During the Brazil practice session, our illustrious commentators were discussing the virtues of an F1 self-starting car. Although, I wish my F1 heroes had the feature in previous championships, I'm not in favor of it. I put the self-starting feature in the same category as traction control. When an F1 driver is paid a multi-million dollar salary, he should be able to keep the engine fire alive, even under adverse situations. I'm afraid that there will be a tendency for the driver to be less careful about off track excursions just because he will be able to restart on demand. For this reason, self-starters should be disallowed. It separates the champions from the rest of the field!

boogatti - 23 October 2009 03:46 PM

During the Brazil practice session, our illustrious commentators were discussing the virtues of an F1 self-starting car. Although, I wish my F1 heroes had the feature in previous championships, I'm not in favor of it. I put the self-starting feature in the same category as traction control. When an F1 driver is paid a multi-million dollar salary, he should be able to keep the engine fire alive, even under adverse situations. I'm afraid that there will be a tendency for the driver to be less careful about off track excursions just because he will be able to restart on demand. For this reason, self-starters should be disallowed. It separates the champions from the rest of the field!

Agreed, but given the likelyhood of a car going into the "kitty litter" or spun off by someone else, sometimes it helps to be able to start your own car and drive back to the pits. As it stands now, a spin can mean you're done for the day, simply because you can't get the car going again.

Back when I started following racing, and Formula One, in particular, all road racing cars were required to have self-starters. I don't know when Formula One switched to Indy-Car style external starters.

I think starters are an excellent idea. There are a lot of driver skills I would like to see on display, but keeping an engine running while trying not to be killed is not one of them.

If anyone were ever to be hurt, or even innocently taken out of a Grand Prix out by a driver trying to keep his engine running, that would be a travesty.

A $500M technological marvel ought to be able to start itself.

Let's have no more safety car laps than are necessary.

The hardest thing about anything in F1 is that if the rules don't state they have to do something, they don't put it on the car.
The rules would have to state every car has to have a starter and start under it's own power, for it to get put on a car.

Self-starters are an excellent idea and I'm sure the teams would love to have them if the rules called for it and there was a level playing field. It's better for the fans too.

A driver can do very little to keep the engine running in case of a spin or off in a modern F1 car. Grabbing the clutch control on the steering wheel is very difficult and they're pretty much totally dependent on the car's anti-stall system.

OpenTrackRacer - 02 November 2009 12:55 PM

Self-starters are an excellent idea and I'm sure the teams would love to have them if the rules called for it and there was a level playing field. It's better for the fans too.

A driver can do very little to keep the engine running in case of a spin or off in a modern F1 car. Grabbing the clutch control on the steering wheel is very difficult and they're pretty much totally dependent on the car's anti-stall system.

These days, I don't even know if the corner workers can push-start a car, as they used to do on occasion when cars still had three pedals, sometime back in the dark ages (1980).

GreyWolf74 - 02 November 2009 01:20 PM

OpenTrackRacer - 02 November 2009 12:55 PM

Self-starters are an excellent idea and I'm sure the teams would love to have them if the rules called for it and there was a level playing field. It's better for the fans too.

A driver can do very little to keep the engine running in case of a spin or off in a modern F1 car. Grabbing the clutch control on the steering wheel is very difficult and they're pretty much totally dependent on the car's anti-stall system.

These days, I don't even know if the corner workers can push-start a car, as they used to do on occasion when cars still had three pedals, sometime back in the dark ages (1980).

Well, the marshalls can push start the car, but then the car would be disqualified for receiving outside help, as far as I know.

I think starters on F1 cars would be a good idea. It would help in cases when a car spins and stalls too close to the racing surface, so it can start up and drive off without putting anyone else's life in danger than needed.

Isn't the clutch another paddle on the steering wheel? If so, how's a driver gonna grab the clutch and keep the engine running if he's got opposite lock in the wheel to try to keep the car under a semblence of control? I read from Martin Brundle's book "Working the Wheel" that it was difficult or near impossible for the driver to activate the clutch when the wheel is turned.

Driver skill would still be involved when trying to keep the engine running once he spins off, but at least the driver will continue on instead of stopped at the side of the track . With the onboard starter, there would be a big time penalty for the driver as he/she tries to restart the car as opposed to a small time penalty from just looping the car back around and continuing.

But, as speedsense posted, the rules would have to explicitly state that the cars need to have onboard starters.

No push starts to get the engine running. But if the driver can keep from stalling, they can be pushed out of the gravel with engine running and continue.

The only way I see self-starting happening is if KERS comes back. Someone from GM (bear with me) pointed out that the upcoming Volt doesn't have a starter motor per se, it uses the motor/generator to start the engine. KERS has the battery, the electric motor, so why couldn't it be used to self-start?

grat - 10 November 2009 01:27 AM

The only way I see self-starting happening is if KERS comes back. Someone from GM (bear with me) pointed out that the upcoming Volt doesn't have a starter motor per se, it uses the motor/generator to start the engine. KERS has the battery, the electric motor, so why couldn't it be used to self-start?

KERS is not necessarily electric; some are mechanical.

wilmywood8455 - 10 November 2009 06:29 AM

KERS is not necessarily electric; some are mechanical.

But it's still stored energy that can be fed into the drive train, and therefore used to start the car. Also, while the flywheel idea goes back to at least the 70's, I've never seen a practical application in use. The idea of having a large, heavy* gyroscope mounted in the middle of my car that's designed to go around corners disturbs me.

* To effectively store energy, the flywheel has to be heavy, or fast-- either way, that's a lot of gryoscopic force affecting the car.