ken Purdy said, during the Fangio / Moss era, that a driver was _expected_ to continue after losing the brakes or the clutch. The engines and gearboxes were definitely stressed but it could be done successfully -- with enough mechanical sympathy. A typical racing driver actually did this constantly, to a varying extent depending on circumstances. He might need to preserve the brakes for specific track sections, or simply to make them last a full race distance, or to cool hot brakes until they started working again, or occasionally because the braking system had failed. Disc brakes changed things considerably, and modern racing disc brakes are incredible, but discs are still susceptible to overheating as well. Just ask someone who 'tracks' a production-based car. Gurney certainly didn't invent the technique, and he certainly knew it. My guess is that there was some sort of misunderstanding between him and a journalist.
I tried the same thing in the Skip Barber on iRacing when the official series was at Knockhill a few weeks back, very surprising how you're really only slightly slower than your maximum attack time with brakes!
Very nice video and idea. Just to clarify, a limiter won’t save your engine while downshifting, @9:41. not sure if AC will model overrevving at all, but if you do it while downshifting on a real car no limiter will save you. Keep those vids coming, always looking forward to new stuff from you!
Some cars with flappy paddles in AC will prevent you from downshifting if your engine revs are too high. Granted that's a modern feature, these old manual shifted cars the only thing preventing damage is you.
Some top driving skills bro, The people who drove these cars are the pioneering heroes in the racing world, You got respect being able to keep one of these cars planted, For sure..... I actually prefer a car with a clutch for this reason, I often use clutch to set me up for the entrance of the corner and exit, It's a great skill to have for the Norshliefe tho, Timing got be right with the RPM, Otherwise the back ends going side ways with rear wheel drive.... Yo you getting better times than most people in up to date cars, Lol.... Will be jumping on assetto corsa in hour or so myself, I really want a record time or next to record times, I ain't too far off really tho... Top little video bro, I can see a few people actually learning a lot from this video.... Some quality driving brother.......
I wonder are there any sims which imitate non syncro transmission on older cars ? Aka you can't get it in the gear without being very precise matching gearbox and engine rpm. I know my summer car does or did this with their truck simulation.
The intro made me wonder if engine breaking is thought in American drivers ed. I've always held it to be a rather basic technique if one learns to drive on manual, but your intro doesn't make it sound like it is.
Famously Graham Hill taught himself to drive in a road car that had no brakes, using kerb stones and gutters rally-style to cope with downhills & sharp corners.
This gearbox shredding exercise is quite fun to watch, honestly. Very interesting stuff.
In such circumstances, yes, the only way to slow the car would be using the engine braking. Some old racing cars do have a handbrake, but those were also connected to the rear brakes, so if all the brakes were shot, that won't work as well...
If I remember correctly, in some cases, the drivers try to increase the effect of engine braking by turning the engine off as well.
Some of you may be underwhelmed at the solution, but that's not the tricky part. The main tricky part in this is, trying to keep the engine and gearbox in one piece in doing so. Your race is run the moment you downshift a bit too early to the point that something gets undone on the engine, or even gearbox and drivetrain.
Can you just imagine getting in this situation on longer endurance races, like Le Mans. Relying more on engine braking might allow you to reduce brake fade, or allow you to slow down in case you no longer had any brakes, but in doing so you're risking on breaking your engine. Reminds me of an interview of 1959 Le Mans winner Roy Salvadori (who teamed up with Carroll Shelby). He said that on Le Mans, their tactic is to make full use of your brakes and tires, but make sure to stick to the engine revs and gearchanges. He reasoned that it's because you can always change the brakes and the tires, but the moment the engine or gearbox breaks, your race is finished.
Brake a bit and downshift
@@christiantaylor1495 Still, if you no longer had
working brakes...
Just for a bit of perspective using the situation I posted ...
At the 1954 Le Mans 24 hours, the Jaguar D Type of Stirling Moss suffered a total brake failure at the end of Mulsanne straight, basically he's doing more than 160mph and at the end of the long straight, no brakes...
