“ Apart from the wets all tyres are heated in blankets before they are fitted "
CUTTING EDGE
TYRES
Official F1 ® tyre supplier Pirelli provides six types of dry or slick tyres for the season , all of which have no tread and are made of compounds ranging from hard and durable to soft and sticky . They are coded C0 , C1 , C2 , C3 , C4 and C5 , from the hardest to the softest .
Three of the six types of slick tyre are transported to every race . For example for Silverstone there ’ s a bias towards the harder tyres in the range , with the C1 , C2 and C3 in use .
Colour coding is used to show what type of tyre is on the car – the hardest tyres in use on a given weekend have white sidewalls , the mediums are yellow , and the softs are red .
In essence the softer the tyres are the more grip they produce and the faster the lap time , but they wear or degrade faster than harder tyres , and thus can be used for fewer laps .
That makes tyre strategy one of the most important decisions of the race weekend , particularly because in a dry race teams must use at least two of the different compounds available to them .
In the case of rain teams can use wet tyres ( blue sidewall ) or intermediates ( green ). Apart from the wets all tyres are heated in blankets before they are fitted to the cars .
BRAKES
The acceleration of an F1 ® car is impressive , but the most jaw-dropping part of its performance is the braking technology , which is so powerful the drivers can experience up to 5g of deceleration force .
The cars use carbon brake discs rather than the metal used on road cars , but they last just 800km compared to 50,000km on a road car , and teams use around 500 pads in a season .
The discs weigh just 1.2kg each , more than 10 times lighter than on an average family car , and although cooled by over 1400 air holes , they have to operate in temperatures up to an incredible 1000 degrees Celsius .
FUEL
The fuel is stored within the main survival cell in a large flexible bladder made of military grade ballistics material sat just behind the driver . The flow of fuel into the engine is strictly monitored by the FIA . Drivers are allowed 110kg ( around 145 litres ) of fuel for a full race distance . These days there is no refuelling during races , although it was an important feature of strategy in the past .
“ Apart from the wets all tyres are heated in blankets before they are fitted "
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