Every Little Thing You Needed to Know About F1 – From Tyres to Gear Ratios
By Alex Kapadia
With the Formula One series just a month away, BMW Sauber have been revealing some interesting facts and figures about everything from tyres temperatures to gear ratios from their 2008 season
Here are just a few fascinating insights to keep you in the know:
Formula One tyres may heat up to 130 degrees Celsius. Beyond this level, there is an increased risk of blistering.
A driver sheds an average of two kilos in weight per Grand Prix.
In extreme braking manoeuvres, drivers are briefly subjected to 5g.
It takes around 40 working hours to assemble a new BMW gearbox.
In a gearshift process, the existing gear is released and the new one already engaged in a matter of 0.004 seconds. It takes 50 times as long to bat an eyelid.
The car’s engineer can choose from more than 50 different gear ratios when adjusting the individual gears to a particular track.
After a race, it takes the team at least eight working hours to dismantle the car, test and replace individual components, and reassemble the car.
It takes some 120 working hours to assemble the BMW engine, which consists of approximately 1,100 different parts and around 5,000 parts in total.
Maximum piston acceleration is 10,000 times the speed of the earth’s rotation. Peak piston speed is 40 metres a second - or from zero to 100 km/h in 0.3 milliseconds. A force of almost three tonnes is exerted on the conrod. The average piston speed is around 25 metres per second.
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