Competition in general and F1 in particular are the engine of innovation for the cars we regularly drive, although sometimes these improvements take time to arrive for reasons of price or large-scale manufacturing. Below we learn about some of the technologies used in Formula 1 and that have been incorporated into the car that you drive on a daily basis.
F1, a testing laboratory for your car
Because if; There are numerous aspects of our road car where the technological or safety advances that the teams develop in Formula 1 are felt, creating an influence. Something essential for some brands when it comes to justifying the investment in their competition departments.
In those, as you know, Formula 1 is not only the queen of motor sport in the world. It is also a testing laboratory where many brands innovate with technologies that years later end up in street cars. Greater power, efficiency, safety…
It’s more; Almost everything that is put in place to ensure the safety and smooth running of racing often comes to us in the form of the latest developments in the automobile industry. Did you know, for example, that things like rearview mirrors, rigid suspensions, and even touchscreen steering wheels began to be pushed to their limits before being teleported into our car?
They are all perfected technologies
And this is not something new, far from it. It’s a story that goes back in time, from Ford and Chevrolet to Ferrari and Porsche to Mercedes, in which every automaker has been involved in competitive motorsport at some point.
But why do they do it? In part, because of the exposure, since the races satisfy the need of the brands to show themselves to the world for an entire weekend. But the truth is that the exhibition -by itself- does not sell cars or justify the millions of dollars invested there. In addition to marketing, manufacturers have used racing as a testing laboratory, and modern cars benefit from technology perfected over decades of competition. Some tests and adjustments that have made the car we drive every day better and better.
V-engines
The V-engine was first introduced by Ferrari in the 1980s. Since then, it has been tried in quite a few performance-focused vehicles, including the Mercedes-AMG GT S and the Porsche Panamera. Unlike conventional engine blocks, this one has ports that point inwards , towards the centerline of the block, with the turbocharger splitting on either side. It’s an interesting take, but one that’s not without its problems.
With a highly complex engine configuration, the technology is only suitable for high-class cars . Plus, it’s hard to maintain, unless of course you have a pit crew to monitor and make all sorts of adjustments.
Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS)
Anti-lock brakes (ABS) were more commonly used on airplanes than cars. Dunlop’s Maxaret system had a genuine reach : from passenger aircraft to Britain’s ‘V-Force’ nuclear bombers.
We go all the way back to 1961, when a variation of the system was fitted to the F1 Ferguson P99, which was later introduced to the city car. Of course, the model, which also had an all-wheel drive system , was not very successful in the car series. He only won one race and his driver, Stirling Moss , didn’t even use ABS, preferring to brake the old-fashioned way. The Jensen Interceptor FF equipped the formula soon after, but the idea was not successful or less accepted for decades.
active suspension
We also have the technology of active suspension, which went from F1 to our usual car in a short time where, back in the early nineties, Williams presented itself with a single-seater, which, as many said, made the single-seater dance .
In short, what the car did was raise, rather balance the bodywork to avoid drifting in curves, all thanks to an electronic control unit and electro-hydraulic shock absorbers . Thus, what it does is allow the vehicle to adjust the level of its chassis depending on the track conditions, offering greater traction and performance in the curves. Active suspensions are now widely used in modern vehicles and are a prime example of technology that was pioneered on the circuit before being introduced to conventional vehicles.
Electronic injection
Unlike conventional mechanical systems, electronic injection is controlled by the engine control unit, allowing the amount of fuel entering the cylinders to be dosed depending on the driver’s power requirement.
In addition, emissions of polluting agents are also reduced. In general, it greatly increases the efficiency of current engines. As a curiosity, the electronic injection was already seen briefly in classic cars, such as the Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing thanks to Bosch.
Brake discs… and carbon
In the 1950s, F1 engineers realized that the disc brakes used in the car offered much better performance than drum brakes. Soon the former, whose cooling capacity and efficiency were much higher, retired the latter.
Today the brakes of single-seaters are equipped with carbon-carbon discs , which may one day reach our utility vehicles. At the moment, in addition, some sports cars mount the carbon ones introduced by the Brabham team in 1979. Their durability is five times higher than conventional ones, although their price is much higher, of course.
Hybrid drive systems
Hybrid cars are becoming more popular due to their low fuel consumption and because they are not as bad for the climate as conventional vehicles. As part of this, F1 also configured the competition to a technology that is still widely used.
A very functional bet that has been used since the 2014 season, in which hybrid propulsion systems became an absolute requirement, where from then on both the engines and teams from Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault first, as well as Honda later, the they introduced Energy recovered from heat and through spent braking energy is stored in a lithium-ion battery, giving riders more power as needed.