F1technical.net

Please clarify:

Any power brakes allowed? Hydraulics applied?

I read somewhere, that the drivers have to push the pedal as hard as they can at high speeds and CANNOT possibly lock the wheels until the car is slow enough. Is that true?

Basically I wonder if there's anything to amplify the braking power like in road cars.

thank you.

Regulation 11.1.3
Any powered device which is capable of altering the configuration or affecting the performance of any part of the brake system is forbidden.

modbaraban wrote:I read somewhere, that the drivers have to push the pedal as hard as they can at high speeds and CANNOT possibly lock the wheels until the car is slow enough. Is that true?

That's because at high speed aerodynamics are pushing the tires down hard, and they have incredible levels of traction. As the speed diminishes, so does the aero downforce, and the traction keeeps dropping until the brakes can overpower the tire contact and cause wheel lockup.
When you ever watch any of the cars braking for a tight corner, if they experience lockup, it's at the lower end of the speed envelope.
One additional bit of information, is that the braking effort is also complicated by weight transfer. Let's imagine a driver is approaching a corner, and stabs hard on the brake pedal. When the brakes take effect, the driver's weight is thrown forward, and he actually slides forward a wee bit, and doing so, apply even more force on the brake pedal. That too can be observed externally. Under braking, the driver's helmet seems to drop down slightly, that is the driver being thrown forward.

Thank you. That's exactly what I thought. But I was confused by the 11.1.1 which mentions hydraulic circuits that (I though) may alter (amplify) the power output.

11.1.1 is there to specify the type of braking system. It has to be hydraulic, and two independant circuits. It's related more to safety than anything else.

they will be pushing the break pedal so dam hard, i am sure, coz in one of the fitness article i read that ,the drivers spent a lot of calories just by pushing the break pedal .

Multiple hundreds of pounds of pedal force were typical during Monza if I recall right.

usualy they press with 70-90kg force on the break pedal;)

I quite enjoyed

this article on F1 brakes by Steve Matchett. Also, while looking into web resources on the subject I encountered this feature about building a dyno for F1 brake disks and calipers. By the looks of it it's about 4, maybe 5 years old (the technology cited appears 2002-ish), but hey, I hadn't seen it before. The company still supplies at least SAE formulas, so at least some might find it interesting.

I found these two clip about the newest innovations in the brake systems for Ferrari. It's in Italian, but it's kinda cool to check it out either way. He's basically talking about the shield that is mounted in a way that does not spin with the wheel and helps by letting the air out only from the bottom back end of the wheel so it helps the aero package. Here is the link to the first one.

http://mediacenter.gazzetta.it/MediaCen ... ale=Motori

Check in the bottom for the other one, where he talks about how Ferrari are investigating new materials and so on.

its a cooling system, they used it last year in the rear tyres , they mite be using them in canada ,in the front also ..