The Negative Consequences Of The Brake & Gas Technique Explained

By Alessio Lorandi, 2013 CIK-FIA World Champion, KF-Junior. Updated on 22 October 2026.

There’s one technique that, unfortunately, many young drivers do, and they do it subconsciously. Most of them, they don’t do it really consciously. They do it, and they’re not really aware of that.

Nearly everyone I met at the beginning of their career in mini does it, and that is holding some throttle on the brakes. They’re not doing it because they want to, as you may do it in cars, as I used to do sometimes in cars, where you may need to keep a little bit of throttle to stabilize the rear.

What is double pedaling in karting?

And that technique is throttle and brake at the same time. It’s basically double pedaling. Call it however you want, brake and gas, braking gas.

Karts are not made to brake and accelerate at the same time. There is no reason for that.

Is there ever a reason to hold throttle on the brakes?

No, in karting, there’s absolutely no need, I promise you. In karting, there is absolutely zero reason in any category to keep the throttle on the brakes, unless you’re driving shifters in the wet, where you have to blip a little bit to make sure it doesn’t lock up the rear tire so much because of the downshifts.

You make a small blip of like 10% just to downshift in the wet, in KZ, but in all the other categories, there’s no need. And I cringe so much when I see this. And again, it’s one of the major mistakes. I mean, there’s very few mistakes that are more common than this.

There’s nothing more harmful, more performance affecting in a negative way than doing that. And if you do that in mini, it’s even worse.

Why can’t a kart brake and accelerate at the same time?

But here’s the thing, go karts are not made to brake and gas at the same time. There is no reason for that. Your kart is literally not made to brake and accelerate at the same time, and neither are your tires, by the way. There’s a concept called the traction circle.

The traction circle basically says how much you can combine. One way is the longitudinal, the braking and the acceleration, and the other way is the lateral, the turning. You probably have seen this.

When you brake, you can combine a little bit. It’s called combined. So when you’re braking and turning into the corner, you’re going to be somewhere in this overlapping area. And if you are throttling and turning on the exit, you’re going to be in the overlapping area on the other side.

If it was like that, you could brake and turn so much more, and the tires would sustain all of that. You would be so much faster.

But it’s not like that. The rules of the game are not that. The tires allow a limited amount of braking and turning, and a limited amount of throttling and turning, to one side and to the other side.

What does brake and gas do to your performance?

So maximum braking and maximum acceleration at the same time makes really no sense, absolutely no sense. So you should not do that. That’s the simple answer. But of course, drivers do it, and they do it for multiple reasons.

So it’s like, you’re on the brake with your left foot and on the gas with your right foot. You’re trying to go full gas, and maybe you feel a little bit not sure that you’re going to make the corner, because maybe you go wide.

And so instead of coming off the gas, many drivers put some brakes on. Or when they’re braking, for some reason they feel comfortable with a little bit of throttle, so they brake and they keep some throttle, but it makes no sense.

All of this is just deadly. It’s just disaster for the performance.

Why do drivers keep doing it?

It happens to 80% of the drivers. Really, some drivers have a little, some drivers a lot. But it’s very, very rare to find drivers that do not do this mistake.

It’s so hard for me, to be honest, because I try to teach them that, listen, it’s really bad for the engine. You shouldn’t be doing it. But they still keep on doing it, because it’s subconscious. So it’s a habit that you build up, maybe because you drive some karts that kind of reward this.

You know, if you drive some go karts that have very, very rich carburation, or like I know a lot of kids in Rotax, they do these kind of things to try to get a little advantage, because in Rotax there’s a bit of delay. So you kind of do that to preload, so you get a better exit.

Does brake and gas overheat the engine?

It just dies, as I say, and it’s your fault.

What does brake and gas look like in the data?

I want you to visualize this. We are at a French circuit, two drivers (actually, it’s the same driver in two different sessions at the WSK), and you can see that on the exit. For some reason, the driver is at 92% throttle, not full, but he has 25% brakes.

And now that is not an extreme amount of braking gas. We have seen way more. I couldn’t find the more extreme examples, so I just show you this one, which is still quite a bit.

And you can see that the driver is pretty much full throttle, but he still keeps the brakes, and he’s past the apex already. So that makes no sense, right? To have 25-26% of brakes past the apex.

