Cockpit

Driving position

One of the most important things in racecar dynamics is the position of the center of gravity. Since it helps with maintaining high speeds while cornering, is speaks for itself that the driver's position is also important to optimise this result. Therefore, a driver's seat is very close to the bottom of the car, with the driver's complete position being like lying in a comfortable chair. If you consider the right picture, you can see how low the lowest part of the driver really is to the ground. Because of aerodynamic purposes since the introduction of high noses, the drivers' feet are also higer above the ground than his backside.

Seat

To give the driver the maximum possible comfort in the small cockpit to whitstand the forces in such a car, each seat is made specifically for a driver. During the pre-season, each driver takes part of a seat-fitting session at the factory of his team. In this process, an imprint is made from the driver's body, to make it perfectly fit into the available space in a Formula One cockpit. Such a seat is made from carbon fibre, because of its high strenght and low weight. It is furthermore refined with polymers, and at some teams covered with a suede inside for comfort and solid positioning. The Williams F1 team for instance covers its seats with alcantara, a very comfortable and wear-resistive material. It is important that these materials do not burn, do not increase the temperature of the seat and create as few as possible static electricity because of the friction of the driver in his seat during a race.

Just like in fighter jets, f1 drivers are kept in their seats with 5-point seatbelts. These can be released in case of emergency by pressing the point where all seperate belts come together, at the driver's belly. Due to the small size of the cockpit, a driver cannot fasten his seatbelts by himself, so when starting for a lap or race, he needs help of a mechanic to fasten him in his seat.

Pedals

A while ago, we still saw drivers shifting gears like in normal cars, pulling and pushing a gear stick while keeping the clutch down with a third pedal, exactly as it was in normal road cars. Then, a certain John Barnard introduced the electronic gear shifting, which allowed the drivers to shift gears with buttons on the steering wheel. A little later, semi-automatic gearboxes were introduced to the world of formula one, and made the clutch redundant. That reduced the drivers' pedals to two, and thus most or all are driving a formula one car like a kart, throttling with the right foot, and braking with the left.
Pedals are usually made of very lightweight titanium, and have special suppports to avoid the driver's feet slipping off.