For seamless manual downshifts, you can't beat heel and toe

Learning this bit of fancy footwork will make your road and track driving more fluid. Here's how to do it

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Heel and toe is a long-established motor-racing method for refining the process of braking and gearchanging at the same time.

It's also a technique that many driving enthusiasts choose to use on the road because, if it's employed correctly and with expertise, it adds a rewarding smoothness to the gearchanging process.

The benefit of heel and toe is that it allows you to raise the engine's revs when downshifting during continuous braking, therefore preventing you from engaging your clutch onto a 'dead' engine (i.e. at tickover speed) when making progress. You probably won't find this technique in most advanced driving books, but that doesn’t mean it has no place in high-performance driving for those among us who possess a boundless appetite for developing new skills to add to our armoury.