[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Casper

Show me where an F1 break through reached a road car, no ifs or buts but actually was developed in F1 and then moved across to a mass produced road car. I might be proven wrong but I simply can't think of anything.

That's not what I have suggested has happened. I have suggested that developmental experience within F1 has contributed to the same development of technology on road cars.

Probably best summed up in the following sentence:

'F1 has actually been more about taking technology that has been tried and tinkered with - often with limited success - and pushing it to its very limit. It's at this point that this "perfected" technology then feeds back into the real world.'


Examples include:

'tweaking of technology can be found as far back as 1912, when Renault replaced the overhead camshaft in its race car with a double overhead camshaft. This meant a less restricted airflow at higher speeds as there was a wider angle between the intake and exhaust valves.'

'Carbon Fibre construction had been around for a while, but the MP4/1 unveiled in 1981 was the first car to use carbon fibre to create a single-piece monocoque for the body developing the technology in use by aerospace at the time. This is now used to keep weight down and retain rigidity on higher-end cars.'

'The first semi-automatic transmission, reducing the dependence on the clutch pedal, was developed by Chrysler back in the 1940s, and other manufacturers continued to develop variants of it after the war. However, semi-automatic transmissions never really took off as they were complicated and didn't really suit drivers, offering neither the ease of use of an automatic or the driving quality that comes with a manual transmission.
In the late 1980s, Ferrari developed a semi-automatic gearbox for its F1-89. After some early reliability problems - even Ferrari found it a complicated system - the gearbox proved to be revolutionary, allowing drivers to change gear quickly and reducing occurrences of accidental gear changes.
By the mid-90s, all F1 cars had moved to semi-automatic transmission, while Ferrari was introducing it to the wider public with the F355. The original 1994 Berlinetta version used a manual gearbox, but the semi-automatic transmission was added in 1997. Although still an expensive system, many high-end road cars now use the 'flappy paddle' semi-automatic transmission.'

'Williams FW15C : Traction control, active suspension, anti-lock brakes: these things were all in use in some form or another in production cars. However, the Williams car utilised new electronics packages to control these, [...] since then electronics have playing a much more significant part in the engine management, traction control and braking of our production cars.'