May 8, 2010

How Ferrari's F-Duct is controlled

In practice and qualifying,  Alonso and Massa were taking their left hand off the steering wheel a lot but it was not them being relaxed and casual.   

This piece, from the great coverage on Spain's La Sexta, shows that in fact the hand movement is to control Ferrari's version of the F-Duct.    You may have noticed the back of Alonso's glove looked odd, with a large black rubbery patch.  That is in fact neoprene used to make an airtight seal on the hole just to the left of the steering wheel.    It's a bit of an ergonomic nightmare especially since it forces the Ferrari drivers to adjust brake balance with their right hand, in effect letting go of the wheel altogether!  That's F-Duct'd!
(thanks Alex!)


(La Sexta)




tend of post

7 comments:

  1. The McLaren chassis was designed with the F-Duct in mind hence the neat design. The others are really needing ghetto engineer theirs. Takes balls to take your hands off at that kind of speed!

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  2. Okay, but is it safe that they hold the wheel like this when they're approaching a turn with about 300 km/h?

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  3. Thats incredible the number of other things these guys have to do besides driving blindingly fast. At 1.59s he's barely holding the steering as his right hand is busy adjusting something. I dont know if that was the brake bias adjustment that you were talking about though. :)

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  4. Where are those NASCAR fans that say driving an F1 car is easy?

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  5. You have to wonder if this is really their solution to the problem, or an effort to force Charlie Whiting's hand (forgive the pun) and get him to outlaw f-ducts altogether on safety grounds. Thus removing McLaren's much neater design and presumably advantage. That just looks so incredibly dangerous...

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  6. F-Ducts banned for next season.
    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/83502

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  7. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

    race car drivers had to take their hand off the steering wheel to shift. Hard to imagine...

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