Formula One invests more in aerodynamics than any other sport in the world: in theory, a Formula One car\u2019s downforce is so strong you could drive it upside down along the roof of a tunnel without falling off!<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s aero packages have seen the biggest shake-up in decades, with a shift to ground effect \u2013 suction under the car \u2013 which is something that\u2019s been abandoned in favour of airflow over the car\u2019s body since 1982. There are also major changes to how cars affect the aerodynamics of their rivals, as just a glance at the 2022 car\u2019s new, stylishly curved rear wings will tell you.<\/p>\n
But did you know you use the same aerodynamics that keep these incredible cars on the road every time you buy your lunch at the supermarket? One of the largest costs \u2013 both in terms of energy bills and carbon footprint \u2013 for supermarkets comes from their open freezer units, as the shelves cause the cold air to spill out.<\/p>\n
Today, almost every major chain in the UK uses F1-designed aerodynamic wings on the fridge freezer shelves, which captures the flow of cold air and pushes it back into the fridge.<\/p>\n
Fuel is going green<\/strong><\/h2>\nA Formula One engine is an apex predator of the motorworld, with cylinders seeing 50,000 mini-explosions during the course of a lap to drive its pistons, and inside temperatures reaching 2,750\u00b0C. But the stuff that\u2019s flowing into the engine is changing this year.<\/p>\n
From 2022, Formula One will run on E10 fuel, meaning 10 per cent of the mix is made from ethanol, produced from plants. This is a move to improve the sport\u2019s eco-credentials, albeit at a slight loss of horsepower.<\/p>\n
This petrol-biofuel mix is likely to stay until 2025, but F1 experts are already looking at how the cars will be powered in the future. Rival set-up Formula E<\/a> has an exclusive licence on electric racing, so teams will have to move to another green option in the future.<\/p>\nThe leading candidates are hydrogen power<\/a> \u2013 already, teams are looking at using it to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2013 or synthetic fuels, which uses chemical processes, often powered by renewable energy, instead of crude oil to create petrol.<\/p>\nRead more about racing:<\/strong><\/p>\n- The anatomy of a Formula E car<\/a><\/li>\n
- Formula 1 constructor Williams developing electric scooters<\/a><\/li>\n
- Head to head: Formula 1 vs Formula E<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
Sporting secrets are being revealed<\/strong><\/h2>\nFormula One is the ultimate engineer sport, with the fastest car usually trumping the fastest driver. Unsurprisingly, teams spend millions on hiring the best minds in the world to think up clever tricks and tactics that can give them the edge \u2013 but this year the playing field is being levelled.<\/p>\n
There are now mandatory \u2018show and tell\u2019 technical sessions, where teams have to explain how they\u2019ve modified their car. In theory, that should stop anyone from gaining a serious advantage through a clever piece of technology \u2013 such as the famous Brawn \u2018double diffuser\u2019 in 2009, or even stranger changes, such as the 1978 Brabham BT46 \u2018fan car\u2019, or Tyrell\u2019s six-wheeled entry from 1976.<\/p>\n
Even though clever changes are often banned, they can still benefit us in surprising ways. In the late 2000s, Williams developed a Kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) using its brakes to power a spinning flywheel that could store energy. Although this has been replaced by other methods in racing, the flywheel idea is used by London buses to make them more efficient.<\/p>\n
And in 2005 and 2006, Fernando Alonso won back-to-back titles thanks in part to his car\u2019s hidden tuned mass damper \u2013 the same principle used by skyscrapers to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes.<\/p>\n
![\""Esteban\"]( "\\"\"Esteban\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> Esteban Ocon driving on 24 February 2022 \u00a9 Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\nCars can now be made from plants<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you listed the materials used to make a Formula One car, different types of metal would probably top your list. But since 2021, regulations have allowed \u2018flax, hemp, linen, cotton and bamboo\u2019 to be used in the car. McLaren has already been trialling this in their driver seats \u2013 since the 2021 British Grand Prix, Lando Norris\u2019s seat has been made entirely from reinforced flax fibres. It\u2019s a modern twist on the same material we\u2019ve been using to weave baskets for thousands of years.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s no reason the technology can\u2019t be used elsewhere, too; natural materials, reinforced with ribs like leaves on a tree, have already been used instead of carbon fibre by Porsche and Extreme E.<\/p>\n
