Nick de Vries just had his first Formula 1 race, and he couldn't get out of the car unassisted after. And he is an experienced Formula E and Formula 2 race car driver. This stuff is nuts.
I guess it works other way around too, as Rosberg, Vettel, Räikkönen have said they can/could drive F2 much faster and better after F1 experience, since body doesn't get strained that much as it's get used to F1...
I remember watching an interview with the late great Sir Jack Brabham (2x F1 World champion in the 1960s). He was given an opportunity to drive a modern F1 car in the late 90s, 30 years after he retired. The car was fitted with carbon brakes which he had never experienced. He said that when he came to the end of the main straight for the first time he hit the brakes hard like he would have in the old days and he came to a complete stop 100 yards from the corner. :)
@@IWrocker He also won the drivers' championship in 1959, so 3x world champion, the last one being in a car bearing his own name. It would be great if you could react to some 20th century F1 footage, such as Jean Alesi's moments, Patrick Depailler onboard at Long Beach, Monaco, Montreal and Kyalami. It's a different experience in each era, but I think that a lot of the older races and qualifying is more exciting.
I remember an article in a car mag when the journalist was taken for a ride in a racing car with a pro driver, he said something along the lines "we passed what I thought was the braking point, I was sure we're gonna have a crash and he hit the brakes 50 meters later" :)
Even better when those people get invited to a track event or a kart race and look like they're going to collapse from exhaustion after a handful of (slow) laps.
@@lukekarts Lol yeah. A friend of mine used to mock me for goin kartin sayin "I don't see the fun in goin around in wussy kids toys". Got him to do a session with us in ProAm karts n he was fuckin dead after just 11 laps, complained for 3 days about how bad his neck n forearms hurt. Never heard a single negative thing outta his mouth since🤣
Larry Walker said that when Jacques Villeneuve beat him for Canadian athlete of the year. Larry may have been the most naturally talented player ever(Yeah Willy Mays) as he played elite junior hockey well into his teens before playing baseball. His understanding of F1 left a lot to be desired though.
I remember hearing an interview with an old F1 driver from the 50's and the interviewer was asking him about all the safety features that had been introduced up to that point and he asked. "Did it not seem dangerous to you basically going sideways around a corner at 90 MPH on tyres that were only a couple of inches thing with more or less no brakes." The old guy thought a bit and said something like, "Yea put like that it does seem dangerous but you've got to remember it was only a few years since we were having bombs dropped on us every other night so at the time no it didn't seem that dangerous."
Historical presentism is really bad in racing with how far it's come safety wise and almost no younger person understands how racing was viewed back then and even most older fans don't understand or forget depending on how old were talking. Even Max Verstappen didn't like the halo because "there needs to be a certain element of risk" and people have sort of memoryholed a lot of drivers being against the halo on the grounds that making it too safe takes away from the competition
Grosjrqn was one of those drivers who was against the Halo. After the crass the last season he raced in F1 he raised it for saving his life since he would have burned to a crisp if he didn't have it.
@@dennistofvesson6351 He wouldn't have noticed being burned to a crisp though, as he would've been beheaded by the guardrail in the initial hit if it weren't for that Halo. Remember how the car went halfway through the rails including the entire seat. I still think the Halo is ugly as hell and I preferred the little front window some teams developed, but there is no denying the halo already saved quite a few lives since its introduction.
Pro tip: Belgian gp at legendary Spa is next weekend. As good jumping in point as you'll ever get. Even though Ferrari fucked up and the title fight is pretty much over there wasn't really a bad race so far this spectacular season and the midfield is usually insane.
Yeah Spa is like one of the 4-5 classic F1 tracks (for those who dunno). I heard they might slash the Belgian GP and even Monaco from F1 in the future. If they do that it is no longer F1 but just Formula Oilmoney for worthless garbage and I 100% won't watch that, as it is bad enough already.
@@barath4545 there's talk of the removing Spa from next year's calendar to allow them the opportunity to install proper parking, travel to ad from the track etc. Last year's race was a shambles for the public and they were all parked on grass fields that became bogged and marshy and they were all trapped. And its a regular occurance there.
One of the most remarkable things in F1 for me is that the drivers can reproduce a lap speed within a few thousandths of a second, lap after lap. I can't even imagine the amount of concentration (and skill) that must take. Especially with everything else they have to do during every single lap. As a fan of F1 for 50 years + it still leaves me open mouthed :)
That's what my Formula Ford team wanted, consistency. We can work on lap times. but you have to be able to do it over & over exactly the same. I used to call it getting in the zone. Once I got locked in the zone an airplane could crash next to the track & I wouldn't see it, all I see is the track ahead of me. Nothing else.
Also balance changes every corner. Every corner you need to check the fuel and the tyres. This is impossible. I cant even finish a race without a mistake in f1 game.
I remember seeing an interview with a group of F1 drivers, and they asked what the thing that shocked them most about driving in F1 was, and they all agreed that no matter how much gym work you put in and how much experience you had driving lower formulas, by the end of the first month racing the amount your head is thrown about your neck size grows by about an inch at minimum.
I can agree with that, I had weight lifters ask me what workout I did to get my neck muscles to look like that. Drive Formula Fords every weekend... I can only imagine F1.
Mika Häkkinen talked about how he trained his neck in hotel rooms; he lied on the bed so his head would come over the side, strapped all sorts of stuff around his head and just held it. He talked about how hard its going to have any social life, when buddies ask you out for a drink or movie, but you gotta go and maintain your physique.
They’ll put their head on one support, and their feet on another to keep their body raised. Their neck is going through an intense workout just keeping their body parallel to the ground.
Kevin Magnussen didn't race in the 2021 season, but returned to Formula 1 for the 2022 season. He had at that time not trained his neck for a year. He had raced the 2021 IMSA SportsCar Championship, as well as Le Mans in a LMP2. Returning to F1 2022, with days notice, he had a lot of trouble with neck pain , in the first five races. So much pain, that he concidered withdrawing from several races half way in. Btw., I've seen him train to F1 before his first 2013 season. 60 kg or 125 lb weights, just to train the neck!
I once went along on a ride with a race driver on the Spa-Francorchamps track. It was 'only' a Renault Clio, but I can tell you these cup cars have very little to do with the road car. 200+kph trough Eau-Rouge/Raidillon was kind of scary at first. When you get to the top of Raidillon you have no idea were the track is going: You just see the sky. Even in that car I was impressed how hard they stomp on the brakes before each slow corner. That was the thing that surprised me the most, really.
Having been an F1 fan for over 30yrs I was finally able to go to a race at COTA a few years ago and I was blown away. On TV they seem graceful and acrobatic. In person they're violent, incredibly quick, dangerous and will kill you fast. Even someone with no interest in motorsports would be in awe. Anyone reading this, do yourselves a favor and get to a race. It will take your appreciation of F1 to a whole new level.
For my first race I went to Silverstone (2008) and during qualifying and practice we lined up in a great spot to watch from Becketts, where you see them chicane through Maggots and Becketts at full throttle. The speed, the change in direction, incredible. But this was also the V8 era and the noise... as you said, violent. Then a few years later, Monaco with the blown diffusers which sounded insane: ruclips.net/video/BmGgvHflXgc/видео.html My old man took a trip to COTA which I regretfully couldn't make. He loved it there.
If I remember correctly Hammond (Top Gear) drove a F1 car too, starting from F4 and working up too it. And he said that after just a few laps he was totally spent... To tired to continue driving. I also heard that most "ordinary" people doesn´t have the neckstrenght to drive more than a few laps.
Clarkson (also Top Gear) had a similar experience in that he couldn't drive the car fast enough for the downforce to kick in, therefore he couldn't corner. Scarey cars lol
Yeah and hammond went full throttle for 0.2 seconds. Imagine the supercars he's driven and he had the balls to go full throttle for 0.2 seconds. Insane. You really can't imagine the power of an f1 before you experience it yourself
Well look at devries this weekend. A reserve driver who suddenly got put into albons car for the Italian gp. Even someone who works out and had driven a decent little bit in a 2022 f1 car. He couldn't get out of the car after the race. His mechanics had to help him out. A quick RUclips search and you can see. The average person would just be pudding after a full race.
I remember reading an article from a Mercedes engineer who found water droplets inside Hamilton's visor, concluding the brakes are so strong that make tears coming out of the ducts and stick to the visor.
Hammond (ex TpoGear) once drove an F1 car and complained on the radio that the brakes did not work. Response from the engineer: "that is because you drive too slow. They don't heat up" A typical F1 track has like 15 corners and each time, an F1 pilot has to put 150+ kilo presure on the brake. Each corner. For 70 laps. En each corner exactly the same pressure or you miss the turn. That is over 1000 times braking exactly at the same time, exactly the same pressure for each corner. In les than two hours total. While at the same time, you do a lot of other things as well. One mistake and you are in the gravel or wall. And that is just braking, not steering, shifting, changing settings which all influence when you can or have to brake. And how hard. Us regular mortals cannot do that.
Do an hour stint in a go-cart and see how you feel after...then multiply that by about 10 times......I done 2 half hour stints a few weeks back and I was in bits for about 3-4days after....
