How many petals does a f1 car have

As it is paramount in aiding the transmission of several hundred horsepower from the engine to the gearbox, it's put through a great deal of strain. Therefore the design of the tiny, one-and-a-bit kilogram component is totally unique.

It's still made up of relatively few components, but it is less than half the size of ordinary clutches, is a special carbon-carbon design and can be subject at times to almost 1, degrees of heat. There's also the unique positioning of the clutch "pedal.

Trick computers used to engage and release the clutch complete a technical specification which renders all other kinds of clutch obsolete. The clutch is manually operated only when the driver needs to pull away from a standstill.

The following slide dictates the exact procedure at a start. Just as with a road car clutch it breaks the drive from the engine to the gearbox and you need it whenever the car comes to a stop. This really tiny piece of equipment has to transmit the power of the engine and the KERS as well.

Of course, the following slides will go into separate areas of the operations of the clutch—we're not quite palming off the explanation to the talented Scarbs!

Two clutch paddles are present on the steering wheel, one on either side. One has a pre-set position, the other is full depressed. That is then fully released as quickly as possible, while the other is gradually released until the driver feels there is significant traction to take control properly with his right foot unlike the rudimental "boy racer" approach of clutch off, throttle on.

On the warm-up lap, engineers often ask drivers to perform a bite point find. When you are driving your road car, you'll gradually release the clutch until you feel it "bite" and then you'll apply some revs and continually release the clutch until you pull away. That naturally becomes an automatic process, and a BPF is a way to utilise the trick F1 computer to absolutely nail a launch sequence.

A BPF records the bite point for the clutch, so that the launch sequence can be as fast as possible. In some cases, such as in the Maserati F F1 car in the mids, the order was different, with the throttle in the middle and the brake on the right. Other than that, nothing looked out of the ordinary, except that the pedals tended to be closer together.

Racing drivers in the s developed a technique that enabled them to keep the engine revving as they braked, thus making it more ready to propel their car forwards when they reverted to accelerating. This was known as heel-and-toeing, and was performed by the driver angling the ball of the right foot across onto the brake pedal, while rolling the heel right to blip the throttle at the same time to keep the engine revs as high as possible.

Each driver would adjust the location and angle of the pedals to suit not only their heel-and-toeing technique but also the size of their feet. Not much changed as F1 raced into the s, save the pedals often had holes drilled into them as teams did everything they could to make their cars as light as possible.

Later, they would be made from titanium for strength with lightness. Then, as designers created cars with ever smaller frontal areas in their quest for aerodynamic efficiency, cockpits became narrower. This led to drivers replacing their usual shoes with lightweight shoes or boots. These had two differences to regular shoes. The first was a sole that no longer protruded around the sides, so drivers could go about their business without catching a neighbouring pedal.

The second was that they were much thinner so that drivers could feel every bit of sensory feedback, in particular from the brake and throttle. And when you're going wheel-to-wheel with someone like four-time world champ Sebastian Vettel at mph, you can't take a hand off the wheel to do, well, anything.

Every task a driver might need to do, every bit of information he might need to know, is quite literally at his fingertips.

The modern Formula 1 steering wheel is, therefore, the most amazing ever made. It is, in every way, the nerve center of the car. That's because an F1 car has dozens of parameters that can be adjusted on the fly, but only by the driver. Although telemetry provides a nonstop stream of data to engineers on the pitwall and at team HQ, the driver has sole control over things like differential settings, the air-fuel mix, and the torque curve. All of these settings can change several times during a race, or even a lap.