October 10, 2025 • 15 mins
Formula 1's technological innovations transcend motorsport, transforming cars with aerodynamic advancements, hybrid engines, and safety features. Data analytics drive strategy through a digital ecosystem, while partnerships accelerate the trickle-down of these innovations to consumer vehicles, making F1 a hub for cutting-edge engineering breakthroughs...
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Okay. Welcome, everyone. We're doing another deep dive
(00:02):
today, and this time, we're going,
straight into the world of formula one, but
maybe not in the way you usually think
about it. Forget the drivers, the points battles
for a second. We are zeroing in purely
on the tech, the hidden side.
Our mission really is to get you completely
up to speed on f one's well, its
secret technological war. It's more than just racing.
(00:23):
It's like the ultimate r and d lab
on wheels. The analysis we read put it
perfectly. The technological war is fought on a
minuscule scale. It's all about tiny gains. You've
got teams throwing literally hundreds of millions into
research and development every single year. It's this
constant relentless cycle, always adapting to new rules,
always chasing that last thousandth of a second,
(00:44):
just relentless perfectionism.
Exactly. And what we wanna do is, break
down those massive technological jumps for you. Everything
from, you know, the mind bending aerodynamics and
those incredibly complex power units Yeah. Right through
to how they use data, the materials they
invent, and crucially show you how all this
extreme f one tech connects directly back to
the car you might be driving.
(01:05):
Yeah. We're hoping for a few
moments today. In fact, let's kick off with
two facts that just jumped out at us.
One, an f one car makes around 1,500
kilograms of downforce.
Think about that enough force to theoretically drive
it upside down. Upside down. And maybe even
crazier.
Those engines, little 1.6 liter turbos, they're hitting
(01:25):
over 50% thermal efficiency. That's that's groundbreaking. 50%.
That efficiency number is genuinely hard to grasp
for an engine. Okay. Let's start with the
spade, the arrow. That 1,500 kilos of downforce,
it doesn't just happen. That's gotta be thousands
upon thousands of hours shaping every surface. Right?
Oh, absolutely.
But here's the twist. The most important arrow
work, it's mostly invisible. We all see the
(01:47):
big wings front and rear. But the real
magic,
over 60% of the total downforce
is generated by the car's floor, the underbody.
60% from the floor. That feels backwards. How
how does the bottom of the car do
that? It all comes down to something called
ground effect. They use these incredibly complex tunnels
and diffusers under the car. It It was
actually banned for ages from the late seventies,
(02:08):
but it made this huge comeback with the
2022 rules. Essentially, you shape the floor to
make the air underneath the car speed up
dramatically.
Faster air means lower pressure, and that low
pressure zone literally sucks the car down onto
the track. Huge grip. Okay. Hold on. If
it was banned, surely it was dangerous. I
remember those old clips, cars literally getting airborne.
Why bring it back? Yeah. That's the key
(02:30):
question. The difference now is the tools they
have. Modern ground effect is designed using incredibly
powerful computational fluid dynamics,
CFD.
They can predict and control its behavior way
more accurately than back in the day. Plus,
there's a really important side benefit for the
racing itself. Which is. This new generation of
ground effect floors produces much less turbulent air
(02:52):
behind the car, less dirty air as they
call it. Ah, so cars can follow each
other more closely without losing all their own
downforce. Precisely.
Which means more potential for overtaking,
closer wheel to wheel action,
better racing, basically. It's a clever bit of
rulemaking,
balancing speed, safety, and the show. Okay. That
makes sense. Speaking of overtaking tools, we have
(03:13):
to mention DRS, the drag reduction system. That
flap on the rear wing opens up, gives
you maybe ten, twelve miles an hour extra
down the straight if you're close enough. Seems
simple enough. The concept is simple. Yeah. Open
a flap, reduce drag, go faster. But the
engineering behind it, doing that safely at over
200 miles an hour,
that must be tricky.