Hammond: I've driven an F1 car all out May: Yes, for 0.2 of a second At least that is how I remember it ending. Of course Hammond has driven an even faster car - and spent weeks in a coma afterwards - ruclips.net/video/mL2iC8E9uhM/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/6b-WaO3bZs4/видео.html
That was a great show, he said he wasn't able to go fast enough to get the tires and brakes hot enough to enable him to go fast enough for them to work properly. :)
Sam from STG has such a love and passion for driving and formula one, paired with his colorful and excellent storytelling, that makes this Vinwiki episode one of the best. He makes it relatable to the average person and makes you romanticize about the sport in a way not many can. Great reaction video, sir!
When I went on the Silverstone Experience they had the F1 Science area and you could try to stomp on the brake pedal. It took 85 - 90kg (190 - 200 lbs) of force to fully press it. That's just 1 corner! They don't skip leg day!
@@komkwam Even girls who raced in F3 or F2 got similar necks. I remember Tatiana Calderon looked like an american singer Laura Branigan (bless her) at her high school years, but with tougher nech. Giovanna Amati developed a pretty strong neck during her single-seaters career despite she was racing much slower 80's - 90's cars up to Brabham F1 and also she was a very fok'n slow driver by herself.
I remember hearing about Valentino Rossi testing a Ferrari F1 car a few years back. He apparently did well in it but "struggled with the 110 kg of braking force required on the brake pedal". Bearing in mind, most F1 drivers weigh on average 75 kg, so they are literally pushing more than their body weight, every brake application. Imagine 78 laps of Monaco doing that!
A lot of the braking force used in F1 cars comes from the drivers literally being moved towards the brake pedal by the G-Force from their initial brake engagement with their foot. I’m sure Sky F1 did a piece on it either earlier this season or late last season. Or maybe I was watching a race replay from a different season. But I remember seeing that recently 😅
@@tomsexton8256 yes, you’re right. And even just the Wind resistance is enough for a G or 2 for just lifting off the throttle, according to Brundle. I remember him saying sometimes his visor would get wet inside, it was his tear ducts “Leaking” from the G forces
Which is a myth because modern F1 cars have assisted brakes, just like you have in your car. There's LOTS of myths revolving F1, mainly for marketing reasons. So that people think these cars and their drivers are extraordinary. They're not.
@@xXturbo86Xx There's 2 reasons your comment is wrong: Firstly, the rules state that all braking force must come directly from the driver, no braking aids allowed. Driver aids were also banned after Senna's fatal crash in 1994, not that braking forces were ever assisted in the first place. Secondly, the braking assistance in your road car comes from manifold vacuum, from the engine. When you run your engine at wide open throttle, you develop zero manifold vacuum, so a vacuum booster on a F1 car would be totally useless, even if it was legal. The driver would also lose the feel of the front wheels, to detect locking up etc. These reasons apply to a lot of classes of motorsport, too, not just F1
I just watched this again for about the 4th or 5th time. And I had tears in my eyes as I was laughing so hard listening to the description of what it's like to drive an F1 car. It definitely makes you appreciate what skills and the amount of athleticism these F1 drives have.
I've been watching F1 since the late 1990's so it's all a bit routine now. So thank you for reminding me just how amazing this sport is, and it's great fun watching you geek about all the great stuff :)
When I was younger I attended a racing school and experienced a day of driving a F2000 race car. I thought that was an incredible experience back then 1995 just learning to drive one, forget racing. This F1 experience would be like winning the Powerball lottery.
There's a video of Richard Hammond driving one of the 2006 cars that you'd probably enjoy as well. It adds a lot of perspective to the "the only way to drive it is flat out" line seenthroughglass said.
On the subject of F1 drivers being athletes. When Jenson Botton was champion, for fun, he entered a qualifying round for world championships in the triathlon and finished 3rd. JB was not considered the fittest driver on the grid. Amazing result.
I paid to drive F2 car to then do 10 laps in an F1 car on the Cataluna track in Barcelona. I am quite fit and I don't think I could have done too many more laps. I was wrecked. Sweating like hell, legs were jelly and shaking. It made me truly respect how fit these guys are!
That braking statement being the thing that is astounding is so true. I got a 2020 GT500, 16.5” rotors 6 piston. And yea initially the speed wowed me. It was the first thing I felt, and I mean to be fair it still amazes me. But the part of the car that had the biggest reaction out of me was the pure stopping power from the brakes. It was just unbelievable how such a big, heavy car going so fast could just stop so quickly.
I remember a great segment on Top Gear where Richard Hammond tries to drive a Renault R25 F1 car. It was i think the last of the monstrous V10 era. He couldn't go fast enough to get heat into the brakes or to get the aero working properly. Which in turn made it even more terrifying lol. You should check it out.
I remember driving a formula 4 car and just that one afternoon alone made me appreciate what these guys go through, I've had over 15 years racing karts, cars, single seaters, but once you get in a formula style car, experience those brakes and mechanical grip, everything changes man, you're no longer the amazing driver you once thought you were 🤣
I really loved watching this video … Vin told the story brilliantly and found myself nodding and agreeing with your comments, super impressed. I’ve been following F1 since the 60’s and can’t believe the technical advances, the sophistication of the teams themselves etc. I was at a Race of Champions for F1 drivers at Brands Hatch and far from the security etc of today, I was able to wander around the paddock where the teams such as Brabham, Lotus etc where they fiddling and fettling their cars in the open air next to their trucks 😊 I don’t look back with rose tinted glasses as I totally love the F1 races as they are today.
Thanks again! Nice to follow your journey deeper in to the F1"rabbit hole". You have a great/healthy attitude, respect! So many people do not consider motor sport as a "real" sport. Or the drivers as athletes. Fortunately we have chosen race/rally car drivers as the "athlete of the year" winners. But still not enough. I have driven many times in these kind of events and have been lucky to be "driven" by a pro driver rally, race and street cars. No matter what it is always totally mind blowing! I have "died" so many times in my mind, that I have lost every illusion even to try something "crazy". (And something "else" has happened too and not just in my mind but in my pants and mouth). Regards from Finland!
F1 engines have very little torque, less or about the same as an average consumer car. The piston stroke is incredibly short, it needs to be for such high rpms (there's a practical universal maximum stroke speed for IC engines). Torque amplification happens in the train towards and in the wheels, with high rpms, and low gearing. The highest geear in a 19,000 rpm engine that gives a top speed of 330+ kph, is about the same as the third gear of an average commuter car.
Skiing is another sport people think "you're sliding down a hill, that takes nothing". Well we all know what it takes out of you physically, motocross is another one
I remember a few journalists riding Mick Doohan's motorcycle. They all came back astounded what a *beast* that machine was. Then they told them they had the bike setup for wet weather, as they feared it true power was too much.
Formula 1 cars are fast beyond belief and that isn't just because they can reach a certain velocity, it's because they're designed to do everything as fast as possible.
I have done this same experience except for road going supercars. It was called Xtreme experience in the US, and I drove the Corvette C8 Z06. We did only 3 laps as well, and had an instructor in the passenger seat. It was fun, but it was no 30 min sessions in a formula 4 car lol. Anyways, highly recommend the car was a monster.
Me and my bro went on a car experience day in one of the car parks (they had a little circuit marked out with cones and a little chicane) of raf north weald near london just over 10 years ago and they had a large number of super cars that all the people there could drive we had a choice of 9 laps in one car or 3 laps in 3 cars, there was also a 911T there but that was more money so we did not choose that, anyway we both picked the aston db9 to start then went on to a lambo gallardo then to finish a ferrari it was supposed to be a 360 turn up but it was upgraded to a 430 which was a bit of a nice thing, annoyingly we had to stay in 2nd gear for the lap but that was still great fun and they encouraged us to drive it as hard as poss.
I have driven a Subary Impreza WRC Rally Car, one that was actually used in the WRC circuit back in the day. I also got to get a lap on a closed, narrow gravel road with a former rally world champion in the same car. It was nuts.
That's what we call, reality check. The great F1 GOAT 7-time champ Michael Schumacher was the 1st ever to introduce fitness in F1. At the time his competitors were like, What? You're working out? Thus, you see the size of his neck was like twice as big as the rest of them so he could take on the Gs from the fast corners and upon braking, specially stopping hard for a hairpin turn. Most of his routines were just for his neck! He became the fittest F1 driver. Great stuff I enjoyed your video and thanks!
Just wearing all of the protective gear in 100+ degree / high humidity heat would cause most people to collapse....And then being able to deal with the extreme dis-comfort of over the top heat and humidity for an entire race is astounding. F1 drivers are on another level, as far as "athletics" are concerned.
The reason the engine revs so high in idle is because the stroke is so short it has very little torque. It's extremely easy to stall an F1 car. F1 cars need to be kept at nearly max rpms to deliver enough torque to pull away from standstill. A commuter car has more torque than an F1 engine. It's all about power and revs and low gearing to get a lot of torque on the wheels.
F1 cars also have ridiculously light flywheels to allow rapid RPM changes as requested by the driver. To get some idea about the throttle response of the engine, see this compilation of F1 engines playing music: ruclips.net/video/y5opv-r9nZc/видео.html The reason they play music with the engine is that they need to heat up the engine in any case with a computer controller warm up routine. Then some marketing people figured out that it would be cool to apply the throttle positions in the warm-up routine to match notes in music. Usually when you release throttle the RPM will more or less slowly decrease because flywheel keeps the engine running without fuel. With F1 engines the compression is high and flywheel is minimal so the RPM drops instantly.
