Catch the F1 Fever!

Last Sunday the Indian Grand Prix took place at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida (near Delhi). 12 teams with 2 cars each landed in Delhi to bring to us what can arguably be described as the most evolved species of automobiles on the planet. Taming a Formula 1 car is no easy task for its driver. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 km in under 2 seconds. At sharp corners the driver can experience lateral forces of up to 5 times the force of gravity. The temperature in the cockpit of the car often exceeds 80 degrees Celsius. This means an F1 driver can lose up to 8 kg of body weight by the end of a 2 hour race. He has to change gears nearly 5000 times during a race weekend. And of course, he is expected to overtake his competitors, even at speeds of 340 km/hr. Equally challenging is the pit crew’s job. They’re expected to change the car’s tyres (which operate optimally at a 1000 degrees Celsius) in less than 3 seconds. A few years ago they would use fuel pumps which would inject fuel into car at the rate of 12 litres per second. This is hard and dangerous in equal parts, because the speed in the pit lane is ‘limited’ to 80 (sometimes 100) km/hr. imagine working a job where cars the size of lorries approach you at 80 km/hr, and then brake hard to stop just inches away from you!  

While Formula 1 is known to be a fast, dangerous and expensive sport (the average lifetime cost of a F1 car is £4.76 million – about Rs. 41 crores), its contribution to the world of technology is grossly underrated. In this blog-post we’ll try and explain how the technology used in Formula 1 cars is being used in ways most of us wouldn’t think was possible.

Innovations in the sport of F1 have always been employed to benefit road cars. Perhaps the clearest example is the disc brake, pioneered by Jaguar in 1953. The carbon fibre developed to make F1 cars light (they currently weigh about 550 kg) is used to make racing bikes, some of which were used in this year’s London Olympics. Semi-automatic gearboxes were first introduced by Ferrari, who used them in their F1 cars in the 1989 season. The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) currently used in F1 cars uses the heat energy produced when the brakes are applied and stores in the form of electric energy. This is later used to give the cars an extra boost of energy. This makes cars both fuel-efficient and environment-friendly.

All these innovations, however, are only limited to the world of automobile technology. Technical innovations in the sport have also been used in, among others, fields like healthcare.

Recently, in the UK, an infant with a heart condition needed to get to a particular hospital in less than 4 hours. A helicopter was available, but the infant had to be kept in an incubator. Traditional incubators were too heavy for a helicopter. A special ‘baby-pod’, weighing just 9 kg (a normal incubator weighs 120 kg) was used. The material, ventilator, shock absorbers and heating pad of the pod were directly derived from F1 technology. These pods, currently only 20 in number, have saved hundreds of lives in the last few months.

Another new cutting-edge technology is the McLaren Team’s advanced telemetry system, which uses sensors to monitor data feeds and thus enable real-time strategy and decision making. This technology is now being used to monitor people instead of cars. It has already been used to train UK athletes in a number of Olympic disciplines - for instance, in canoeing.

McLaren's miniature sensors go inside the paddle, so every time an athlete applies force on the water, the sensor measures it and transmits the data back to see how fast the boat is going. This instant feedback helps athletes make more informed decisions about when to rest and how to change techniques, thus accelerating their rate of development - and increasing their chances of success in competitions. Similarly, patients suffering from a medical condition can attach medical sensors to themselves, which will in turn transmit data to their doctors.

F1 showcases the power of human imagination. It involves cars with over 80,000 individual parts, tyres that optimally operate at 1200 degrees Celsius, drivers who have to put up with acceleration forces five times that of gravity and aerodynamic designs that prevent the cars from being air-borne at high speeds. But the wide application of its technology to fields like healthcare and human resources also makes it feel like a peak into the future. 

Inspired by all this F1 excitement, we are excited to announce a new competition this year, the Techkriti Grand Prix, where you get a chance to fabricate a miniature, remote controlled vehicle, powered by an Internal Combustion (IC) Engine, that mimics a real life car. For more details, visit - www.techkriti.org