Last year for full manual transmission in F1?

1988 I believe. In 1989 Ferrari won the season opener in Brazil with Mansell and the semi-auto gearbox; first time it competed it won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Brazilian_Grand_Prix

 

Paul, was the gears mounted on the steering wheel like today, or was it a gear lever?

 

Allow me to answer, gear lever shift just like in road cars. Real F1 imho I would love to see F1 go back to manual trans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDYA7gHBhiQ

 

Thanks mate!

 

Paddle shift, just like today's race and road cars.

Mansell had to come into the pits for a steering wheel change late in the race due to a suspected glitch with the system.

 

I remember the commentators on the BBC noting it was the first time they'd seen 5 wheels changed in an F1 pitstop!.

 

Did they ever have paddle shifter with a foot-operated clutch? That's what the CLK-GTR has.

Or did they go from hand shifter with foot clutch right away to paddle shifter without foot clutch?

 

I believe the later is the case. As stated already, Ferrari was the first to use a semi-auto gearbox in 1989 and soon were followed by McLaren and Williams. IIRC, McLaren's system was with buttons on the steering wheels and not paddles. At the time, John Barnard's goal with the system were 1) Faster shifts and less chance of miss-shift which promotes better engine and gearbox reliability & 2) Allows drivers to keep their hands on the wheel at all times thus better and easier to control the cars.

 

IIRC, they had no manually operated clutch at all (I stand to be corrected on that though).

The funny thing is, almost all the other teams at the time laughed at this gearbox concept due to it's lack of reliability. Quite a few thought it would never catch on as it was costing Ferrari results.(6 years later the manual gearboxes were all gone!).

 

3) avoid having to route the shift linkage from the cockpit to the rear of the car.

 

For some reason, I seem to recall the presence of a hand-operated clutch. It was only used at the start of the race as launch control does not yet exist back in 1989.

 

I'm pretty sure the BMW Williams F1 car back around 2004 had a clutch lever on the steering wheel and was used for starts. Not sure if they still have them.

 

Clutches are still there 2010.

Where it says clutch at the bottom, is the dial for the clutch bite point.

The BPF button finds the bit point automatically.

and the 2 paddles below the gear changes are clutch pedals.

If you need to know what all the other buttons do go to the Lotus website
http://www.lotusracing.my/index.php
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That was the main reason he did it because he was designing the chassis (rest of car) in England and the engine was designed in Italy and the gearshift linkage was always a nightmare.

The other reasons were bonuses.
Pete

 

The clutch is still there today, for safety reasons, i.e. pitstops, i think.

 

+1 But, it's the 2nd set of paddles on the wheel - There is no 3rd pedal.

There's an interesting article in a recent Forza mag about Ferrari's transmission technology over the years. I'd need to check dates, but they had it ready to go much earlier, but Gilles didn't trust it, and the Old Man always listened to Gilles, so it got canned until Barnard needed it a few years later.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Ian, i recall seeing a 3 paddle steering wheel on a Merc during pre season tests. I think it was on the F1-live.com website.

 

I think he meant third pedal as in foot pedal...not paddle (hand).

Thanks for the links and info guys!

 

I *believe* there's actually 4 paddles behind the wheel:

1 - "Shift up"
2 - "Shift down"
3 & 4 - Clutch [Dunno why they've got two and/or if both need to be pulled to disengage - I suspect so.]

Cheers,
Ian

 

I'm 99% sure there is no third (foot) pedal. Clutch is operated by paddles on the wheel.

Cheers,
Ian