@@thegeforce6625 It seems to be somewhat similar to normal flywheel or part of clutch: ruclips.net/video/x63kTUIb4dM/видео.html I don't know about the weight but the physical size seems to be tiny compared to normal cars.
Regular persons can "drive" i.e (trundle around a track) F1 cars, with a few hours of preparation. Now, lapping it any faster to speak of than they would in a normal family sedan, is going to be a challenge for them. Driving it anywhere close to even half its potential is going to be impossible.
I think the hardest thing, aside from the body crushing forces, would be that you can only drive hard. The brakes don't work cold, the tires don't work cold. You can't just push a little and get heat into them either, the only way is to go as fast as you can.
Body crushing forces? It's not a Saturv V rocket, it's a car. Even the average trackday racer pulls 2-3 Gs all the time. And driving fast is easier than you think because the downforce glues the car down. All you do is just streer it through the corners. F1 is overrated.
I bought my late dad an F1 experience, for his 50th birthday at Silverstone. He loved it so much that he took up racing (not F1 cars, obviously), as a regular hobby.
Every time I take off my VR HMD after a session I'm left in awe of the drivers that do it for real. I still haven't come close to doing a full F1 race weekend, and that's without the added effects of G forces, and the pressure, and the consequences of crashing... 2 or 3 laps of the Nordschleife and I need a break...
I know that George Russell (Mercedes F1 driver) is 6’2”. There are some other tall drivers as well. The only current driver that I would consider to be short is Yuki Tsunoda. Drivers from Nascar and Formula E that have driven F1 cars are often in awe of the forces they experience and the toll on their bodies.
The hosts of Top Gear have driven every single high performance car on earth, Richard Hammond even had a run (and massive crash) in a top fuel dragster. Took him some time to get the hang of even getting an F1 car to not stall when trying to start moving and even longer to get used to "if you want traction, go fast". Peoples instinct with a car is that if you feel it doesn't have or is losing grip, go slower. With F1 cars, this is even worse as there is a line between mechanical grip and aerodynamic grip, where driving very slow, you have mechanical grip for days, but once you try to go outside of that and actually move in to F1 speed territory, the mechanical grip goes away and you need to go much much faster to get into good aerodynamic downforce grip. Going slower will bring you back into mechanical grip range, but you'll be so damn slow, you'll be lapped on round 2. Going fast cautiously puts you outside both mechanical and aerodynamic grip and you'll still be going only half as fast as someone driving the car like it's an F1 car. You really need to go all out to hit the spot where you go F1 fast and have F1 grip.
Also I remember from that TopGear episode that the car is on life support before it can run. Oil is heated, brakes, tires,. Once you're off the life support you will need to keep that heat in. If you fail to keep the heat in.... no grip, no brakes.
just to correct hammond did not go in a top fuel dragster he went in a jet powered dragster top fuel use piston based engines based off of the hemi v8 i believe jets are more optimized for land speed while top fuels are only used as far as i know in the 1/4 mile due to the short lifespans of the engines and/or due to it being a rule.
I'm a open wheel road racer (FF) as well as an instructor with our racing club, so I've gotten to drive some interesting cars. We don't get many people bring all-out supercars to use to take driver training, and there's a bit of a hierarchy with respect to how long you've been instructing, but I've gotten to drive a few interesting things. I drove a top-of-the-line modern 911 (I think it was a 2020 GT3), and while we're very careful about our students' cars, I didn't get to wring it out a little bit. My only regret is that my student was very good, so I think I got a grand total of 8 or 9 laps the entire weekend as the driver. There was also a guy who brought his nearly-racing-ready Datsun 260, and it had the heaviest brake pedal I've ever experience in any car; completely unboosted. I had to show him just how hard he was going to have to push on that pedal.
and a fun fact... you have to drive a formula 1 car fast cause if you drive slow your tyeres wont get warm and loose grip and the spoilers and the underbottom spoiler wont really work and you will most likely spn or slide offtrak :)
To give an idea of how fit F1 drivers are, after Jenson Button retired from F1 he went into running triathalons and several times finished in the top 1% of competitors
It's just so amazing how a 'regular' person reacts to the experience of driving an F1 car. In this video especially I thought the experience came across extremely well!! Thanks for reacting to it!!!
The late, great Murray Walker was given the chance to drive several laps of Silverstone in a "last year" car. At the time, he was in his 70s. After he completed his laps and returned to the pits, one of the team members asked him what speed he had been doing down Hanger Strait. "I don't know, They don't have speedometers" came he reply. "OK what gear were you in and what revs?". Back came the reply " I was in 6th, doing about 12000 rpm". The team member looked shocked at this and said "Murray, with the gearing, that means you were ding about 180mph." For the first time in his life (and probably only!) he was lost for words.
Saw how Lando Norris works out his neck muscles. He basically does a plank, head supported at one end and feet at the other. His neck is keeping himself parallel off the ground. These athletes are wicked. At Qatar, one driver threw up inside his helmet just on lap 12 due to intense heat and still finished the race.
Things that non-formula 1 drivers tend to forget: apart from the intense g forces; the incredible amount of things they have to temember to do during a race while taking a twisty-turny track at speeds of anything up to and past 200 Mph (not kph!); the almost non-existant view through the wing mirrors; the more recent extra view-blocking problem of the halo; the flags and whether they apply to them at that moment, or not (blue flags eg.); ... but also the heat. If you're racing in a hot country (particularly if it's semi-tropical, such as when races were still held in Malaysia), you have to be able to handle the heat in the cockpit. It's always hot in the cockpit because you've got the engine (power unit these days) literally inches from your back. Add to that the fire-proof nomex suit you have to wear. Plus the helmet which is like having your head strapped in a coffin for about an hour and 40 minutes. And like I said - if you're racing somewhere like Malaysia? It's up to FIFTY degrees Celsius in that cockpit. Each one of those conditions taken separately are difficult ... but you put them all together!!?? To top it all off you lose several litres of fluid from your body during a race, and sometimes the drink system which supplies fluid intake to the driver ... DOESN'T WORK. They just have to put up with it. And there are still people who think they get paid too much. I'd like to see a premiership footballer survive that.
Good F 1 Drivers are amazing and still very rare very good ones , it must be a Hell of a job so many rounds . It is never just keep it rolling hhigh speed , it is like he explain only even much harder . So Respect this Gladiators !!!
Absolute dream of a chance… did a supercar drive at Eastern Creek and it was mad, but the laps with the Pro showed that it’s the brakes… never realised the difference was so big :)
I had a similar experience to this guy with F1 and I can say that to push hard enough an F1 car you need at least one full year of practice even if you are champion in whatever other motor racing category. F1 racers are simply super humans. VR
ive tried the Yas marina F3000 car in Abu Dhabi which is not a "real" F1 car but honestly the experience was kind of the same, hard brakes and high rpm it was really fun honestly, although its 380 dollars for 30 minutes unlimited laps, of course you get free food and , helmet, fire resistant suit and a 20 minutes lecture and training in Mercedes GT-R or a Jaguar. You have to be 18 to 25 years old but age is mostly ignored, what's important is that you have to be at or under 107KG and a maximum height of 190cm or 160cm minimum.
I notice the car has wet weather tyres on. Richard Hammond, from Top Gear, had a go in a formula1 car. His biggest 2 problems were that he couldn't get the slicks hot enough to have any grip and he couldn't get the ceramic brake discs hot enough to work. No grip and no brakes is probably not the nicest of experiences. The wet weathers quickly overheat, so tyre temperature isn't an issue. I wonder if they also replaced the ceramics.
Have driven a Formula Ford a few times, managed to set the quickest laps on the day while the track was very wet but as it dried out I got left behind a little bit, even with a single seater that is down the lower end of the scale it's still quicker than a Ferrari on a circuit and if you really push it it's surprising how quickly you start to tire out. Also set the fastest lap in a competition in 80mph karts in Thailand many years back, but no way was I up to driving F1 even remotely quickly!!!
Back in the day, I raced formula fords and even at that level it’s very intense but sooo much fun. I think one skill race car drivers develop that the normal driving public doesn’t, are the use of brakes. Being able to feather them and never just stamping but still pressing down as hard as possible. Formula 1 is completely different although the same basics remain. Would love to feel how aero grip feels though. No wings on ff.
Also raced FF & agree 100%. & there's something else you learn on the track that they don't teach on the street and they should. Car Control. Told my son after someone else teaches you to drive & you get your 1st car, I'm going to teach you, car control. *I was so excited & had so much fun I never missed the wings.
I was looking at an interview with Marcus Ericsson on Viaplay when the man interviewing him asked if he thought he could drive an F1 car. Marcus laughed and replyed that he wouldn't even get out of the paddoc. Also the force F1 drivers has to apply to the brakes is about 150 kg. Imagine doing that time after time for 30 to 50 laps.
Sprintcars. The things with wings, are within reach of most ordinary people, They only turn left on an oval dirt circuit. 900+hp, NO transmission, just stop or go pedals. You better be good, because these things will bite you.... its well worth a look. Thank you for your hard work and great commentary in all of your videos. Being an older Australian, I remember conrod straight went straight through to the last corner and was changed for fear that a brake failure may have a car end up in the main street of Bathurst 3km away (just kidding).
