onboard settings

I was just looking at how many buttons a F1 steering wheel has, and i was wondering that if any significant change in the pace can be done by using these.

Im asuming that must of those remain untouched during races and are only used for setting up the car during the weekend. I just havent heard of any sudden change in the pace thanks to those options =P

Obviously theres a button that can switch the engine off (or in safe mode dunno), so that shouldnt be in question =)

Well... They use some buttons every few laps...

I once heard Schumi talking that every lap he had to change things on his steering wheel. (but that was a few years back)

So they do use them, otherwhise they wouldn't be there.

theres a radio button, another one to drink water, and another one related to the fuel... I cant remember about all of them, sorry :P

But they do affect the car performance, but not so much.

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"I'm an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush."

Well if you can read french... here's some info



I could translate something if you really need to know... not going to translate is all offcorse :p

They can change quite a few things on there that will give them a fairly significant change in car setup. Adjusting brake balance for heavy braking zones and then changing it back again for not so heavy braking zones to get the best out of them. They can also change diff settings which I would think have a significant impact on the setup of the car as that's what's driving the rear wheels.

Then there's is the more obvious ones such as fuel mixture etc.

Keiran


vMax.Keiran
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here's the FW28 wheel from Brazil:



there was a button on there that said "take out own teammate", but it's since been removed

and the F248 F1's wheel:



and just a nice pic of the rear of the wheel of the Honda:



as Keiran said, they can change the diff, TC setting, and on and off, Neutral, radio, drinks, fuel mixture, engine revs, oil pump, pit limiter, and brake bias from a knob on the side of the cockpit, like we always see MS adjusting corner to corner with his right hand, which is more a mechanical twisty lever rather than an electric switch like the stuff on the wheel.

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Shake me, Shake me like a British nanny!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2006 09:02PM by Muks_C.

ACK stands for Airconditioning? :p Lol

Didn't Jean Alesi once change the radio station, so that he heard music rather than Jean Todt prattling on? Doesn't look like that would be possible now

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"I'm an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush."

what i really want to know is, something that i've only seen on the ferrari, actually only from scuhmacher, there's something at the right side of the cockpit, below the steering, that he moves or something, it seems like a stick by the way he grabbs it.., that i want to know what function it does?, something to the suspension or something... i don't know,

i think he uses that alot in imola, for the last sector, i think at any onboard video you can see it from 2002 and after.., he does it at other tracks too but in imola i think it's where he uses it the most

if somebody knows...

cheers

"As Keiran said, they can change the diff, TC setting, and on and off, Neutral, radio, drinks, fuel mixture, engine revs, oil pump, pit limiter, and brake bias from a knob on the side of the cockpit, like we always see MS adjusting corner to corner with his right hand, which is more a mechanical twisty lever rather than an electric switch like the stuff on the wheel."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2006 09:15AM by mika19b.

Schumacher's Bahrain pole lap is an example of just how much sometimes he needs to change things on the steering wheel, commonly the diff and brake balance, but sometimes the strength of the TC can be changed too.

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

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I remember reading about Alonso's first win in Hungary, where between every corner he'd press a button so the car knows where it is on the circuit and the car would automatically change the diff and some other things for every corner.

Kimi Raikkonen few months ago told everything about his McLaren steering wheel ,there was many buttons in it one interesting one was so called turbo button( raise the revs of the engine for short time) that he use to overtake others.

yeah they have "push-to-pass" in A1GP also which raises the revs/horsepower temporarily so they can overtake, and in F1 they have some engine mapping settings and combined with the fuel mix setting, can get more power to make a pass.

@ Mika19b, thanks for highlighting the thing about MS and brake bias for Slash

@ Slash, he does it at every circuit, and a few times every lap. it's like a little knob that turns one way to make the bias go forward, the other way to go to the rear, it's mechanical, tightening and releasing a cable/wire.

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Shake me, Shake me like a British nanny!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2006 03:40PM by Muks_C.

Well, all cars have at least 4 engine maps they use each race. You have a low-rev settings that's used when you are near the end of the race, to save the engines. You have a normal setting that is the regular engine rev. You have a high settings which sets the engine a few hundred revs for when catching up someone for instance, and an ultra-rev settings, which is the turbo vesuvius said that gives even more revs for a few seconds for when you have to overtake. You can't use that setting more than 3 or 4 times a race though.

There's also the fuel-mixture buttons, which basically does what it says. Different mixtures of fuel that also changes the performance of the car. The other main things you can change are, as been said, the brake bias and the differentials. If you have Gp4 with GpxPatch and in-car setup changes enabled, you can change those while driving the car. F1 switches through each option and F3 and F4 changes the setting down and up, respectively. I normally change them when the car is not behaving well, or when the tyre is getting close to the end of its cycle. Then i normally change the bias of the brakes more to the front so that the car doesn't slides when braking...you'll get more understeer of course, but you can change that a bit with the differentials.

OMG, F1's steering wheels now definately are like the 747 Boeings panels... lots of buttons and you dont know what they do until you press them :P

I cant understand how they know where they are and think about what exactly they do while racing... The things are complicated now :S

But I know that the radio button is useless for me :P

If Senna were racing today, he wouldnt have problems with these things, given the powerful mind he had to think while racing - remember, he could give to the japanese Honda engineers the feedback about what exactly each part of the car was doing in each part of the track, and when they checked these infos with the computer telemetry data, they were the same! You'll never see a driver doing these things in today's F1 :P

To sum up, what Joe Satriani said, the drivers most common tasks while driving are changing the settings for differentials, brake bias, fuel mixtures? I think that we need the infos about how these changes affect the cars when overtaking, in a corner or a straight line, for example...

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"I'm an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush."




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2006 04:18PM by Senna.

Well higher fuel mixture uses more fuel... get more engine power and makes it easier to pass, but ofc you cant run this setting for the whole race, due to temperature, fuel, engine wear rate (temperature again).

Differential is something that will vary from slow to fast corners.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

OK.

As for the in-car changes in Gp4, would be nice if I could re-map these buttons to my logitech wheel, because theres six buttons and they are pretty useless now, I'm only using three (Traction Control, Launch Control and Pit Radio) :P

EDIT: These in-car changes are a part of the gpxpatch, so I need to find the file where the buttons and keys are assigned and change them :S I'll make a map later of how I'd like the things to be :D

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"I'm an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush."




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2006 04:44PM by Senna.

lmao :P

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL