what do the cars really weigh?

[mirwin]

Every year the teams claim to have made their car 20kg lighter, 10% lighter, etc.
I find it hard to believe that so much weight can be removed from the car each year. What do the cars really weigh without the driver and ballast?

[Sodemo]

Maybe they weigh nothing?
Its a conspiracy...

[RWC]

We've heard many stories about such stuff and occ some 'hard' facts(most of which escape me at the moment)A couple of ago we heard that cars were up to 40kg underweight-but only the best!Since then i recall hearing some solid figures mentioned by respectable team members such as chief designers.Figures like 60kg underweight(again for the best cars).Others may remember exact quotes.Remember,the x% lighter means relatively less and less each year-because it's a percentage of a decreasing total.Still,they are doing amazing things in this area.It IS one of the only unrestricted design parameters(the only other one that immediatly comes to mind is engine power)

[Mr V]

Isn't the minimum weight 600kg inc driver?

[Asp]

and ballast, yes it is - but the more ballast you can put in, as everyone knows, the better!

[mirwin]

Yes, it's 600kg including driver, oil, and water. Let's say the driver is about 70kg, leaving the car at 530kg. From what I hear the engine and gearbox are approx. 130kg, and with 50kg of ballast, it leaves 350kg for the rest of the car.

[Asp]

I have had a nosy - and most teams do not disclose
it into the public domain (obvious reasons). They all say 600kg including all; but that's not helpful!

[neilap]

Some teams have heavy cars. BAR for example had a motor that was 20Kg too heavy and a chassis that was too big and heavy too. Teams like that can save 30K on the car from one season to another. Ferrari on the other hand may only be able to save 5k or just set up the weight distrubution better.

[JonesF1]

A complete car without driver and ballast probably weighs around 500kg. Whats really interesting is how they can shift the weight around. Remember Indy 2002 when Barrichello hit the wall? When they picked the F2002 up by crane it was leaning forward at a pretty sharp angle even though, theoretically, most of the weight would be in the back.

[Glen]

That incident caused a minor stir - I remember reading that Patrick Head was apparently very impressed with how much ballast Ferrari were able to deploy.

In the past it has only been the very top teams that were under weight... For example when Wurz had his lacklustre year at Bennetton it was partly due to the fact that they couldn't get the car and driver down to the weight limit, and they were disadvantaged from the start. Now, in the Mclaren, there is virtually no difference in the centre of gravity with Wurz on board versus any other driver - because so much ballast is carried anyway, and all of it very low-down.

[steve nielsen]

the lighter , the better.

cause they can put the ballast weight wherever they want, so they can improve the balance with that.

[RWC]

I'm very surprised that no one has quoted any hard figures,because i've definitely heard them from time to time
(and no,not from journalists,those that would have us believe that the first version of the wide angle renault motor weighed 85KG and had electromagnetic valves!!!!!)

I just whish i had kept records of where i heard the info!!
They were solid quotes from people who know....

[sonic]

If you did a post in the techie section they may know the unballasted weights?

as an aside have you ever picked up the stuff they use for ballast? Its mental - far heavier than lead / can't remember the name though.

[golem]

I think it's called Mallory. I think it's got tungsten in it which is DAMN tough but bloody heavy.

[EERO]

Would this be it Gollem?
http://www.mallory.com/english/engmats.htm

[JohnSSC]

JonesF1 was right. The more the unballasted weight of the car is reduced, the easier it is to use the ballast to improve handling via cg and bias. I would presume they could alter the ballast to suit the track.

Someday the cars will be made entirely of Invisiblium and the drivers will be very uncomfortable in their HANS devices perched on a seat made entirely of Mallory!

[RWC]

Mostly they use tungsten,maybe in the form of mallory as gollem says,allthough it hardly needs alloying to make it strong...!
Damn...i've lost my book with the periodic table in it..
I recall tungsten has a specific gravity of about 19.1g/cc
while gold is about 17 and lead about 11.

Aparently-i don't know how true this is-i've heard it said that stewart were the first to place ballast 'in' the plank on the bottom of the car.They did this by using heavy bolts(because it was against the rules to modify the plank itself)
2(?) years ago i was hearing that teams were mixing tungsten powder in the plank somehow.I don't know how that was possible within the rules.I'm presuming that the bottom 10mm would be untouched,as it had to be able to wear away.
Anybody heard any more on that?
Also last year sauber had a problem in preseason testing-they ran out of places to put ballast!
Actually it wasn't that bad...They just had to design some specially shaped bigger ballast weights-they just didn't expect that they would need so much in a certain spot and didn't design heavy enough weights in the first place.Mostly this was because thay hadn't had an underweight car before that!

[BD]

I thought I heard they use depleted Uranium...

[RWC]

Haha,no i don't think they would(hey this iS f1 though,who knows what silly stuff they'd want to do next!)
It is about the same SG as tungsten though.

[Asp]

Originally posted by BD
I thought I heard they use depleted Uranium...

Although, if it's not depleted, it may explain the Ferrari's speed...