The hardest part of driving an f1 car is keeping the tyres temp up or lose the grip, you also need to keep the brakes temp below a give temp. But first you need to fit into the cockpit itself. many years ago I was given to drive a full blown WRC car and man they are fast, but the brakes are hard as fk to engage, I was on a track and man the speeds of them is crazy for what is a car that's based on a road car that I owned. they then give me an opportunity to run a few laps with a WRC driver and man he scared to shit out of me, but I was given a chance to ride as a passenger in a full blown Le Mans car from the previous year and the experience was enthralling and exhausting despite not even being in control. At the end of the day they were able to show me the telemetry of my drive vs the actual drivers and it shocked me how slow I was driving in comparison. The top drivers are beyond fit, just to compete in races they have to be to survive a full race, and their reaction times are mind blowingly fast. I have never been cited for speeding despite over 45 years of driving, If I want to go fast I take it onto the track but fast is slow compared to the top motor sport vehicles. As for an F1 car i'm to tall and wide to fit into one even if I oiled my self up. But I've tried the neck muscle builder the top drivers use and its hard work and left me with a sore neck for days. I live motor racing and the guys and women who participate are very fit and have sharp minds, I for one appreciate what they do and do well.
Its difficult is an understatement Richard Hammond (top gear) is no slouch behind the wheel was flatout getting one out of the pits without stalling it twice.
The drivers' physical training allows them to suffer greater lateral G forces than a fighter pilot and still manage to hold their head up after 90 minutes. The physical effort involved means average heart rates above 170 bpm and 5-8 pounds lost in sweat during a race.
In terms of extraordinary g-forces, I think a top-fuel dragster is also something totally extreme. They out-accelerate anything else that applies drive through its wheels. Of course, they can't go around corners, and the driver only experiences those extreme forces for a few seconds at a time. But they are, I think, something else that your ordinary car enthusiast couldn't drive at anything like its potential.
Just look up nyck de vries 2019 f2 champion. 2020 2021 formula e world champion. At the last f1 race in Monza on Saturday of that race he was told a driver was too Ill to compete and he was the replacement. At the end of the race he said on radio his shoulders were dead and needed help from team to get out of the car that’s a super fit racing driver
The reason why he only could reach 40% brake pressure is because his head went forward and that didn’t allow him to push his back against the seat to use the body inertia that allow F1 drivers reach 100% brake pressure, he only used his leg and that’s the trick
I raced cars for 5 years. I've won over two hundred trophies and was voted driver of the year twice! There's so much about racing street cars that you can't teach to a person. They have to race where they learn how to drive to your marks, how to attack and fight off other drivers. The most important aspect to racing is "you've got to physically mark out the track for braking, tire location, when to turn, how you enter and leave the corner.. if you try to do this just by feeling you'll never win! In order to take the car to its limit you have to create visual cues laid out on every track! You know that at corner two there's a small piece of blue color on a concrete wall.. that's your braking point.. it's the last point before entering the corner that you can brake. In the evening you take a trip around the track placing a huge chunk of tape or anything that only you see! That's how you become a precision race driver! You hit all your marks everytime, and that's the fastest lap you'll do.. but these are tricks to the game that few know.. however, the best drivers know every mark.. watch the RUclips video indy cars at Portland time trials.. I think it was Erickson who had his right tire two inches from the wall going 200 mph! If you look closely at the track you'll notice there's a line of oil. He puts the edge of his tire on that line and that tells him "your two inches from the wall" but you can't look at your right tire while going that fast! He marked that out while doing practice runs two days before! That's how you know your using all of the track, and you got to hit the same marks every lap.. or you'll lose and get passed "because the other guy is doing the same thing"! Even a tall weed on the edge can be used.. but you have to mark out the track!
Justin Wilson, Alex Wurz and Hans Stuck all raced in F1 in the 6'2-6'4 range I believe , so it's not impossible!!! Probably pretty tight and cramped, but not impossible! lol
F1 teams dont want drivers too high (with more Kgs). Either you are a "out of this world driver" or they will choose someone that allows them, to play more with the car design and distribuion of weight.
I remember a former F1 driver Martin Brundle talking about the brakes, he said he remembers braking that hard that tears would hit the inside of his helmet visor...
Just as many say that you don't have to be trained to ride motocross. After they tested a couple of laps on a track, they have changed their mind completely. If you have not driven for a long time, it aches in muscles that you did not know existed in the body.
Sam actually got to be a passenger in a car with joe macari too that video is well worth a watch to watch him slamming the car one handed whilst smoking
I was lucky enough to win a drive with a F1 driver in a F1 car fitted with an extra seat a good couple of years ago in South Africa. It wasn’t a car and while I was trying to scream and piss myself little bits at a time while we were going around the track, as much as I love cars, and going fast, I never wished for anything I love to end as much as I did with this while we were driving. After we were done I was shaking so much and I couldn’t control myself enough to stand up by myself, my knees was like jelly and it felt like my neck was broken even though I was wearing a neck brace. For someone who usually can’t stop talking, I couldn’t get a word out, I had to remind myself to breathe and everything seemed like it was slightly slower than before the laps, looking back now, it was the best and scariest experience of my life.
Having raced motorcycles on and off-road at the amateur level And have way decent, I thought moving to cars would be simple and much easier. I could not be more wrong, I was in awe as I made my first laps around Sebring and having a blast. That was until I started trying to make good laps, the Cornering force, concentration and precision to race at car is hard for people to understand. I can not even imagine what it would take to drive a upper lever race car of any type more or less an F1 car.
Cool! I saw a video once of a guy who let the car die right when he was coming out of the pit because he didn't accelerate hard enough and the oil cooled too much or something like that. Also love the videos of Ayrton Sena racing on Monaco back with the super powered F1's.
Big news in South Australia lately was a rich guy who had a lambo, turned traction control off, planted it and wiped out killing a young girl on the footpath. Might be extra training to get a license for these cars and as they are so expensive the people who can afford one could use that.
Don't forget that F1 drivers are in that car at full tilt for 90 minutes. I drove a MR2 race car for 20 minutes and I was worn out. F1 drivers have trained for this ever since they drove karts. If you trained for a full year you might hold your head up for three laps. I understand that it took about 750 pounds of force to fully apply the brakes prior to the hybrid era.
An f-16 fighter jet takes off at around 120 knots which is basically 140mph and the E20 (car in the video) can do just over 200mph on straights and can corner at 170/180mph. Just a bit of perspective.
I've driven a couple of rally cars around a dirt track and then had a hotlap done. The hotlaps corners were inches from trees, rocks and dirt mounds. Pretty damn awesome and way faster that what I did. Still a great experince all way round.
I would say the almost lying down, driving position is probably 2 parts making it as low as possible , and secondary would be to help the driver cope better with the G forces.
I've already seen the original video. To add some more knowledge, It's forbidden to control any part of the car remotely, so if a sensor fails and that cascades into lower performance, the box have to diagnose it fast and then tell the pilot the code he has to enter in that amazing steering wheel to ignore the sensor, or to put the engine in a mode that ignores that sensor. The first time I saw that in a race it blew my mind.
Even more fascinating was Robert Kubica in his comeback in F1 or in endurance racing series, because he is handicapped after his Rallye Crash - he is steering his cars one handed.
Nick de Vries just had his first Formula 1 race, and he couldn't get out of the car unassisted after. And he is an experienced Formula E and Formula 2 race car driver. This stuff is nuts.
Crazy.
I guess it works other way around too, as Rosberg, Vettel, Räikkönen have said they can/could drive F2 much faster and better after F1 experience, since body doesn't get strained that much as it's get used to F1...
@@mikkorenvall428 ññññ ñoño ñññ
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I remember watching an interview with the late great Sir Jack Brabham (2x F1 World champion in the 1960s). He was given an opportunity to drive a modern F1 car in the late 90s, 30 years after he retired. The car was fitted with carbon brakes which he had never experienced. He said that when he came to the end of the main straight for the first time he hit the brakes hard like he would have in the old days and he came to a complete stop 100 yards from the corner. :)
Wow haha that’s insane, the modern brake technology seems unreal… these cars are just a different animal
@@IWrocker He also won the drivers' championship in 1959, so 3x world champion, the last one being in a car bearing his own name. It would be great if you could react to some 20th century F1 footage, such as Jean Alesi's moments, Patrick Depailler onboard at Long Beach, Monaco, Montreal and Kyalami. It's a different experience in each era, but I think that a lot of the older races and qualifying is more exciting.
@@sporkfindus4777 also add to this some of the old rivalry such as lauda v hunt or senna v prost etc.
@@scottmeehan2422 Definitely! We can thank Lauda and Hunt for the improvements in television coverage in the mid-70s
I remember an article in a car mag when the journalist was taken for a ride in a racing car with a pro driver, he said something along the lines "we passed what I thought was the braking point, I was sure we're gonna have a crash and he hit the brakes 50 meters later" :)
The fun part is lots of people think race car drivers "just drive around" the track, and dont consider it a sport.
Even better when those people get invited to a track event or a kart race and look like they're going to collapse from exhaustion after a handful of (slow) laps.
@@lukekarts Lol yeah. A friend of mine used to mock me for goin kartin sayin "I don't see the fun in goin around in wussy kids toys". Got him to do a session with us in ProAm karts n he was fuckin dead after just 11 laps, complained for 3 days about how bad his neck n forearms hurt. Never heard a single negative thing outta his mouth since🤣
Larry Walker said that when Jacques Villeneuve beat him for Canadian athlete of the year. Larry may have been the most naturally talented player ever(Yeah Willy Mays) as he played elite junior hockey well into his teens before playing baseball.
