Brakes to help overtaking
Discussion
F1 was once very niche - and very poor. It cost money to take part in it and there was no real financial incentive to be a participant .
That changed in the 70s and on into the early 2000s as a huge mass market evolved - almost exclusively down to widespread, extensive and virtually free TV coverage.
The switch to restricted TV coverage obviously reverses this path. Whether it serves F1 better in the long run remains to be seen.
That changed in the 70s and on into the early 2000s as a huge mass market evolved - almost exclusively down to widespread, extensive and virtually free TV coverage.
The switch to restricted TV coverage obviously reverses this path. Whether it serves F1 better in the long run remains to be seen.
The viewers on YouTube are counted I seem to remember.
3m+ views of the highlights after Bahrain, with about double that with other aspects of it on F1 YT channel. Last year's race has 6m+ hits.
These are counted, despite seeming to be rather low, but if these stand for all 21 races we get a total of 21 x 6m (do it yourself).
That's English speaking TV. I assume there will be Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, French and German ones as well.
All of a sudden we are getting totals of nearing 200m even without TV. OK, so the highlights are <10 mins but people are looking.
I wonder if they count the bootleg versions. If so, then there's you 350m.
I've just checked my YT channel. I've got 1.7k views on a short video I posted on F1.
3m+ views of the highlights after Bahrain, with about double that with other aspects of it on F1 YT channel. Last year's race has 6m+ hits.
These are counted, despite seeming to be rather low, but if these stand for all 21 races we get a total of 21 x 6m (do it yourself).
That's English speaking TV. I assume there will be Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, French and German ones as well.
All of a sudden we are getting totals of nearing 200m even without TV. OK, so the highlights are <10 mins but people are looking.
I wonder if they count the bootleg versions. If so, then there's you 350m.
I've just checked my YT channel. I've got 1.7k views on a short video I posted on F1.
Edited by Derek Smith on Thursday 16th May 16:09
coppice said:
markcoznottz said:
They tried steel brakes years ago, made no difference.
Yup, they all trot that story out and yet nobody is very convincing about out .Makes one wonder why they switched to carbon in the first place . OK , they are lighter, but , aided by huge aero downforce , they are better too. Safety ? Oh God, not that tired old argument - much used by F1 people as the ;last resort to oppose anything they don't like , when they can't think of any other reasons . I struggle to see how having brakes that stop a car from 180mph in 100m are inherently safer than ones which take 15m longer - it isn't as though a child is going to run across the track in front of them ...
Edited by coppice on Thursday 16th May 07:06
markcoznottz said:
It was a Williams I believe. I used to watch early 00's champ cars on road courses with steel brakes, 750+Bhp monsters they never seemed short of braking power.
From my road car history I can say there is no real difference in steel/carbon-ceramic in terms of ultimate braking force. It's all about temperature, and the ability to not fade - pretty crucial given how hard they work in an F1 race. The weight thing is also quite relevant, as although the weight saving is minimal, it's in a crucial place. The more weight is removed from sprung elements, the faster the suspension can react - hence push-rod suspension being developed and used universally.Actually, my latest car has steels, because they actually perform far better at normal road breaking temperatures. This is why in F1, behind a safety car, the drivers complain about the brakes switching off. With real track performance brakes, until you reach the operating temperature, all you have is a spongy pedal and less brake performance than a basic steel setup. They're still 4 pot Brembo's and large rotors so they still take longer to warm up and feel 'bitey' compared to a standard car though. The exotic carbon-ceramic brakes were imo almost dangerous in road driving, unless you started each trip on a b-road to perform a couple of 100mph >20mph decelerations just to wake them up. Also, they squeaked endlessly!
I doubt steel brakes could cope with modern F1 use. Not unless they were larger to dissipate the heat faster, in turn forcing a larger wheel. As it happens, they are pushing for far larger wheels in the 2021 regs, mostly to restrict vortex generating aero and add more mechanical grip I think. But possibly also to make steel brakes feasible again - which would be fully inline with the overall cost saving intent.
Personally, based on my own road use experience, I would say that if carbon-ceramic brakes should exist anywhere, it should be in F1, and Aeroplanes.
F1 cars don't use carbon-ceramic brakes. They are carbon-carbon, much lighter again than road brakes, and run even hotter.
Williams tried steel brakes (actually iron, as are all 'steel' brake discs, if we want to be pedantic) on Alex Zanardi's car in 1999. He had just migrated back from Indycar (CART) where they used iron brakes, and he was struggling with the pedal feel of F1 carbon brakes. Williams found the change in material had no measurable affect on braking performance, but were heavier. Zanardi was fired after only one season of his three ear contract, and went back to CART, where he had his horrific accident the very next season.
