21 June 2007

Need for Speed.

The whooping sound that crashes through your ear as the formula one car zooms through the high speed corner, is enough to send adrenalin up your head. The thrill the sport has carried and awed the people all around the world is amazing.
Speed thrill and formula one racing championship is all about the thrill of watching the racers drive through the circuit through high speed corners at a whooping speed of 300 kmp/h and more, or maneuver the chicane to overtake their opponent. Watching the team decide upon pit stop strategy with either 2 or 3 stop strategy, starting with less or more fuel are part of team preparation of racing in the circuit. The dexterity of team mechanics as they changes the tyres from intermediate, compound or hard tyres or refuel the car or change front nose cone(if damaged during the race) during the pit stop is a crucial factor deciding the fate of the race.The cream of the race being the overtakes by the driver that is based on his skill to pick on braking points or cornering lines. A great overtake move represent the formula one at its very best, since it bring the best drivers close to each other on the track at high speed still avoiding contact with each other. Not to mention the physical endurance the driver go through during the race experiencing a g-force of 3-4 during deceleration's near the chicane and the weight loss of 3-4 kg through fluid loss after 60-70 laps of focussed driving.
Racing to get championship or constructor point occur only on the selected 17-18 circuits spread throughout the world by the 2 team driver and the team mechanics sitting in the pits. But the real analysis and homework is done by the team engineers in the wind tunnels optimizing the aerodynamics of the car affiliating to the norms set up by the FIA. The optimum design of car engine along with gear box remains the most intense battle fought by the team like Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BWM, Toyota and Honda. Exuberant amount about 1 million dollar is spent on gaining 4 millisecond every lap and about 20 millisecond for optimizing on aerodynamics. Though large amount of technical effort in producing a car engine with optimum aerodynamic design, the fuel used is still similar in composition to the one used in normal cars. Large quantity up to 200,000 liters of fuel is used by every team for testing and racing during the championship year.
Well this amount to huge amount of money being invested on this sport trying to extract thrill of pushing the automotive technology to its very limit. No doubt the research, money and time invested on this sport is worth every penny, after all the today's formula one technology has opened up new doors for technological advances in the road car industry.