His understanding of F1 left a lot to be desired though.
F1-drivers are the best athletes. Jenson Button does triathlons for fun. How crazy do you have to be?
Well said, absolutely
I remember hearing an interview with an old F1 driver from the 50's and the interviewer was asking him about all the safety features that had been introduced up to that point and he asked. "Did it not seem dangerous to you basically going sideways around a corner at 90 MPH on tyres that were only a couple of inches thing with more or less no brakes."
The old guy thought a bit and said something like, "Yea put like that it does seem dangerous but you've got to remember it was only a few years since we were having bombs dropped on us every other night so at the time no it didn't seem that dangerous."
legend
Historical presentism is really bad in racing with how far it's come safety wise and almost no younger person understands how racing was viewed back then and even most older fans don't understand or forget depending on how old were talking. Even Max Verstappen didn't like the halo because "there needs to be a certain element of risk" and people have sort of memoryholed a lot of drivers being against the halo on the grounds that making it too safe takes away from the competition
Different levels.
Grosjrqn was one of those drivers who was against the Halo. After the crass the last season he raced in F1 he raised it for saving his life since he would have burned to a crisp if he didn't have it.
@@dennistofvesson6351 He wouldn't have noticed being burned to a crisp though, as he would've been beheaded by the guardrail in the initial hit if it weren't for that Halo. Remember how the car went halfway through the rails including the entire seat. I still think the Halo is ugly as hell and I preferred the little front window some teams developed, but there is no denying the halo already saved quite a few lives since its introduction.
I expected a cocky millionaire.. but we got a genuine respectful fan... Great video
His channel seen through glass is a good watch aswell
The guy is so articulate and such a good storyteller I could listen to him forever.
Not me he was rather annoying with his hand gestures and bullshittery. I'm sure it was an amazing experience but he needs to tone down the theatrics.
Pro tip: Belgian gp at legendary Spa is next weekend. As good jumping in point as you'll ever get. Even though Ferrari fucked up and the title fight is pretty much over there wasn't really a bad race so far this spectacular season and the midfield is usually insane.
Thank goodness it’s back
Yeah Spa is like one of the 4-5 classic F1 tracks (for those who dunno).
I heard they might slash the Belgian GP and even Monaco from F1 in the future.
If they do that it is no longer F1 but just Formula Oilmoney for worthless garbage and I 100% won't watch that, as it is bad enough already.
@@barath4545 there's talk of the removing Spa from next year's calendar to allow them the opportunity to install proper parking, travel to ad from the track etc.
Last year's race was a shambles for the public and they were all parked on grass fields that became bogged and marshy and they were all trapped. And its a regular occurance there.
Has an added tension involved for me given all the incidents at au rouge. That one a few years ago in the feeder category was nasty as.
@@JonnyWho Zandvoort?
One of the most remarkable things in F1 for me is that the drivers can reproduce a lap speed within a few thousandths of a second, lap after lap. I can't even imagine the amount of concentration (and skill) that must take. Especially with everything else they have to do during every single lap. As a fan of F1 for 50 years + it still leaves me open mouthed :)
That's what my Formula Ford team wanted, consistency. We can work on lap times. but you have to be able to do it over & over exactly the same. I used to call it getting in the zone. Once I got locked in the zone an airplane could crash next to the track & I wouldn't see it, all I see is the track ahead of me. Nothing else.
Also balance changes every corner. Every corner you need to check the fuel and the tyres. This is impossible. I cant even finish a race without a mistake in f1 game.
I remember seeing an interview with a group of F1 drivers, and they asked what the thing that shocked them most about driving in F1 was, and they all agreed that no matter how much gym work you put in and how much experience you had driving lower formulas, by the end of the first month racing the amount your head is thrown about your neck size grows by about an inch at minimum.
I can agree with that, I had weight lifters ask me what workout I did to get my neck muscles to look like that. Drive Formula Fords every weekend... I can only imagine F1.
Insane.
I have see videos of Fernando Alonso cracking nuts with his neck muscles.
Mika Häkkinen talked about how he trained his neck in hotel rooms; he lied on the bed so his head would come over the side, strapped all sorts of stuff around his head and just held it. He talked about how hard its going to have any social life, when buddies ask you out for a drink or movie, but you gotta go and maintain your physique.
They’ll put their head on one support, and their feet on another to keep their body raised. Their neck is going through an intense workout just keeping their body parallel to the ground.
Talking about the brakes is one of the things that tell us that we know that you actually know what you're talking about.
Kevin Magnussen didn't race in the 2021 season, but returned to Formula 1 for the 2022 season. He had at that time not trained his neck for a year. He had raced the 2021 IMSA SportsCar Championship, as well as Le Mans in a LMP2.
Returning to F1 2022, with days notice, he had a lot of trouble with neck pain , in the first five races. So much pain, that he concidered withdrawing from several races half way in.
Btw., I've seen him train to F1 before his first 2013 season. 60 kg or 125 lb weights, just to train the neck!
and with all that he destroyed nr 3 schumi a legend
I once went along on a ride with a race driver on the Spa-Francorchamps track. It was 'only' a Renault Clio, but I can tell you these cup cars have very little to do with the road car. 200+kph trough Eau-Rouge/Raidillon was kind of scary at first. When you get to the top of Raidillon you have no idea were the track is going: You just see the sky. Even in that car I was impressed how hard they stomp on the brakes before each slow corner. That was the thing that surprised me the most, really.
Having been an F1 fan for over 30yrs I was finally able to go to a race at COTA a few years ago and I was blown away. On TV they seem graceful and acrobatic. In person they're violent, incredibly quick, dangerous and will kill you fast. Even someone with no interest in motorsports would be in awe. Anyone reading this, do yourselves a favor and get to a race. It will take your appreciation of F1 to a whole new level.
For my first race I went to Silverstone (2008) and during qualifying and practice we lined up in a great spot to watch from Becketts, where you see them chicane through Maggots and Becketts at full throttle. The speed, the change in direction, incredible. But this was also the V8 era and the noise... as you said, violent. Then a few years later, Monaco with the blown diffusers which sounded insane:
ruclips.net/video/BmGgvHflXgc/видео.html
My old man took a trip to COTA which I regretfully couldn't make. He loved it there.
And if you dig motor sports you also need to visit an NHRA event,,,,Remember your EAR protection....Aloha
If I remember correctly Hammond (Top Gear) drove a F1 car too, starting from F4 and working up too it. And he said that after just a few laps he was totally spent... To tired to continue driving. I also heard that most "ordinary" people doesn´t have the neckstrenght to drive more than a few laps.
Clarkson (also Top Gear) had a similar experience in that he couldn't drive the car fast enough for the downforce to kick in, therefore he couldn't corner. Scarey cars lol
Yeah and hammond went full throttle for 0.2 seconds. Imagine the supercars he's driven and he had the balls to go full throttle for 0.2 seconds. Insane. You really can't imagine the power of an f1 before you experience it yourself
@@stutty1400 That and they couldn't keep heat in the tires.
Well look at devries this weekend. A reserve driver who suddenly got put into albons car for the Italian gp. Even someone who works out and had driven a decent little bit in a 2022 f1 car. He couldn't get out of the car after the race. His mechanics had to help him out. A quick RUclips search and you can see. The average person would just be pudding after a full race.
@@mv3380 yeah, even with half the speed😄
I’ve seen this video like 5 times. The dude is a great story teller. And has great passion.
I remember reading an article from a Mercedes engineer who found water droplets inside Hamilton's visor, concluding the brakes are so strong that make tears coming out of the ducts and stick to the visor.
Hammond (ex TpoGear) once drove an F1 car and complained on the radio that the brakes did not work. Response from the engineer: "that is because you drive too slow. They don't heat up"
A typical F1 track has like 15 corners and each time, an F1 pilot has to put 150+ kilo presure on the brake. Each corner. For 70 laps. En each corner exactly the same pressure or you miss the turn. That is over 1000 times braking exactly at the same time, exactly the same pressure for each corner. In les than two hours total. While at the same time, you do a lot of other things as well. One mistake and you are in the gravel or wall. And that is just braking, not steering, shifting, changing settings which all influence when you can or have to brake. And how hard.
Us regular mortals cannot do that.
You forgot to mention avoiding Mazepin from wiping you out while doing all of the above
Do an hour stint in a go-cart and see how you feel after...then multiply that by about 10 times......I done 2 half hour stints a few weeks back and I was in bits for about 3-4days after....
Hammond: I've driven an F1 car all out
May: Yes, for 0.2 of a second
At least that is how I remember it ending.
Of course Hammond has driven an even faster car - and spent weeks in a coma afterwards - ruclips.net/video/mL2iC8E9uhM/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/6b-WaO3bZs4/видео.html
That was a great show, he said he wasn't able to go fast enough to get the tires and brakes hot enough to enable him to go fast enough for them to work properly. :)
In a Maclaren video, Senna admits post-winter break, that the speed is frightening!🤯
Sam from STG has such a love and passion for driving and formula one, paired with his colorful and excellent storytelling, that makes this Vinwiki episode one of the best. He makes it relatable to the average person and makes you romanticize about the sport in a way not many can. Great reaction video, sir!
When I went on the Silverstone Experience they had the F1 Science area and you could try to stomp on the brake pedal. It took 85 - 90kg (190 - 200 lbs) of force to fully press it. That's just 1 corner!