He had to take the escape road, _where it took him two miles to stop the car using what's left of the brakes with the handbrake and engine braking!_
the real question is though...
How fast can you drive WITHOUT accelerating
Honestly, I thought this video will be boring, as I expected at least 30 seconds difference between the lap times... This just goes to show how crappy the brakes were at the time, and how much they care about getting MO POWA BABEH XD
Excellent video and editing, plus, loving the "Loafercam" 😀
I think the trick is in your racing shoes. Must be Sparco's "Highland Sheep edition" 😁
New GP laps is an instant click for me. Excited to see a new video
OH THEM RACING SHOES, they match the driver's gloves
That Maserati is popular this week, I also featured it in a video! Great concept for a video btw, the brakes on that car might not be great but having no brakes at all is a different challenge alltogether!
I just want to say, your videos are so clean and pleasant to watch. Thanks you!
Nice, i just got done binge watching your entire 1955 season, so i'm very familiar with the brake problem on these cars :D
Love your channel btw., it got me interested in simracing again, and i learned so much about a bunch of sims, classic racecars and tracks. I'm currently looking for 5 hours of free time in the near future, so i could watch your entire Le Mans '66 video in one sitting!
I like to do practice runs in rally sims without using the brakes unless it's a super tight corner and surprisingly I sometimes manage times that I can't get to driving normally.
That was fun to watch. One of your best.
Off topic, but I just wanted to say I would be absolutely thrilled if you were to demonstrate the BRM V16. I just recently found out that three replica cars have been built based on original hand drawn schematics new with improved reliability by the grandsons of the principal engineer of British Racing Motors 70 years ago. They were demonstrated at goodwood revival and my god is it something else to hear! Im sure you are aware of this particular car but I will express some details below for some that may not know this iconic car:
1.5L supercharged v16, two 750cc v8s bolted together, twin magnetos.
600hp @ 14,000rpm
Notoriously unreliable but a visceral monster when it was dialed in
Has the most ungodly loud shrieking v8 sound that most agree is the most beautiful sound that has ever come from an internal combustion engine.
I think everyone deserves to see this car at full speed to appreciate the awe inspiring sound that this car echoed through the hills of the UK back in the day.
It would mean a lot to many people if we could see you take this car to the limit in simulation.
It is a bit of a dog, that car. As noted, it sounds incredible, *if* it runs. Thing is, I think what BRM designed is a huge gamble, then and even now. The engine is a very small unit, with a _lot_ of very small moving parts, all of which were as light as possibly can, and all receiving a huge amount of strain not only from the boost from the centrifugal superchargers, but also from the high revs.
And even when it runs, things that can go wrong doesn't stop there...
The centrifugal supercharger meant that the amount of boost increases with the engine revs, which meant that the power delivery was very peaky. Anywhere below 6-7,000rpm there's barely enough power to make the rear wheels turn, but anything above the aforementioned rpm, there's way too much that you can spin the wheels (near uncontrollably) at almost any gear, even while moving.
As for your dreams of seeing one in a sim, that's getting close to reality...
I'm helping as one of the researchers/debuggers of the upcoming 1951 Formula 1 mod for rFactor (1). _And the BRM is one of the cars, I had tested the car in-game as well, and it is really hard to handle..._
Here's some evidence if you haven't seen them yet...
ruclips.net/video/Et0tw6OJwMI/видео.html
Le babbucce da corsa!! 😆
Grande Jake, you are always the best!
Well... 3 laps around Monaco in GPL and you have no brakes..
Man, I love these old grand prix cars. They're so much fun to drive.
Great video! The racing shoes seem perfect for the 1967 Maserati.
Now that's what I call propa racing booties Jake LMAO :D nice video mate.
"Those are some pretty sturdy hay bales" 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
I only made a 1:54:1 despite abusing the engine way more than you did. So hats off to you, Sir.
Interesting video. That's basically how I drive the W125 at Spa 1966.