That's where the hidden complexity is. That flap
(03:34):
actuator, it has to snap open and, more
importantly, snap closed in milliseconds,
Like, blink and you miss its speed. Because
imagine breaking for a corner at top speed.
Right. You need maximum downforce instantly. Right. So
the system has multiple fail safes. The instant
the driver even touches the brakes, that wing
has to slam shut. No hesitation.
If it failed open while braking, well, catastrophic
(03:57):
loss of grip. It's a tiny component doing
a massive job. Incredible precision. And that precision,
that detail,
it feeds into the whole design race, doesn't
it? This balance between testing things physically and
testing them virtually. Absolutely.
Wind tunnel time is super restricted now. Top
teams might only get, what, eight hundred hours
a year? It sounds like a lot, but
in f one terms, it's tight. So they
(04:17):
have to rely more and more on the
simulations, the virtual world. It's exactly CFD is
king. Computational fluid dynamics. We're talking supercomputer
clusters,
running simulations with billions of data points, modeling
airflows in ways you just couldn't physically measure
easily.
And the really good teams, they can get
their virtual CFD results to match what the
(04:38):
car actually does on track with, like, over
95%
accuracy. 95%
correlation.
Virtual to real? Yeah. That's staggering.
Just shows how much development happens on screen
now before they even build a part. Okay.
That focus on efficiency, on simulation,
it leads perfectly into the power units. The
shift to these turbo hybrids after 2014,
(04:59):
that was maybe the biggest shakeup ever in
f one tech. Right? Suddenly using 35% less
fuel per race. Huge change. And the efficiency
numbers are, as we said, just wild. That
little 1.6 liter v six internal combustion engine
part Yeah. Hitting over 50% thermal efficiency. Your
average road car, maybe 30%, 35% on a
good day. They've pushed combustion tech to its
absolute limit. So how do they actually do
(05:20):
that? It's not just the engine. It's the
hybrid bits working together, isn't it? Totally. It's
the integration.
You've got two main electric motor generator units,
the MGUs. There's the MGU K that recovers
kinetic energy when the driver breaks, like regenerative
braking in an EV or hybrid but on
steroids. Yep. It can deploy about a 160
horsepower electrical. Okay. Standard hybrid stuff, just more
(05:40):
powerful. But the MGU h, that's the really
clever bit, the f one secret sauce. That's
the one. The MGU h is connected to
the turbocharger.
It recovers energy not from breaking, but from
waste heat in the exhaust gas. Mhmm. So
it's harvesting energy others just throw away. But
it does more than just generate electricity.
By precisely controlling the turbo speed
using that electric motor Mhmm. It completely eliminates
(06:04):
turbo lag. You get instant throttle response, which
drivers love. Right. And get this, it spins
at over a 100,000 RPM. The material science
to handle those speeds and the heat from
the exhaust, it's incredible. Ceramic bearings, exotic alloys
Wow. Aerospace stuff. Wow. Okay. That efficiency is
amazing, but it did lead to that whole
debate, didn't it? The sound versus the performance.
(06:24):
People missed the screaming v tens and v
eights. Yeah. The sound definitely changed.
But f one seems to be tackling that
head on with the next set of rules
for 2026.
Right. They're trying to find that balance. Keep
the hybrid tech because it's relevant,
but make it sound,
well, better. And they're boosting the electrical power
massively.
A 350
kilowatt electric motor that's nearly 470
(06:47):
horsepower just from the electric side, three times
what they have now. And significantly, they're mandating
100%
sustainable fuels,
net zero carbon
made either through carbon capture or from non
food sources like waste biomass. So f one
is positioning itself as a leader in that
sustainable tech transition too. It has to, really.
But Yeah. Managing all that complexity, the engine,
(07:08):
the bigger battery, the sustainable fuel, it all
comes down to one thing, data. The amount
of information flying around modern f one is
just
astronomical. Yeah. The cars aren't just cars anymore.