They don't skip leg day!
Those F1 drivers are in topcondition. Have you seen their necks? Look at Max Verstappen's neck, it is as a straight column form head to shoulders.
@@komkwam If you look some pictures of Alonso while he was in Ferrari, his neck was wider then his head...absolutely insane
@@komkwam Even girls who raced in F3 or F2 got similar necks. I remember Tatiana Calderon looked like an american singer Laura Branigan (bless her) at her high school years, but with tougher nech. Giovanna Amati developed a pretty strong neck during her single-seaters career despite she was racing much slower 80's - 90's cars up to Brabham F1 and also she was a very fok'n slow driver by herself.
I remember hearing about Valentino Rossi testing a Ferrari F1 car a few years back. He apparently did well in it but "struggled with the 110 kg of braking force required on the brake pedal". Bearing in mind, most F1 drivers weigh on average 75 kg, so they are literally pushing more than their body weight, every brake application. Imagine 78 laps of Monaco doing that!
Is that when he said cars are made for fun and bikes for racing?
A lot of the braking force used in F1 cars comes from the drivers literally being moved towards the brake pedal by the G-Force from their initial brake engagement with their foot. I’m sure Sky F1 did a piece on it either earlier this season or late last season. Or maybe I was watching a race replay from a different season. But I remember seeing that recently 😅
@@tomsexton8256 yes, you’re right. And even just the Wind resistance is enough for a G or 2 for just lifting off the throttle, according to Brundle. I remember him saying sometimes his visor would get wet inside, it was his tear ducts “Leaking” from the G forces
Which is a myth because modern F1 cars have assisted brakes, just like you have in your car. There's LOTS of myths revolving F1, mainly for marketing reasons. So that people think these cars and their drivers are extraordinary. They're not.
@@xXturbo86Xx There's 2 reasons your comment is wrong: Firstly, the rules state that all braking force must come directly from the driver, no braking aids allowed. Driver aids were also banned after Senna's fatal crash in 1994, not that braking forces were ever assisted in the first place.
Secondly, the braking assistance in your road car comes from manifold vacuum, from the engine. When you run your engine at wide open throttle, you develop zero manifold vacuum, so a vacuum booster on a F1 car would be totally useless, even if it was legal. The driver would also lose the feel of the front wheels, to detect locking up etc. These reasons apply to a lot of classes of motorsport, too, not just F1
F1 drivers are Fighter Pilots on wheels!
Involved in dogfights for 2 hours straight, 3 days a week, every 2 weeks.
I just watched this again for about the 4th or 5th time. And I had tears in my eyes as I was laughing so hard listening to the description of what it's like to drive an F1 car. It definitely makes you appreciate what skills and the amount of athleticism these F1 drives have.
I've been watching F1 since the late 1990's so it's all a bit routine now. So thank you for reminding me just how amazing this sport is, and it's great fun watching you geek about all the great stuff :)
When I was younger I attended a racing school and experienced a day of driving a F2000 race car. I thought that was an incredible experience back then 1995 just learning to drive one, forget racing. This F1 experience would be like winning the Powerball lottery.
There's a video of Richard Hammond driving one of the 2006 cars that you'd probably enjoy as well. It adds a lot of perspective to the "the only way to drive it is flat out" line seenthroughglass said.
On the subject of F1 drivers being athletes. When Jenson Botton was champion, for fun, he entered a qualifying round for world championships in the triathlon and finished 3rd. JB was not considered the fittest driver on the grid. Amazing result.
Love Sams channel, he is a relatively down to earth guy who owns a few nice but not OTT cars and does some nice trips. His F360 is lovely.
I paid to drive F2 car to then do 10 laps in an F1 car on the Cataluna track in Barcelona. I am quite fit and I don't think I could have done too many more laps. I was wrecked. Sweating like hell, legs were jelly and shaking. It made me truly respect how fit these guys are!
That braking statement being the thing that is astounding is so true. I got a 2020 GT500, 16.5” rotors 6 piston. And yea initially the speed wowed me. It was the first thing I felt, and I mean to be fair it still amazes me. But the part of the car that had the biggest reaction out of me was the pure stopping power from the brakes. It was just unbelievable how such a big, heavy car going so fast could just stop so quickly.
I remember a great segment on Top Gear where Richard Hammond tries to drive a Renault R25 F1 car. It was i think the last of the monstrous V10 era. He couldn't go fast enough to get heat into the brakes or to get the aero working properly. Which in turn made it even more terrifying lol. You should check it out.
Top Gear is a TV show and most of what you see in that show is BS. It's just a show.
@@xXturbo86Xx Yeah no shit. And Hammond couldn't drive the F1 car either.
I remember driving a formula 4 car and just that one afternoon alone made me appreciate what these guys go through, I've had over 15 years racing karts, cars, single seaters, but once you get in a formula style car, experience those brakes and mechanical grip, everything changes man, you're no longer the amazing driver you once thought you were 🤣
I really loved watching this video … Vin told the story brilliantly and found myself nodding and agreeing with your comments, super impressed. I’ve been following F1 since the 60’s and can’t believe the technical advances, the sophistication of the teams themselves etc. I was at a Race of Champions for F1 drivers at Brands Hatch and far from the security etc of today, I was able to wander around the paddock where the teams such as Brabham, Lotus etc where they fiddling and fettling their cars in the open air next to their trucks 😊 I don’t look back with rose tinted glasses as I totally love the F1 races as they are today.
Thanks again! Nice to follow your journey deeper in to the F1"rabbit hole". You have a great/healthy attitude, respect! So many people do not consider motor sport as a "real" sport. Or the drivers as athletes. Fortunately we have chosen race/rally car drivers as the "athlete of the year" winners. But still not enough. I have driven many times in these kind of events and have been lucky to be "driven" by a pro driver rally, race and street cars. No matter what it is always totally mind blowing! I have "died" so many times in my mind, that I have lost every illusion even to try something "crazy". (And something "else" has happened too and not just in my mind but in my pants and mouth). Regards from Finland!
there is a clip of Hammond from top gear driving an F1. he stalls it like 5 times before he gets going and that's with training on an F4 and F2
F1 engines have very little torque, less or about the same as an average consumer car. The piston stroke is incredibly short, it needs to be for such high rpms (there's a practical universal maximum stroke speed for IC engines). Torque amplification happens in the train towards and in the wheels, with high rpms, and low gearing. The highest geear in a 19,000 rpm engine that gives a top speed of 330+ kph, is about the same as the third gear of an average commuter car.
"Eight. Eight anti-stalls. That's a record, innit?"
Skiing is another sport people think "you're sliding down a hill, that takes nothing". Well we all know what it takes out of you physically, motocross is another one
I remember a few journalists riding Mick Doohan's motorcycle. They all came back astounded what a *beast* that machine was.
Then they told them they had the bike setup for wet weather, as they feared it true power was too much.
Formula 1 cars are fast beyond belief and that isn't just because they can reach a certain velocity, it's because they're designed to do everything as fast as possible.
I have done this same experience except for road going supercars. It was called Xtreme experience in the US, and I drove the Corvette C8 Z06. We did only 3 laps as well, and had an instructor in the passenger seat. It was fun, but it was no 30 min sessions in a formula 4 car lol.
Anyways, highly recommend the car was a monster.
Me and my bro went on a car experience day in one of the car parks (they had a little circuit marked out with cones and a little chicane) of raf north weald near london just over 10 years ago and they had a large number of super cars that all the people there could drive we had a choice of 9 laps in one car or 3 laps in 3 cars, there was also a 911T there but that was more money so we did not choose that, anyway we both picked the aston db9 to start then went on to a lambo gallardo then to finish a ferrari it was supposed to be a 360 turn up but it was upgraded to a 430 which was a bit of a nice thing, annoyingly we had to stay in 2nd gear for the lap but that was still great fun and they encouraged us to drive it as hard as poss.
Saw this guy explaining his experience awhile ago but very much enjoyed your added commentary. Cool video!
I have driven a Subary Impreza WRC Rally Car, one that was actually used in the WRC circuit back in the day. I also got to get a lap on a closed, narrow gravel road with a former rally world champion in the same car. It was nuts.
You're right, he is a great storyteller and conveyed the experience brilliantly, and you're pretty damn good too.
Not all stories are true though.
That's what we call, reality check. The great F1 GOAT 7-time champ Michael Schumacher was the 1st ever to introduce fitness in F1. At the time his competitors were like, What? You're working out? Thus, you see the size of his neck was like twice as big as the rest of them so he could take on the Gs from the fast corners and upon braking, specially stopping hard for a hairpin turn. Most of his routines were just for his neck! He became the fittest F1 driver. Great stuff I enjoyed your video and thanks!
Just wearing all of the protective gear in 100+ degree / high humidity heat would cause most people to collapse....And then being able to deal with the extreme dis-comfort of over the top heat and humidity for an entire race is astounding. F1 drivers are on another level, as far as "athletics" are concerned.
The reason the engine revs so high in idle is because the stroke is so short it has very little torque. It's extremely easy to stall an F1 car. F1 cars need to be kept at nearly max rpms to deliver enough torque to pull away from standstill. A commuter car has more torque than an F1 engine. It's all about power and revs and low gearing to get a lot of torque on the wheels.
