formula one racing

[e mag]

I'm doing a project on it and am trying to find innovations designed for F1 cars that are now used in production cars. I know the F1 paddle-shift gearbox and wings are some; things like supercharging, turbocharging, TCS and ABS i'm not sure about. Anyone happen to know or know a site that would tell me? I've been searching google but cant find anything.

[AutomagRT1483]

Here's a link to the official site, perhaps it might have what your looking for.

http://www.formula1.com

[RT pRo AuToMaG]

go to www.ferrarichat.com or www.automotiveforums.com. Post up this same thread and you will probably get some useful information. I believe one thing used on cars now that is from F1 is carbon fiber bodies (Ferrari F50, Enzo Ferrari, McLaren F1, etc). ABS is defiantly not from F1 cars, they do not use ABS systems. Some use TCS for wet surfaces.

[OfficerGoat]

Thing is that Thouroghbread racecars like F1 alot of times have litte to do with street cars. They are setup for one purpose only.. to go really fast within a specific set of rules and conditions. Street cars are far more versitile in design. Things like breaks and tires on a race car need to be warm to function properly. The first time you try to stop on cold breaks in a race car is definantly an eye opening experience. (Especialy if you really need to stop!! )

Another thing is that currently only a couple of manufacturers actualy compete in the series.... Ford(Via Jaguar)Ferrari,BMW,Honda and BAR. So you arent going to see alot of specific production car inovations via F1... but that being said there are some things that F1 definantly has an effect on,

1st one would be materials in general. Lightweight and sturdy materials are great in racecars... and not a bad idea in production cars ether. Carbonfiber and some Specific titanium alloys come to mind. As the racing comunity gets used to working with these materials they become easyer to use and trickle into production cars.

hmmm... another big one would be tires. The compounds used in street tires.... especialy performance rated ones have chaged dramaticaly over the years. Bridgestone and Michilen do most of their advanced compound work on the Formula one circut. The Potenza RE 970 Gen2 Street tire is pretty much the same compound as a formula1 "wet" tire.

Modern day F1 has little to do with Forced induction (Turbo and Supercharging)since the cars are all Naturaly Asperated 10 cylinders. They used to run Turbo 6 cylendars back in the 80s and during that timeframe they made alot of advancements in turbo technology specificaly in materials, but Turbos have been around along time prior to that. Turbocharging proboly owes more from Deisel trucks to where it stands today than anything else. And of course we come to supercharging which to my (Admittedly very limited) knolege hasent been used in f1 and most advancements came from Aviation (The merlin in P51 Mustang would be a great example) or from Drag racing (Roots type supercharging).

[devildog]

the way that cars are made to crumble when they crash was innovated from formula 1 racing. pretty much most things pertaining to safety you could look into, im sure theyll be in there.

[MarkM]

ABS was used in Formula 1 first...it got banned, launch control is going the same way or was supposed to be last season as it was announced as being banned by mid season but it was over ruled so might happen this year. Full slicks were banned some time back as were the skirts (actual skirts made of a fibre of some sort) as they figured that the speeds were getting too fast, similar thing happen last year on the Kart circuit with the downforces being too high and a particular race got stopped as it was deemed to be dangerous. In car telementary is still allowed but the pits can no longer send instructions via a computer to change things now so it is one way traffic with the info now. This feedback system is available in some production cars now, though BMW have had the service/attention lights for a very long time in other cars it is a very much more fancy unit The aerodynamics in the case of spoilers is a sticky point at the moment as when Ferrari introduced those mini wings on the intake pods it went under investigation but was allowed. So that is an area for which F1 can be used as something that has translated towards regular cars.