How to Heel and Toe Like Senna: Rev-Matching Tutorial

How to heel and toe? Driver 61's professional racer, Scott Mansell, explains in this tutorial what the heel and toe technique is all about and how to rev match properly in your road, track day or race car.
Here's what we're going to cover:

- What is heel and toe
- Why we would want to rev match and downshift this way
- A step by step guide about how to heel and toe, including the order of your inputs and how to position your feet
- The best way to practice heel and toe, so you’re well prepared before you try it on the circuit

Heel-toe is a technique whereby you match your car’s engine speed or revs to your car’s wheel speed to create a smooth downshift. If you don’t match the engine’s rev to the wheel speed you risk locking up the driven axle and destabilising the car.

You do this by using your right foot across both the brake and accelerator pedals; toe on the brake and heel (or the side of your foot) on the accelerator pedal.

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This video is part of a Driver61's "Driver's University" series. Got an aspect of racing you'd like me to explain? Ask in the comments!

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★ Got racing technique questions? Ask in the comments!

[thelastidea]

The hardest thing for me is to maintain the same pressure on the brake pedal while heel and toeing.

[leinadem]

heel and toe was really hard for me, the first week that i practiced the technique I thought that it was impossible, I just couldn't do it; but in the second week of practicing something happened, and all or the sudden one day I was heel-and-toeing. Funest part of driving

[Belal-Khan]

As Scott Suggested, the way i learned was to simply rev match on downshifts first without braking. Once you get comfortable doing that, then add the brake pedal. The hardest part for me when learning heel/toe was applying constant pressure on the brake pedal when blipping the throttle. I used to apply too much pressure on the brake pedal as i was pivoting my foot which caused the car to lurch.

[simvids]

What everyone fails to mention of this Senna clip is he's in a right hand drive NSX or whatever Honda/Acura. He's shifting with his left hand. His formula cars were right hand shift before the paddle era. He was completely fluent. It did not matter. Truly a great beyond on so many levels.

[drsus]

Here we also see Senna’s VERY unique technic through the turn as he blips the throttle on and off rapidly all the way to exit.

[doctajuice]

That video of senna is a really good resource for learning technique. It not only shows heel-toe technique but is also a really good example of how to use the throttle as a steering tool when exiting the corner. You can see how he adjusts his throttle input to push the car wider or bring it back in, thus maximizing use of the available area on track. Dude was such a phenomenal driver

[mercoid]

I’ve read many articles and watches a few tutorials on heel toe some 12 years ago and practiced a lot. I still practice heel toe on the road with some frequency. It’s an awesome skill to have. This was a very fine tutorial.

[pianoman_luke]

"Heel and toeing" my 1.0 Opel Corsa: Done😂

[billblackeye]

The thing is on modern cars the gas pedal is lower than the brake pedal making it really hard to press them simultaneously.

[fermillo]

if you're at 8k rpm in 5th and you change down to 4th, the proper explanation of what happens is that the gearbox will be spinning too fast for the current engine speed, and the engine won't be able to raise it's speed quickly after releasing the clutch, so the gearbox will "jam" to match the speed of the engine, locking your wheels and overreving the engine. It's not the engine braking that's locking your tyres, it's the speed differential between the two. Engine braking in itself is always present when you lift the throttle, but it's not sudden like when you improperly downshift.

[andrelima]

Also that trhottle bilpping technique creating a " manual traction control " is really nice to see !

[ThiagoIzequiel]

From a racing driver to a racing driver: great tutorial! Always good to study the basics and i found this video really good.

[SaG]

The trickiest bit (to me) is keeping steady pressure on the brake pedal while blipping the throttle. When I started practicing, a lot of braking maneuvers must've looked like a novice trying to brake in a heavy truck (meaning: I was adding unwanted braking force mid-maneuver when I shifted my foot around to blip).

Thing is: In a lot of cars the accelerator and brake pedal are positioned in such a way that you'll hardly run into a situation where you can brake hard enough (in traffic) to pull off a good H&T-downshift. Meaning that unless you have to stomp on the brakes relatively hard, you can't get the pedal low enough for it to be in a good position for a quick blip. At least that's how it felt to me in my last two cars (Golf V & VI).
My current ND MX-5/Miata has perfect pedal-placement for H&T, however. I'm still going about it with too much thinking though (it hasn't become second nature yet). So sometimes I will use the side of my foot, sometime my actual heel - both are perfectly doable in this car, depending on how you position your "toe" on the brake pedal.
I know it isn't really necessary in a modern road car and in traffic - but it still feels great being able to string together a couple of perfect downshifts while braking hard into a corner - or even when coming to a stop at a set of lights .. ;)

[airwayintact]

This video clip of Senna with the split screen showing tach and speedo and footwork and hands and roadway and narrative simultaneously is brilliant. I wish more videos used this format to analyze technique. The most comprehensive tool short of a private lesson. Thanks for putting this together!

[shawncollins]

Thank you for what you do! Just started building and tracking my 01 Boxster S 7 months ago. First time tracking. Car is amazing in corners. Your vid inspired me to replace crappy stock pedals with racing gear few days ago. Started at Laguna Seca 3 months ago at 154, 2 days ago down to 144. Love heel toe first attempt. Your videos force me to really study and implement race craft. Thank you!

[AlanCart]

Best and clearest video on the topic I've found to date. Not just how but more importantly why. Thanks for making this.

[AlvesterGarnett]

Such a brilliant explanation with an excellent analysis of THE Master's technique. Thanks so much!

[jjakotya]

Excellent guide Scott, I was just looking bk at some of your older videos and this one I love. Your really detailed but conveyed in a easy to understand guide. I love your teaching techniques

[davidsapir]

Great, great instructional video. It explains the whole process in a way that's easily understandable.

[icarolfmuniz]

Would like to add that newer road cars usually have a very sensitive and soft brake pedal, and that makes a little harder to match the exact pressure to correctly reduce the speed while you also increase revs.Great video and graphical illustrations btw.Never get tired of practicing heel n toe.