F1 cars also have ridiculously light flywheels to allow rapid RPM changes as requested by the driver. To get some idea about the throttle response of the engine, see this compilation of F1 engines playing music: ruclips.net/video/y5opv-r9nZc/видео.html
The reason they play music with the engine is that they need to heat up the engine in any case with a computer controller warm up routine. Then some marketing people figured out that it would be cool to apply the throttle positions in the warm-up routine to match notes in music.
Usually when you release throttle the RPM will more or less slowly decrease because flywheel keeps the engine running without fuel. With F1 engines the compression is high and flywheel is minimal so the RPM drops instantly.
@@MikkoRantalainen I don’t think F1 engines even have a flywheel.
@@thegeforce6625 It seems to be somewhat similar to normal flywheel or part of clutch: ruclips.net/video/x63kTUIb4dM/видео.html
I don't know about the weight but the physical size seems to be tiny compared to normal cars.
Regular persons can "drive" i.e (trundle around a track) F1 cars, with a few hours of preparation.
Now, lapping it any faster to speak of than they would in a normal family sedan, is going to be a challenge for them.
Driving it anywhere close to even half its potential is going to be impossible.
And then you have the problem that these cars hate anything but 100% input, excelleration, braking etc
Not a chance 😂
@@hees320 ?
I think the hardest thing, aside from the body crushing forces, would be that you can only drive hard. The brakes don't work cold, the tires don't work cold. You can't just push a little and get heat into them either, the only way is to go as fast as you can.
Body crushing forces? It's not a Saturv V rocket, it's a car. Even the average trackday racer pulls 2-3 Gs all the time. And driving fast is easier than you think because the downforce glues the car down. All you do is just streer it through the corners. F1 is overrated.
@@xXturbo86Xx yeah, right 🤣
I bought my late dad an F1 experience, for his 50th birthday at Silverstone. He loved it so much that he took up racing (not F1 cars, obviously), as a regular hobby.
Every time I take off my VR HMD after a session I'm left in awe of the drivers that do it for real. I still haven't come close to doing a full F1 race weekend, and that's without the added effects of G forces, and the pressure, and the consequences of crashing... 2 or 3 laps of the Nordschleife and I need a break...
which game? I have the equipment but haven't sorted it out yet.
@@miff227 Modded Assetto Corsa is still the greatest for variety IMO.
Crazy, i knew it would be hard but that was cool hearing his experience.
👍🤠
I know that George Russell (Mercedes F1 driver) is 6’2”. There are some other tall drivers as well. The only current driver that I would consider to be short is Yuki Tsunoda. Drivers from Nascar and Formula E that have driven F1 cars are often in awe of the forces they experience and the toll on their bodies.
Yeah, Yuki is 6 inches shorter than Alonso, the next shortest driver.
Vin Wiki is one of the best car guy youtube channel . Car stories from some of the most interesting car nuts
The hosts of Top Gear have driven every single high performance car on earth, Richard Hammond even had a run (and massive crash) in a top fuel dragster.
Took him some time to get the hang of even getting an F1 car to not stall when trying to start moving and even longer to get used to "if you want traction, go fast".
Peoples instinct with a car is that if you feel it doesn't have or is losing grip, go slower. With F1 cars, this is even worse as there is a line between mechanical grip and aerodynamic grip, where driving very slow, you have mechanical grip for days, but once you try to go outside of that and actually move in to F1 speed territory, the mechanical grip goes away and you need to go much much faster to get into good aerodynamic downforce grip.
Going slower will bring you back into mechanical grip range, but you'll be so damn slow, you'll be lapped on round 2.
Going fast cautiously puts you outside both mechanical and aerodynamic grip and you'll still be going only half as fast as someone driving the car like it's an F1 car.
You really need to go all out to hit the spot where you go F1 fast and have F1 grip.
Also I remember from that TopGear episode that the car is on life support before it can run. Oil is heated, brakes, tires,. Once you're off the life support you will need to keep that heat in. If you fail to keep the heat in.... no grip, no brakes.
just to correct hammond did not go in a top fuel dragster he went in a jet powered dragster top fuel use piston based engines based off of the hemi v8 i believe jets are more optimized for land speed while top fuels are only used as far as i know in the 1/4 mile due to the short lifespans of the engines and/or due to it being a rule.
I'm a open wheel road racer (FF) as well as an instructor with our racing club, so I've gotten to drive some interesting cars. We don't get many people bring all-out supercars to use to take driver training, and there's a bit of a hierarchy with respect to how long you've been instructing, but I've gotten to drive a few interesting things. I drove a top-of-the-line modern 911 (I think it was a 2020 GT3), and while we're very careful about our students' cars, I didn't get to wring it out a little bit. My only regret is that my student was very good, so I think I got a grand total of 8 or 9 laps the entire weekend as the driver.
There was also a guy who brought his nearly-racing-ready Datsun 260, and it had the heaviest brake pedal I've ever experience in any car; completely unboosted. I had to show him just how hard he was going to have to push on that pedal.
and a fun fact... you have to drive a formula 1 car fast cause if you drive slow your tyeres wont get warm and loose grip and the spoilers and the underbottom spoiler wont really work and you will most likely spn or slide offtrak :)
Brother, this was absolutely fascinating! Thanks so much.
To give an idea of how fit F1 drivers are, after Jenson Button retired from F1 he went into running triathalons and several times finished in the top 1% of competitors
It's just so amazing how a 'regular' person reacts to the experience of driving an F1 car. In this video especially I thought the experience came across extremely well!! Thanks for reacting to it!!!
The late, great Murray Walker was given the chance to drive several laps of Silverstone in a "last year" car. At the time, he was in his 70s. After he completed his laps and returned to the pits, one of the team members asked him what speed he had been doing down Hanger Strait. "I don't know, They don't have speedometers" came he reply. "OK what gear were you in and what revs?". Back came the reply " I was in 6th, doing about 12000 rpm". The team member looked shocked at this and said "Murray, with the gearing, that means you were ding about 180mph." For the first time in his life (and probably only!) he was lost for words.
Saw how Lando Norris works out his neck muscles. He basically does a plank, head supported at one end and feet at the other. His neck is keeping himself parallel off the ground. These athletes are wicked. At Qatar, one driver threw up inside his helmet just on lap 12 due to intense heat and still finished the race.
Things that non-formula 1 drivers tend to forget: apart from the intense g forces; the incredible amount of things they have to temember to do during a race while taking a twisty-turny track at speeds of anything up to and past 200 Mph (not kph!); the almost non-existant view through the wing mirrors; the more recent extra view-blocking problem of the halo; the flags and whether they apply to them at that moment, or not (blue flags eg.); ...
but also the heat. If you're racing in a hot country (particularly if it's semi-tropical, such as when races were still held in Malaysia), you have to be able to handle the heat in the cockpit.
It's always hot in the cockpit because you've got the engine (power unit these days) literally inches from your back. Add to that the fire-proof nomex suit you have to wear. Plus the helmet which is like having your head strapped in a coffin for about an hour and 40 minutes. And like I said - if you're racing somewhere like Malaysia? It's up to FIFTY degrees Celsius in that cockpit.
Each one of those conditions taken separately are difficult ... but you put them all together!!??
To top it all off you lose several litres of fluid from your body during a race, and sometimes the drink system which supplies fluid intake to the driver ... DOESN'T WORK. They just have to put up with it.
And there are still people who think they get paid too much. I'd like to see a premiership footballer survive that.
Tom Crusie, maybe known in the US, drove the Red Bull Renault V8 F1 in Willow Springs California. And his performance was very well.
Good F 1 Drivers are amazing and still very rare very good ones , it must be a Hell of a job so many rounds .
It is never just keep it rolling hhigh speed , it is like he explain only even much harder .
So Respect this Gladiators !!!
Absolute dream of a chance… did a supercar drive at Eastern Creek and it was mad, but the laps with the Pro showed that it’s the brakes… never realised the difference was so big :)
I had a similar experience to this guy with F1 and I can say that to push hard enough an F1 car you need at least one full year of practice even if you are champion in whatever other motor racing category. F1 racers are simply super humans.
VR
ive tried the Yas marina F3000 car in Abu Dhabi which is not a "real" F1 car but honestly the experience was kind of the same, hard brakes and high rpm it was really fun honestly, although its 380 dollars for 30 minutes unlimited laps, of course you get free food and , helmet, fire resistant suit and a 20 minutes lecture and training in Mercedes GT-R or a Jaguar. You have to be 18 to 25 years old but age is mostly ignored, what's important is that you have to be at or under 107KG and a maximum height of 190cm or 160cm minimum.
I notice the car has wet weather tyres on. Richard Hammond, from Top Gear, had a go in a formula1 car. His biggest 2 problems were that he couldn't get the slicks hot enough to have any grip and he couldn't get the ceramic brake discs hot enough to work. No grip and no brakes is probably not the nicest of experiences. The wet weathers quickly overheat, so tyre temperature isn't an issue. I wonder if they also replaced the ceramics.
Have driven a Formula Ford a few times, managed to set the quickest laps on the day while the track was very wet but as it dried out I got left behind a little bit, even with a single seater that is down the lower end of the scale it's still quicker than a Ferrari on a circuit and if you really push it it's surprising how quickly you start to tire out. Also set the fastest lap in a competition in 80mph karts in Thailand many years back, but no way was I up to driving F1 even remotely quickly!!!