They're rolling data centers. What was the figure?
Over one and a half million data points
Yeah. Every second. Per car. Yeah. Coming from
more than 300 sensors measuring everything imaginable.
Tire pressures, temperatures, suspension loads, engine parameters, even
(07:31):
driver biometrics like heart rate. A million and
a half signals a second.
What on earth do they do with all
that in real time? It sounds like overload.
It feeds straight back to the pit wall
and often to a mission control center back
at the factory too. And it fuels the
strategy computers,
the pit wall these days. It's less about
guys looking at stopwatches and more like a
(07:51):
tech command hub. They run thousands of complex
simulations, Monte Carlo simulations every second, constantly updating
probabilities. Simulations for what? For strategy.
What's the optimal lap to pit? Which tire
compound is best? How much fuel do we
really need? It accounts for weather changes, safety
cars, what competitors are doing. It's this blend
(08:12):
of expert human strategists
interpreting outputs from incredible powerful computers. Decisions are
made based on probabilities calculated milliseconds before the
car even turns into the pit lane. So
the race can be won or lost right
there in the data stream? Often. Yes. And
it's not just race strategy. It's driver performance
too. Oh, so how does data make a
driver faster?
(08:32):
Well, every single thing the driver does, tiny
steering adjustments, how they apply the brakes when
they hit the throttle, it's all logged every
millisecond.
Then engineers compare that data to
theoretical optimal models or even to their teammates'
data. They can say, look, you're losing a
tenth of a second here because your brake
pressure peaks slightly too late.
It's objective feedback. It helps even the most
(08:54):
naturally gifted drivers find those tiny, almost imperceptible
areas to improve.
So you get this fusion,
raw talent refined by data. Amazing. Okay. Let's
shift gears a bit Mhmm. From pure speed
and data to maybe the most important area.
Safety. Absolutely vital. And, honestly, s one's biggest
tech wins aren't just lap times. They're measured
(09:14):
in lives saved. There's been a fundamental shift
from just reacting to crashes to actively preventing
injury. The halo is probably the most obvious
symbol of that. Right? That titanium structure over
the cockpit. Definitely. Introduced in 2018,
it faced some criticism initially for aesthetics, but
nobody argues now. Mhmm. It's about seven kilograms
of titanium, but it can withstand something like
12 tons of force Right. 12,000 kilos.
(09:37):
Incredible strength to weight. And it's already proven
its worth in multiple scary incidents. Now you
see it mandated in almost all single seater
racing. That tech transfer saves lives down the
ladder too. Beyond the halo, the whole car
structure is basically a survival cell, isn't it?
Oh, completely. They use aerospace techniques, carbon fiber
composites laid up in incredibly specific ways. The
(09:59):
idea is for the crash structures, the nose
cone, the side pods, the rear to fail
predictably,
to crumple and absorb enormous amounts of energy
in a controlled way during an impact.
That's how drivers can walk away from crashes
that register over 50 g's of deceleration,
forces that would otherwise be unsurvivable. 50 g's.
Just incredible engineering. And sometimes it's the simpler
(10:21):
things too, like the heinous s device head
and neck support. Right. The collar device they
wear. Yeah. Just a carbon fiber structure that
rests on the shoulders.
But it stops the head whipping forward violently
relative to the body in a crash.
It prevents those basilar skull fractures that sadly
claimed lives in the past. A relatively simple
concept,
massive safety impact. And there are software safety
(10:42):
systems too, like the virtual safety car. Yes.
The VSC. It's a clever digital solution.
Instead of deploying the actual safety car for
every minor incident on track Mhmm. Race control
can activate the VSC.
It electronically limits all the cars to a
much slower delta time, maybe 30 or 40%
slower than race base. Uh-huh. It keeps everyone
safe while marshals work,
(11:04):
But crucially, it maintains the time gaps between
the cars. So it doesn't artificially bunch up
the field like a full safety car can.