So the only reason why he’s doing that is because he’s trying to control the speed, so he’s going on the gas, and he’s trying to control the speed with the brakes instead of coming off the throttle. So for me, this is deadly. This is very bad.

I can see this other mistake in the other corner. For example, here he is almost flat out. He has 93% throttle, and he has 8% of brakes. It’s not huge, but it’s still a thing.

And exiting this other corner is also very bad. He is pretty much full throttle, 91%, and he also has 20% brakes. Again, disaster.

Do drivers use brake and gas in the mid corner too?

And the other major issue from the brake and gas technique is not just in the exit, but it’s also in the mid corner, right.

So in the mid corner, I can see that the driver has got like 97% of the brake, and he still has throttle on. Same here. He’s got 18% throttle and 100% brake. So this is a problem.

And you can’t be like, “Oh, Alessio, that’s a spike.” No. You could say, “Oh, that’s the calibration.” It’s not, believe me, the calibration was right.

Why does a bit of throttle make the engine run lean?

So when he’s braking, he’s not fully off the gas. It’s just 20%, and that’s a problem, because when you do so, the carburetor is not working properly. And if the carburetor is not working properly, the valve is not fully down, and so it keeps injecting air under braking, which is not needed.

And that’s bad, because it makes the engine too lean basically, and it just doesn’t help it to recharge the fuel necessary to get fast on the exit, to get the right amount of fuel. So, yeah, you have to be careful with these things.

Why does it cost you on the straights too?

In juniors and seniors, you lose a lot, but in mini, you lose a ton. And the thing is that you don’t really lose just in the corner. This is the important bit. You’re not just losing in the corner, but you’re losing down the straights, because the engine, when you do that, is not breathing, as I like to call it. It’s not getting the fuel.

Remember, every time the engine is full throttle, it’s burning the fuel. Of course, it’s still injecting fuel from the carburetor to the engine when you’re flat out, it’s the main jet working and still sending fuel. But where the engine picks up the most fuel is when you’re off the throttle.

Why does the engine bog after a slow formation lap?

That’s the reason why, when you’re making the start, you know, the formation lap with the rolling starts, and everybody’s going slow in the last sector, then when you start again, it’s so delayed, and it’s like bogging, because there’s so much fuel, and you can see all the smoke coming off the exhaust from all the drivers. It’s like a big cloud of smoke.

And the reason is that when you go on the gas, it’s kind of full of fuel, because you have spent so long off the gas, and it got so much fuel that was not burned, so it got so rich and delayed.

And of course, that’s the other opposite. You shouldn’t be driving with so much rolling time either.

You should let the engine breathe. You should let the engine get and absorb like a sponge all the fuel you need when you’re on the brakes.

What does holding throttle on the brakes look like on the throttle trace?

You can see this driver in Sarno, the green. In this case, forget about the line (the red actually does a better line). I just care about this throttle trace. And you can see very well, it needs to be a parallel line.

When you brake, you come off the gas, and it has to be an absolutely parallel line. The red isn’t perfect at the beginning either, but it’s still way better than what the green does, which is absolutely awful. He’s not coming off the gas at all, except in the last phase.

So it’s not full throttle, guys, but it’s keeping enough throttle, basically like 10%, 20%, 30%, that is not letting the engine breathe. And of course, that is really, really bad. And it happens so often. If you want to see the good trace against the bad one, I explain it in what a good and a bad throttle trace look like.

What does your exhaust temperature tell you?

This is where the exhaust temperature sensor comes in. And what happens at the end of the day is that when he arrives in the mid corner, his exhaust temperature minimum is 503 and it’s too lean. And the other kid is 437, and he’s got almost the perfect temperature, because it should be 440.

And you can see when he does that, the engine is burning way better, because he has collected the fuel. You see his acceleration slope in terms of exhaust temperature, how steep it is at the beginning? Because he has received the fuel in the engine and it has burned it.

If you don’t receive enough fuel, you’re not able to burn it. So you don’t have a steep exhaust temperature curve.

If you see something like that, where you have the exhaust temperature not going down, you need to get it to go down.

