How to BRAKE in Karting (tips for beginners) 

I never took any driving lessons, however, the only time I´ve entered an official race was quite a few years ago in the annual Carlos Sainz Championship (Madrid). I actually made it to the final and finished 5th out of about 400 ppl that entered the event. I even had Mr. Sainz (Sr) come and congratulate me on the achievement, since I was about 35 y/o and everyone around me were kids with racing kits full of sponsors while I was in the rental suit and helmet hahaha I was proud of it since I love driving/racing since very little and that kind of proved I wasn´t bad at it, but we all know how expensive racing is and I don´t have a rich father, and he wasnt supportive on me going racing anyway...and somehow this video reminded me all that...about the driving, rotating the car without losing speed is the key, usually I lift in the turn in just enough to help the car rotate and then on the power asap, most of times using some throttle at the same time as braking to help the kart stay settled, be very neat on the racing lines and steering inputs so the car doesnt move around therefore losing speed are the areas where I concentrate the most. I hope you at least find this comment entertaining :)

Some additional points for observers....the reason KTips has such a heavy focus on sufficiently and quickly "rotating the rear" during the turn in (which is very much less of the case for cars), is due to the inherent design of go-karts. Karts have a solid rear axle meaning left and right rear tyres are always rotating at the exact same speed as each other, unlike cars which have a differential that allows both left and right tyres to rotate at different speeds. What this means for the kart is an inherent understeer effect coming from the rear tyres if there is not a sufficient level of lateral load transfer on the rear axle. If you imagine going from driving in a straight line to turning gently in a corner, the moment you start to turn a little, the outside rear tyre will have 1:1 matching speed with the ground (i.e. not slipping with the ground) but the inside tyre, travelling a shorter distance in the turn than the outside tyre, will be spinning faster than it should be to match the ground speed on the inside (and thus it will be slipping by spinning faster than the ground wants). Therefore, the inside rear tyre will be applying more thrust force onto the ground than the outside tyre. Thus the inside rear tyre will be steering the kart to the outside of the corner (i.e. causing understeer). To get around this problem, you want to do 2 things.... 1) Sufficiently reduce the load on the inside rear tyre by cornering with the maximum speed to corner radius ratio possible (which will produce the highest cornering force), that way maximum lateral load transfer occurs from the inside rear tyre to the outside rear tyre (which will minimise the inside rear tyres understeer effect). 2) Momentarily maximally transfer the load from rear to front to maximise turning/yaw acceleration rate of the kart during the turn in so that you immediately skip past the understeer effect of the inside rear tyre (which happens with gentle cornering). When you get past or skip this phase entirely and enter sufficiently high cornering force condition by having a large enough slip angle on the rear tyres, the contribution of the rear tyres of a kart flips from understeer to neutral if not slight oversteer as the outside rear tyre is now able to produce more thrust force to the ground than the inside rear tyre can and so you can end up acturally steering the kart through the corner with the rear tyres as much as you are with the front tyres, which then also lessens your need for front steering input which reduces the front tyres drag on your speed. Ok, that ended up being a LOT longer than I hoped but felt like I couldn't shorten it more without losing resolution. KTips does an amazing job of condensing the information rich knowledge needed to be known as it is. :)

So clear and very concise. Best guides out here about karting.

I’ve been stomping on the brake pedal, braking traction and trail braking slightly into the apex and was super confused if I was actually fast. I’m glad that I’ve been doing it right the whole time 😂

I went rental karting and I was one of the faster drivers of the day (second fastest of the day, third fastest of the week. only beaten out by their frequent regulars) so I was pushing the karts kinda hard. In my third heat of the day they gave me a kart that had just been serviced and I didn't know that the brakes weren't fully there. I felt them while going slow so thought they were there, but they were on and off once I started going. I came off the main straight where you hit top speed (around 50ish+ mph) and go straight into a kinda box oval if the sides were pushed in more (for a picture it's AMP super B track in the bottom right corner). Problem was I couldn't stop and got catapulted into the dirt. lesson learned: test kart before going fast and don't fully trust rentals.

Perfect explanation 👍👍🤟

KTips is the real goat! Tysm for this

I am using kind of drifting when it's more then 90 degrees turn. The technique is quite similar but instead of hard brake I initiate drift with "no acc -> turn hard -> hard acc kick -> wheel neutral -> progressive acc". It works really nice in a U-turn

These videos couldn't have come any sooner. Me and my friends come from sim racing and are trying go-karting real soon!

At my local track, the rentals don’t have much feeling in the brake (maybe because they’re electric?). It’s the only place I have been, so idk if that’s normal. Threshold braking seems to be a good way to address this issue though, great tip, thanks!

Comes in handy, I am always "fast" but those hairpins screw me over. Thanks! will apply this soon

Nice video. I want to add one nit-pick about the definition of "threshold braking." The technique describes pressing on the brakes not just hard and quick, but also just short of the amount that would cause lock-up. The driver modulates pressure to be just short of locking up the tires, similar to how one would be just short of entering a room if one stood at the threshold of the door 😁 hence the name. Less pressure means you are leaving braking performance on the table, more pressure means lockup.

Great stuff, thanks!

love you dude!

Nice upload 👍

ive never gone karting in my life because im a short person and where i live theres a height minimum, and i need to go karting for my engineering class so im speedrunning all your videos lol

Can you please make a go karting tip video for more advanced drivers

how long should you brake for ( threshold )

Is it the same indoor ??

hey bro thanks for the video when you say brake and wait for the rear end of the kart of start turning, is that because youre wheels are locked up? little confused with that instruction.

Does this apply to indoor electric 20hp karts? Apparently they go up to 40km/hr (although I seriously doubt they were allowing that speed)

1:01 is basically turn left to go right...KACHOWW!!

the technique i use for karting is that I always brake hard, then once I'm turning i lightly tap my brakes and my accelerator until i reach the apex and then stomp on the accelerator.

Well, I'm so used to trail-brake with cars I can`t really stop it in karting. It`s usually pretty quick and kind of a good defense as you break the rhythm of others. But it does not produce a fastest lap.

Is opposite steering not because you are drifting a little bit? It always confuses me that all the tips you see are to avoid drifting but the best kart racers always seem to drift just slightly through corners and apply opposite steering. Obviously I understand that a big drift is a bad thing that obviously slows you down, but why is it not better just to corner with full grip and without opposite steering? Thanks!

0:11 what track is this? It’s beautiful😭😭

Just came back from the Formula One race the sprint shoot out

do professionnal kart work the same way ?

Do I steer first than brake or brake first than steer

Do the karts only have rear brakes?! Why not on front? Second, you said some countersteering is normal. That means some drifting is normal, for optimum lap times?

When is trail braking used in rental karts, if at all? Never fastest to brake into the apex?

Can u do guide on Sandown park?

Rental karts only have brakes on the rear tyres?? I did not know that...

time to spin out a bunch of times until i can do this correctly...

1st Comment

I now know how to brake.