Mhmm. It's smarter, less disruptive. All this depends
on incredible precision in making the cars too,
doesn't it? The material science must be nuts.
Absolutely phenomenal. They control the thickness of carbon
fiber layers, the laminates, down to a hundredths
of a millimeter.
(11:25):
But maybe the biggest revolution in actually making
the parts recently has been three d printing,
additive manufacturing. How's that change things? Faster prototyping?
Massively faster.
Teams can design a new winglet or floor
modification in CFD,
three d print,
a version maybe in advanced polymers or even
metals, and have it on the car for
testing incredibly quickly. Days,
(11:46):
sometimes. And get this, the analysis we saw
mentioned, teams can even manufacture certain updated parts
at the racetrack using three d printers they
bring with them. Wow. Printing parts between sessions.
Yeah. Maybe a slightly revised brake duct or
a small arrow piece. It allows them to
react almost instantly if they discover an issue
or an opportunity. It helps level the playing
field a bit too, making rapid iteration more
(12:07):
accessible.
Okay. So we've covered the extreme tech on
the track. Now the payoff for the rest
of us, how does this f one wizardry
actually end up in, you know, the car
I drive? Is the link real? Oh, it's
absolutely real and probably more direct now than
it's ever been, especially with hybrids and EVs
becoming mainstream.
Think about those f one hybrid systems, the
MGUs,
(12:27):
developing those super efficient power dense electric motors
and the power electronics to control them. F
one pushed efficiencies over 98%.
That know how, those designs
directly inform the motors and inverters in today's
hybrid and electric road cars. Same for battery
thermal management, keeping batteries cool under extreme load
is vital in f one and vital in
your EV. Makes sense. And safety too, presumably.
(12:50):
Hugely important legacy.
Those early f one traction control systems, the
anti lock braking systems they experimented with, they
required sophisticated sensors and complex control algorithms.
Those very systems refined over decades are the
direct ancestors of the ABS, traction control, and
electronic stability control, ESC, that are standard on
virtually every car sold today. Systems we just
(13:12):
take for granted, but they started in f
one. Absolutely. And those systems save thousands of
lives on public roads every single year. That's
arguably f one's most significant contribution. You also
see it in things maybe we don't think
about as much like the driver interface. Good
point. Paddle shift gearboxes
seem completely normal now, right, on sports cars,
even regular automatics.
But they really traits their popularization
(13:33):
back to Ferrari's f one team in the
late nineteen eighties. That semi automatic paddle shift
was revolutionary then.
Now it's led to the super fast dual
clutch transmissions,
DCTs,
in many performance cars. So when you really
step back and look at it, f one
is this incredible convergence, isn't it? It's like
aerospace engineering meets supercomputing
meets material science, all focused on making a
(13:56):
car go faster, more efficiently, and more safely.
That 50% thermal efficiency still blows my mind.
It is a unique
technological pressure cooker,
and it just keeps accelerating. We mentioned how
much development is virtual now, maybe 80% for
some teams,
which leads to a really interesting, maybe slightly
unsettling
thought for the future.
(14:17):
A final thing for you, the listener, to
consider.
We know machine learning and AI are getting
exponentially better at predictive modeling.
What happens when the line between digital simulation
and real time control completely vanishes?
Imagine an f one car using advanced AI,
not just for pre race strategy, but to
actively adapt its own performance during the race.
(14:37):
Changing its aerodynamic setup slightly, tweaking energy deployment,
maybe even adjusting suspension settings corner by corner,
all in real time based not just on
track conditions, but on predicting what the car
ahead or behind is about to do. Cars
that think and adapt instantly during the race.
Wow. That can be the next technological battleground.
Completely unseen, fought in lines of code and
(14:57):
algorithms at millisecond speeds. Something to think about.
Fascinating.
And, yes, slightly terrifying thought to end on.
