FORMULA ONE TRIVIA
Formula One Trivia and interesting facts;
The F1 Drivers' Championship was first won by Nino Farina in 1950
German born Michael Schumacher holds the record for most F1 titles, there being seven of them.
Fernando Alonso is the youngest ever F1 double world champion. He got this distinction when he was 25 years, 85 days old.
Juan Manuel Fangio is the oldest F1 Driver's Champion. He was 46 years 41 days old when he won 1957 season.
F1 drivers have prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures for little over an hour. This results in an average F1 driver losing about 4kgs of weight after just one race. He does regain the weight afterwards
The drivers have to remove the steering wheel to get inside the car. A latch behind the steering wheel releases it from the column.
Formula One Cars Gear levers are located on the back of the wheel.
Before a race, drivers drink lot of water to avoid dehydration. The Formula One cockpits generate lots of heat and make drivers sweat off their weight during the race. The drivers can lose approximate 2 to 3 liters of water.
Sports studies have underlined the importance of fluid level in the body. A person who has lost 4% of body weight can lose up to 40% of their psycho-physical ability.
In the days preceding very hot races like Australia, Malaysia, and Brazil, the drivers can drink up to 8 liters of water.
The F1 cockpits have drinking bottle installed for the drivers. The water also has mineral salts in it. The drivers drink water from it via a pipe.
F1 cars can be refueled at a rate of 12 liters per second. With the rigs that used to be used during the races, it would take four seconds to fill the tank of an average road car.
Numbers are assigned to all F1 drivers. The previous season's champion is given number 1, and his team-mate is given number 2.
Lewis Hamilton has twice refused the right as world champion to use the number one and has chosen to stick to his number 44.
Numbers are assigned in accordance with each team's position in the previous season's constructors' championship . Interestingly, the number13 is not given to any driver.
A modern Formula One car today weighs around 550 kg.
Most F1 drivers start their career in karting. They come up through traditional European single seater series like Formula Ford, Formula Renault, Formula 3, and finally GP2. Before GP2, Formula Two and then Formula 3000 served the role of feeder series for F1.
The F1 clutch levers are located below the gear paddles.
Pirelli is the official tyre supplier for the 2015 and 2016 F1 seasons.
Most racing cars have their tyres are filled with nitrogen. The reason for this is that nitrogen offers more stable pressures compared to normal air. Racing tyres are designed to last 90 to 120 km where road car tyres can last 60 000 to 100 000 km. These specialised F1 tyres lose weight during the race. In an F1 Grand Prix each tyre will loose about 0.5kg in weight due to wear and tear.
An approximate 80,000 components all come together to make an F1 car.
An F1 car can accelerate from 0 to 160 kph and decelerate back to 0 in just four seconds.
The cars have to be assembled with 100 per cent accuracy. If it were assembled 99.9% correctly, it would go on the track with 80 components incorrectly placed.
F1 car engines complete their life in about two hours of racing. Compare this with normal car engines which normally go on serving us for a decent 20 year period.
Gear cogs or ratios are replaced after each race for they have to resist huge degrees of stress.
When an F1 driver puts on the brakes he experiences huge deceleration. This can be compared to the effect of driving a regular car through a brick wall at a speed of 300 kph!
An F1 engine usually revs up to 18000 rpm, in comparison a road car engine revs up to 6000 rpm at maximum level.
The brake discs in an F1 car have to withstand the operating temperature of approximately 1000 degrees centigrade. The brakes are made of carbon fibre which is much harder than steel and has a high melting point.
F1 cars can have more than a kilometer of cable linked to around 100 sensors and actuators which monitor, give feedback to the ground crew and also control the car.
Max Verstappen became the youngest driver to make his Formula One début at the age of 17 years,164 days old when he started the 2015 season.
