Quote:
Originally Posted by ysu
But...but...
If I'm not braking, the car will still slow down (engine braking + mechanical friction in multiple places ) The cooling factor is the same on the disc; the car's movement provides the cooling, regardless if you're generating more heat on the brakes or not.
My logic says it should be less heat in the brakes with gentler braking, all other things equal.
I'm genuinely interested how can the quick hard braking be better cooling wise! I've heard it a number of times, too, btw.
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So there's a couple of things to consider. Start with performance and two important factors.
If you are spending too much time slowing down, that's lap time lost. If you are not accelerating or at the very least maintaining speed, you are going too slow. That said, the other important reason is the benefit of weight transfer. If you use the brakes to gradually slow the car, you are not forcing the weight onto the front tires which will give you more grip for turn-in. You can see this at home by doing a push-up with your hands on a bathroom scale. Slowly sink a little without going all the way down and watch the numbers. Now do a full drop/stop and see how high they go. You are increasing the pounds per square inch of your contact patch which equates to higher available grip thus higher corner speeds.
As far as the heat, try this experiment if you have a bench grinder. Take a piece of steel and press it to the grinder hard but quickly then remove it. See how many times you can do that before it becomes too warm to touch. Now let the metal fully cool and do the same experiment but hold the metal there for 5-10 seconds. See how many less cycles you get before it becomes too warm. That's effectively what you are doing to the brakes.
Hope this helps. The other guys are welcome to chime in too.