Facts About Formula-1 Racing Cars
Received: June 24, 2004

1. An F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, if it were assembled 99.9% correctly, it would still start the race with 80 things wrong!
2. Formula 1 cars have over a kilometer of cable, linked to about 100 sensors and actuators which monitor and control many parts of the car.
3. An F1 car can go from 0 to 160 km/hour AND back to 0 in FOUR seconds!!!!!!!
4. F1 car engines last only for about 2 hours of racing mostly before blowing up on the other hand we expect our engines to last us for a decent 20 years on an average and they quite faithfully DO.... that's the extent to which the engines are pushed to perform.
5. When an F1 driver hits the brakes on his car he experiences retardation or deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a BRICK wall at 300 km/hour!!!
6. An average F1 driver looses about 4kgs of weight after just one race due to the prolonged exposure to high G-forces and temperatures for little over an hour (Yeah that's right!!!)
7. At 550kg a F1 car is less than half the weight of a Mini.
8. In an F1 car the engine typically revs up to 18000 RPM, (the piston traveling up and down 300 times a second!!) whereas typical car rev only up to 6000 rpm at max. That's 3 times slower.
9. The brake discs in an F1 car have an operating temperature of approx 1000 degrees Centigrade and they attain that temp while braking before almost every turn... that is why they are not made of steel but of carbon fiber which is much more harder and resistant to wear and tear and most of all has a higher melting point.
10. If a water hose were to blow off, the complete cooling system would empty in just over a second.
11. Gear cogs or ratios are used only for one race, and are replaced regularly to prevent failure, as they are subjected to very high degrees of stress.
12. The fit in the cockpit is so tight that the steering wheel must be removed for the driver to get in or out of the car. A small latch behind the wheel releases it from the column. Levers or paddles for changing gear are located on the back of the wheel. So no gear stick! The clutch levers are also on the steering wheel, located below the gear paddles.
13. To give you an idea of just how important aerodynamic design and added down force can be, small planes can take off at slower speeds than F1 cars travel on the track.
14. Without aerodynamic down force, high-performance racing cars have sufficient power to produce wheel spin and loss of control at 160 km/hour. They usually race at over 300 km/hour.
15. The amount of aerodynamic down force produced by the front and rear wings and the car underbody is amazing. Once the car is traveling over 160 km/hour, an F1 car can generate enough down force to equal it's own weight. That means it could actually hold itself to the CEILING of a tunnel and drive UPSIDE down!
16. In a street course race like the Monaco grand prix, the down force provides enough suction to lift manhole covers. Before the race all of the manhole covers on the streets have to be welded down to prevent this from happening!
17. The re-fuelers used in F1 can supply 12 liters of fuel per second. This means it would take just 4 seconds to fill the tank of an average 50 liter family car. They use the same refueling rigs used on US military helicopters today.
18. Top F1 pit crews can refuel and change tires in around 3 seconds.
19. Race car tires don't have air in them like normal car tires. Most racing tires have nitrogen in the tires because nitrogen has a more consistent pressure compared to normal air. Air typically contains varying amounts of water vapor in it, which affects its expansion and contraction as a function of temperature, making the tire pressure unpredictable.
20. During the race the tires lose weight! Each tire loses about 0.5 kg in weight due to wear.
21. Normal tires last 60,000 - 100,000 km. Racing tires are designed  to last 90 - 120 km.
22. A dry-weather F1 tire reaches peak operating performance (best grip) when tread temperature is between 900�C and 1200�C. (Water boils at 100�C remember) At top speed, F1 tires rotate 50 times a second.