You probably haven’t paid much heed to how you should be braking while already in a corner. After all, you just hit the brakes, right? At slower speeds where you are nowhere near the limits of the car, yes, just hitting the brakes can work out OK. But speed up even a little bit and those same inputs can cause your car to spin. The results can be disastrous and deadly.

The reason your car will spin if you brake while cornering is a combination of brake oversteer and throttle oversteer, which we covered in Indepth Oversteer: Different types of oversteer and how to correct them. The basic principle at work is weight transfer. When you lift off of the throttle, weight transfers forward to the front wheels. The same thing happens when you hit the brakes, just to an even greater extent.

So what does this mean? Well, any given tire will have more grip when more weight is applied to it, and less grip when less weight is applied to it. So, say you are taking a corner a neutral throttle at or close to the limit of grip. Now lets pretend you see a deer in the road and slam on the brakes, without changing the position of the steering wheel. You will shift much of your cars weight onto your front wheels, giving them more grip, and off of your rear wheels, giving them less grip. The result? Your front tires will have enough traction to both turn and brake, but your rear tires will not, and will begin to slide, putting you into a spin.

If you are accelerating through a corner and slam on the brakes, the effect is compounded. Now you have the weight transfer forward from lifting off of the throttle and from braking. You will spin.

So what are you supposed to do if you suddenly need to brake in a corner? The simple answer: slowly apply the brake as you slowly unwind the wheel. This will slowly transfer the rear tires from cornering grip to braking grip, as we discussed in The Friction Circle. I have this down to a reflex now. Whenever I hit the brakes in a corner, I unwind the wheel a little bit, just to ensure that the rears remain planted and don’t go for a mis-adventure.

If you need to panic stop NOW in a corner, straighten the wheel and lay on the brakes IN A STRAIGHT LINE. Then, when you have bled off a lot of speed, corner hard if necessary to avoid whatever it is you need to avoid. The key here is braking in a straight line. Because you will always be limited by brake oversteer if you brake while turning, you can NEVER approach the level of braking you get if you brake in a straight line instead. Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive to straighten the wheel in a corner, particularly during a panic situation, but it is the ONLY way to bleed off speed quickly.

Case in point: I experimented with a new line going into The Bowl at an SCDA track day at New Hampshire International Speedway this past weekend. I had previously been doing a lot of trailbraking, which is braking while turning. I tried a different line this time, which allowed me to brake much hard, in a straight line. The result? I was able to go much deeper and hotter into the corner, because I had gained so much braking capacity.

But what if you MUST keep turning while braking, say, to avoid oncoming traffic? Sorry, you are fresh out of luck. The best you can do is wish that you had entered the corner slower, or put stickier tires on your car. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but now that you have, keep that in mind when you go into a corner quickly.