In 1997, the McLaren Formula 1 team came up with a very clever tweak indeed. It involved an extra brake pedal, which acted on one rear wheel only with the purpose of reducing understeer mid-corner by inducing oversteer via ‘brake steer’. Which wheel was braked depended on whether there were predominately right or left turns at a circuit.
It was a secret mod’ that was rumbled by an eagle-eyed photographer, Darren Heath, who spotted brake discs glowing at unusual points in a corner, and then managed to snap a shot of the extra pedal on a McLaren that had retired from a race.
Thanks to Ross Brawn, then Ferrari technical boss, this was subsequently called a ‘fiddle brake’ throughout the F1 paddock.
By calling it a fiddle brake, Brawn demonstrated awareness that the technology, which F1 banned in 1998, was not new at all: it had been a key element of Sporting Trials cars for many years. In these vehicles, fiddle brakes are similarly used to help steer a car, but also as a form of traction control, to balance it while traversing slopes, and for slowing down. In fact, they are probably the most important controls on a trials car.
Before we get into that, though, what exactly is Sporting Trials?
‘It’s about who gets furthest up a section,’ explains Ian Wright, builder of the Sherpa trials cars and a multiple champion in the sport. ‘Ideally, you want to clean the section, that is get to the top of the hill without stopping or hitting any of the gates.’
There are 12 gates you need to negotiate in a section. If you clip a pole, or stop for more than three seconds, you accrue points. The driver with the lowest score wins. Oh, and the sections Wright mentions tend to be up very steep, often muddy, slopes.
‘It’s about who gets furthest up a section. Ideally,
