Formula One Driving Is Surprisingly High Tech

[CaptNumbNutz]

I always loved just how much performance they could squeeze from the vehicles. However, the races all became so damn boring because it was almost always the teams with the most money to build the fastest car and pay the best performing drivers. Not only that, these are done on a track, so there really is only 1 line to race on that's the fastest. NASCAR was even worse due to oval tracks.

I much prefer WRC and other forms of Off-road racing (SCORE, TORC, Dakar, etc.). Even when they race on a track, that track is dirt and mud and gets torn up causing the fastest lines to change constantly. The cross country races like the Baja and Dakar are even more entertaining because luck becomes a huge factor due to the ever changing environmental conditions.

And if you want to talk balls of steel, I'd say the WRC guys are near the top of that list (close 2nd behind the insanity that is Isle of Man TT races). They might be going 200KPH along a cliffside on a gravel road. They so much as sneeze and their cars become airplanes.

 

[Semantics]

Meh bring on active aero and ground effects, stupid powerful turbos and unlimited engine design, safety psh, push cars to the limit of people.

 

[thesmokingman]

Meh bring on active aero and ground effects, stupid powerful turbos and unlimited engine design, safety psh, push cars to the limit of people.

Ugh... ground effects makes the cars safer. They already had an unlimited phase in engines, 1.5L turbos making over 1k HP. Now try driving a 1.2K BHP F1 car with minimal aero, no TCS, ABS, no KERS, no active mass dampers, no beryllium engines, no nothing and just a manual transmission. In the rain... at Monaco! lol

The most dangerous era in F1 has actually already come and gone.

 

[krotch]

F1 Cars are the Pinnacle of automotive technology , the tech they are using is only available to consumers many years later, it is known.
Don`t mean to sound like a douche , but to my knowledge, in America , racing cars are mostly NASCAR style cars that are pretty basic technology wise (big engines on cars the go in circles all day long).

Nowadays, yes. A decade ago, I'd say both F1 and WRC were the pinnacle, as WRC brought along advancements in traction control, active differentials, ride height control, etc. They have since gone low tech, to lower costs, so other teams could come back into the sport.

NASCAR is much like WRC. Very low tech, but their engine builds are spot on. Their engines are built to exact specs, unlike a mass produced engine which will have a wider margin for error. Of course, that'll never trickle to the consumer, as it's simply too expensive to do it for all engines come out.

You also have to remember the advancement doesn't necessarily come from the same racing series. F1 cars use multi-link suspensions, while WRC, NASCAR, etc use MacPherson struts. So some cars may have a multi-link setup, while others use a strut setup. More fall under the latter, since it's cheaper and less complex. So WRC, NASCAR, etc advancements would trickle down to more consumer cars.

Tire technology for F1 pretty much doesn't benefit the average consumer. WRC tires on the other hand would be closer to normal drive, as they drive on normal roads. That's not to say tire tech from F1 isn't useful for consumers either, as those will trickle down to your ultra high performance summer tires or track tires.

I feel each race series contributes something to the everyday car. Some more than others. F1 tech tends to end up in super/hyper cars, luxury cars, etc. WRC/BTCC/etc ends up in regular road going cars. NASCAR, I'd imagine only engine tech. You have to remember, American muscle cars aren't exactly high tech, but can make do with some of the engine design/build from the racing series. It's like when Renault played around with dual overhead cams in F1. Now tons of cars are dohc. Trickle down tech happens for all race series.

I always loved just how much performance they could squeeze from the vehicles. However, the races all became so damn boring because it was almost always the teams with the most money to build the fastest car and pay the best performing drivers. Not only that, these are done on a track, so there really is only 1 line to race on that's the fastest. NASCAR was even worse due to oval tracks.

I much prefer WRC and other forms of Off-road racing (SCORE, TORC, Dakar, etc.). Even when they race on a track, that track is dirt and mud and gets torn up causing the fastest lines to change constantly. The cross country races like the Baja and Dakar are even more entertaining because luck becomes a huge factor due to the ever changing environmental conditions.

