Chapman's delight: F1 Anorexia > 440 kg!

[Dino IV]

Rumours say the Ferrari F1-2000 and McLaren MP4\15 have a dry weight (without ballast and driver) of less than 440 kg!

My understanding of the weight of the car was thinking of just below 500 kg the past two years for the top-teams, but it seens they have put the cars on an extreme diet for this year and lose another 60 kg!

Where did they make so much progress in this field? I imagine the engineers already designing at the limits of their tolerances and scraping of a few ounces here and there, but we're not talking a few ounces here, this is a giant leap!

Also heard that Mario Ilien's V10 weighs in at just under 90 kgs with the Ferrari, Ford and Honda following closely with four to five kg more.

Which dramatic new developments have we been missing that gained them this huge weight-advantage?
And where to they put 80 kg of ballast?

I bet Mika and Schumi are wearing Wolfram-boxershorts this year

Regards,

Dino IV

[KC]

I was reading a little bit about this in RaceTech. They said that most of the weight was being added in the front of the F1 cars to enhance steering and reduce tire scrub. The cars have to much rear weight bias as it is and by reducing the overall weight they can better balance the chassis.

[Dino IV]

Use of ballast is ofcourse very advantageous, 'coz for every track one can change the weight-balance to the drivers likeness, reduce the tyrewear, adjustments to over-and understeering tendencies, better wet-setups etc etc. Most undertray 'wooden' boards are stuffed with wolfram to get the gravity-point as low as possible.

Additional disadvantage is increasing 'twitchy-ness' (that can't be proper English ) on the limit.

Ideal for drivers with an almost perfect driving accuracy on the edge like Hakkinen or drivers with a good abilty of keeping control with nervous cars like Schumacher.

The weight, power and revs of the new engines indicates very fast cars but reliability is going to be a problem to most of the front-runners, I reckon.

Regards,

Dino IV

[Sparky]

Autosport printed a chart of engine weights this week; Makes for interesting reading...

Cosworth: 90kg
Mercedes Benz: 98kg
Ferrari: 100kg
Peugeot: 109kg
Honda: 110kg
Petronas: 114kg
Supertec: 118kg
BMW: 120kg
Mugen Honda: 122kg
Cosworth/Fondmetal: 125kg

A massive gap of 28kg between the Jaguar Cosworth and the Minardi Cosworth - two years of development!

As to the rest, carbonfibre gearbox casings have to help, and could the lack of berylium make any difference? Not sure if the replacement materials used are lighter but less efficient ?

[Franklin]

Sitting in my garage right now is about an 800 pound racecar. It is also one of the few amateur-built sandwich composite monocoque racecars in the whole wide world. The engine is an 1,800 cc air cooled VW. A dragster-style car built for land speed trials events, it was constucted by carving sheets of polyurethane foam to fit in between the frame members of a conventional steel-tubing spaceframe and then covering the foam with a fiberglass cloth used in cigarette boats. This greatly enhanced the torsional rigidity and energy absorbing characteristics of the frame while eliminating the need for a mold.

I have learned from first hand (and sad) experience that sandwich composite construction makes possible one thing that cannot be accomplished with other fabrication methods -- a cockpit that is BOTH lightweight and virtually indestructible. On July 9th, 1989 I observed Craig Arfons attempt on the World Water Speed Record at Lake Jackson Sebring, Florida. Craig drove a lightweight turbojet hydroplane with a fiberglass and kevlar sandwich composite hull. The boat became airborne at a speed variously estimated as 250 to 400 mph. I watched them recover the entire front two-thirds of the hull as a single piece. If one of the anchors for Craig's safety harness had not failed, Craig probably would have survived.

[Neil C]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Franklin:
it was constucted by carving sheets of polyurethane foam to fit in between the frame members of a conventional steel-tubing spaceframe and then covering the foam with a fiberglass cloth used in cigarette boats. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are the materials and construction method similar to the Ruttan-developed process for his Vari-eze series of aircraft? If so, it is interesting that you are using it in conjunction with tubular spaceframe. Is that how it's done in the cigarrete boats?



[This message has been edited by Neil C (edited 04 April 2000).]