Likely, none of us would be able to simply get into an F1 car and even drive it anywhere at all . There was a Top Gear episode where Richard Hammond tried to drive an F1 car. I figured with his experience he could make a decent go at it, but apparently the cars are so specifically tuned for going fast that it's all-out, or nothing. [this video]
I don't remember and F1 story getting so popular on HN, the Austin GP has helped :) I think the sport is fascinating because it really is a battle of geek engineers and drivers. The most successful geek around today is this guy: [link] Normally the champagne can get stuck in your eyes. These guys and the huge teams behind them battle off track with each other and with the regulations, and the strategists and races battle on track. The off track battles make these cars safe in accidents at 300 km/h (186 mph), [link] [link] Robert Kubica was unconscious after the crash and he missed a race but Mark Webber hit the barrier at 280 km/h (174 mph) and walked away from it. As some other readers have mentioned, there has not been a driver death in F1 since 1994. A typical trade off we might think about in software is this: [link] :) In F1 the trade offs when writing the regulations are between safety, cost reductions and entertainment. And yet the two aspects that make the cars go slower (safety and cost reductions) are exploited to the maximum. No matter if wings are taken off the car to reduce downforce, or traction control is banned to reduce speed into and out of corners, or if fans are declared illegal ( [link] ), the cars each year go just as fast as the year before. For example in 2009 this little trick from Brawn GP caught most teams off guard and won them the championship: [link] Interesting story: the development of this car had been carried out by three teams separated from
Never mind that we wouldn't have the technique and balls to be able to drive around one high speed corner. Watch Richard Hammond, who's spent more time than 99.9% of us driving fast cars round racetracks, spend an entire day and not getting it quite right: [this video]
Hammond spends a day failing to drive an F1 car well.
Could you? Here[1] is Richard Hammond driving an F1 car on Top Gear, and he says it can't go slowly, safely - no downforce, no heat in the tyres, no heat in the brakes. If you're coming off a lot of fast laps into the pit lane they will still be warm, if you try to drive it at 40km/h all the way they won't be. [1] [this video]
Hammond explains F1 cars can't go slowly: no downforce or tyre heat.
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