Back in the day, I raced formula fords and even at that level it’s very intense but sooo much fun. I think one skill race car drivers develop that the normal driving public doesn’t, are the use of brakes. Being able to feather them and never just stamping but still pressing down as hard as possible. Formula 1 is completely different although the same basics remain. Would love to feel how aero grip feels though. No wings on ff.
Also raced FF & agree 100%. & there's something else you learn on the track that they don't teach on the street and they should. Car Control. Told my son after someone else teaches you to drive & you get your 1st car, I'm going to teach you, car control.
*I was so excited & had so much fun I never missed the wings.
The tallest F1 driver on the grid is Esteban Ocon at 6 feet 1 inches. So he's close.
Hans Joachim Stuck was 1.94, which translates 6'4".
Seeing him get out of his March was incredible.
I was looking at an interview with Marcus Ericsson on Viaplay when the man interviewing him asked if he thought he could drive an F1 car. Marcus laughed and replyed that he wouldn't even get out of the paddoc. Also the force F1 drivers has to apply to the brakes is about 150 kg. Imagine doing that time after time for 30 to 50 laps.
Just listening to this bloke popped my dream cycle. I'll stick to fishing.
Sprintcars. The things with wings, are within reach of most ordinary people, They only turn left on an oval dirt circuit. 900+hp, NO transmission, just stop or go pedals. You better be good, because these things will bite you.... its well worth a look. Thank you for your hard work and great commentary in all of your videos. Being an older Australian, I remember conrod straight went straight through to the last corner and was changed for fear that a brake failure may have a car end up in the main street of Bathurst 3km away (just kidding).
The hardest part of driving an f1 car is keeping the tyres temp up or lose the grip, you also need to keep the brakes temp below a give temp. But first you need to fit into the cockpit itself.
many years ago I was given to drive a full blown WRC car and man they are fast, but the brakes are hard as fk to engage, I was on a track and man the speeds of them is crazy for what is a car that's based on a road car that I owned. they then give me an opportunity to run a few laps with a WRC driver and man he scared to shit out of me, but I was given a chance to ride as a passenger in a full blown Le Mans car from the previous year and the experience was enthralling and exhausting despite not even being in control. At the end of the day they were able to show me the telemetry of my drive vs the actual drivers and it shocked me how slow I was driving in comparison. The top drivers are beyond fit, just to compete in races they have to be to survive a full race, and their reaction times are mind blowingly fast. I have never been cited for speeding despite over 45 years of driving, If I want to go fast I take it onto the track but fast is slow compared to the top motor sport vehicles. As for an F1 car i'm to tall and wide to fit into one even if I oiled my self up. But I've tried the neck muscle builder the top drivers use and its hard work and left me with a sore neck for days. I live motor racing and the guys and women who participate are very fit and have sharp minds, I for one appreciate what they do and do well.
Its difficult is an understatement Richard Hammond (top gear) is no slouch behind the wheel was flatout getting one out of the pits without stalling it twice.
The drivers' physical training allows them to suffer greater lateral G forces than a fighter pilot and still manage to hold their head up after 90 minutes. The physical effort involved means average heart rates above 170 bpm and 5-8 pounds lost in sweat during a race.
In terms of extraordinary g-forces, I think a top-fuel dragster is also something totally extreme. They out-accelerate anything else that applies drive through its wheels.
Of course, they can't go around corners, and the driver only experiences those extreme forces for a few seconds at a time. But they are, I think, something else that your ordinary car enthusiast couldn't drive at anything like its potential.
Guy in the video has his own automotive RUclips channel called “seen through Glass”. Good channel.
Just look up nyck de vries 2019 f2 champion. 2020 2021 formula e world champion. At the last f1 race in Monza on Saturday of that race he was told a driver was too Ill to compete and he was the replacement. At the end of the race he said on radio his shoulders were dead and needed help from team to get out of the car that’s a super fit racing driver
The reason why he only could reach 40% brake pressure is because his head went forward and that didn’t allow him to push his back against the seat to use the body inertia that allow F1 drivers reach 100% brake pressure, he only used his leg and that’s the trick
I raced cars for 5 years. I've won over two hundred trophies and was voted driver of the year twice! There's so much about racing street cars that you can't teach to a person. They have to race where they learn how to drive to your marks, how to attack and fight off other drivers. The most important aspect to racing is "you've got to physically mark out the track for braking, tire location, when to turn, how you enter and leave the corner.. if you try to do this just by feeling you'll never win! In order to take the car to its limit you have to create visual cues laid out on every track! You know that at corner two there's a small piece of blue color on a concrete wall.. that's your braking point.. it's the last point before entering the corner that you can brake. In the evening you take a trip around the track placing a huge chunk of tape or anything that only you see! That's how you become a precision race driver! You hit all your marks everytime, and that's the fastest lap you'll do.. but these are tricks to the game that few know.. however, the best drivers know every mark.. watch the RUclips video indy cars at Portland time trials.. I think it was Erickson who had his right tire two inches from the wall going 200 mph! If you look closely at the track you'll notice there's a line of oil. He puts the edge of his tire on that line and that tells him "your two inches from the wall" but you can't look at your right tire while going that fast! He marked that out while doing practice runs two days before! That's how you know your using all of the track, and you got to hit the same marks every lap.. or you'll lose and get passed "because the other guy is doing the same thing"! Even a tall weed on the edge can be used.. but you have to mark out the track!
Tom Cruise managed to drive a F1 car at Red Bull Racing. But then again I wouldn't call him 'regular', as he can drive/fly almost anything.
Justin Wilson, Alex Wurz and Hans Stuck all raced in F1 in the 6'2-6'4 range I believe , so it's not impossible!!! Probably pretty tight and cramped, but not impossible! lol
Upper limit for current F1 cars is bellow 190 cm (bellow 6'2). Tallest drivers (Ocon and Albon) are 186 cm.
F1 teams dont want drivers too high (with more Kgs). Either you are a "out of this world driver" or they will choose someone that allows them, to play more with the car design and distribuion of weight.
After watching this, I've decided driving an F1 car is not on my bucket list
I remember a former F1 driver Martin Brundle talking about the brakes, he said he remembers braking that hard that tears would hit the inside of his helmet visor...
Just as many say that you don't have to be trained to ride motocross. After they tested a couple of laps on a track, they have changed their mind completely. If you have not driven for a long time, it aches in muscles that you did not know existed in the body.
Sam actually got to be a passenger in a car with joe macari too that video is well worth a watch to watch him slamming the car one handed whilst smoking
I was lucky enough to win a drive with a F1 driver in a F1 car fitted with an extra seat a good couple of years ago in South Africa. It wasn’t a car and while I was trying to scream and piss myself little bits at a time while we were going around the track, as much as I love cars, and going fast, I never wished for anything I love to end as much as I did with this while we were driving. After we were done I was shaking so much and I couldn’t control myself enough to stand up by myself, my knees was like jelly and it felt like my neck was broken even though I was wearing a neck brace. For someone who usually can’t stop talking, I couldn’t get a word out, I had to remind myself to breathe and everything seemed like it was slightly slower than before the laps, looking back now, it was the best and scariest experience of my life.
Having raced motorcycles on and off-road at the amateur level And have way decent, I thought moving to cars would be simple and much easier. I could not be more wrong, I was in awe as I made my first laps around Sebring and having a blast. That was until I started trying to make good laps, the Cornering force, concentration and precision to race at car is hard for people to understand. I can not even imagine what it would take to drive a upper lever race car of any type more or less an F1 car.
Cool! I saw a video once of a guy who let the car die right when he was coming out of the pit because he didn't accelerate hard enough and the oil cooled too much or something like that.
Also love the videos of Ayrton Sena racing on Monaco back with the super powered F1's.
Big news in South Australia lately was a rich guy who had a lambo, turned traction control off, planted it and wiped out killing a young girl on the footpath.
Might be extra training to get a license for these cars and as they are so expensive the people who can afford one could use that.
Don't forget that F1 drivers are in that car at full tilt for 90 minutes. I drove a MR2 race car for 20 minutes and I was worn out. F1 drivers have trained for this ever since they drove karts. If you trained for a full year you might hold your head up for three laps. I understand that it took about 750 pounds of force to fully apply the brakes prior to the hybrid era.
An f-16 fighter jet takes off at around 120 knots which is basically 140mph and the E20 (car in the video) can do just over 200mph on straights and can corner at 170/180mph.
Just a bit of perspective.
Yep amazing story teller, have seen it before but great to get Ian's perspectives!
F1 drivers, spend way more time on promo, than in the car.😮💨
I have been following Sam's youtube channel for years. He has driven a lot of awesome cars.
ruclips.net/user/seenthroughglass
I've driven a couple of rally cars around a dirt track and then had a hotlap done. The hotlaps corners were inches from trees, rocks and dirt mounds. Pretty damn awesome and way faster that what I did. Still a great experince all way round.
I would say the almost lying down, driving position is probably 2 parts making it as low as possible , and secondary would be to help the driver cope better with the G forces.
I've already seen the original video. To add some more knowledge, It's forbidden to control any part of the car remotely, so if a sensor fails and that cascades into lower performance, the box have to diagnose it fast and then tell the pilot the code he has to enter in that amazing steering wheel to ignore the sensor, or to put the engine in a mode that ignores that sensor. The first time I saw that in a race it blew my mind.
Even more fascinating was Robert Kubica in his comeback in F1 or in endurance racing series, because he is handicapped after his Rallye Crash - he is steering his cars one handed.