Astonishing facts about formula one cars

An F1 engine, or more properly a “Power Unit” is and has been since 2014 a turbocharged V6 hybrid layout. There are four engine suppliers: Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda.

Mercedes supplies Mercedes, Force India and Williams. Ferrari supplies themselves, Alfa Romeo and Haas. Honda supplies the two Red Bull teams and Renault supplies themselves and McLaren.

F1 cars produce 750 Hp + 200 HP from KERS from its 1.6 liter engine powered by gasoline. The engines capacity is same to many cars found on road like the Hyundai Creta and Renualt Duster . But these cars make only 120–130 Hp.

They are too fast that they can hit 100 miles from zero and return back to 0 miles in 5 seconds. Yet they are Average fuel economy is 1.53 Km / liter.

The Drive train is a Hybrid , with energy recovery system just like the Toyota Prius. The car can use the stored energy to boost their power.

RPM was restricted to 18,000 RPM ( for 2013 season ) at which they consume can 450 liters of air per sec. Humans breath at rate of 0.125 liters per sec.

This is the Seating position of a driver in F1 car

This is due to safety measure that the helmet should cross the line drawn from top of frame ( above engine head ) to the frame just in front of steering wheel. So that during Roll over the drivers head wont be injured.

13 Sets ( 4 tires ) of tires are allotted for each weekend. That is 13 sets for three days.

F1 cars also goes under tight scrutiny the cars are crash tested like the cars on road. The tested deceleration during frontal impact is 60 G .

Each formula 1 car has its own dedicated fire extinguisher inside the car. It can extinguish cock pit and engine fires. It is operated by a button by the driver . The fire extinguisher doesn’t look like this ( absolutely no space for that )

The exhaust temperatures at exit can be more than 1000′C.

The person who directs the driver in stop and go during pit stops is called lollipop man.

As refueling is banned these days these guys are now found without their lollipops

The lowest recorded pit stop time was 1.923 seconds by redbull for mark Weber. They managed to change all the four tires in that time.

Every might know about thermodynamic efficiency of engine is school days they say its 15-20% during those days. During 2015 Mercedes Engineers have achieved 45 % and their target was 50 % for this season. ( ie 50 percent of energy from fuel is delivered to the engines crankshaft. To note it was 29% in 2014 season all the three engines where V6 1.6 liter engines.