And if you want to talk balls of steel, I'd say the WRC guys are near the top of that list (close 2nd behind the insanity that is Isle of Man TT races). They might be going 200KPH along a cliffside on a gravel road. They so much as sneeze and their cars become airplanes.

Same. I prefer the WRC races. I also love to mess with the WRC drivers when they come to Germany. I'd love to have their suspension setup, cause those things are ridiculously stable. Course their cars bounce around as much as mine does.

Those regional rallies get ridiculous too.

 

[GT98]

I feel each race series contributes something to the everyday car. Some more than others. F1 tech tends to end up in super/hyper cars, luxury cars, etc. WRC/BTCC/etc ends up in regular road going cars. NASCAR, I'd imagine only engine tech. You have to remember, American muscle cars aren't exactly high tech, but can make do with some of the engine design/build from the racing series. It's like when Renault played around with dual overhead cams in F1. Now tons of cars are dohc. Trickle down tech happens for all race series.

What are you talking about? Alot of the drivers aids that are found on every day cars came from F1 development 20-30 years ago.

DOHC engines have been around for ages..they where used in 1920s for crying out loud.

As for American Muscle cars, the Mustang has been using DOHC V8 for along time and the GT350 has the biggest flat plane V8 engine in production right now.

 

[Armenius]

Ugh... ground effects makes the cars safer. They already had an unlimited phase in engines, 1.5L turbos making over 1k HP. Now try driving a 1.2K BHP F1 car with minimal aero, no TCS, ABS, no KERS, no active mass dampers, no beryllium engines, no nothing and just a manual transmission. In the rain... at Monaco! lol

The most dangerous era in F1 has actually already come and gone.

Ground effects do not make the cars safer. If anything happens to suddenly reduce the low pressure area under the car, a sudden loss of control can occur or could even send the car flying. The high cornering speeds that ground effects allow were also causing drivers to pass out at the wheel when they were still allowed during the '80s. Patrick Depailler's death was caused by suspension failure due to the immense downforce generated when combined with the ground effects and high speed around the then flatout Ostkurve at Hockenheimring.

 

[Hornet]

F1 traditionally have the huge budget to develop new tech which are then implemented in road cars years later when they are more viable commercially. To me, this is what made F1 interesting.
Like what they are doing with ERS now, using it to mitigate the downside of turbo charger. I'm glad F1 revisited the idea of turbo charged engines with new technologies.
I'm sure someday this power unit concept will be implemented in road cars.

One idea I'd love to see F1 develop is CVT gearbox. I know, it will piss more people off than the loss of V8 engine sound, lol. But such perception can and will change given enough time. I'm sure many fans were not happy when designers started sticking aero wings onto race cars decades ago. But today, aero wings are considered to be aesthetically desirable on cars.

 

[Bigbacon]

most of the buttons pressed were just to shift. Really weren't that many other things he was doing. Not saying it isn't complicated.

 

[nvgrim]

I always loved just how much performance they could squeeze from the vehicles. However, the races all became so damn boring because it was almost always the teams with the most money to build the fastest car and pay the best performing drivers. Not only that, these are done on a track, so there really is only 1 line to race on that's the fastest. NASCAR was even worse due to oval tracks.

I much prefer WRC and other forms of Off-road racing (SCORE, TORC, Dakar, etc.). Even when they race on a track, that track is dirt and mud and gets torn up causing the fastest lines to change constantly. The cross country races like the Baja and Dakar are even more entertaining because luck becomes a huge factor due to the ever changing environmental conditions.

And if you want to talk balls of steel, I'd say the WRC guys are near the top of that list (close 2nd behind the insanity that is Isle of Man TT races). They might be going 200KPH along a cliffside on a gravel road. They so much as sneeze and their cars become airplanes.

