In F1 what is "to box"?

[matthew1]

I don't understand what the engineer is asking. Can someone explain this exchange?

[BlackBart]

“To pit”. To go to the pit “box.” I think it’s silly and Euro-specific, they’ve been saying pits for 100 years.

Also I hear everyone saying “deg” which means “degradation,” which is a dumb busy word for “wear.” Tire wear…simple.

They need to make F1 sound techy and high level for marketing.

[matthew1]

Ah makes sense. Thanks BB.

[matthew1]

BTW I am friends with NASCAR fans, and they look down on F1 because of the nature of open wheel racing. They said they can't bump without risking catastrophic results.

Because of my friendship with those NASCAR fans, I went to the LV400 several times 2000-2008. It was a spectacle, especially if you throw in the entire weekend in Las Vegas with six or seven friends.

[foggydogg]

Those of us with hands-on experience in NASCAR had a more ... nuanced opinion of F1, mostly because of the wide-spread cheating, a direct result of the wicked insane money involved. At one point years ago it was common knowledge special qualifying fuel was being used at well upwards of $1,000 a gallon. While it's easy to throw rocks at the France family for how they have always run NASCAR, the folks running F1 for decades were especially rotten.
That and things like traction control ( since disallowed, ) paddle shift, and whatever that 'push to pass' thing is.
Keep in mind the stock cars only got fuel injection a few years ago, and all the engines still have the cam in the block.
Turning close to 10,000 RPM with pushrods in a 5.7L V8 impresses me more than anything the F1 boys are doing.

[BlackBart]

Add to that, now the people pulling the strings and padding the pockets in F1 are Saudis, Saudis connected to the ruling family.

[matthew1]

That and things like traction control ( since disallowed, ) paddle shift, and whatever that 'push to pass' thing is.

Ten-ish years ago did I read they had 2-way telemetry, but the pit->car leg could make realtime mods to the power curves?

F1 cars got reaaaaally ugly there for a while with all the aero on the front. Wings on wings, etc.

But that's not to say all NASCAR cars are pretty or in any way distinct from each other these days...

[foggydogg]

NASCAR teams all have to buy body and frame components from single-source vendors, with decal and wrap decorations pretending to match some real car. Neither Toyota nor Ford make a production pushrod V8, but those bespoke racing engine blocks and heads have company part numbers on them, so anybody can walk into any of the big three car dealerships and order bare castings.
Some assembly required.
5 speed transmissions and pin drive hub lock wheels are only a couple years in, and only in the Cup series.

[abscate]

I just never got the bug I guess

Grass growing
Cricket
Sailboat racing
Car racing (generic)

[BlackBart]

Like Foggy said, Nascar (like IndyCar) has become close to a Spec series. The chassis / structure / cage assembly comes from licensed builders, which is something the shops prided themselves on in the past. Some were way less safe than others. The body panels are now carbon, all from the same supplier so you can't cheat the shape like Smokey Yunick. The shape differences you recognise on tv for the different brands are not enough to change the aero drag / balance or weight. They now have some technology(!) like independent rear suspension (GASP), big aluminum wheels with centerlock nuts partly because the teams would slam say 3 out of 5 nuts on with the gun to save time, and they "usually" stayed on. Fuel injection, wat?! Sequential shift gearboxes, so you only slam it backward or forward.

The engines, from Ford, Chevy, and Toyota are not identical, but pretty close. There are very strict rules. They have very little to do with a stock V8 except pushrods. The cam is way higher in the block to minimise the flex and moving weight of the pushrods. The casting and machining is very custom. There are still really good engine builders. Roush-Yates (Robert Yates), an old name, builds all the Fords. Toyota Racing Development builds the Toyotas, with Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing supplying the Chevies.


Indycar uses a well-designed carbon fiber tub built by Dallara, an old Italian race car fabricator (but built in Indiana). They are way safer now, probably on par with the F1 tubs. F1 doesn't drive straight at a wall at 238 mph. The windscreen structure is actually a driver protection frame made out of titanium such that they can slam into something upside down full speed and it won't collapse. That and the F1 "halo" hoop have saved several drivers from likely death in just the few years they've been in place. You can tune the suspension and weight balance, fine tune the aero with many available pieces, design your own shocks and springs, but a lot of the car is standard. Mostly for costs and safety.

The turbo V6 Indy engines are interesting - the "All American" Chevy that powers Penske and others is made by Illmor in England, the Toyota is built in California. 700hp out of 2.2 liters.....

F1 is at a completely different level - hundreds of millions of dollars in wind tunnel time alone. Exotic engines with incredibly complicated engineering, but all similar in configuration. The aero tricks are bizarre, and they fit new wing shapes and underfloors and lips and mirror shapes every couple of weekends. The cars are so long, from safe fuel cells and electric hybrid motors behind the driver, as well as the need to maximize the aero shape, that they can hardly make it around old tracks like Monaco without hitting each other. One little bump and they break a million dollar toe link or something. They do not refuel an F1 car during a race, for safety. The costs are astronomical, with gigantic ego corporate titans and now heads of suspicious States paying for their advertising billboard to win on international tv. Bragging rights at Ascot and the next falcon racing event in the desert.