34 replies to this topic

[Pit Babe]

A post under another topic prompts PB to start a thread on this:

My racer's soul insists we go back to fully manual, clutch-interfacing transmissions. However, there could be any number of reasons to stay with push-button gearshifting. I can't think of any, but if you can, I'd love to hear it...

Whatever your position on this, please enlighten me.

In the dark with a candle but no match,

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PB ;-)

Always opinionated. Not always right.



[This message has been edited by Pit Babe (edited 08-11-1999).]

[baddog]

depends if you think juggling is what racing's all about.. I think for me the drivers ability to balance gears, speed, steering, car balance etc to get through that corner as fast as possible is what matters not the mechanism by which he tells his car to change gear.

HOWEVER I exclude all devices which change gear or allow the driver to bypass gears or whatever the bloody computers do this week from that. I *hate* them and think thats an area the FIA should focus on tightening up on. that and "engine mapping" which effectively cheats by altering engine speeds at different parts of the circuit. grrr

Shaun

[ket]

May be FIA should specify that the throttle butterflies have to be operated by mechincal linkage to the driver's pedals. The good thing about electronic throttle and gearshift is that it can prevent damages caused by misshift or overreving. It keeps the repair bill down, so I don't think they will go away soon.

[Witt]

Ket, I remember reading somewhere that Jacques Villeneuve blew something on his car this year when he tapped the wrong paddle. I think he said he meant to shift up, but shifted down instead. I guess that would cause the engine a lot of stress? Can anyone clarify if it's still possible for drivers to break a car? (without going off track)

I think the paddle should be banned, and stick shifts should be put back in. Drivers can not miss gears these days, and Alain Prost says that when a driver missed a gear (in the good ol' days), it allowed another to get passed. I think it would be great to see one driver pressure another into causing such mistakes, in order to overtake.

[Christiaan]

The push button gearbox configurations are less efficient because they have to use epicyclic gear trains. I don't know exactly how much less efficient but I think the electronic clutch compensates for that by engaging and disengaging in the shortest possible time. Drivers might not be really able to do better with a manual clutch. This means of course that the car is faster, though less efficient. For this reason the teams will never do away with them.

[This message has been edited by Christiaan (edited 08-11-1999).]

[Pit Babe]

That means the real battle is between higher speed and more passing. While speed is obviously important, it seems to me that races nearly or totally devoid of action such as passing would be rather boring even if the cars broke the sound barrier speedwise.

Wouldn't a better test of the drivers's ability result from having to figure clutch use and physical shifting into every manoeuvre?

[Kapu7]

Pit B, extrapolating a bit your logic, wouldn't it be even better test for the driver if he also had to tune manually ignition timing and fuel-air mix?

Isn't it drivers job to take care of speed and direction, and to let car take care of things it can do better.

[JHH]

Let’s say we do away with the paddles – what then. Do F1 cars revert to 100% manual with a gated shifter etc… or should F1 adopt the sequential shifter set-up that we see in CART. For those who dislike the fact that the paddle shifter thing requires a computer to mediate gear changes, the CART config. would be an effective compromise. It would, after all, force the driver to take a hand off the steering wheel.

BTW: I think that IRL cars have the same manual shifters as NASCAR but not sure.

James Harold



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" I have no interest in any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend
to go in harm's way." Captain J. P. Jones, US Navy - January 16, 1777

[Pit Babe]

Kapu7, I see what you are saying but shifting gears by hand is a fundamental driving skill whereas tuning ignition timing and determining fuel/air ratio are not.

Perhaps with further reasoning I might see things differently.

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PB ;-)

"The Why Girl"
Always opinionated. Not always right.




[This message has been edited by Pit Babe (edited 08-11-1999).]

[Megatron]

The semi automatics were rumored to be banned years ago but the teams wanted them to stay because of the $$$ they saved without all those blown engines.

Now for JV, his was a mental error, not a driving error, he pushed the wrong button.

A good example of a driving error is Alex Zanardi in practice for the Austriala CART race last year.

He accidently shifted before he should have, and reved the engine up to nearly 20,000 (for about 4 seconds) and blew the engine.

The IRL does use a simalar gearbox to NASAR, although next year they will run a squential gearbox.

I think some people may not relise the shifting in CART is really not that bad VS the semi automatic's.

CART has a "shift without lift" system in the engine that can sense when the revs are up and cuts the engine for a spilt second while the driver shifts the squential gearbox.

