Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperTrooper
F1 cars only have one securing nut per wheel. I could see a fixed center shaft with a rotating cylinder for the wheel. The cap is part of the wheel but moves separately and indexes itself on the shaft during tire changes. Wow, they just took a relatively simple and cheap part of the car and made 10 X more expensive and complex!
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It might be good for 0.1 second on a fast track... Therefore its a screamin' deal in the world of F1 to have it only cost 10X more than a normal hub!
F1 is kind of like space exploration, super expensive and nothing they do is immediately useful or practical. But eventually the technology trickles down to normal folks stuff.
Variable valve timing, turbo charging, super charging, variable intake manifolds, ABS, stability control, active suspension, advanced engine materials and design, brake materials, computer simulation, tire compounds, aerodynamics, and probably local weather prediction techniques have all been created or improved by F1 engineers or people hired by the teams. NASCAR is kind of the opposite, they have teams perfecting dead technology, carbs, restrictor plates, and solid rear axles probably aren't going to be put into regular cars anytime soon.
F1 is at a bit of a crossroads with trying to balance the cost of a team vs. good close entertaining races, vs. stifling innovation, they could go many different directions. I'm sure within a year they could have a car lapping faster with out a driver at all and in another few months have these cars racing wheel to wheel if the rules were changed that way. How long would it take to get that system into relatively dead slow passenger cars then? For a manufacturer cost of $500 each?
Ian