F1technical.net

im just wondering if anyone can explain to me what this is?

My understanding is that the engine is held at the revs which transfer the most power to the wheels without wheelspin or damaging the engine, then the gearbox will shift up so smoothly and efficently (the key to speed) that the gearchanging can't even be heard.

Has anyone found the discovery channel clip of DC in the Williams testing seamless shift.

Sounds terrible, an F1 V10 constantly at near maximum revs.

[Edit: sorry, I am of course talking cra*. This is CVT as you probably guessed. Just got confused, sorry.]

I think Tom is describing CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) - this is not permitted in F1.

A seamless shift is a gearbox with a number of distinct ratios, but when the the next ratio is selected there is effectively no "gap" in power transmission.

In our manual road car gear-boxes, we loose drive as we pass through neutral for a period of time - let's say 1/2 sec. Add those 1/2 secs up over a lap (and a race) and that is a lot of time when the car is not accelerating. Recent F1 gearboxes reduced that "gap" to tiny fractions of a second. With an F1 car, the loss of drive has a bigger penalty than a road car for two reasons - 1st the high aero drag is like hitting the brakes as soon as the engine stops pushing you forwards - 2nd because of the high levels of acceleration any loss of acceleration is greatly exaggerated in loss of time.

Seamless just reduces those losses to practically zero.

oh ok. so basically its faster changing of the gears. thanks

I know this post is a month old but... from what I understand seemless shift will have the next gear spun up to speed and ready to be selected so that at the exact instant the driver flicks that paddle one gear is released and the other is engaged close to simotaniously (that spelling is way off). It's as close as you can come to having two gears engaged at once, which physics has proven doesn't work.

Apparantly Ferrari were investigated by the FIA as it was though they we runnning a fully automatic gear box. Footage of Schumi ripping of a helmet visor sheet whilst changing gear was seen.

Ferrari have a up-gear and down-gear paddle on both side of the wheel

Rod Knock wrote:It's as close as you can come to having two gears engaged at once, which physics has proven doesn't work.

It almost seems that way since the change in gears has such a little time difference. But there's a small "bullet" that has to be released by the lower gear before it can slide up to engage the next higher gear. It is held in by the torque, and once that is released, immediately engages the next gear. It just happens so fast there is really no break in drivetrain power, it's that quick.
http://www.zeroshift.com/systemanime.htm

Do you know....that Ferrari auto box rumour surfaced last year and I think the year before. When will people learn to stop assuming Ferrari are cheating

Yup the shift works on either side of the wheel - I thought it was pull for up & push for down. I great sign of a team thinking about the details...........

schumi has this design of the paddles so it allows him to use either hand to change the brake bias between corners

RH1300S wrote:Do you know....that Ferrari auto box rumour surfaced last year and I think the year before. When will people learn to stop assuming Ferrari are cheating

I reckon, couldn't believe it when I read that in Autosport. I recall Schuey had this in at least 2003 and people were getting all excited about it then too!