He does not even have to let up on the gas or anything.

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Death through Tyranny - Megatron

[MPH]

If JV really downshifted instead of upshifting shouldn't the computer have known what was going to happen and not made the gear change or not re-engaged the clutch?

[PDA]

The electronics in F1 gearboxes do not allow a down change which would result in over revving the engine.

F1 gearboxes are sequential shifter boxes just like CART. The difference is that CART has a mechanical connection activated by the driver and F1 has a hydraulic activation triggered by the electronic signals from the "paddles" on the steering wheel.

Even when they had manual change, drivers do not use the clutch on gearchanges, they just slam the lever. New gear clusters are fitted for each race.

[SlowDrivr]

Christiaan: epicyclic = sequential?

[DangerMouse]

Like Megatron says reverting to manual shifts would cause loads of engine blow ups (especially with Mr M.Schumacher who in F3000 got through more engines and gearboxes in a race weekend then some drivers did in a season through mistakes shifting!) small F1 teams certainly could not afford that, I'm with ket, the throttle should directly and mechanically connect to the throttle bodies, this would kill off most forms off traction control and is easy to check for, driver skill would again mean more.

[Megatron]

I don't know of any major racing seris that still requires a clutch for basic changing from gear to gear.

Not even in NASCAR, with the use of the "jerico" transmisson.

The first car to run with a squential gearbox was the 1989 Ferrari, but was that push button?

Someone mentioned engine mapping. This has actually been around a long time. The earliest I have heard is around 1986 when Renault devoloped it for Senna's Lotus.

I think Honda was the first to put it on a road car.

Why is it that it always seems the only work teams like BAR and Arrows do with the engine is engine mapping.

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Death through Tyranny - Megatron

[Pit Babe]

"Even when they had manual change, drivers do not use the clutch on gearchanges, they just slam the lever."

This still would be preferable to the current transmission standards, IMHO, because it seems more like driving. Reactions, anyone? I leave room in the universe for being totally wrong about this, but if I don't ask, I learn nothing.


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PB ;-)

The "Why?" Girl
Always opinionated. Not always right.

[F1 Carioca]

PB,

The way I see it is:
If you go to a full manual transmission and clutch the driver has to do all the fine work of changing gears at the correct times and as best as possible setting the engine speed to match the next gear change up or down. That is, if he is slowing down and running down through the gears he has to be careful not to change too early when the speed of the car is too high for the gear selected and risk over speeding the engine and a possible engine failure, when shifting up the risk is not as great since the engine speed required to match the car speed is less. However the driver can not keep his foot down on the throttle since while the transmission is going from one gear to the next the engine would over speed also.
Now teams have obviously opted to use higher tech transmissions and engine management systems to take away from the driver the responsibility of doing that task dozens of times per lap and preventing a driver error. Not only are the gear changing faster but eliminates any risk of blowing an engine due to wrong gear timing. Drivers can fully concentrate on breaking points entry points etc...
I've got a few questions:
Would anybody know if to change gear the driver needs to operate the paddle for every gear change or if he activates the down shift paddle and leaves his hand on it would the car work down through the gears as the speed allowed it to?
When shifting up and down does the engine management system synchronize the engine speed to match the gear desired, regardless of the position of the drivers foot on the throttle?
If the answer to the above is yes, then it makes the job of gear shifting quite easy for the driver.
Well my little bit.

Cheers,

Carioca

[GoAlesi]

I would assume that the driver has to select each gear change. A system where the driver simply has to hold the down shift paddle while slowing (or hold the up-shift while accelerating) may be too close to a fully automatic gearbox.

However, I know that there are a couple of programmable buttons on the steering wheel that when pressed run through a gear selection sequence for a particular series of corners, so the driver doesn't even have to touch the paddles. For example the bus stop chicane at Spa. They had this on the '94 Ferrari, and I haven't heard any rule changes banning this feature so I presume this system is used.

With a manual change, despite the fact that the clutch is not used (it still would be needed on down-shifts wouldn't it?) there is still the slight possibility of a missed shift.

[baddog]

The essence of the solution for me would be to ban computers making the decisions (like preventing an innapropriate shift or horror of horrors a pre programmed sequence of gearshifts) but allow the use of clutchless paddle shifts. thus the skill and ability of the driver to choose his gear is retained without having to reintroduce crude mechanical systems.