Yeah, watching some of the Group B rally videos from the 80's is amazing. Those drivers had some massive balls, 700hp auto quattro flying down a dirt road on the side of a cliff, fuck that.

 

[thesmokingman]

Ground effects do not make the cars safer. If anything happens to suddenly reduce the low pressure area under the car, a sudden loss of control can occur or could even send the car flying. The high cornering speeds that ground effects allow were also causing drivers to pass out at the wheel when they were still allowed during the '80s. Patrick Depailler's death was caused by suspension failure due to the immense downforce generated when combined with the ground effects and high speed around the then flatout Ostkurve at Hockenheimring.

The barrier rail wasn't erected in that corner where he crashed out had a lot to do with it. On the matter of ground effects, it allows the cars to corner at much higher speeds. There's two way to look at it, one they can corner faster safely, ie. w/o washing out and going off. Or the flipside of that is that once the car is lifted it loses that adhesion and well all bets are off then. I'm not sure it is any different in principle to today since the aero packages on current cars are seriously reduced at low speed, ie. they only create downforce at speed, thus going slower reduces traction. Then that means that you have to corner fast to keep from unsettling the car.

Ground effects are a main staple in endurance/prototypes. That's the whole point in LMP. I don't see the outcry of omg in that principle of racing. Anyone remember the days before ground effects and proper wind tunnel work in prototypes at Le Mans in the 60/70s? Those thigs were death machines. My friend is a CFD specialists and he would laugh at the blackbox stuff big marques were attempting back then. They had no clue about aero back then and the cars were very sketchy because of that. The one poster who said LMP has higher tech is right in this respect.

 

[Activate: AMD]

Yeah, watching some of the Group B rally videos from the 80's is amazing. Those drivers had some massive balls, 700hp auto quattro flying down a dirt road on the side of a cliff, fuck that.

Oh man, group B looks like it was the stuff of legends. Before my time sadly, but there is just something so incredible about watching a boxy old car like the Quattro with about 40 lights on the front flying down those roads, shooting flames and making those noises.

 

[Armenius]

The barrier rail wasn't erected in that corner where he crashed out had a lot to do with it. On the matter of ground effects, it allows the cars to corner at much higher speeds. There's two way to look at it, one they can corner faster safely, ie. w/o washing out and going off. Or the flipside of that is that once the car is lifted it loses that adhesion and well all bets are off then. I'm not sure it is any different in principle to today since the aero packages on current cars are seriously reduced at low speed, ie. they only create downforce at speed, thus going slower reduces traction. Then that means that you have to corner fast to keep from unsettling the car.

Ground effects are a main staple in endurance/prototypes. That's the whole point in LMP. I don't see the outcry of omg in that principle of racing. Anyone remember the days before ground effects and proper wind tunnel work in prototypes at Le Mans in the 60/70s? Those thigs were death machines. My friend is a CFD specialists and he would laugh at the blackbox stuff big marques were attempting back then. They had no clue about aero back then and the cars were very sketchy because of that. The one poster who said LMP has higher tech is right in this respect.

The difference being that the Venturi effect in modern LMP cars is highly regulated, with the low pressure area being confined to the rear of the car. The choke area driving behind the diffusers is fairly large compared to the F1 cars of years past.

 

[nvgrim]

Oh man, group B looks like it was the stuff of legends. Before my time sadly, but there is just something so incredible about watching a boxy old car like the Quattro with about 40 lights on the front flying down those roads, shooting flames and making those noises.

It was also the time when companies had to follow homologation rules, so we got cars like the Ford RS200 production cars, also the evo and STI. Now that companies themselves dont participate in WRC we stopped getting the cool cars, glad i still have my Evo 8 so i can always have a piece of WRC history.

 

[dgz]

F1 hasn't been the leading technological championship in a while. WEC is where it's currently at.

