Braking : F1 Vs Low-end Road Car

[FW17]

F1 cars have a tonne of stopping power, but lacks many of the sophistication seen in regular road cars such as even ABS.

I have driven road cars without ABS and it is a handful when trying to do an emergency stop from 100 mph. It gets worse when trying to do a hard braking on a curve and almost guaranteed disaster in the rain.

F1 drivers however, though should be faced with similar situation, seem to get by this without any such drama. Only once in last few years have I seen a driver loosing it in the brakes (Kimi in Monaco a couple of years back). Does F1 cars have some other systems which prevents this or is it that all braking zones are straight?

[Richard]

They brake before turning.

F1 suspension is massively stiffer and designed for stability unlike your road car which is designed for comfort with soft springs. They also have much bigger tyres and huge amounts of downforce to keep those tyres in contact with the track.

They don't always get away with it, its not uncommon to see drivers lock up their wheels, sometimes that leads to them overshooting a corner.

[FW17]

There are quiet a few corners where they brake into the corner, suzuka turn 1 and stove in silverstone are examples that come to mind. Trail braking is also the preferred method used by most if not all divers. So I am still wondering how a tankslapper is avoided by these guys.

Driver locking up and over shooting a corner is not because of a lack of control but a misjudgement on the braking distance.

Are the harder springs the only reason for more stability to braking in turns?



Hamilton catching the car as it gets away

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFDvZhntvQ[/youtube]

[Richard]

I am still wondering how a tankslapper is avoided by these guys.

They avoid a tank slapper because the car is more responsive to corrections? Is it possible to recover a road car that had lost its rear end in a similar way?

[Tim.Wright]

If I uderstand correctly, a lot of the off-throttle exhaust strategies are to improve the stability under braking.

In anycase, you only will loose the back of a car under braking if you lock (or come close to locking) a rear wheel. When this happens, it is normally over too quick for the driver to do anything.

This is solved simply by setting the brake balance slightly forward biased so that the front wheels a guaranteed to lock before the rear.

That is why its very rare to see a driver spin out under brakes.

Road cars are also designed so that the front brakes lock up first as terminal oversteer is very dangerous on the road.

In both road and race cars it is typical to have limit valves on the rear brakes to stop them from locking.

Tim

[Dragonfly]

F1 cars have a tonne of stopping power, but lacks many of the sophistication seen in regular road cars such as even ABS.

I have driven road cars without ABS and it is a handful when trying to do an emergency stop from 100 mph. It gets worse when trying to do a hard braking on a curve and almost guaranteed disaster in the rain.

F1 drivers however, though should be faced with similar situation, seem to get by this without any such drama. Only once in last few years have I seen a driver loosing it in the brakes (Kimi in Monaco a couple of years back). Does F1 cars have some other systems which prevents this or is it that all braking zones are straight?

ABS actually makes braking distance longer compared to intensive braking by an experienced driver or, in specific cases, even sliding with locked wheels on normal surface. What it does is to preserve car's steerability, you can steer it when even hard on the brake with ABS working. It also prevents the car spinning if you are not overdoing it with the steering wheel. On very slippery surface it actually helps braking.

[Richard]

On very slippery surface it actually helps braking.

It gives a big improvement in the worst scenarios (braking on a wet road), at the penalty of slightly worse performance on dry grippy surfaces for a skilled driver. Most road users are not "skilled" and push on the brake pedal as hard as possible until they stop.

[Rideway]

ABS actually makes braking distance longer compared to intensive braking by an experienced driver or, in specific cases, even sliding with locked wheels on normal surface.

To be honest, I dont agree with that. Can you please explain why?
Thanks in advance

[godlameroso]

Because the greatest braking force is right before the moment the tires slip, a human can feel that, a machine has to calculate that it's happening. Since the machine's calculations, are based on a generalized approximation, it's calculations will never be as precise as a person. Remember the ABS is releasing the brakes to prevent lock up, without ABS you have to control the lockup.

[mep]

I would be very surprised when a modern ABS system is not able to brake better than a skilled human and be able to find out exatcly the perfect point.

[Rideway]

Not to mention that the sampling frequency rate of any wheel speed sensor or gyro sensor is really high. The time needed to perform this calculations is faster than humans.

I could agree if you said that a professional driver could brake nearly as good as a car with a propper ABS system, but i would never say it the other way round. A not good calibrated TCS can easily decrease your lap times, but ABS... sorry but I still dont see your point.

I have been researching on the internet and some sources (wikipedia and others ) agreed that in snow or gravel, locking the tyres helps because locked tyres would dig in, thus reducing braking distance. But thats not the point of what we are discussing.

[Jersey Tom]

a human can feel that

Disagree.

[Just_a_fan]

F1 cars have a tonne of stopping power, but lacks many of the sophistication seen in regular road cars such as even ABS.

I have driven road cars without ABS and it is a handful when trying to do an emergency stop from 100 mph. It gets worse when trying to do a hard braking on a curve and almost guaranteed disaster in the rain.

F1 drivers however, though should be faced with similar situation, seem to get by this without any such drama. Only once in last few years have I seen a driver loosing it in the brakes (Kimi in Monaco a couple of years back). Does F1 cars have some other systems which prevents this or is it that all braking zones are straight?

ABS actually makes braking distance longer compared to intensive braking by an experienced driver or, in specific cases, even sliding with locked wheels on normal surface. What it does is to preserve car's steerability, you can steer it when even hard on the brake with ABS working. It also prevents the car spinning if you are not overdoing it with the steering wheel. On very slippery surface it actually helps braking.

Ah this old chestnut. Total tosh, of course.

Show me a human being who by pressing on a single pedal can alter the pressure at each wheel independently several times per second as required so that all 4 wheels are close to the point of locking.

Oh, you can't. Because it's impossible to do. However, a modern 4-channel ABS system can do this and it can do it several times per second.

[Lycoming]

on loose surfaces (gravel, sand, snow), it is preferable to have some amount of lock, because locked wheels dig into the surface. this only really applies to rally drivers though. on a dry track, a well designed, functioning 4-channel ABS system will pretty much always be as good as or better than a human.

[GSpeedR]

[How do you delete a post here?]