How beer kegs helped create the modern pit stop
Perhaps most interesting is the story of how Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1,
and his crew devised the modern pit stop in the early 1980s. As the
documentary explains, teams made sure to have long-lasting tires and
carry enough fuel onboard for the race, since pit stops were slow.
Murray, a member of the Brabham F1 team at the time, was looking for
some way to reduce weight in the car. He realized that fuel was a major
portion of the vehicle's weight, so he started working out how they
could run a lighter car with less fuel – without losing the advantage in
a pit stop.
The team's solution was interesting, to say the least. They rigged up a
fuel system using pressurized beer kegs painted in the team's colors so
they could pump 30 gallons of fuel into the car in just 3 seconds. The
team also would take the opportunity to put fresh tires onto the car,
which meant they needed a way to get them on quickly, as well as a way
to keep the tires warm in the pit. They were able to do this by
pre-loading wheel nuts into the air gun sockets and building a makeshift
heated box to store the tires in. While engine reliability issues
initially hid the benefits of Murray's strategy, those were overcome,
and the team saw massive success.
(AutoBlog.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment