Gears in a F1 car

Changing gears in a Formula One car needs a very long practice to be mastered. Pilots simply flick a paddle behind the steering wheel to downshift or upshift.

F1 cars use highly sophisticated semi-automatic, seamless shift gearboxes. The pilot is not required to manually operate the clutch, nor is he required to lift off the accelerator thus the pilot suffers from no loss of drive.

To understand better the working principle, let’s begin with the basics and how the transmission works in a regular car.

Manual Stick Shift Transmission Operation

A regular car works thanks to a manual stick shift gear transmission system.

Simplified diagram of an ordinary transmission system

The engine generates power – a rotating movement of an output shaft - transmitted to the gearbox thanks to a clutch and a flywheel. The flywheel on itself is linked to the crankshaft output shaft.

When the pilot presses the clutch pedal a hydraulic system forces the plate against the rotating flywheel. When he releases it, the pressure plate moves to the clutch plate and the power is transmitted.

The main shaft gears are engaged to the gears on the lay shaft and rotate together. They don’t transmit to the main shaft, as they are mounted over the bearings. The transmission happens when the dog clutches, connected to the main shaft, engage a gear and that the main shaft moves accordingly.

Different torques are obtained depending on the gear engaged thanks to the selector mechanism. For example since the diameter of the 1st gear is bigger, speed reduces, but torque is increased and on the other hand in the 5th gear the speed is the highest, but the torque is much lower.

Example with the 1st gear

The reverse gear, works exactly the same except that we add an idler gear and thus we transfer reverse motion to the output shaft.

Sequential Gearbox System :

As we said before, F1 cars use sequential gearboxes which allow them to shift seamlessly. The steering wheel has two gear levers, one for upshifting and the other for downshifting.

So, what is the difference from a normal road car?

Sequential gearbox schematic diagram

The main difference lies in the gear selector. Indeed, when the pilot upshifts or downshifts the sequential gear (black) rotates on the red mesh, the rotation moves the selector forks (green) which engages the collar (= dog clutch) to the gear on the main shaft. The gear selector shaft has grooves cut on it in which is a selector pin (blue). Each selector fork is activated by a different groove cut. When the pilot engages the sequential gear selector rotates. The rotation makes the pin move in the groove cut in the selector shaft up to the wanted gear. This causes the movement of the selector fork and engages the linked collar.