Shaun

[Christiaan]

Pit Babe,
I watched a film on rally driving and Citreon decided to make their cars semi automatic because drivers always ignore the existnce of a clutch. These guys did clutchless downshifts to reduce speed under late braking. As you can imagine the teams weren't too happy about the costs of gearboxes and damage overreved engines.

I wonder if manual shift would really increase the racing spectacle, or just the number of retirements. You could possibly end up with a bigger gap between the poorer and richer teams because Mclaren will make a gearbox from diamond while Minardi from cast iron

[Kapu7]

I agree, drivers still have enough work to do in their cockpits even without manual shifting. With semi-automatic boxes their full capacity is still used, but instead of having to worry about historical routines they can concentrate on more relevant things, and drive faster.

[Pit Babe]

Okay - I'm beginning to see the light. Please keep talking, however...I could change my mind at any second.

------------------
PB ;-)

The "Why?" Girl
Always opinionated. Not always right.

[F1 Carioca]

PB,
The way I see it there is no right or wrong in all this, it's a question of opinion.
If you look at it in a radical way here are your choices:
Is F1 a driver to driver challenge or is it a technology challenge.
If it's to be made a technology challenge then fit the cars with all the tech gizmos we can come up with, ABS, Traction control, engine management, active suspension, active telemetry both ways from and to the car, etc... etc...
If it's purely a driver challenge then remove all the high tech stuff.
I for one believe that F1 should be a compromise between both, I follow what baddog was saying, take the computer away, leave the paddle switch and if the driver makes the mistake he pays the price.
What do you make of it, or what is your opinion? Where would you like to see the compromise? Or would you rather see it radically moved one or the other way?
Cheers,

Carioca

[MPH]

After reading GoAlesi's post I was wondering about the multiple gear change. I went to look at the regulations and they say that each individual gear change must be initiated by the driver. I was confused for a while at article 9.4.3 as it seemed to contradict article 9.4.2, but now I realize that it is saying that you can skip gears with one driver input, for example a shift from 6th to 4th.

9.4.2 Each individual gear change must be initiated by the driver and, within the mechanical constraints of the gearbox, the requested gear must be engaged immediately unless over-rev protection is used.
9.4.3 Multiple gear changes may be made following one driver request provided they are not made before he needs the destination gear and that the car is not driven by any of the intermediate gears during the sequence. If for any reason the sequence cannot be completed the car must be left in neutral or the original gear.


[This message has been edited by MPH (edited 08-12-1999).]

[GoAlesi]

MPH you are right. After re-reading the magazine article I got that information from, it seems these buttons are used when braking into tight corners, so the driver can go from 6th to 2nd (for example) with one request. I was under the impression that they were also used for the more complex sequences which are required in chicanes etc, but this would be illegal by the above rules. It would be quite hard to enforce those rules though.

I think these buttons are a good idea as with a manual shift, you can miss out gears if required, while a semi-automatic must step through all intermediate gears.

[baddog]

Id be perfectly happy with the multiple down/upshift buttons, as long as the decision to make that multishift is made by the driver. quite honestly I dont think the *mechanism* by which the drivers decision is translated into gearing is whats important, just the fact that the decision is made by the driver..

As a little (wholly unlikely) idea.. the rules could be amended to state that the computer can prevent an engine blowup if the driver downshifts innapropriately, but must engage neutral not remain in the previous gear, thus penalising the driver without blowing the car up ;)

Shaun

[tak]

I say bring back the crash boxes! Having driven a Hewland equiped race car (Swift DB-2), I can say it is not that difficult. It is simple timing, and surprisingly, NOT thinking about it. Think about it too much, and you miss shifts. Use the clutch on the downshift, clutchless on the upshifts. By the end of the first practice session, all the drivers would have their "rythm" worked out, and it would be largly transparent. Only mistakes would become apparent, and they would help the racing!

A gated gearbox has the advantage of being able to skip gears (like Senna at Monaco in 89--2nd and 5th were giving him problems, so he stopped using them, and won the race).

If the manufacturers are concered about engine blowups, let them use an electronic device that disengages the clucth if the engine will over-rev. Make the driver push a reset butten to get his clutch back. shifting mistakes are then punished, but don't cause DNF's.

Oh, and yes, bring back the throttle cable. Instead of engine mapping for drivability, we'll get bellcranks on the throttles. That's ok though, because you can't hide traction control in a bell crank!

