Tyre

Tyres
F1 TYRES
Dry Tyre	Intermediate Tyre	Wet Tyre
Tyre pressure :about 1.1 bar
Formula One tyre for dry surfaces is a colossus of 660 mm in external diameter and 350 mm wide, containing four longitudinal grooves of at least 2.5 mm imposed by the Depth Regulations. These grooves are symmetrically placed from the centre of the tyre tread and spaced 50 mm apart. Far from being just an altered slick, the dry surface tyre is a completely new concept, introduced to F1 with the sole aim of reducing the size of the ground contact area, i.e. the surface which ensures grip, resulting from the contact of the rubber compound and track. The aim of the regulations: to reduce the speed of the cars on corners... even if this means lost sleep for the manufacturers' design offices.	Fine to moderate rain, precarious gripping conditions but which do not justify using Wet tyres: intermediates are required. They have a special role and a wide range of uses: on a drying track, they must evacuate the film of water but also remain competitive on the dry without deteriorating too much. For this reason, quite discrete sculptures are used.	As well as the constraints of compound and structure explained above, the tyre for rain ;full wet;- must meet another equirement: to evacuate the film of water which infiltrates between the tyre contact area and the track. If this film is too great, the tyre loses all grip: resulting in aquaplaning. Regulations allow three different types of wet tyres by race. Generally, one is an intermediate type, the other two are ;wet; types, for soaked tracks. These types of tyre can only be used when the track has been declared;wet; by the race director.
Life : from 80 km to 200 km, depending on the compound	Life : extremely variable depending on weather conditions	Life : up to the total length of the race, depending on conditions.
from 80°C to 100°C	from 40° C (wet track) to 100° C (on the dry).	from 30°C to 50°C
As an additional note;nearly all Formula 1 teams uses NITROGEN for filling tyre. .The tyres are filled with a special nitrogen rich, moisture free gas to make sure the pressure will not alter depending on where it was inflated (this gas does not expand when hot) and NITROGEN holds tyre pressure for longer than air.A 20% Tyre pressure drop reduces tyre life by 15%.

Expensive play

Money ,money ,money or Lewis Hamilton

The Uk's Highest paid sportsmen after David Beckham

Lewis Hamilton strikes £70m contract

Lewis Hamilton is on course to become one of the world’s richest sportsmen after signing a new five-year contract with McLaren Mercedes yesterday thought to be worth at least £70 million. The deal, which could be considerably more in value when bonuses and other endorsements are added, ties Hamilton to McLaren until the end of the 2012 season but he may stay even longer should he fulfil his early promise.

Hamilton was grinning from ear to ear as he posed for an official photograph to mark the deal with Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, and Martin Whitmarsh, the chief executive, at the company headquarters outside Woking in Surrey.

lightest Cars on the planet

Here ING FI team engineers brings the game close to the edge

light as carbon

Carbonfibre

In the beginning of the sixties, Colin Chapman, chief designer of Lotus, introduced the monocoque to formula one by placing thin plates around the bars of the monocoque. This new technology increased the stiffness of the chassis.

F1 teams use carbon fibres, a pre-impregnated epoxy resin and an aluminium honeycomb layer, which is sandwiched between two layers of carbon fibre.
The chassis is usually the first part of the car to be built, due to the amount of time required. The main chassis usually comprises of about 8 parts (panels). The first stage of the manufacturing process is to build a solid (computercut) pattern, from which a mold for the panel is produced. The molds are constructed by laying a total of 10 layers of pre-impregnated (with resin) carbon fibre on top of each pattern to produce the mold. The production of the mold takes place in several stages, involving vacuum treatments, debulking and heating processes. The mold then has to be thoughroughly cleaned and prepared for use.

The next phase is the actual fabrication of a car part, made from sheets of pre-cut, pre-impregnated carbon fibre, which are carefully laid inside the molds. It is thereby vital orientate the carbon fibre sheets in pre determined directions in order to achieve the desired strength. A total of 5 layers of carbon fibre are laid, forming the outer skin of the chassis (to achieve a final, cured thickness of 1mm, a total of 3-4 layers of carbon fibre must be laid down).

It's 20 years or so since F1 constructors picked up on the idea of carbon fibre, which was previously used mainly in the aerospace industry. Now this remarkable material, which when properly treated can be three times stiffer and seven times stronger than the equivalent mass of aluminium, is employed by all the current F1 teams

Price Coming Down

The price of the basic material has been dropping steadily, though. In the mid-1990s a pound weight of carbon fibre cost over £60. Now it's more like £3 - very competitive with steel.

We're already used to seeing carbon fibre components in concept, prototype and limited-production cars. Within a few years they're likely to be much more common in mainstream vehicles, whose manufacturers like the stuff for its light weight, strength and resistant to corrosion and wear.

If carbon fibre composites are high-tech materials, the processing of them starts in a very sophisticated way and then gets more basic.

Computer finite element modelling is used to decide on the exact design required. A mould is created on the basis of those calculations. But the build-up of the laminated "sandwich" of Nomex, aluminium honeycomb sheets and carbon composite skins (looking from some angles rather like a wafer biscuit) is done by hand.