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The world of F1 is all about peak performance, but some of these engineering innovations eventually trickle down to the road cars we all drive. Tyler reports on what it’s actually like to drive a real Formula 1 car.
Like a predator at the top of the food chain, a Formula One car is a highly evolved species that is perfectly engineered for its environment. These 200mph+ cruise missiles on wheels not only accelerate like Wile E. Coyote in a slingshot, but corner at speeds generating G-forces akin to that of a fighter jet. They are the ultimate expression of science and engineering, a pointed sabre in man’s arsenal against the laws of physics.
The pressure cooker of motorsport means technology evolves quickly for the sake of competitiveness, something that makes Formula 1 a unique petri dish for road cars to sample from. This Jordan EJ12 saw combat in the 2004 Formula One World Championship, a distinctive yellow and black member of the V10 era. Even today– 18 years after it was last driven in anger – it’s an impressive thing to behold on the heat-soaked Tarmac. Its carbon fibre skeletal structure is incased within lightweight bodywork sculpted by the wind tunnel. Its wings, channels and ducts manipulate the air to this motorsport machine’s will.
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The pursuit of lightweight materials and aerodynamic mastery has become essential to modern road cars, and not just those of the high performance variety. Electric cars are heavy by nature thanks to their dense batteries, but incorporating carbon fibre - as the BMW i3 did - will help keep the scales in check. It’s a similar story with aerodynamics with plenty of F1 research helping to inform next-generation cars on how to reduce range-sapping drag.
NASA has likely trained more astronauts in its history than humans have piloted an F1car. The opportunity to see the world from this high-octane perspective doesn’t come along very often. Lowering yourself into the almost claustrophobic cockpit requires a diploma in the art of human origami, but once seated you soon feel cocooned and physically bonded to the machine.
A few ginger laps to acclimatise reveals heavy but incredibly precise steering. Tiny inputs result in huge lateral leaps, neck-snapping in their immediacy, almost telepathically relayed from brain to car. Gearchanges from the wheel-mounted paddles are just as assertive, something that has been faithfully translated into high-performance road cars today.
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Sure, it predictably stops and goes with the velocity of an armour-piercing bullet, but the real unshackling from the world of physics is delivered through the corners. The freedom of which an F1 car changes direction is unlike any thing else. You can forget a McLaren Senna or even an Areil Atom, the lack of hesitation, chassis inertia, and sheer speed this thing carries around a tightening bend is almost unfathomable. The only real limitation is the physicality of the driver behind the wheel and their strength to withstand the forces at play. There is a reason a modern Formula 1 driver has to be as fit as an Olympic athlete to last a race distance.
Looking at an F1 car you might see it as an alien spacecraft in comparison to the Ford Focus on your driveway, however, the latest breed of grand prix racers are working on squeezing the maximum fuel efficiency from their potent turbo charged engines. That’s something the final generations of combustion road cars will also need to do in order to meet ever stricter regulation.
