Sidepodcast

If I said that December 15th 2002 was a significant day in the history of Formula 1, you might struggle to recall why. If I also said that January 9th 2003 was an equally important day, you might start to believe I was losing my mind. That may well be true, but first a brief history lesson.

At the tail end of the 2002 season a certain Flavio Briatore was coming under pressure from his paymasters to bring some French blood into the team. The Renault brand had recently returned to the sport and there was an apparent desire to see an injection of national identity.

As the team’s test driver, Fernando Alonso, was being promoted to a race seat, an opening had appeared for such a talent, and Mr. Briatore opted to try two up-and-coming Frenchmen for the role. One was reigning Formula 3000 champion Sébastien Bourdais, while the other was the 2001 World Series champion Franck Montagny.

On the 15th December 2002 the two went head to head during a test at Jerez, and although Franck had previously got the better of Sébastien while they were team-mates in Formula 3, Seb managed to come out on top. He finished both ahead of Franck, and also in front of Fernando.

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• Length: 3:09 
• Size: 3.0 MB 
• File: guide6.mp3 
• Transcript: guide6.pdf 
• Torrent: guide6.torrent 

Welcome to the Sidepodcast Guide to Formula 1.

It’s all about going as fast as you possibly can and beating your opponents at all costs. But at high speeds, and with such delicate equipment, safety is an important part of the sport. From the basics of a helmet and gloves, to specifics like fireproof underwear are all there to protect the driver when things go wrong.

Your driver is sitting in the cockpit, often referred to as the tub, or survival cell. This is because the basics of a driver’s survival starts here. Constructed of carbon fibre, it is both light and strong. Crash structures are built into the front and rear of the cell along with the roll hoop whose job it is to protect the driver if the car rolls, hitting the ground before the driver’s helmet.

Keeping the driver in his seat is more than your average seat belt. It comprises of four belts joined by a central buckle, shoulders and hips, to ensure the driver is fixed securely. His most vulnerable part is probably the head and neck. Aptly, this is protected by then HANS system – head and neck support system. It’s a device that joins the driver’s torso to his helmet and it’s goal is to reduce the loadings to a driver’s head and neck during the rapid deceleration caused by an accident.

Moving away from the driver to the car, you’ll find on each wheel a restraint system, which prevents the tyre from flying off uncontrollably. As well as protecting the driver, this also protects marshals and spectators, as do run off areas and tyre walls. These are in place for when a car loses control and leaves the track. Smashing into a tyre wall greatly reduces speed and impact, and run-off areas provide a safe haven for an out of control car.

Before a car can even take to a track, it has to pass a number of mandatory FIA crash tests. These are similar to the crash tests your average road car goes through, to ensure that the structure can absorb a certain amount of force on impact. This guarantees a minimum level of safety for the driver.

Now we understand how a driver is protected, the last thing to cover in the area of safety, is what happens immediately after an accident on track. If the accident is relatively inconsequential, marshals will be asked to wave a yellow flag, indicating that drivers must slow down around the affected area. If the accident is more serious, the safety car can be deployed. During a race, the safety car is constantly on standby. So, a car may be stranded in a dangerous position on the track, in which case a safety car will be deployed to slow down the remaining racers. With the safety car deployed and the cars slowed behind it, marshals are able to clear an accident in relative safety so that the race can continue without further disruption. Cars remain queued up behind the safety car until stewards deem the course safe again, at which point the safety car peels into the pits and the cars resume racing when they reach the start / finish line.

Although it may seem quite a convoluted process, it’s important to keep your drivers running safely throughout the season.

Having covered all the basics of Formula 1, the last topic in our series will be how you can get to a race.

Theme music: Cedar Falls, Car Crash.

• Length: 2:58 
• Size: 2.8 MB 
• File: guide4.mp3 
• Transcript: guide4.pdf 
• Torrent: guide4.torrent 

Welcome to the Sidepodcast Guide to Formula 1.

A Formula 1 car is different to a regular road car. I mean, you know that already, because they make a lot more noise, they go a lot faster, and they look a lot different. But there’s more to it than that. There is an enormous amount of technology that goes into just getting an F1 car started, let alone maintaining it throughout a race.

The most important thing about a Formula 1 car is the aerodynamics. Hundreds of people make a living back at the factory, designing and testing new bits and pieces of the car to make it smoother through the air and thus faster on the track. What you basically need the F1 car to be is low to the ground, with as little disruption to the air flow as possible. Of course, at the high speeds the cars go, precautions need to be in place to stop the cars taking off, and that’s where the wings come in. Whereas aeroplane wings help get things skybound, F1 wings are designed to push the car into the ground.

The extra tenths that a good aero design can bring you will only be useful if you have the engine package in the car to go with it. With 7 gears, the engine and the car can get up to a top speed of 210mph, they produce about 800 brake horse power and can rev to 19,000rpm.

To control this much power, the drivers need some top technology at their fingertips. The steering wheel is small but holds an enormous amount of control, and is one of the most expensive items to be found on the car. Coming in at about $40,000, the wheel doesn’t just steer. It has paddle shift gear selection, can apply the pit lane speed limiter, contains an LCD screen with lap times, position and speed information displays, and lets the driver contact his crew with the radio. That’s why the steering wheel is the first thing a driver will grab for when he flies off the track.

A team has two drivers and each has their own car. The teams bring various spare parts with them to each race, front and back wings, replacement body parts, spare noses, and a spare engine. But if a car is beyond repair, then look no further than the T car – a spare for use in emergencies only.

All this equipment costs buckets and buckets of money. The majority of teams are backed by road car manufacturers, which means new technologies can be passed in either direction. The paddle shift gears was an F1 invention – and is now available as standard on some top range sports cars. It’s all supplemented by sponsors, and they are who really dictate what colours the cars are going to be. You can understand why Ferrari and Vodafone made such a great partnership, with their main brand colours both being red. With sponsor names scrawled across the bodywork, and all the nooks and crannies, angles and wings, F1 cars aren’t your normal kind of beauty. But they hold a certain fascination about them that will only grow the more you watch.

We’ve looked at all the good stuff about Formula 1, the next instalment will be about the rules.

Theme music: Cedar Falls, Car Crash.