Safety is ramping up<\/strong><\/h2>\nFormula One used to be one of the most dangerous sports on Earth. Today\u2019s cars, though, are safer than ever before, with major crashes, such as Romain Grosjean\u2019s at Bahrain in 2020, showing the life-saving power of the halo device \u2013 a strip of titanium that protects the driver\u2019s head from anything landing on the cockpit \u2013 and HANS (head and neck support) device, which tethers the driver\u2019s helmet and prevents them from breaking their neck in an impact.<\/p>\n
The 2022 cars can resist 50 per cent more energy from the front and about double the impact from the side than last year\u2019s version. They\u2019ve also made changes to the fuel tank, in theory preventing the same kind of inferno that almost killed Grosjean.<\/p>\n
These safety changes always have lessons for our own road vehicles, including cheaper, stronger crash helmets, better crumple zones to dissipate energy, and even better roadside barriers to absorb impact on motorways.<\/p>\n
In fact, one of the earliest mentions of a basic safety feature came from Britain\u2019s first female racing driver, Dorothy Levitt. Known as \u2018the fastest girl on Earth\u2019, in 1909 Levitt wrote a book of advice for women drivers.<\/p>\n
Some of her recommendations \u2013 such as carrying a gun to scare off any men that bother you \u2013 aren\u2019t a good idea these days. However, her idea of carrying a pocket mirror \u201cnot only for personal use, but to occasionally hold up to see what\u2019s behind you\u201d caught on: every car now has a rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n Racing Green: How Motorsport Science Can Save the World<\/a><\/em> by Kit Chapman is out now (\u00a320, Bloomsbury Sigma).<\/p>\nRead more about future car technology:<\/strong><\/p>\n- Future cars: 9 designs that could revolutionise the vehicle industry<\/a><\/li>\n
- Electric cars: What can we do with the growing number of dead batteries?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
<\/p><\/div>
![\""Racing\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2022\/03\/Racing-Green-8044bf0.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556"\" "\\"\"Racing\\"\/")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section><\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kit Chapman Published: Thursday, 03 March 2022 at 12:00 am This year\u2019s Formula One season has seen a host of changes, making racing more exciting than ever before and giving smaller teams a chance to compete with the big names. But whether you\u2019re hoping Sir Lewis Hamilton will clinch his eighth title, cheering for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":6326,"template":"","categories":[54],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"6"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Kit Chapman Published: Thursday, 03 March 2022 at 12:00 am This year\u2019s Formula One season has seen a host of changes, making racing more exciting than ever before and giving smaller teams a chance to compete with the big names. But whether you\u2019re hoping Sir Lewis Hamilton will clinch his eighth title, cheering for…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/6325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The leading candidates are hydrogen power<\/a> \u2013 already, teams are looking at using it to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2013 or synthetic fuels, which uses chemical processes, often powered by renewable energy, instead of crude oil to create petrol.<\/p>\n Read more about racing:<\/strong><\/p>\n Formula One is the ultimate engineer sport, with the fastest car usually trumping the fastest driver. Unsurprisingly, teams spend millions on hiring the best minds in the world to think up clever tricks and tactics that can give them the edge \u2013 but this year the playing field is being levelled.<\/p>\n There are now mandatory \u2018show and tell\u2019 technical sessions, where teams have to explain how they\u2019ve modified their car. In theory, that should stop anyone from gaining a serious advantage through a clever piece of technology \u2013 such as the famous Brawn \u2018double diffuser\u2019 in 2009, or even stranger changes, such as the 1978 Brabham BT46 \u2018fan car\u2019, or Tyrell\u2019s six-wheeled entry from 1976.