You've Been SHIFTING Wrong & It's Making You SLOW...

Good shifting is just as important to being fast as pressing the throttle in sim racing. But its often overlooked.

This is what a bad downshift, a decent downshift and a great downshift look like. Can you spot the difference?
When I was a rookie,, i was taught that i needed to downshift and use engine braking when i wanted to corner. Now this may be true for driving on the streets, but on the track, this was actually making me slow.

The engine is meant to increase your speed, not decrease it. That’s what brakes are for. Good drivers downshift during the approach to a corner, simply for optimum acceleration out of the corner. All that engine braking achieves is upsetting the balance of the car.

Not only was I using engine braking to slow the car, but my upshifting was all wrong. I was shifting whenever my car got to redline, thinking, yeah the car is loud so i must be going fast right? WRONG… for most cars. To get the perfect upshift, and go as fast as possible, you need to to time it perfectly. Otherwise, you’re not going to be using your car to it’s full potential.

So can you perfect the art of shifting? Let’s start with upshifting.
When shifting up for maximum acceleration, you need to know the engines characteristics. In this 86, the torque peaks just above 5000rpm, whilst power peaks at around 6500rpm. And whenever we shift up there’s a split of 1800 rpm between gears.
Therefore, if we shift up at 6500, the revs will drop back down to 4800, and we will be accelerating through peak torque, to peak power. This range between both peaks is where the engine will operate most effectively, resulting in maximum acceleration.
However, you shouldn’t be aiming to stay in this range all the time. Sometimes, it can be faster to short shift. For instance, if there’s a corner that’s taken in second gear leading onto a straight. You can shift into third before the corner, so you don’t waste time time on the straight.
But, It can also be faster to leave the car in gear. If you’re approaching the end of a straight, and you’re almost out of that optimum range from earlier, it’s usually faster to leave the car in gear and rev it out than changing gears.
Downshifting is a little more in depth, but even more critical to going fast. Remeber the TSRB SPEED SECRET from earlier. One of the most common errors i see drivers make is trying to downshift whilst turning into a corner. As the driver lets out the clutch, the driving wheels lock up momentarily, and the car starts to spin. However, even in a straight line a bad downshift can lock your driving wheels, unsettle the balance of the car and slow you down.
So how do you do a good, smooth downshift?
The smoothest of smooth downshifts occur when the engine revs are increased by briefly stabbing the gas with your right foot. This is called blipping the throttle, or rev matching. This matches the engine and wheel speed.

However, The tricky part is doing this whilst braking, unless you have a third leg. Ooh cheeky.
This requires a technique caled “heel-and-toe” downshifting.
To do this, you need to begin braking with the ball of your right foot on the brake pedal, whilst keeping a small portion on the gas pedal.
Whilst braking, depress the clutch with your left foot and downshift.
Still braking and with the clutch still depressed, roll your right foot at the ankle, quickly pusshing or blipping the throttle.
Then, quickly, but smoothly ease out the clutch, bleed off off the brake, and enter the corner.
There isn’t a successful race driver in the world who doesnt heel and toe on every downshift. Matching the engine and wheel speed is critical to a smooth downshift. And that, is how shifting properly can make you faster.
If you learned something new today, you might like this video, in which I teach you how to drive slow cars fast.

Hit the like, and maybe even subscribe button if you enjoyed the video!

MY SIM RIG:
▶Fanatec Shifter
▶Fanatec CSL Elite Loadcell Pedals

[derblaue]

I'd like to disagree with 2 points. 1: You should see engine braking as an aditional brake. Depending on the vehicle you might want to shift down as fast as possible to brake harder if the normal brakes don't have enough stopping power to lock up. Also there might be cases where braking with the normal brakes is too much but you still need to shift the weight a little bit to the front, 2. For the most acceleration you want to have the best average power. For the highest average power you want to shift when the power is the same after you upshift. If the power curve is for example 1-(x-1)^2 and upshifting will lose 2a rpm (0<a<1) then you get the most power on average when shifting at 1+a rpm since It's important to know that power (at the wheels) determines how much energy the engine will convert from fuel into rotational energy per time. Torque only says how strong a single piston rotates the cranckshaft but that will always be compensated by the gearbox (here I mean torque after gearbox losses due to friction).

[Cyberware]

Because of initial d, I always heel toe downshift coming up to a corner on instinct because it feels cool.

[CharlieMikeNS]

The optimal shift depends on the tuning of the car. Some cars are best shifted at redline, especially with long gear ratios.

[theultrak]

It’s crazy watching your driving and editing improve with each video. Getting to become a better driver with you actively is such a cool experience as you seem to hit all the notes I’m struggling on as I’m wanting to tackle them.

[raptorjeezus]

You got the maximum acceleration part a little wrong. Here’s what you wanna do guys:

At 2:39 you see the dyno table of the ae86 right? You don’t wanna be between the power and torque peak. You wanna shift this window to where ON AVERAGE the red graph is the highest, in the ae86 stocks case around 5200-7200. Power drops off past 6500, but stays at a higher level than anything below 5200 and thus you’re a little quicker.

