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The Basics - Design Changes - Setup & Testing - F1 Cockpits - Team by Team

The Cars

 the cars of grand prix racing
When a modern F1 driver climbs into the cockpit of his car he is surrounding himself in one of the most technologically advanced machines on the face of the planet.

Protected from the outside world by a carbon fibre tub that is more capable of withstanding shocks than steel, yet is lighter than aluminium, the modern car is designed with two primary aims in mind - speed and safety.

Today's cars have greater computing power than the Apollo spacecraft and cost almost as much, but it hasn't always been that way. Early racing cars were built in little more than domestic garages by gifted amateurs who best guessed most of the car's measurements.

Things have come a long way since then and in this section we will look at what goes into a modern F1 car. We will also be tracing each of the car's attributes back to those early days when the closest a car got to an aerodynamic test was in a trailer passing through the Dartford tunnel.