We continue our look at all things 'Formula One' as we take in Part Five of our data file.
Beyond F1
Most F1 drivers retire in their mid to late 30s; however,
many keep racing in disciplines which are less physically demanding. The German
touring car championship, the DTM, is a popular category involving ex-drivers
such as two-time champion Mika Häkkinen and F1 race winners Jean Alesi, David
Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher. In recent years, it has become common for former
drivers who have had shorter careers to take up factory seats driving LMP1 cars
in the FIA World Endurance Championship, with notable drivers including Mark
Webber, Allan McNish, Anthony Davidson, Alexander Wurz, and Sébastien Buemi.
Some F1 drivers have left to race in the United States—Nigel Mansell and
Emerson Fittipaldi duelled for the 1993 CART title, Rubens Barrichello moved to
IndyCar in 2012, while Jacques Villeneuve, Juan Pablo Montoya, Nelson Piquet,
Jr. and Scott Speed moved to NASCAR. Some drivers, such as Vitantonio Liuzzi,
Narain Karthikeyan and Jos Verstappen went on to race in the A1 Grand Prix
series. During its existence from 2008 to 2011, Superleague Formula attracted
ex-Formula One drivers like Sébastien Bourdais, Antônio Pizzonia and Giorgio
Pantano. A series for former Formula One drivers, called Grand Prix Masters,
ran briefly in 2005 and 2006. Others, like Jackie Stewart, Gerhard Berger and
Alain Prost, returned to F1 as team owners while their former competitors have
become colour commentators for TV coverage such as James Hunt, Martin Brundle,
David Hobbs, Alan Jones David Coulthard,
Luciano Burti for Globo, and Jean Alesi for Italian national network RAI.
Others, such as Damon Hill and Jackie Stewart, take active roles in running
motorsport in their own countries. Carlos Reutemann became a politician and
served as governor of his native state in Argentina.
Grands Prix
The number of Grands Prix held in a season has varied over
the years. The inaugural world championship season comprised only seven races,
while the season contained nineteen races. Although throughout the first
decades of the world championship there were no more than eleven Grands Prix a
season, a large number of non-championship Formula One events also took place.
The number of Grands Prix increased to an average of sixteen/seventeen by the
late 1970s; simultaneously non-championship events ended by 1983. More Grands
Prix began to be held in the 2000s, and recent seasons have seen an average of
19 races. In the calendar peaked at twenty events, which remains the highest
number of world championship races in one season.
Six of the original seven races took place in Europe; the
only non-European race that counted towards the World Championship in 1950 was
the Indianapolis 500, which was held to different regulations and later
replaced by the United States Grand Prix. The F1 championship gradually
expanded to other non-European countries. Argentina hosted the first South
American Grand Prix in 1953, and Morocco hosted the first African World
Championship race in. Asia and
Oceania followed, and the first race in
the Middle East was held in. The nineteen races of the 2014 Formula One season
are spread over every populated continent except for Africa, with ten Grands
Prix held outside Europe.
Some of the Grands Prix, such as the oldest recognised event
the French Grand Prix, pre-date the formation of the World Championship and
were incorporated into the championship as Formula One races in 1950. The
British and Italian Grands Prix are the only events to have been held every
Formula One season; other long-running races include the Belgian, German and
currently defunct French Grands Prix. The Monaco Grand Prix, first held in 1929
and run continuously since 1955, is widely considered to be one of the most
important and prestigious automobile races in the world.
Traditionally each nation has hosted a single Grand Prix,
which carries the name of the country. If a single country hosts multiple
Grands Prix in a year they receive different names. In European countries the
second event has often been titled the European Grand Prix, or named after a
neighbouring state without a race. The United States has held six separate
Grands Prix, including the Indianapolis 500, with the additional events named
after the host city. Grands Prix are not always held at the same circuit each
year, and may switch locations due to the suitability of the track or the
financial status of the race organisers. The German Grand Prix currently
alternates between the Nürburgring and Hockenheimring circuits, and others such
as the American and French races have switched venues throughout their history.
All Grands Prix have traditionally been run during the day,
until the inaugural hosted the first Formula One night race, which was followed
in 2009 by the day–night Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Along with holding races at
night, other Grands Prix in Asia have had their start times adjusted to benefit
the European television audience.
Recent additions to the calendar include the Singapore Grand
Prix which, in September 2008, hosted the first night race ever held in Formula
One, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which hosted the first day-to-night race in
November 2009, the Korean Grand Prix, first held in October 2010 and the Indian
Grand Prix, first held in October 2011. The United States Grand Prix held its
first race in Austin, Texas at the new Circuit of the Americas in 2012. The
first F1 Russian Grand Prix was held in 2014 at the new Sochi circuit, that
runs around a venue used for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Circuits
A typical circuit usually features a stretch of straight
road on which the starting grid is situated. The pit lane, where the drivers
stop for tyres and minor repairs during
the race, retirements from the race, and where the teams work on the cars
before the race, is normally located next to the starting grid. The layout of
the rest of the circuit varies widely, although in most cases the circuit runs
in a clockwise direction. Those few circuits that run anticlockwise can cause drivers neck problems due to the
enormous lateral forces generated by F1 cars pulling their heads in the
opposite direction to normal.
