How To Handbrake Turn
[ April 15th, 2008 ] By: Charles Smith Posted in » How To
Performing the Handbrake Turn
- Approach the Corner at 20-25mph (in 1st or 2nd Gear)
- Turn Into the Corner with lots of Steering Input
- Clutch In
- Hold Button on the Handbarke In
- Pull the Handbrake Up HARD
- Wait for Car to Rotate
- Drop the Handbrake (button still depressed)
- Straighten the Wheels
- Clutch Out and Go
The key to the handbrake turn is having enough speed to rotate the car and pulling up on the handbrake with enough force to break the traction of the rear wheels. Remember to Clutch In before you pull up on the handbrake in AWD and RWD cars. If you do not, the engine will stall or you will hurt your transmission and brakes.
The steps will blur together as you get better at this. Steps 3, 4 and 5 will be almost simultaneous and steps 7, 8 and 9 will start to blend together also. At first, focus on getting the car to rotate and learning how long you have to keep the handbrake applied before dropping it and getting your move on.
If the car is still not rotating, very light foot braking can help the car lose rear wheel traction as it unweights the rear end. As with any driving maneuver you must practice it to know how to do it right. So find a safe place to do it, preferably a loose surface. As always, with most sliding techniques, high center of gravity cars are more dangerous to do this in.
Why Perform a Handbrake Turn?
Sometimes the fastest way around a corner is to slide around it. This is especially true through a hairpin turn where a 180 degree rotation is required.
The handbrake is also used to correct mild understeer mid-corner and tighten up a sloppy wide corner. Although in North American rally races you do not see the handbrake used as widely as it is in the WRC races. I wonder why that is…
Anyway, with a FWD car you can actually apply power to the ground while the handbrake is up. This is very handy for getting the car to rotate without losing as much speed in very slippery conditions. Remember, stay safe and don’t keep repeating it too many times after you get it right.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
So for a fwd wheel you don’t need to clutch through the turn?
May 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Right, no clutch is really needed for FWD. If you’re in doubt whether you need to or not, just clutch, it is not going to hurt anything and will only make it easier to transition to RWD/AWDs with respect to handbrake turns.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Great write-up… I don’t know how I missed this before!
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 am
[…] are one of the neatest corners to watch. They are also some of the hardest to do really well (handbrake turn much?). Here’s a video of mostly hairpins taken by WRC drivers: Link for the RSS peeps. Once […]