Finding the braking point in the first corner

Braking early makes you slow off the corner; braking late pushes you wide. The right point is usually one car length before the corner marker.

Braking too early makes the car slow off the corner, and the time lost there cannot be recovered on the straight. Braking too late pushes the car wide, and you lose even more time because you have to lift off while correcting the line.

You find the point by fixing a marker rather than guessing corner by corner: a tree, a billboard, the start of the kerb. Brake one car length before that marker, then repeat three times. If the car still runs wide, move the marker a metre earlier; if it stops far short of the corner, move it a metre later. A one-metre change is far easier to feel than a random one.

Once the braking point is stable, move your attention to the throttle. Power goes down as the wheel starts to straighten, not when the corner ends. On a touchscreen that means the right thumb should be ready before the car is actually straight, because there is a tenth or two of delay between the touch and the response.

A heavier car needs an earlier braking point, but not always as early as you expect. What changes most is how long the braking lasts, not where it starts, so move the marker in small steps rather than all at once.

On a touchscreen, the brake is sometimes pressed by the same thumb as the throttle. If so, release the throttle before braking, because pressing both at once usually registers only one of the two inputs.