 

[punisher]

Many years ago, when Schumacher was in the middle of his glory years at Ferrari, they showed cockpit video similar to that shown in the opening post. Before every turn, on every lap, his right hand would come off the wheel, and reappear less than a second later. The commentators were scratching their heads until the pit reporter (Peter Windsor) came back and said Michael was changing his brake bias (done manually with a knob back then) for every single turn, throughout the entire race.

Another time telemetry from Schumacher's car showed just before corners he was tapping the brakes fairly hard, letting the pedal relax, then applying full pedal pressure to brake into the corner. Once again it was a mystery until someone explained he was tapping the pedal hard to shift the weight forward. Inertia continued to drive the nose down compressing tires and springs, bringing the front wing 30mm or so closer to the track, and greatly increasing downforce at the moment full braking force was used.

I always considered myself lucky to have stumbled upon F1 in the early 90s. Got to watch 3 years of Senna, Mansell, and a little later Schumacher.

 

[Methadras]

I kept getting the impression all the button hits where power up level cheats.

 

[Krenum]

Yeah.....They have been hi tech for a long time.

 

[SpeedyVV]

yeah walls and racing usually isnt a good idea

Cool! Looks like where I was born. Macau that is.

 

[krotch]

What are you talking about? Alot of the drivers aids that are found on every day cars came from F1 development 20-30 years ago.

DOHC engines have been around for ages..they where used in 1920s for crying out loud.

As for American Muscle cars, the Mustang has been using DOHC V8 for along time and the GT350 has the biggest flat plane V8 engine in production right now.

A lot of the driver's aids that are found on everyday cars came from before F1. Just like DOHC. Usually something comes out, doesn't work so well, sits around. Then F1 picks it up and plays with it. Slowly perfecting it and it ends up in consumer cars. Much like other race series. Sometimes they of course invent the tech.

I also made a mistake with Renault with DOHC. It was Peugeot. I knew it was one of those French car manufacturers.

I don't know what the American muscle car thing is about, but there's a lot more to an engine than what the block is. Refinements to cams, piston, conrods, valves, valve springs, etc. They obviously won't see new refinements, due to how tight regulations are on NASCAR engines, but what has been made can make it to consumer vehicles when manufacturing costs lower or new manufacturing tech comes out. Although emission regulations would probably kill the dream of seeing a non-turbo/supercharged V8 pushing 800+ hp in a production consumer car.

 

[nightfly]

They've turned the sport into a bit of a farce with all the goofy tire changes, no refueling, etc that they're mandating. The heyday of the sport is over, but even at its worst its still far more interesting than a mind-numbing NASCAR race

I'm not much into the circle tracks. But nascar on the road coarses is better.

I think the Indy Car series fans would argue with you there.
The Indy cars are just as advanced as F1, but like NASCAR have much more conformance to keep competition tight.

They are all limited to chassis and motors. And 'aero kits'. All the cars look pretty much the same.

NASCAR is just what it is......a "stock car" Nascar has stayed as true to it's roots as any series.

Nope, none of the cars is in any way stock anything. It's like a slot car; it looks vaguely like the real thing, but it's a special body over a track frame.

F1 lol. LMP1 has been more technologically advanced and relevant for years...

Better racing, too. still, ridiculously expensive at the P1 level.

We even got to see it proven watching Kimi Räikkönen do so poorly after wining in F1 and trying to do WRC.

What we're really seeing, is just how much the car is in determining who wins. 50 years ago, a great driver could step into a mediocre car and make a difference. Today, there are so many skilled drivers, that an also ran driver (Nico Rossberg) can become champion in the best car. We saw that happen in F1, Jenson Button, more of a journeyman driver for years, steps into the best car on the grid in 2009 and wins the WDC. From then on, nothing.
Fernando Alonso has been pretty much universally considered the class of the field in F1 for years (again, in a better car after having won 2 WDC over Michael Schumacher). Yet, without the best car, he can't win the WDC either.
It's the car.