[Keith Sawatsky]

To me anyways F1 has been about technology first and racing ability second. Removing these transmissions would be a step backwards and serve no real purpose IMO.

Every one else here has explained why and since I agree with them I'll shut up now.

[DangerMouse]

Keith,
F1 Gearboxes are mearly sequential constant mesh gearboxes (like motorcycles) with a bit of techno wizardry bolted on, the adoption of them in road cars is very unlikely (as a CVTs and Auto's are more suitable for road use for refinment reasons) in other words the money spend on semi auto sequential boxes in F1 is a waste of money as we will never see them in road cars - all the gearbox systems that are advertised as being similar to the F1 ones like Ferrari's F355F1 or the "tiptronic" Porsche 911 & Audi and Fiats one (whatever it's called) are internally similar to normal gearboxes but with a sophisticated selection system.

The same goes for allowing throttle by wire systems in F1, 3D engine maps are already banned (suppposedly! ) in F1 which immediately puts them behind the EMS in a standard road car - the rules restrict F1 to having a simpler system than road cars and again dropping them from F1 (resorting to real throttle cables) would do more good than harm as the companies aren't really able to apply their findings to road cars anyway and would bannish "traction control" arguments overnight - maybe driver skill will play more of a part again! I like the idea of too much horsepower and not enough tyre grip, with just the driver controling the whole shibang - remember the turbo era? Hmmmmmmmm....

I say bannish throttle by wire and allow 4 litre engines! straight line performance isn't the danger with F1 cars it's corner speed which Bridgestone can determine by changing compounds, then we'd see drivers wrestling to control 1000+BHP out of bends which would certainly seperate the men from the boys!
Also smaller teams would benefit, too much horsepower is too much horsepower, with 1000+BHP and worse drivability (as there'd be no fancy electronics to control it) being 100BHP down wouldn't be the concern it is today as even the customer engines would produce too much power for the cars/tyres to handle. (assuming a reductuion in aerodynamic grip would implemented as well.) - better racing? you bet!

[This message has been edited by DangerMouse (edited 08-23-1999).]

[PDA]

the first British patent for a constant mesh sequential change gearbox was 1903 (yes, 1903) so renault were by no means the first to use them. AS stated earlier, they have been a characteristic of motorcycles all the time. Their first use in modern car racing was in Rallycross cars (Shanche, xtrack, can;t remember the year) and that poreceded their use in F1 by a number of years.

Alain Prost's argument in favour of manual gearchanges was that it reintroduced a skill which drivers no longer need, and the inevitable mistakes would provide more overtaking opportunities, and we all want those don't we?

[Pit Babe]

That's my position as well, PDA, but the arguments against it seem to outweigh the arguments for.

[PDA]

PB - The problem for F1, as stated above, is what to do about available technology. SO much has been banned already. Let's face it, top line road cars have ABS, Yaw control (that equates to the fiddle brake Maclaren used for a while last year, before it was banned), traction control, al of which have been banned in F1 in the interests of retaining a reliance on driver skills. Gear change mechanisms is just another. If you ban everything, then you end up like NASCAR which doesn't even allow electronic ignition or fuel injection! . One of the most interesting developments of recent years (1992) was reactive suspension, and that has been banned. I like F1 as a development race, and find the engineering contest at least as interestng as the driver contest, but where does one draw the line?

[westendorf]

Talk about buttons giving an advantage to the driver how about the pit lane speed limiter button? Screw up on pit lane and you
lose 10 sec. plus in/out. All this does is let the DRIVER go faster not the car if you catch my meaning. If the driver has to spend more concentration on manual shifting then he has less to spend on other things steering, braking etc.
GO Minardi!!!

[Christiaan]

In previous decades F1 was more a showcase for technology and indeed f1 wisdom was passed on to road cars. Now its just a money game and good advertising for enfine suppliers. It is not logical to assume that is something will never be employed in road cars , it should be removed from F1. Its just not like that. Our cars are not open wheeled, do not have rear diffusers blah blah blah.

[PDA]

This is changing the thread a little, but technology has reached such a pitch, that the application of all available techniques would deskill GP racing to the extent that you or I could get respectable lap times. Most people want a driver competition, not a technology competition, and would like the cars to be more evenly matched, so that driver skills would determine the outcome. As you say, in the past, F1 has been at the forefront of technology development, but in many ways, this is no longer true. What is the answer? I don't know, do you?