Thank you for joining us on this deep
dive into the incredible technology
underpinning formula one. Hopefully, the next time you
watch your Grand Prix, you'll see it with,
slightly different eyes. There's so much happening beneath
the surface.
Okay. Welcome, everyone. We're doing another deep dive
(00:02):
today, and this time, we're going,
straight into the world of formula one, but
maybe not in the way you usually think
about it. Forget the drivers, the points battles
for a second. We are zeroing in purely
on the tech, the hidden side.
Our mission really is to get you completely
up to speed on f one's well, its
secret technological war. It's more than just racing.
(00:23):
It's like the ultimate r and d lab
on wheels. The analysis we read put it
perfectly. The technological war is fought on a
minuscule scale. It's all about tiny gains. You've
got teams throwing literally hundreds of millions into
research and development every single year. It's this
constant relentless cycle, always adapting to new rules,
always chasing that last thousandth of a second,
(00:44):
just relentless perfectionism.
Exactly. And what we wanna do is, break
down those massive technological jumps for you. Everything
from, you know, the mind bending aerodynamics and
those incredibly complex power units Yeah. Right through
to how they use data, the materials they
invent, and crucially show you how all this
extreme f one tech connects directly back to
the car you might be driving.
(01:05):
Yeah. We're hoping for a few
moments today. In fact, let's kick off with
two facts that just jumped out at us.
One, an f one car makes around 1,500
kilograms of downforce.
Think about that enough force to theoretically drive
it upside down. Upside down. And maybe even
crazier.
Those engines, little 1.6 liter turbos, they're hitting
(01:25):
over 50% thermal efficiency. That's that's groundbreaking. 50%.
That efficiency number is genuinely hard to grasp
for an engine. Okay. Let's start with the
spade, the arrow. That 1,500 kilos of downforce,
it doesn't just happen. That's gotta be thousands
upon thousands of hours shaping every surface. Right?
Oh, absolutely.
But here's the twist. The most important arrow
work, it's mostly invisible. We all see the
(01:47):
big wings front and rear. But the real
magic,
over 60% of the total downforce
is generated by the car's floor, the underbody.
60% from the floor. That feels backwards. How
how does the bottom of the car do
that? It all comes down to something called
ground effect. They use these incredibly complex tunnels
and diffusers under the car. It It was
actually banned for ages from the late seventies,
(02:08):
but it made this huge comeback with the
2022 rules. Essentially, you shape the floor to
make the air underneath the car speed up
dramatically.
Faster air means lower pressure, and that low
pressure zone literally sucks the car down onto
the track. Huge grip. Okay. Hold on. If
it was banned, surely it was dangerous. I
remember those old clips, cars literally getting airborne.
Why bring it back? Yeah. That's the key
(02:30):
question. The difference now is the tools they
have. Modern ground effect is designed using incredibly
powerful computational fluid dynamics,
CFD.
They can predict and control its behavior way
more accurately than back in the day. Plus,
there's a really important side benefit for the
racing itself. Which is. This new generation of
ground effect floors produces much less turbulent air
(02:52):
behind the car, less dirty air as they
call it. Ah, so cars can follow each
other more closely without losing all their own
downforce. Precisely.
Which means more potential for overtaking,
closer wheel to wheel action,
better racing, basically. It's a clever bit of
rulemaking,
balancing speed, safety, and the show. Okay. That
makes sense. Speaking of overtaking tools, we have
(03:13):
to mention DRS, the drag reduction system. That
flap on the rear wing opens up, gives
you maybe ten, twelve miles an hour extra
down the straight if you're close enough. Seems
simple enough. The concept is simple. Yeah. Open
a flap, reduce drag, go faster. But the
engineering behind it, doing that safely at over
200 miles an hour,
that must be tricky.
That's where the hidden complexity is. That flap
(03:34):
actuator, it has to snap open and, more
importantly, snap closed in milliseconds,
Like, blink and you miss its speed. Because
imagine breaking for a corner at top speed.
