automatic gearboxes

[-shr3d-]

i can understand the reintroduction of traction control to F1 to stop the bickering and innuendo involved in such systems as 3d engine mapping, electronic diff control and advancing management software but why do they feel it necessary to bring in fully automatic gearboxes.
when i first heard it i thought it was a joke because there was no uproar about it.
to me this is a far more dissapointing change than the tc.

[jmrutt]

I believe the whole point of allowing fully automatic gear boxes is to allow teams to do multiple gear changes, such as 7th to 3rd or 5th to 2nd, under the current rules I think they are only allowed one gear change at a time.

[Ray Bell]

And with braking distances like they have at the moment, downchanges must be difficult to get in in time!

Personally, I'd rather them do battle with a stick running in an 'H' pattern...

[Dino IV]

It's not that easy to get automatic gearchanges right in this racing evironment. It all depends on the characteristics of the gearbox. For some time automated donwshifts were allowed (are still? dunno actually) when only driver activated upshifts were allowed. Depending on the gearbox construction it prooved that driver downshifst were faster or the automated ones. Some automated sequences shifted down and had to select neutral for a brief moment before shifting to the desired gear. I recall Salo commenting on being faster downshifting manually than his teammate did automated. I guess we'll see all kinds of these peculiarities in the rest of the season.

[-shr3d-]

no they can do multiple shifts at the moment as far as i know. they have a semiautomatic gearbox that allows them to automatically shift down say from 7th to 2nd but no auto shifts up.
I think i first saw this in Australia in 93 when they were showing Schu on a qualifying lap and u could see him press a green button on the steering wheel coming into a corner which they said was his auto change down.
The H patten is dead...never to reappear..man u gotta see the race from Mexico 1990 and compare the in car camera of Ferrari to Mclaren...man the H patten sucks ass

[Langers]

So F1 drivers no longer even have to pull the paddles behind the steering wheels?

[KC]

I was under the impression that the automated downshifts were set up like a preselector box. Where the driver will select the correct gear for the exit of the corner before he arrives and then the gear box will do its downshifting as the speed of the car makes it possible. I could easily be wrong.

[Dino IV]

Langers > I am not sure, I'll check the new rules sometime this week.

KC > I think you're right. You could have a button for auto-downshift from top gear to 3 and another to 2 for instance. What I recall from the Salo quote about this was that the auto-downshift worked like:
from 6, clutch, neutral, clutch, 5, clutch.
from 5, clutch, neutral, clutch, 4, clutch.
from 4, clutch, neutral, clutch, 3, clutch.
And manually they could skip the clutch engagement at neutral:
from 6, clutch, 5, clutch.
from 5, clutch, 4, clutch.
from 4, clutch, 3, clutch.
Which was faster when done properly.
The boxes are sequential so you can't skip gears as far as I know.
But that Salo story is from some years (3 or so) back so things might have changed.

[Chris Gamlin]

Dino, I'm certain F1 cars don't use the clutch for anything other than pulling away and cruising to a halt, just like a motorbike sequential box.
You're right about the sequential bit though, they can't skip gears and do a "block" change like you can in a road car. I think the programmed "automatic" downshift buttons are purely there as a driver convenience, as it's one less thing to concentrate on when approaching a corner, just hit the button once as you start to brake, and let the gadgetry do the rest.

Chris

[Dino IV]

I am not sure, Chris, I am not a regular biker .. well I have a 2 stroke Yamaha 200 dirtbike with a 6 speed sequential but I clutch that one changing gear. Keep it that way for longlivity or could I skip that?

I tried to look the old mag up but can't find it. Salo was quicker changing down his semi-auto manually than Katajiama (iirc) was with the pre-set auto dwonshift because of the neutral-pauses it took was what it was about, that much I am sure about.

[Chris Gamlin]

Hi Dino. Yep, you could almost certainly get away with clutchless gearchanges on the bike. I've ridden a 2-stroke motocross bike a couple of times and when accelerating, you hold it wide open then bang in the next gear without any clutch involved. It needs a little getting used to for those mechanically sympathetic among us, and a slightly more sympathetic way of doing it is to momentarily come off the throttle as you change, but flat out is how they are ridden in a MotoX race!

I can quite believe the bit about Salo manually downchanging vs the auto a few years ago, though I suspect nowadays with the development of the electronics, the hydraulics etc, the auto button might win. Ferrari's gearbox, for example, is rumoured to be able to swap cogs in about 30 milliseconds, so in theory, 7th to 1st would take less than a fifth of a second, way quicker than any driver could do it.

cya

Chris

Disclaimer: In no way shall the persons mentioned above be held liable for the damage or destruction of certain Yamaha gearbox parts due to the above advice

[Dino IV]

Taking the thing apart is more fun than driving it so I might as well give it a go.

All F1 semi-autos have been changing gear in the 20-40 ms range for the past decade so there's not much left to improve. Let's keep a close look on the inboards and see if we can spot some changing behaviour.

[TecFreak]

Some comments:

1. Why in the world would a computer controled transmission capable of matching gear and engine speeds so well that synchos aren't needed have to use a clutch for simple up and down shifts? The clutch is not necessary. Heck, I almost never clutch for upshifts. Its faster to skip the clutch, get rpm's close to what the gear speed should be and let the synchos handle the rest. And I'm not a computer. Remember the Shadow can-am car circa 1970? It had no clutch pedal, using a hand-operated mechanism for the start and leaving the drive to shift through the whole race without ever using the clutch. I'm quit sure that the clutch is not engaging and disengaging for up and down shifts on a modern F1 transmission.

2. the paddles are still there. The "auto" function is triggered by a button on the steering wheel and the driver hits it before entering whatever part of the track the shift sequence is preset for. If he misses the button, then he can always use manual control.

3. At this time, I believe the only team using "skip a gear" presets is Ferrari. Because the gearbox is sequential, the tranny still has to go through the gears. The advantage is that the driver's reaction time no longer is a factor.

[-shr3d-]

cool...i check out the inboard views on my tapes.....not that we get much down here in australia....just one car per race....man i hate our tv coverage.

i was under the impression that they have introduced fully automatic gearboxes doing away with the gear changes all together...

another thought.....does the launch control procedure eliminate the drivers use of the clutch altogether at the start... i would think so.

[cleves]

Murray Walker said the clutch is used only for the start and pit control, it is not used for gearchanges, one of the Mclaren cars had a problem recently.

[Dino IV]

Correct comments. TecFreak.

-shr3d-:
another thought.....does the launch control procedure eliminate the drivers use of the clutch altogether at the start... i would think so.

Yes, clutch is fully electronically controlled under the new regs.