Nice Moccasins. That reminds me of that one clip in which Senna drives the Honda NSX around Suzuka wearing some.
It's great old school driving. About two decades ago I translated Ricardo Nunnini's guide "How to learn a track in the GPL". There was a part where you had to complete a learned track without using the brakes in "Graham Hill style". Also, he taught to brake using the eversion of the front wheels. Setting them as much as possible against the movement of the car in order to better lose speed. I remember that the time in Monza on BT-24 was about 1:30.7. But without brakes - about 1:32.5. This is a great practice.
It's gotta be the shoes!
Gurney was certainly a colorful character. We've heard all sorts of stories from our friend out at Boeing R&D, Huntington Beach, CA.
Fast Lap in the 1956 British GP was a 1:43.2, set by Stirling Moss in a Maserati 250F. It's a bit troublesome, as you only have 1954 and '56 with these cars on Silverstone. The fuel, and therefore car spec, changed for '58. Of course, the GP was held at Aintree in 1955 and '57.
Classic Monza would probably be the next best option. Maybe Pescara, if it was available, would be even more hell than the Nordschliefe. Monaco or Pau would likely take the cake though.
I do wonder what the 1957 250F "Lightweight" could do here.
Incredible, isn't it?
Stirling Moss' 1956 lap record is only 0.8 seconds quicker than the 1951 FL (Farina, Alfa 159), and only 0.2 seconds quicker than Gonzalez's pole time...
Jean Behra raced and won at Pau in 1957, and as he drove a works Maserati there, one could be certain that he used a 1957 "Lightweight" car (most likely 2528, his preferred mount). He did 1:35.7 in qualifying, and his fastest lap is 1:35.9...
Which is interesting, as even so, Jean Behra actually failed to break his own Pau lap record that he set in 1954 driving a Gordini, when he clocked a 1:35.2...
On direct injection, engine braking consumes no fuel at all. as long as the throttle is closed there is no fuel going in.
Nice experiment to watch but not so surprising, although it heavily depends on the track/car combo. Training for an SRS race around Goodwood a couple of years ago I surprised myself pulling pretty fast laps out of a Caterham, not using the brakes at all.
Anyway I think is an inspiring challenge, man, as most of your videos. Keep the good work coming!
i may be late to the party, but I remember that late, great Sir Stirling Moss won a sportscar race in America (might've been Sebring or something like Bahamas? Speed week). Anyways, he tells that he would've like to have won with bigger margin but his brakes failed halfway through the race. Challenged by a newsman, he asks him to step in the car, stomp on the brake and then proceeds to singlehandedly push the car with brakes fully engaged. Just as Jim Clark is said to have won a Monaco GP dryshifting because the clutch on his Lotus gave up ghost halfway before the end of race (and there are not a few gearshifts in a lap of Monaco). As an aside, I learned the importance of smooth, momentum driving on Fiat 126p (24bhp, stock)- my father could drive a trip on public, mountain roads of say 130 miles, without touching the brake pedal and make the trip faster than anyone I've ridden with on that route (mind you, as an GPL idiot, I managed to beat that time in the same car- but there were not a few moments of that trip that I'd rather not redo or relive, except for few 4 wheel drifts when encountering a patch of 'black ice' in a corner)
Whe use the v12 here in South Africa in a local league. Silverstone was our first race this season. These cars teach you so much about car control
So it's true then: all brakes do is slow you down! 😁 Great video Jake. I love your "what if" scenarios.
Continuing to race after losing the brakes was routine, in the drum-brake era. The best drivers could do shockingly well in that condition. The great racing journalist Ken Purdy said, during the Fangio / Moss era, that a driver was _expected_ to continue after losing the brakes or the clutch. The engines and gearboxes were definitely stressed but it could be done successfully -- with enough mechanical sympathy.
A typical racing driver actually did this constantly, to a varying extent depending on circumstances. He might need to preserve the brakes for specific track sections, or simply to make them last a full race distance, or to cool hot brakes until they started working again, or occasionally because the braking system had failed.