Right. You need maximum downforce instantly. Right. So
the system has multiple fail safes. The instant
the driver even touches the brakes, that wing
has to slam shut. No hesitation.
If it failed open while braking, well, catastrophic
(03:57):
loss of grip. It's a tiny component doing
a massive job. Incredible precision. And that precision,
that detail,
it feeds into the whole design race, doesn't
it? This balance between testing things physically and
testing them virtually. Absolutely.
Wind tunnel time is super restricted now. Top
teams might only get, what, eight hundred hours
a year? It sounds like a lot, but
in f one terms, it's tight. So they
(04:17):
have to rely more and more on the
simulations, the virtual world. It's exactly CFD is
king. Computational fluid dynamics. We're talking supercomputer
clusters,
running simulations with billions of data points, modeling
airflows in ways you just couldn't physically measure
easily.
And the really good teams, they can get
their virtual CFD results to match what the
(04:38):
car actually does on track with, like, over
95%
accuracy. 95%
correlation.
Virtual to real? Yeah. That's staggering.
Just shows how much development happens on screen
now before they even build a part. Okay.
That focus on efficiency, on simulation,
it leads perfectly into the power units. The
shift to these turbo hybrids after 2014,
(04:59):
that was maybe the biggest shakeup ever in
f one tech. Right? Suddenly using 35% less
fuel per race. Huge change. And the efficiency
numbers are, as we said, just wild. That
little 1.6 liter v six internal combustion engine
part Yeah. Hitting over 50% thermal efficiency. Your
average road car, maybe 30%, 35% on a
good day. They've pushed combustion tech to its
absolute limit. So how do they actually do
(05:20):
that? It's not just the engine. It's the
hybrid bits working together, isn't it? Totally. It's
the integration.
You've got two main electric motor generator units,
the MGUs. There's the MGU K that recovers
kinetic energy when the driver breaks, like regenerative
braking in an EV or hybrid but on
steroids. Yep. It can deploy about a 160
horsepower electrical. Okay. Standard hybrid stuff, just more
(05:40):
powerful. But the MGU h, that's the really
clever bit, the f one secret sauce. That's
the one. The MGU h is connected to
the turbocharger.
It recovers energy not from breaking, but from
waste heat in the exhaust gas. Mhmm. So
it's harvesting energy others just throw away. But
it does more than just generate electricity.
By precisely controlling the turbo speed
using that electric motor Mhmm. It completely eliminates
(06:04):
turbo lag. You get instant throttle response, which
drivers love. Right. And get this, it spins
at over a 100,000 RPM. The material science
to handle those speeds and the heat from
the exhaust, it's incredible. Ceramic bearings, exotic alloys
Wow. Aerospace stuff. Wow. Okay. That efficiency is
amazing, but it did lead to that whole
debate, didn't it? The sound versus the performance.
(06:24):
People missed the screaming v tens and v
eights. Yeah. The sound definitely changed.
But f one seems to be tackling that
head on with the next set of rules
for 2026.
Right. They're trying to find that balance. Keep
the hybrid tech because it's relevant,
but make it sound,
well, better. And they're boosting the electrical power
massively.
A 350
kilowatt electric motor that's nearly 470
(06:47):
horsepower just from the electric side, three times
what they have now. And significantly, they're mandating
100%
sustainable fuels,
net zero carbon
made either through carbon capture or from non
food sources like waste biomass. So f one
is positioning itself as a leader in that
sustainable tech transition too. It has to, really.
But Yeah. Managing all that complexity, the engine,
(07:08):
the bigger battery, the sustainable fuel, it all
comes down to one thing, data. The amount
of information flying around modern f one is
just
astronomical. Yeah. The cars aren't just cars anymore.
They're rolling data centers. What was the figure?
Over one and a half million data points
Yeah. Every second. Per car. Yeah. Coming from
more than 300 sensors measuring everything imaginable.