Most of the circuits currently in use are specially
constructed for competition. The current street circuits are Monaco, Melbourne,
Montreal, Singapore and Sochi, although races in other urban locations come and
go and proposals for such races are
often discussed—most recently New Jersey. Several circuits have been completely
laid out on public roads in the past, such as Valencia in Spain, though Monaco
is the only one that remains. The glamour and history of the Monaco race are
the primary reasons why the circuit is still in use, even though it does not to
meet the strict safety requirements imposed on other tracks. Three-time World
champion Nelson Piquet famously described racing in Monaco as "like riding
a bicycle around your living room".
Circuit design to protect the safety of drivers is becoming
increasingly sophisticated, as exemplified by the new Bahrain International
Circuit, added in and designed—like most of F1's new circuits—by Hermann Tilke.
Several of the new circuits in F1, especially those designed by Tilke, have
been criticised as lacking the "flow" of such classics as Spa-Francorchamps
and Imola. His redesign of the Hockenheim circuit in Germany for example, while
providing more capacity for grandstands and eliminating extremely long and
dangerous straights, has been frowned upon by many who argue that part of the
character of the Hockenheim circuits was the long and blinding straights into
dark forest sections. These newer circuits, however, are generally agreed to
meet the safety standards of modern Formula One better than the older ones.
The newest additions to the calendar are the Sochi Autodrom
and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which is returning after 23 years on the
sidelines.
A single race requires hotel rooms to accommodate at least
5000 visitors.
Cars and technology
Modern Formula One cars are mid-engined open cockpit, open
wheel single-seaters. The chassis is made largely of carbon-fibre composites,
rendering it light but extremely stiff and strong. The whole car, including
engine, fluids and driver, weighs only – the minimum weight set by the
regulations. If the construction of the car is lighter than the minimum, it can
be ballasted up to add the necessary weight. The race teams take advantage of
this by placing this ballast at the extreme bottom of the chassis, thereby
locating the centre of gravity as low as possible in order to improve handling
and weight transfer.
The cornering speed of Formula One cars is largely
determined by the aerodynamic downforce that they generate, which pushes the
car down onto the track. This is provided by "wings" mounted at the
front and rear of the vehicle, and by ground effect created by low air pressure
under the flat bottom of the car. The aerodynamic design of the cars is very
heavily constrained to limit performance and the current generation of cars
sport a large number of small winglets, "barge boards", and turning
vanes designed to closely control the flow of the air over, under, and around
the car.
The other major factor controlling the cornering speed of
the cars is the design of the tyres. From to, the tyres in Formula One were not
"slicks" as in most other
circuit racing series. Instead, each tyre had four large circumferential
grooves on its surface designed to limit the cornering speed of the cars. Slick
tyres returned to Formula One in the season. Suspension is double wishbone or
multilink front and rear, with pushrod operated springs and dampers on the
chassis – one exception being that of the 2009 specification Red Bull Racing
car which used pullrod suspension at the
rear, the first car to do so since the Minardi PS01 in 2001. Ferrari used a
pullrod suspension at both the front and rear in their 2012 car. Both
Ferrari and McLaren of the 2013 season used a pullrod suspension
at both the front and the rear.
Carbon-carbon disc brakes are used for reduced weight and
increased frictional performance. These provide a very high level of braking
performance and are usually the element which provokes the greatest reaction
from drivers new to the formula.
Starting with the 2014 Formula 1 season the engines have
changed from a 2.4-litre naturally aspirated V8 to turbocharged 1.6 litre V6
"power-units". These get a significant amount of their power from
electric motors. In addition they include a lot of energy recovery technology.
Engines run on unleaded fuel closely resembling publicly available petrol. The
oil which lubricates and protects the engine from overheating is very similar
in viscosity to water. The 2006 generation of engines spun up to 20,000 RPM and
produced up to . For, engines were restricted to 19,000 rpm with limited
development areas allowed, following the engine specification freeze from the
end of . For the 2009 Formula One season the engines were further restricted to
18,000 rpm.
A wide variety of technologies—including active suspension
and ground effect aerodynamics —are banned under the current regulations.
Despite this the current generation of cars can reach speeds in excess of at
some circuits. The highest straight line speed recorded during a Grand Prix
was, set by Juan Pablo Montoya during the 2005 Italian Grand Prix. A Honda
Formula One car, running with minimum downforce on a runway in the Mojave
desert achieved a top speed of in 2006. According to Honda, the car fully met
the FIA Formula One regulations. Even with the limitations on aerodynamics, at
aerodynamically generated downforce is equal to the weight of the car, and the
oft-repeated claim that Formula One cars create enough downforce to "drive
on the ceiling", while possible in principle, has never been put to the
test. Downforce of 2.5 times the car's weight can be achieved at full speed.
The downforce means that the cars can achieve a lateral force with a magnitude
of up to 3.5 times that of the force of gravity
in cornering. Consequently, the driver's head is pulled sideways with a
force equivalent to the weight of 20 kg in corners. Such high lateral forces
are enough to make breathing difficult and the drivers need supreme
concentration and fitness to maintain their focus for the one to two hours that
it takes to complete the race. A high-performance road car like the Ferrari
Enzo only achieves around 1g.
As of 2015, each team may have no more than two cars
available for use at any time. Each driver may use no more than four engines
during a championship season unless he drives for more than one team. If more
engines are used, he drops ten places on the starting grid of the event at
which an additional engine is used. The only exception is where the engine is
provided by a manufacturer or supplier taking part in its first championship
season, in which case up to five may be used by a driver. Each driver may use
no more than one gearbox for six consecutive events; every unscheduled gearbox
change requires the driver to drop five places on the grid unless he failed to
finish the previous race due to reasons beyond the team's control.
Part Six coming soon...
Tipster Street.
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