F1technical.net

Hi. I've been wondering if it would be possible somehow for F1 teams to get rid of the clutch. Now most teams have seamless shift I guess it only gets used at the start so losing it would save quite a bit of weight and space. I'd just be interested to hear any thoughts and ideas of how the clutch could be "bypassed" if possible.

Thanks, Danny.

Honestly, I don't believe that is possible because he is used at the start of race, pit stops and other situations when car should stop, and most important, restart with race. But, who know, this modern techno wizards can invent anything.

Don't they have to use it on the downshifts, too?

Don't they have to use it on the downshifts, too?

They using it on downshifts, but I think not to completely separate motor and gearbox like on road cars, but only to aloud slipping between them. This is for sequential gearbox. On new seamless gearboxes clutch is not in use during the race because transfer of torque between gears is done by gearbox itself. Anyway, actuating clutch in case of seamless gearbox is to slow process for this type of gearbox to be useful.

I never thought about pit stops, I guess they would use the clutch then. The reason I ask really is because I'm sure I read somewhere that Ferrari where thinking about casting the cylinder block and gearbox as one unit and getting rid of the clutch somehow but I cant think how it could be done. Just thought one of you guys might know.

Well it seems to me that you don't need a clutch as such. You need to be able to do two things:

1. Change from one gear to another - for which a clutch is not necessary at all (even with a manual hand-change gearbox you can drive without a clutch).

2. You need to be able to disengage the drive somehwere between the crank and the driven wheels.

Surely you could do this in the diff if you really wanted to (or even at the hubs ).

Dantheman wrote:I never thought about pit stops, I guess they would use the clutch then. The reason I ask really is because I'm sure I read somewhere that Ferrari where thinking about casting the cylinder block and gearbox as one unit and getting rid of the clutch somehow but I cant think how it could be done. Just thought one of you guys might know.

I think you are right about this Ferrari project. I can't remember where I read about this, but in this project, if I remember well, they want to put clutch discs someplace between gearbox and wheels or something like this. In same time, McLaren have in project some special kind of flying wheel with power restoration capabilities. Of course, FIA baned all this.

It sounds like it could be done somehow but would be stamped out by the FIA. But it would still be interesting to find out how it could be done. I think its agreeable that the clutch serves very little purpose in a race car these days.

Very interesting topic

If you removed the clutch and locked the gearbox shaft to the crank then you'd still have to introduce some 'give' somewhere to absorb the shock of the power delivery.
My first thought would be to use the tyres but we can't compromise the tyre grip just for the sake of removing the clutch.

However then I thought seeing as the clutch is only used in first gear (to my knowledge), could the first gear synchro be abolished and replaced with some kind of clutch mechanism? It might need to be a 'wet' clutch.
What do you think?

zac510 wrote: However then I thought seeing as the clutch is only used in first gear (to my knowledge), could the first gear synchro be abolished and replaced with some kind of clutch mechanism? It might need to be a 'wet' clutch.
What do you think?

That sounds like a very interesting idea, but do F1 gearboxes still have synchro's?

F1 gearboxes don't use synchro rings, they use dog rings. Recently they have been trying something like this:

http://www.zeroshift.com/applications/index.htm

Here is a patent abstact for a transmission using dog clutch feature.
Both of these sites are about dual shaft, dual clutch set ups that use the dog clutches for moving things around. The second contrasts this type of transmission to the CVT
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6427549.html
http://gadgets.autoblog.com/2005/07/01/ ... -heats-up/

Welcome back riff_raff - & thanks for dusting off some old threads

Well, it has been said here that you could replace clutch, gearbox AND differential with a new invention called an hydristor. Besides, you get CVT (continuous variable transmission) AND storage of energy.

Yes, I know, it sounds too good to be true. I will be thankful if you can bypass the dense prose by Tom Kasmer, the inventor himself, Checkered and myself and give us some comment: viewtopic.php?t=3577