Tire pressures, temperatures, suspension loads, engine parameters, even
(07:31):
driver biometrics like heart rate. A million and
a half signals a second.
What on earth do they do with all
that in real time? It sounds like overload.
It feeds straight back to the pit wall
and often to a mission control center back
at the factory too. And it fuels the
strategy computers,
the pit wall these days. It's less about
guys looking at stopwatches and more like a
(07:51):
tech command hub. They run thousands of complex
simulations, Monte Carlo simulations every second, constantly updating
probabilities. Simulations for what? For strategy.
What's the optimal lap to pit? Which tire
compound is best? How much fuel do we
really need? It accounts for weather changes, safety
cars, what competitors are doing. It's this blend
(08:12):
of expert human strategists
interpreting outputs from incredible powerful computers. Decisions are
made based on probabilities calculated milliseconds before the
car even turns into the pit lane. So
the race can be won or lost right
there in the data stream? Often. Yes. And
it's not just race strategy. It's driver performance
too. Oh, so how does data make a
driver faster?
(08:32):
Well, every single thing the driver does, tiny
steering adjustments, how they apply the brakes when
they hit the throttle, it's all logged every
millisecond.
Then engineers compare that data to
theoretical optimal models or even to their teammates'
data. They can say, look, you're losing a
tenth of a second here because your brake
pressure peaks slightly too late.
It's objective feedback. It helps even the most
(08:54):
naturally gifted drivers find those tiny, almost imperceptible
areas to improve.
So you get this fusion,
raw talent refined by data. Amazing. Okay. Let's
shift gears a bit Mhmm. From pure speed
and data to maybe the most important area.
Safety. Absolutely vital. And, honestly, s one's biggest
tech wins aren't just lap times. They're measured
(09:14):
in lives saved. There's been a fundamental shift
from just reacting to crashes to actively preventing
injury. The halo is probably the most obvious
symbol of that. Right? That titanium structure over
the cockpit. Definitely. Introduced in 2018,
it faced some criticism initially for aesthetics, but
nobody argues now. Mhmm. It's about seven kilograms
of titanium, but it can withstand something like
12 tons of force Right. 12,000 kilos.
(09:37):
Incredible strength to weight. And it's already proven
its worth in multiple scary incidents. Now you
see it mandated in almost all single seater
racing. That tech transfer saves lives down the
ladder too. Beyond the halo, the whole car
structure is basically a survival cell, isn't it?
Oh, completely. They use aerospace techniques, carbon fiber
composites laid up in incredibly specific ways. The
(09:59):
idea is for the crash structures, the nose
cone, the side pods, the rear to fail
predictably,
to crumple and absorb enormous amounts of energy
in a controlled way during an impact.
That's how drivers can walk away from crashes
that register over 50 g's of deceleration,
forces that would otherwise be unsurvivable. 50 g's.
Just incredible engineering. And sometimes it's the simpler
(10:21):
things too, like the heinous s device head
and neck support. Right. The collar device they
wear. Yeah. Just a carbon fiber structure that
rests on the shoulders.
But it stops the head whipping forward violently
relative to the body in a crash.
It prevents those basilar skull fractures that sadly
claimed lives in the past. A relatively simple
concept,
massive safety impact. And there are software safety
(10:42):
systems too, like the virtual safety car. Yes.
The VSC. It's a clever digital solution.
Instead of deploying the actual safety car for
every minor incident on track Mhmm. Race control
can activate the VSC.
It electronically limits all the cars to a
much slower delta time, maybe 30 or 40%
slower than race base. Uh-huh. It keeps everyone
safe while marshals work,
(11:04):
But crucially, it maintains the time gaps between
the cars. So it doesn't artificially bunch up
the field like a full safety car can.
Mhmm. It's smarter, less disruptive. All this depends
on incredible precision in making the cars too,
doesn't it? The material science must be nuts.
