In this video, I open up an F1 gearbox to find out what’s inside and explain a little about how it works.I used to work on race cars many years ago, but it’s been a while since I worked on any part of any car, let alone a Formula One car gearbox – as you can probably see in this video.
source/image: Driver61
Anyway, it was a lot of fun to take this apart and see what’s inside. To understand better you should first know the basics of the transmission system and how the transmission works in a normal road car. Watch the video from Driver61 for more info:
Formula One cars use semi-automatic sequential gearboxes, with regulations stating that 8 forward gears (increased from 7 from the 2014 season onwards) and 1 reverse gear must be used, with rear-wheel drive.he gearbox is constructed of carbon titanium, as heat dissipation is a critical issue, and is bolted onto the back of the engine.
Advertisement
The driver initiates gear changes using paddles mounted on the back of the steering wheel and electro-hydraulics perform the actual change as well as throttle control. Clutch control is also performed electro-hydraulically, except to and from a standstill, when the driver operates the clutch using a lever mounted on the back of the steering wheel.