The target, by the way guys, depends from category to category, but the target temperature in the bottom is like 440 in mini. I guess it’s very similar in other categories. When I was driving the other categories, it was still the same, 440 to 430.

Whereas in this case, the kid we just saw is 500. So if he’s 500, he’s so above that line. And of course, he’s just too lean. He’s never going to have the power. He’s going to feel like bogging on the exit, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

His minimum is 503, that’s 63 degrees higher than the recommended one. So of course, you can imagine how bad it is for the carburation. And if we zoom out, we see this problem pretty much everywhere. It’s not just one corner.

Look, you have the same issue in another corner. He’s got a minimum of 488, or 484, against the 415. Now the red is almost on the rich side there, but it’s still way better than the green being too lean. I prefer to be a little bit too rich in the bottom than a little bit too lean.

What do too rich and too lean mean for exhaust temperature?

If we didn’t explain that yet: being too rich means being with lower temperatures. Being too lean means being with too high temperatures. So basically, same problem here, the slope is not going down enough, and same problem in the other hairpin.

And if we go to the channels report and we add the average exhaust temperature, the average over the lap for the red is going to be 560, whereas for the green it’s going to be 574. So it’s 14 degrees leaner overall.

But I promise you, it’s highly dependent. Because the red is actually a little bit leaner than the green at the end of the straights, 640 against 629. But the reason why the average is so much higher for the green is because he keeps it too high all the way through, as we just mentioned. The red is letting the engine breathe way more, and all the time.

And look at that, by the way. The red is going with more speed all the time up the straights.

Is it your engine or is it your driving?

And if you don’t let the engine breathe, you’re always gonna suffer with the engine. You’re always gonna be like, “Oh, my engine is not good.” Yes, it may be not good, but it’s your fault. It’s not the tuner’s fault. If the engine is not delivering the power, it’s your fault.

Listen, if you do not do the driving inputs correctly, there’s not a single chance that engine can compensate for that, unless you have an illegal engine.

And in this case there was nothing wrong in the kart. In one place he does it quite similar to the red, and in the other places he doesn’t. So it’s just 100% the driver.

A lot of drivers check the difference in EGT trying to prove that their carburetion is either “too lean” or “too rich”, while the EGT lines on the chart are so much driving-style related. When two drivers go on the throttle at the same time and they have the exact same EGT values both at the bottom and the top, their carburation is the same.

The goal as a racing driver is to improve ourselves, and your goal is to improve yourself. And my goal is to improve myself.

Can your mechanic fix this for you?

So basically, you need to get the driver to come off the gas all the time. And I get so upset, of course, but this is happening so much. You’re gonna get the worst performance from the engine, and that is exactly what happens.

The driver in green will always complain about the engine. But the reason why he had that feeling, that illusion, that he was having worse speed on the straights, was because of his driving. And there was nothing we could do with the carburation to fix that.

Because if we put the carburation too rich, basically to make the minimum go lower, then it would be too bad overall. It would lose the mid range and the top. So we cannot fix that. It has to be the driver that fixes that.

You cannot expect your mechanic, your team, your coach, anyone, you cannot expect them to fix this for you.

You can just move the pedals forward if you need. But it’s your job to fix this. When I see this, I normally put the pedals a bit further, either starting from the footrest, or both, also the position and the inclination of the footrest. More on working with your mechanic here.

What is the proper technique with the brake and the throttle?

Unfortunately, many drivers do it, and it’s mostly out of habit. If I look at the data, you need to make sure that when you are on the brakes, you are 100% off the gas.

On the entry, only braking, 100% off the gas. And on the exit, only throttle.

You should be 100% off the gas, and then you go on the gas, and you go 100%, and on the exit the brakes should be zero, not like 10% or 20% as we saw in the previous corner, right?

It should be 100% brakes on the corner, or 90%, it depends on the corner. Of course, here we were talking about a hairpin. We want to be completely off the throttle in the braking, and then completely off the brakes on the exit.

Off the throttle in the braking, and off the brakes on the exit. That’s the way to go. If you do this kind of double pedaling, it’s bad.

You don’t want to be double pedaling ever, please. Unfortunately, if you don’t fix this now, guys, you’re gonna keep this all the way into Formula cars.

How do you find brake and gas in your data?