Absolutely phenomenal. They control the thickness of carbon
fiber layers, the laminates, down to a hundredths
of a millimeter.
(11:25):
But maybe the biggest revolution in actually making
the parts recently has been three d printing,
additive manufacturing. How's that change things? Faster prototyping?
Massively faster.
Teams can design a new winglet or floor
modification in CFD,
three d print,
a version maybe in advanced polymers or even
metals, and have it on the car for
testing incredibly quickly. Days,
(11:46):
sometimes. And get this, the analysis we saw
mentioned, teams can even manufacture certain updated parts
at the racetrack using three d printers they
bring with them. Wow. Printing parts between sessions.
Yeah. Maybe a slightly revised brake duct or
a small arrow piece. It allows them to
react almost instantly if they discover an issue
or an opportunity. It helps level the playing
field a bit too, making rapid iteration more
(12:07):
accessible.
Okay. So we've covered the extreme tech on
the track. Now the payoff for the rest
of us, how does this f one wizardry
actually end up in, you know, the car
I drive? Is the link real? Oh, it's
absolutely real and probably more direct now than
it's ever been, especially with hybrids and EVs
becoming mainstream.
Think about those f one hybrid systems, the
MGUs,
(12:27):
developing those super efficient power dense electric motors
and the power electronics to control them. F
one pushed efficiencies over 98%.
That know how, those designs
directly inform the motors and inverters in today's
hybrid and electric road cars. Same for battery
thermal management, keeping batteries cool under extreme load
is vital in f one and vital in
your EV. Makes sense. And safety too, presumably.
(12:50):
Hugely important legacy.
Those early f one traction control systems, the
anti lock braking systems they experimented with, they
required sophisticated sensors and complex control algorithms.
Those very systems refined over decades are the
direct ancestors of the ABS, traction control, and
electronic stability control, ESC, that are standard on
virtually every car sold today. Systems we just
(13:12):
take for granted, but they started in f
one. Absolutely. And those systems save thousands of
lives on public roads every single year. That's
arguably f one's most significant contribution. You also
see it in things maybe we don't think
about as much like the driver interface. Good
point. Paddle shift gearboxes
seem completely normal now, right, on sports cars,
even regular automatics.
But they really traits their popularization
(13:33):
back to Ferrari's f one team in the
late nineteen eighties. That semi automatic paddle shift
was revolutionary then.
Now it's led to the super fast dual
clutch transmissions,
DCTs,
in many performance cars. So when you really
step back and look at it, f one
is this incredible convergence, isn't it? It's like
aerospace engineering meets supercomputing
meets material science, all focused on making a
(13:56):
car go faster, more efficiently, and more safely.
That 50% thermal efficiency still blows my mind.
It is a unique
technological pressure cooker,
and it just keeps accelerating. We mentioned how
much development is virtual now, maybe 80% for
some teams,
which leads to a really interesting, maybe slightly
unsettling
thought for the future.
(14:17):
A final thing for you, the listener, to
consider.
We know machine learning and AI are getting
exponentially better at predictive modeling.
What happens when the line between digital simulation
and real time control completely vanishes?
Imagine an f one car using advanced AI,
not just for pre race strategy, but to
actively adapt its own performance during the race.
(14:37):
Changing its aerodynamic setup slightly, tweaking energy deployment,
maybe even adjusting suspension settings corner by corner,
all in real time based not just on
track conditions, but on predicting what the car
ahead or behind is about to do. Cars
that think and adapt instantly during the race.
Wow. That can be the next technological battleground.
Completely unseen, fought in lines of code and
(14:57):
algorithms at millisecond speeds. Something to think about.
Fascinating.
And, yes, slightly terrifying thought to end on.
Thank you for joining us on this deep
dive into the incredible technology
underpinning formula one. Hopefully, the next time you
watch your Grand Prix, you'll see it with,
slightly different eyes. There's so much happening beneath
the surface.
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