The change in wheel diameter is nothing to do with aero, grip or brakes. Most F1 engineers don't want to make the change. It's all driven by marketing. Nobody uses small rims with tall sidewalls on new cars anymore, so the tyre companies want to be more 'road-relevant' and force F1 to use a bigger, lower profile tyre so that the average man on the street in his pimped X5 on dubs can relate more to it. It will be interesting to see what brake solution F1 comes up with, as the current brake setup will look a little lost inside the bigger rim, much like most road cars with oversized wheels.
Williams tried steel brakes (actually iron, as are all 'steel' brake discs, if we want to be pedantic) on Alex Zanardi's car in 1999. He had just migrated back from Indycar (CART) where they used iron brakes, and he was struggling with the pedal feel of F1 carbon brakes. Williams found the change in material had no measurable affect on braking performance, but were heavier. Zanardi was fired after only one season of his three ear contract, and went back to CART, where he had his horrific accident the very next season.
The change in wheel diameter is nothing to do with aero, grip or brakes. Most F1 engineers don't want to make the change. It's all driven by marketing. Nobody uses small rims with tall sidewalls on new cars anymore, so the tyre companies want to be more 'road-relevant' and force F1 to use a bigger, lower profile tyre so that the average man on the street in his pimped X5 on dubs can relate more to it. It will be interesting to see what brake solution F1 comes up with, as the current brake setup will look a little lost inside the bigger rim, much like most road cars with oversized wheels.
thegreenhell said:
F1 cars don't use carbon-ceramic brakes. They are carbon-carbon, much lighter again than road brakes, and run even hotter.
Williams tried steel brakes (actually iron, as are all 'steel' brake discs, if we want to be pedantic) on Alex Zanardi's car in 1999. He had just migrated back from Indycar (CART) where they used iron brakes, and he was struggling with the pedal feel of F1 carbon brakes. Williams found the change in material had no measurable affect on braking performance, but were heavier. Zanardi was fired after only one season of his three ear contract, and went back to CART, where he had his horrific accident the very next season.
The change in wheel diameter is nothing to do with aero, grip or brakes. Most F1 engineers don't want to make the change. It's all driven by marketing. Nobody uses small rims with tall sidewalls on new cars anymore, so the tyre companies want to be more 'road-relevant' and force F1 to use a bigger, lower profile tyre so that the average man on the street in his pimped X5 on dubs can relate more to it. It will be interesting to see what brake solution F1 comes up with, as the current brake setup will look a little lost inside the bigger rim, much like most road cars with oversized wheels.
Ok, carbon - carbon, accepted. But the same applies pretty much. It's about temperature management. Williams said no difference in performance to steel, and in a way that's true - as I said in the previous post. But in terms of longevity in a race, there certainly is a difference. There must have been another factor at play if they didn't suffer from brake fade using steels. To get steel to last a race, they must have increased the mass of the rotor. It's beyond question that carbon handles heat better, and dissipates faster than steel.Williams tried steel brakes (actually iron, as are all 'steel' brake discs, if we want to be pedantic) on Alex Zanardi's car in 1999. He had just migrated back from Indycar (CART) where they used iron brakes, and he was struggling with the pedal feel of F1 carbon brakes. Williams found the change in material had no measurable affect on braking performance, but were heavier. Zanardi was fired after only one season of his three ear contract, and went back to CART, where he had his horrific accident the very next season.
The change in wheel diameter is nothing to do with aero, grip or brakes. Most F1 engineers don't want to make the change. It's all driven by marketing. Nobody uses small rims with tall sidewalls on new cars anymore, so the tyre companies want to be more 'road-relevant' and force F1 to use a bigger, lower profile tyre so that the average man on the street in his pimped X5 on dubs can relate more to it. It will be interesting to see what brake solution F1 comes up with, as the current brake setup will look a little lost inside the bigger rim, much like most road cars with oversized wheels.
I think it's also true to say that a larger diameter wheel will increase the contact patch which can only help with mechanical grip, and would allow space for larger rotors, and potentially as a result, steel brakes. In fact, as you say, the current brakes would look lost. But then there is the issue of sprung weight - I don't think any team is going to want to swap carbon for steel in such a sensitive area.
I'm not going to say that a major driving factor of the larger wheels isn't road car relevance, because that's always a factor. But it would also neatly help improve mechanical grip, it would be far harder to effectively channel air around the larger wheels, and it would allow a larger, cheaper and less exotic brake solution.
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