Equivelant Trade

Friday, September 26, 2008

today will b my last part, yea. as im writing this, the 1st practice session in S'pore has already started.

well, today i shall talk abt wat F1 really works.

1st, lets start talking abt the track the drivers will b racing. the S'pore GP has 6 slow turns (at turn 3, 10, 11, 14, 16 & 17), 4 high speed stretches and 3 overtaking areas (at turn 1 or 2, 7 or 8 and 14). many drivers has mentioned tht this is a difficult track to overtake since its structure is similar to the Monaco GP. 1 part abt this track is tht there is 1 place which is 10m wide and they is no way drivers can overtake and tht is the Anderson Bridge.

ok, we shall now focus into wat drivers r wearing during the race.
Helmet: weighs 1.25kg, outer shell is made from fibre-reinforced resin over carbon fibre. it is followed by a plastic layer made from material used in bullet proof vets and a softer flameproof deformable layer.
Clothing: light, breathable and fireproof. it has two 'handles' on the drivers shoulders that allow them to be stripped from the car still strapped to their seat.
Underwear: Mandatory Nomex T-shirt. Long underwear and socks.
Gloves: fireproof and thin to close 'feel' to the steering wheel.
Shoes: fireproof and also thin to perform accurate contact with the car pedals.

for the driver, he muz have endurance bcoz racing F1 is juz like marathon, drivers can shed off 3kg of their body weight.
they muz have strong neck muscles bcoz they have to support the weight of his head and the helmet during experiencing G forces up to 3.5g. in s'pore it can go up to 5g.
since s'pore is an anti-clockwise circuit, so drivers have to use more left shoulder & neck rather than the right. strong arm is also needed since it can negotiate the tight corners with pair of steady arms.

F1 always consists of engine (if nt how to run). all cars consist this engine called the V8 engine. it revvels to 19000RPM, the 900bhp engine will consume 650 litres of air every second, with fuel consumption around 4mpg. however, this also results common retrements from the race.

so how does a pit stop works?
during 0.2s, the mechanics will remove the wheel nuts. abt 1s, car is jacked up.
at 1.5s, fuel nozzle is attached onto fuel tank opening.
at 2.5s, old wheels r removed, at 3.5s, new wheels r fitted and nuts are tightened.
at 3.8s, car is dropped from the jacks. from 5 to 7s, the green ligh will flash on fuel's man visor and the hose is removed. finally at 7.3s, the car will exit from the pit lane.

of cos, this is typically a normal stop. if the boss wan the driver to have larger amt of fuel, this will take abt 8s to 10s. however, errors can also b made like wheel nut nt properly tightened. fuel nozzle is stuck onto it due to heat, etc and this will contribute loss of time.

so how an F1 car works? they have the hydraulics. because the huge loads placed on an F1 car, it too difficult to turn the weel without any assistance. so hydraulic comes into the place. they r often lighter than the electrical ones, so r also used to control other elements.
the 2nd 1 will b brakes. braking of F1 car is more beta than the acceleration of tht F1 car. it will take abt 5s to accelerate from 0-240km but brake from 320-0km will only need a second less. but this will cause the driver to subject to 5.2g. when braking, the wheel disc will heat up from 400 degree celsius to 1000 degree celsius.

finally, is abt the tyres driver will use. there r 3 types: dry, intermediate and extreme wet. dry tyres is further categorized into 2 types: hard or super soft tyre. the super soft tyre will have more grip against the surface of the road than the hard but it is often cannot used for more than 25 laps. intermediate tyres is used when the track is half wet half dry while extreme wet is used for when the rain has started or rain has juz finished. so this results into whether a gd tactic is used. if a tactic in choosing tyres is wrong, drivers will have to make an unnecessary pit stop to change the tyres. and tht all from me.

8:45 PM