Formula one technology applied on road cars

Here is a brief topic of what racing technologies came into daily cars.

The rear-side mirrors

It can be usual to see rear-side mirrors on cars nowadays but it was not in the twentieth century and also, it was not mandatory for car brands to put mirrors on their car. The story came from a race in 1911 in the United States of America, in the 500 miles of Indianapolis race. Ray Harroun mounted a mirror on the front of his car in order to know what happened behind him. In Europe, the rear-side mirrors is obligatory on vehicules since March 1st, 1971.    

Active suspensions

This could be more technical here because you have different types of suspensions since the begenning of automobile. Suspensions are the link between the wheels and the chassis of the vehicule. It helps the vehicule to not feeling the variations on roads when you drive your car. Active suspension is much more than feeling good in your car. In fact, the suspension is controlled electronically by sensitive sensors or infrared sensors placed near the wheels or on the suspensions to help more the chassis and anticipates these variations in which you will not feel the degradations on roads. This technology first appeared in Formula one in 1992 where the Williams team won the championship this year thanks to this technology on their cars.

Double overhead camshaft (D.O.H.C)

This technology was invented in 1912 by FIAT and you will find in the majority of vehicules today. But what is the purpose of it? The principle is to managed the valves to be more efficient during the timing diagram. Therefore there are two camshaft in the engine, one for the intake and the other one for the exhaust. In Formula one the D.O.H.C. is controlled by actuators and also by an electromagnetic system to control the valves.

Steering wheel

Steering wheels always existed in cars. But steering wheels on F1 cars has different buttons on it and in the last decade these buttons has been democratized on road cars to call someone by pressing a button or to regulate your speed cruise on the road. Today you can see them as standard.