Toto Wolff once called his Mercedes Formula 1 cars the “fastest laboratory in the world”. While this may be a cliché that makes our eyes roll faster than a Pirelli, it’s undeniable.
When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars shaving tenths off lap times, creating something that can change the world is inevitable. And this isn’t just a hybrid engine for your daily driver, I’m talking about technology that saves lives in hospitals.
This is the best trickle-down technology we can thank the grid for.
Road car technology
While there is so much more to this story than just technology on wheels, we’ll start with what we know.
- Paddle Shifters: In the years leading up to 1989, F1 drivers were forced to struggle with a gear lever and clutch in their cramped cockpits. But as the 1990s approached, John Barnard’s Ferrari 640 was fitted with a semi-automatic gearbox with paddle shifters. At release it wasn’t too reliable. But the time savings between shifts was welcomed by drivers Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger. The technology quickly spread across the power grid. In 1997 this gearbox was found in the F355 F1 road car.
- The modern hybrid: The Kinetic Energy Recovery System was introduced in the 2009 F1 season. It came in the form of a heavy push-to-pass system that used electrical energy to increase the output of the already powerful powerplants. Now these systems have been highly optimized and can be found in some of the fastest cars in the world, including the Mercedes-AMG One and the Ferrari F80.
Photo by: Williams F1
This is where things get weird. Technology built for – and having built – some of the fastest race cars in the world can be found almost everywhere. I’d even hazard a guess that you’ll come across something inspired by F1 almost every week.
There’s something ironic about how one of the most glamorous sports in the world is responsible for creating some of the most interesting technologies under the radar. Maybe we shouldn’t roll our eyes. Wolff is right.
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