Formula-1 Cars - Some more Facts and Figures

Preamble:
Last week we had a look at some of the facts and figures behind F1 Cars/Races. As promised, here are some more…

F1 Engines
The engine of an F1 Car is the most complex piece of equipment that goes into it. It consists of close to 5000 parts of which around 1500 are moving elements. When all of these are meticulously put together after about 2-weeks of work, it can produce more than 750 hp and reach rpm’s higher than 20,000! At their maximum pace, the current V8 engines consume around 60 litres of petrol for 100km of racing.

While manufacturers could easily continue to develop more powerful engines within the 2006 Regulations, the FIA felt that such unnecessary costs should be avoided and thus ruled a freeze on engines’ basic specs as of the 2007 F1 season. So instead of a yearly 20 to 30 hp gain, the manufacturers cannot develop their engines further and are now imposed with a rev limit of 19,000 rpm.

At the end of 2005, the last season where the regulations allowed 3-litre engines with 10-cylinders, some engines were producing more than 980 hp and running very close to the 1000 hp mark, a figure that was never reached since the ban on turbo engines. It was thus a sign for F1’s governing body to change the Regulations, as top speeds of 370 km/h reached at Monza were deemed hazardous for the drivers as well as the spectators.

Starters for F1 Cars
As per FIA, an electric starter has not been obligatory for several years and teams choose not to fit one in order to prevent an additional source of energy/Battery from causing incidents such as a fire or explosion. They are, however, authorised to use a portable starter in front of their pits and on the starting grid, but if a driver stalls on the circuit during the race, he has to retire, even if the car restarts once the marshals have pushed it away from a dangerous position. Most cars nowadays are, however, fitted with sophisticated electronically controlled anti-stall systems.

Gearboxes on F1 Cars
’Automatic’ gearboxes are prohibited by the FIA. However, all the cars are equipped with semi-automatic gearboxes where to change gear, the driver no longer has to activate the clutch pedal at the same time as the gear lever. He simply presses a button on the side of his steering wheel. There is a button on each side: one for changing up, the other for changing down. He, therefore, no longer has to take his hand off the steering wheel also and such a electro-hydraulic device allows the driver to change gear in one or two hundredths of a second, which is unquestionably faster than with a conventional system.

Number of Gears on F1 Cars
The rapid changes possible with semi-automatic gearboxes mean that transmissions with a greater number of ratios (six or seven) can be installed. On circuits with a large number of bends, the drivers only use four or five ratios. Reverse gear is obligatory, but must not be used in the pit-lane.

Brakes of F1 Cars
The brakes on stock cars these days are derived from the ‘disc brakes’ which were first used in racing. All F1 cars nowadays are equipped with brakes with calipers made from light alloys while the discs and pads tend to be made from synthetic materials, i.e. carbon/carbon, as their resistance to heat is much greater than that of stock car brakes and they weigh significantly less. Which is why under certain conditions, the insides of the F1 wheels appear completely incandescent!

The braking power of an F1 Car is uncommonly high. At the end of a ‘straight’, at speeds around 340 kph, an F1 car can brake in less than 100 meters in order to take a slow corner. Naturally, carbon/carbon is expensive. It takes six months to produce a disc, at temperatures of between 900 and 2000°C. The same material is now used to produce clutch discs.

Next week we’ll talk about the fuel they use, refuelling during a race, no. of tyre changes allowed, their speed and weight limits etc.