Of course, if you do a big one, you can still see it without the sensors. You can also understand a bit from the RPM and the exhaust temperature. When the exhaust temperature is not going down, when it stays almost flat, it means you’re doing braking gas. But again, it’s way better with the sensors.

And also, when you notice it, then you can just tell it straight in the face of the driver. Listen, you’re complaining the engine is bad, but you’re killing the engine by doing braking gas like that. So you got to fix your technique. You can’t complain about the engine. It’s a joke.

How do you monitor this and fix it?

Monitor this all the time, guys. Because it may happen on one track. It may happen because you start to get older, and you start to grow up. You may start to get too close to the pedals, so you may have to put them a bit further. But you need to always monitor this in the data.

Because, as I said, it’s very rare that someone does it on purpose. It’s almost 100% of the times going to be subconscious, and you don’t really recognize it.

So every time you brake, make sure you get off the gas fully, 100%. Your foot has to literally be moving out, like have a gap from the pedal. You have to focus on it, you’re literally almost like taking off your leg.

So adjust the pedals, adjust the heel position, and then of course, maybe put them a bit further if you have this. Make sure your pedals are not too close. You have to be very, very, very specific about that.

But then again, focus: one session, two sessions, three sessions, every corner, even if you’re 10 seconds off. You got to focus on that, and you’ll see you build up these nice and good habits, and you will be able to do it then subconsciously.

But before you do it subconsciously in a positive way, you got to make sure you are doing it consciously, forcing yourself, for many laps, a few sessions. Give up those sessions. I don’t care about lap time for sure. You don’t learn how to do that in the final race or in qualifying. That’s why we have testing. That’s why we have practice.

On the brakes, come off the gas. On the throttle, when you’re on the exit, come off the brakes. And remember, if you have all these little things put together, you will be a mega racing driver.

What is left foot braking, and why does a kart driver do it by default?

Left foot braking means you brake with your left foot and you go on the throttle with your right foot. On a single speed kart you only have two pedals and a steering wheel. Brakes on the left foot, throttle on the right foot, steering with your hands. And because a single speed kart brakes on the rear axle only, that left foot is also your balance, as I explain in brake bias in karting.

It seems very basic. But it’s the very first thing a beginner should know before going out.

The skill is the coordination. Braking with your left foot, then going on the throttle with your right foot, and all of that together with your steering. You practice it every lap, until you don’t think about it anymore. You notice the braking point is approaching, and your left foot hits the brake pedal. And if your braking point moves from lap to lap, I explain how to brake at the same point every lap.

The problem is that two feet on two pedals can also press at the same time. So in a kart the feet take turns. Between the brake and the throttle I always tell my drivers to leave a very small transition, like 0.1 second, 0.2 maximum, where the kart loads and the inside rear wheel lifts.

But you need to have that transition, because if you are on the brakes and then right away on the gas, with not even a 0.1 transition, then it’s not good, believe me. You’ll probably end up being too early on the gas.

In cars that small transition has to go. In 2015, my first year in Formula 3, my engineer told me to hold the brakes until the apex, with basically no dead zone. I explain it in the trail braking guide. In a car a little throttle on the brakes can help to stabilize the rear in a fast corner, but in the slow corners it locks the differential and you get understeer. That part is just below.

Does this habit follow you into Formula 4?

And in cars, this is super bad in Formula 4, Formula 3, unless you do it in the fast corners, as I said, to stabilize the car. If you do it in the slow corners, it’s going to lock the differential, and it’s going to create so much push understeer.

And I was talking the other day to an F4 engineer, and he was telling me that so many kids coming from karting, which are all of them, like 80% have this problem, and they cannot fix it. And if you cannot fix it now, you will not fix it later in Formula cars, and it’s very urgent.

That’s why you need to fix these things now, and not in Formula 4.

Who can check your pedals for you?

So, yeah, I encourage you to think about this. Every time you brake, every time, make sure you get off the gas fully. And look at your own data, because 90% of the times this happens subconsciously.

If you want me to look at how you drive, the brakes, the throttle and everything around them, send me your onboard for an onboard review. And if you want to fix this and the other habits with me for good, that is what we do in the 6 months transformation.

Hope that was helpful. And remember to keep sennding it.

Ciao!