How Much Money Does One Spend On A Street Race Car
Formula Ane is, as nearly fans know, one of the well-nigh expensive sports to compete in -- but it isn't until you suspension down its blockbuster costs that the scale of the spending becomes clear.
Concluding twelvemonth'south title winner, Red Bull Racing, had a $270.two million season-long upkeep for a $13.5 million-per-race average. At the lesser of the filigree, even the 11th-place Marussia team spent $v.4 million at every Thousand Prix. When you consider a team incurs such expense just to get its two cars around a track for a few hours per race weekend, it'southward piece of cake to wonder where all the money goes.
Each Formula One motorcar is worth approximately $ii.half dozen one thousand thousand in fabric costs, but while the well-nigh visible elements are their sponsor-covered chassis, and wheels and tires, it'southward what the eye can't meet that makes them so costly.
Perhaps it's no surprise an F1 motorcar'due south engine is its about expensive particular. Each driver is merely allowed to employ upwards to viii engines per flavour without incurring a penalty, and so not only do the powerplants have to produce incredible operation, they as well have to last. Their intangible costs are the greatest.
The engines' material costs are believed to make up simply ten percentage -- at near -- of the full corporeality invested in them; teams spend the remainder on development.
F1'south ii.four-liter, normally aspirated V8s have been in identify since 2006, but side by side year information technology will switch to "greener" one.half dozen-liter, turbocharged V6s congenital from scratch past series engine manufacturers Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Renault. The manufacturers have already invested a combined total of effectually $500 meg in the V6s and plan so far in accelerate that they were already working on them in 2011 when Mercedes spent $178.6 meg on its F1 engine division -- a 54.2 per centum heave over the previous year. Inquiry-and-development spending on the new engines drove the increment, as well every bit investment in F1'south kinetic energy recovery system (KERS), which uses energy created under braking to requite an added boost on acceleration.
The engines epitomize engineering excellence. They rev to 18,000 rpm and produce somewhere around 800 hp, with race fuel-consumption typically around the 4-mpg marker. Although the engines demand to last, building them out of the toughest materials available isn't e'er an choice.
Weight is an overriding demand on an F1 car's development. The technical regulations state that each car's minimum weight must be 640 kilograms (1,410.96 pounds); almost teams hit this number exactly. If the automobile weighs any more, information technology might lose a functioning advantage and with such tiny fourth dimension differences betwixt race positions, every milligram matters.
F1 teams rely on what are known as rapid paradigm machines that -- using a laser -- cut carbon-fiber parts from estimator designs. This is how teams create the first build of a machine in the relatively short window between November and March when they aren't racing. Even the driver'south seat is particularly designed, and each is anatomically crafted to suit the contours of the driver'southward body; several seat fittings might be required just to construct it.
Incorporating onboard computing power in an F1 automobile presents its own challenges and increases costs. To make sure the bodywork is equally slender and aerodynamic as possible, all the wiring, electronics and cooling systems must be packed in a tight space around the engine. This is more difficult than it sounds when there are ane.25 kilometers (or only more three-quarters of a mile) of wiring and upward to 150 onboard sensors to exist installed. Tight fit isn't the simply hurdle to overcome.
Having an electronic control box merely millimeters away from a white-hot exhaust requires military-standard connectors in the car's wiring system. Preserving the cables is particularly important since they transmit so much data.
Some of the sensors requite readings up to 1,000 times per second; information is sent wirelessly from the car to the garage. This gives teams around ane.5 billion samples of data from each race; the data is monitored in the garage while the motorcar is on track, then analyzed afterward by supercomputers back at the teams' factories. Those machines are also at the acme terminate of the functioning spectrum, with i of the nearly powerful -- Lotus' supercomputer -- delivering a number-crunching capacity of 38 trillion calculations per 2d.
The car'due south steering wheel is its technology nerve center, and information technology is one of the few reusable parts. It wouldn't look out of place within a fighter plane since, except for the throttle and restriction pedals; few F1 cars have whatsoever controls other than those on the cycle'due south confront.
In its center is a multifunction LCD screen surrounded by brightly colored buttons controlling more than 40 functions from clutch, radio and rev limiter to irresolute the car's front-to-rear brake bias and its fuel mixture.
At that place is also a "boost" push button to activate KERS and another for the elevate reduction system (DRS), which enables a driver to open up a gap in the motorcar's rear wing to subtract aerodynamic drag and improve ability to overtake.
Since F1'southward technical regulations country the driver must exist able to get out of the car inside five seconds, removing zero except the steering wheel, rapid release is essential. Hence, one of the near technically complicated parts of an F1 car is the snap-on connector that joins the wheel to the steering column. It has to be tough enough to withstand huge forces, but also has to provide the electrical connections between the controls and the machine itself. It all adds upward -- the steering wheel alone can toll some $50,000, though it varies from team to squad due to complication.
Perhaps the biggest irony of high-tech, loftier-toll Grand Prix cars is found underneath them. Attached to the chassis' carbon-fiber underside is a 10-millimeter skid block, which enforces ground clearance. In contrast to the cutting-border technology throughout the car above it, the skid block is made of forest. Of course, it is a special woods chosen Jabroc, used because information technology is particularly tough and thin. So in typical way, fifty-fifty when we're talking nigh a plank, zilch on an F1 auto is standard.
Editor's note: All season, Autoweek will cover Formula One'due south business side. Formula Money editor Christian Sylt is an skillful on the finances and politics behind the earth's richest form of motorsport.
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Source: https://www.autoweek.com/racing/formula-1/a1931391/why-do-formula-one-grand-prix-cars-cost-so-much/
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