Disc brakes changed things considerably, and modern racing disc brakes are incredible, but discs are still susceptible to overheating as well. Just ask someone who 'tracks' a production-based car.
Gurney certainly didn't invent the technique, and he certainly knew it. My guess is that there was some sort of misunderstanding between him and a journalist.
The brake fade is One of the reasons I love the gpl 55 mod
I tried the same thing in the Skip Barber on iRacing when the official series was at Knockhill a few weeks back, very surprising how you're really only slightly slower than your maximum attack time with brakes!
Very nice video and idea. Just to clarify, a limiter won’t save your engine while downshifting, @9:41. not sure if AC will model overrevving at all, but if you do it while downshifting on a real car no limiter will save you. Keep those vids coming, always looking forward to new stuff from you!
Some cars with flappy paddles in AC will prevent you from downshifting if your engine revs are too high. Granted that's a modern feature, these old manual shifted cars the only thing preventing damage is you.
the facecam and slipper cam are a nice touch
I'm wild about your dedicated moccasin racing shoes.
Excellent professional driving moccasin/slippers???? By the way, when did hay bales become concrete blocks???
Thumbs up exclusively for your choice in footwear. You can tell you are a true newenglander with the flannel and ll bean slippers
Impressive!
"Brakes are the enemy of speed!" -Pentti Airikkala
Nice racing shoes
Pretty sure running with no brakes was pretty common in the later stages of 50s GPs.
Some top driving skills bro, The people who drove these cars are the pioneering heroes in the racing world, You got respect being able to keep one of these cars planted, For sure.....
I actually prefer a car with a clutch for this reason, I often use clutch to set me up for the entrance of the corner and exit, It's a great skill to have for the Norshliefe tho, Timing got be right with the RPM, Otherwise the back ends going side ways with rear wheel drive....
Yo you getting better times than most people in up to date cars, Lol....
Will be jumping on assetto corsa in hour or so myself, I really want a record time or next to record times, I ain't too far off really tho...
Top little video bro, I can see a few people actually learning a lot from this video....
Some quality driving brother.......
I use my ugg slippers when driving too, op strats for heel toe
no homo, i never noticed how beautiful Gp's eyes are
I wonder are there any sims which imitate non syncro transmission on older cars ? Aka you can't get it in the gear without being very precise matching gearbox and engine rpm. I know my summer car does or did this with their truck simulation.
Did Silverstone inded have such an elevated pit lane as in this video? Never seen in any photos or clips.
Curious if on old monza the lack of brakes has less of an impact.
How come you don't have to blip the throttle when downshifting without brakes? I guess because you are downshifting earlier at a higher speed and rev?
Straight to the triple dog dare?
Gonna try out GT7? 👏
Alright I'll see what happens lol I drove racing 3 wheelers without brakes irl.
The intro made me wonder if engine breaking is thought in American drivers ed. I've always held it to be a rather basic technique if one learns to drive on manual, but your intro doesn't make it sound like it is.
Everyone has driven automatic transmission here pretty much since the mid 90s
I've tried engine braking with the American muscle cars. My engine was soon toast.
Experiment with different gearboxes in the car
omg i want this car!
It’s a kunos car
Engine braking. That's his "secret"? I do that in my road car. =/
With no brakes there is no need for heel and toe 😌😌😌😌😌
By car I mean Maserati 250F
Didn't think the Broadbent slipper cam would ever have a worthy opponent, but here I am, proven wrong by the loafercam.
Anyone know what pedals those are? Any good ones under $150?
They are the fanatec CSL pedals. They run at $80 for a two pedal set and an extra $40 if you want the clutch!
@@GPLaps Are they better than what comes with the Thrustmaster T150?
Im not too familiar with Thrustmaster equipment but Chris Haye did a video on the subject ruclips.net/video/6DNY2Zoh9v0/видео.html
Interesting, no brakes.
Virtual? Go around amigo