<\/p>\n Even though clever changes are often banned, they can still benefit us in surprising ways. In the late 2000s, Williams developed a Kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) using its brakes to power a spinning flywheel that could store energy. Although this has been replaced by other methods in racing, the flywheel idea is used by London buses to make them more efficient.<\/p>\n And in 2005 and 2006, Fernando Alonso won back-to-back titles thanks in part to his car\u2019s hidden tuned mass damper \u2013 the same principle used by skyscrapers to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes.<\/p>\n If you listed the materials used to make a Formula One car, different types of metal would probably top your list. But since 2021, regulations have allowed \u2018flax, hemp, linen, cotton and bamboo\u2019 to be used in the car. McLaren has already been trialling this in their driver seats \u2013 since the 2021 British Grand Prix, Lando Norris\u2019s seat has been made entirely from reinforced flax fibres. It\u2019s a modern twist on the same material we\u2019ve been using to weave baskets for thousands of years.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s no reason the technology can\u2019t be used elsewhere, too; natural materials, reinforced with ribs like leaves on a tree, have already been used instead of carbon fibre by Porsche and Extreme E.<\/p>\n Formula One used to be one of the most dangerous sports on Earth. Today\u2019s cars, though, are safer than ever before, with major crashes, such as Romain Grosjean\u2019s at Bahrain in 2020, showing the life-saving power of the halo device \u2013 a strip of titanium that protects the driver\u2019s head from anything landing on the cockpit \u2013 and HANS (head and neck support) device, which tethers the driver\u2019s helmet and prevents them from breaking their neck in an impact.<\/p>\n The 2022 cars can resist 50 per cent more energy from the front and about double the impact from the side than last year\u2019s version. They\u2019ve also made changes to the fuel tank, in theory preventing the same kind of inferno that almost killed Grosjean.<\/p>\n These safety changes always have lessons for our own road vehicles, including cheaper, stronger crash helmets, better crumple zones to dissipate energy, and even better roadside barriers to absorb impact on motorways.<\/p>\n In fact, one of the earliest mentions of a basic safety feature came from Britain\u2019s first female racing driver, Dorothy Levitt. Known as \u2018the fastest girl on Earth\u2019, in 1909 Levitt wrote a book of advice for women drivers.<\/p>\n Some of her recommendations \u2013 such as carrying a gun to scare off any men that bother you \u2013 aren\u2019t a good idea these days. However, her idea of carrying a pocket mirror \u201cnot only for personal use, but to occasionally hold up to see what\u2019s behind you\u201d caught on: every car now has a rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n Racing Green: How Motorsport Science Can Save the World<\/a><\/em> by Kit Chapman is out now (\u00a320, Bloomsbury Sigma).<\/p>\n Read more about future car technology:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> By Kit Chapman Published: Thursday, 03 March 2022 at 12:00 am This year\u2019s Formula One season has seen a host of changes, making racing more exciting than ever before and giving smaller teams a chance to compete with the big names. But whether you\u2019re hoping Sir Lewis Hamilton will clinch his eighth title, cheering for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":6326,"template":"","categories":[54],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"6"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/03\/formula-1-5-exciting-new-technologies-for-the-2022-racing-season.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Kit Chapman Published: Thursday, 03 March 2022 at 12:00 am This year\u2019s Formula One season has seen a host of changes, making racing more exciting than ever before and giving smaller teams a chance to compete with the big names. But whether you\u2019re hoping Sir Lewis Hamilton will clinch his eighth title, cheering for…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/6325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Sporting secrets are being revealed<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\""Esteban\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2022\/03\/Formula-1-racing-car-fc5695d.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Esteban\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Cars can now be made from plants<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Safety is ramping up<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section><\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"