I assure you, given same launch and shift times you’d beat TSRB doing this.

[houseking]

When it comes to when to shift, the torque band doesn't matter at all, the only thing is staying in as high average power as possible.
I ran a test with the Kunos 458 gt2, which has a redline much higher than it needs to be. Peak power is at 6500 rpm and peak torque is at 5500 rpm. The power drops off pretty severely at 7k rpm, but you should still shift around 7350 rpm. I ran a 1km drag test, once shifting at peak power, at 6500 rpm, and to prove a point, still unoptimally shifting at 7500 rpm.
The 6500 rpm run was 20.80, and the 7500 rpm run was 20.65, ideally you should be shifting between 7250 and 7000 rpm as a said, but even going way after the power and torque drop, it's still faster to shift late simply because the average power across the rev range is higher. But I did run it shifting around 7350 and ran a 20.44
In the 86 example, you want to rev it all the way out because the power climb is slow enough that even with a slight drop it's still higher average power to rev it out all the way.

In theory, torque is just as important to shifting as revs, because they are equals, torque is how much work an engine does per revolution, and every revolution multiplies that. Power is the only metric you should base when you shift on, and it's as simple as average power is highest if I shift here, which is almost always redline, so that's where you should shift.

[nathanstretch]

Peak torque is irrelevant for acceleration. You want the average power between shifts to be maximized - in other words to maximize the area under the (power) curve that you're using. This requires shifting past the point of maximum power, or at redline if power peaks there. In most cars shifting at redline maximizes power, but in some it does fall off rapidly enough that shifting earlier is better. You'd still shift somewhat beyond the point of peak power though; how much depends on the shape of the power curve.

[tomsterbg]

Playing drag racing games really teaches you how to upshift properly. It's kind of an earlier shift in lower gears and gets later and later the higher your gear is. It always depends on the engine though so that's why you must know the engine curve

[banana_but_pronounced_bananya]

I'm curious to see how much of a difference shifting at peak hp and redline does. I figured the torque multiplication at lower gears would be more advantageous than engine characteristics, unless the torque just drops off a cliff. I'd like to see a video analyzing the acceleration time difference.

[CurtisSmal]

the problem here is literally no one ive seen on this comment section or in the video take into account the difference in ratio between the gears, it is almost always beneficial to take the car at or near the redline before changing up simply because the gear you are in is more efficient at delivering the power to the wheels (cars with extreme power drop off near redline are the exception), its also the same reason cars with extremely short gears accelerate rapidly (rally cars for example)

[nico]

I remember watching you a year and a half ago and just found this channel again and i can say that I'm not disappointed, the quality got so much higher..

[NotNicot]

I've been watching all of your videos and i can't thank you enough for the tips, i've seen a pretty noticeable improvement in my driving since, i can't believe your channel isn't bigger!

[doreentessa]

I unsubscribed so i can subscribe again

[SlowCarFast]

I think that the engine braking is debatable. It could help with front-heavy fwd cars and make them rotate easier since only the front wheels are braking.

[pasteghost]

Thanks, mate. Once again, this was very helpful. In my journey it feels like one step forward two steps back.
I practice a new technique or theory so much, wrapping my mind around a new concept, drilling it repeatedly until I find that I have omitted or forgotten previous skills.
Of course I'm sure if I reviewed my old driving footage I would see that I have improved markedly since then. The Dunning-Kruger effect is true for both positive and negative self-assessment, for me anyway. 🥂

[adamcichon]

Yes, keeping the momentum on the right trajectory through the corner is more beneficial. Instead of downshifting before and upshifting after the corner, sometimes is way better to just stay on the gear, trailbrake onto the apex and than progresively accelerate while easing the steering wheel to the straight line.
When i was playing racing games, i ended up with trying to always stay at highest gear possible through the given corner. It is always tied to the torque characteristic of given car. If i get into the "thrust" revs immidetaly after the corner on the higher gear, i didn't wasted the momentum and time on unnecessary downshift. It's a matter of constant experimenting while you "polish" the lap. There is no ready to use formula, everybody must experiment and push himself over the limit to achive new abilities.

[michaeletzel]

I’ve been using heel and toe downshifting for a few years and I thought I understood the process, but now I’m unsure of the order of operations. I’ve always done Brake, Clutch in, Blip throttle, Shift down, Clutch out. Is it better to blip and then shift down (like I do) or shift down first and then blip?

[benhonda]

Wait, people try to use engine braking going into a corner? I can't imagine how awful that must have made corner entry, especially on a rwd car.

[g_mobean]

That was the smoothest ad transition I’ve ever heard😂🔥 great vid btw it helped a lot 💯

[Turbonuotti]

That transition to the vpn ad was smooth