I personally don't think much of Nascar, but if it was that easy then Juan Pablo Montoya would of dominated it. He didn't. Then he went to Indy where he instantly started doing well again.

Juan opined in an interview that nascar is the most difficult, because the cars are so difficult to control, the amount of contact between cars at high speeds. That's coming from someone who has won races in all different classes.

I would also like to notify you that F1 is international not European. There is even a F1 race in Texas and there may soon be one in New Jersey.

F1 is primarily European, even primarily British. Other than Ferrari and Haas, most of the teams are based in the UK even if their office is in another country; the 'works' is in England.

And Monaco is the pinnacle of DANGER on the F1 calendar. A meter off your braking and you are into the barrier, especially in Senna's day with 1200hp cars little aero grip.

That's the case in lots of street courses. At least at Monaco, it's the slowest of all the tracks.

That's where you go when you retire from F1, or never made it to F1 to begin with.

Hulkenberg won last year. The reason he doesn't win in F1 is the car.

as nice as spec series sound i was never really a fan of them.

Problem is, tech has advanced so far that incremental increases in car performance is outrageiously expensive. It almost killed off INDY, so they had to cut it back. Same with speed; we now have road cars that go faster than any racing car. It had to be slowed down, and so now racing is more a handicap game than sport.

And a development driver for one of the shittiest F1 teams won the Indy 500 this year.

By luck. In the right place at the right time, in the right car, with the right pit stop schedule, and a yellow coming out at just the right time, for the right length of time. And, oh yeah, he's a good driver. He didn't smack the wall on the last lap like some other rookie guy did a couple years ago.

 

[thesmokingman]

Hulkenberg won last year. The reason he doesn't win in F1 is the car.

In an inferior car... passing superior cars, lapping the whole field except for 2nd place. Yea, the driver had nothing to do with it. It was the car, like Mars Blackmon would say, It's the Shoes!@!

 

[Vader1975]

Id have to agree Nightfly. F1 has been about the car. Its why crazy stuff happens in the rain as the car difference is lessened and greatness can shine. Note to thesmokingman. Ayrton at Donington was IN THE RAIN. He also won his 1st race in my opinion in the rain but they gave it to another driver by stopping the race early because the kid was going to win. I count it amongst his wins as the money men ripping Ayrton off won't work with me.

Also Nightfly you are entirely correct that Alonso is the most skilled driver in that field. All the idiots screaming about Sebastian Vettel being the greatest really got shown how great he wasn't when our young Australian out drove him so badly in the same car.

F1 can be fun but the lack of true competition is really starting to kill the sport. World Rally Championship is my favorite atm but it also is having a F1 style who has the better car issue atm. Even though the drivers are amazing.

 

[Armenius]

Id have to agree Nightfly. F1 has been about the car. Its why crazy stuff happens in the rain as the car difference is lessened and greatness can shine. Note to thesmokingman. Ayrton at Donington was IN THE RAIN. He also won his 1st race in my opinion in the rain but they gave it to another driver by stopping the race early because the kid was going to win. I count it amongst his wins as the money men ripping Ayrton off won't work with me.

Also Nightfly you are entirely correct that Alonso is the most skilled driver in that field. All the idiots screaming about Sebastian Vettel being the greatest really got shown how great he wasn't when our young Australian out drove him so badly in the same car.

F1 can be fun but the lack of true competition is really starting to kill the sport. World Rally Championship is my favorite atm but it also is having a F1 style who has the better car issue atm. Even though the drivers are amazing.

The "lack of competition" in the sport has been killing F1 for the past 25 years. It's just like how PC gaming has been dying for the same period. So long as countries are still willing to pay Bernie's outlandish fees for hosting a race F1 will still have a future. Despite what outsiders may think, F1's revenue has been increasing steadily over the years with operating profits following that are now over $2 billion USD per year. Viewing audiences, both television and on-track, are expected to eclipse 500 million this year.