Gearboxes and ratios

[Brogan]

Mercedes have written a very interesting article on gearboxes as part of their features this season.

The original article is here: http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-...01-614322-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html?TS=1308735104597

Or you can also find it on the F1 site: http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2011/6/12197.html

There are some interesting nuggets of information.

For example, I knew teams had to select their gear ratios by FP3 and then stick with them for the rest of the weekend.
I didn't know though that they had to pick 30 ratio options before the season started.

Article 9.6.2 of the Technical Regulations says all competitors have only 30 gear ratio pairs available for the season, and these must be declared before the first event of the year.

 

[Speshal]

Interesting read

 

[Pyrope]

I think this is why nobody else was really able to make the F-duct work as well at McLaren. While most teams had selected their longest gears based on their known performance at the fastest track, McLaren knew that they had the F-duct available so kept a few in reserve. Quite often you could hear the Red Bull and Renault cars bouncing off the rev limiter well before the end of a straight, while McLaren hardly ever did.