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The Williams F1
exists solely to go racing. But the effort that goes into the achievement
can often be overlooked. Here, we unveil the work that goes on behind the
scenes in just a few of our facts and figures.
The Team
- This season the team will practice an average of 1,000 pitstops over the
year
- The pitstop crew take approximately 5 seconds to re-boot and re-fuel with
26 people in the pit box, less time than it takes to pour a beer!
- 26 tonnes of equipment are sent to each Grand Prix
- This year, the team will produce 4 FW31 chassis
- AT&T will assist the team send 10 gigabytes of data from the race track to
the factory and back again, equivalent to 15 CD-ROMs or the total amount of
bandwidth used per household over a whole month
- The team takes 1000's of spare parts to each race
- Over a race weekend, 70 radios will be used in team communications
- Williams' 4 race trucks will travel a total distance of 12,000kms each
transporting the team's equipment across Europe
- 160 visa applications are made over the course of a season for Williams
personnel
- The team's motorhome takes 6 men 36 man hours to construct
- The smallest garage the team will have to work out of this season will be
15 metres by 10 metres, the largest 22 metres by 24 metres
- One of the team's transporters is converted into office space over a GP
weekend to house the team's 10 engineers who travel to every race.
The Car
- Over 500 people at Williams F1 have dedicated their lives to the
production of the Williams-Toyota FW31
- 50,000 man hours have gone into the production of the FW31
- Design work for the Williams-Toyota FW31 commenced in April 2008
- The FW31 had its first wind tunnel run in June 2008
- It takes four days to build the car from a bare chassis to a fully
operational race car
- After each race, the car will be stripped down and 150 diagnostic checks
will be carried out before the next event
- The FW31 will benefit from the team's seven speed, seamless shift gearbox.
- The drivers will typically change gear up to 2,800 times per Grand Prix.
At twistier circuits, such as Monaco, this number can increase to 4,000
times
- The gearbox will reach temperatures of 150°C during a race
- The FW31's brake discs can exceed temperatures of 1,000°C
- The FW31 will generate lateral accelerations of 5G during cornering
- Tyres can reach temperatures of 160°C
- A Formula One engine weighs just 95kg
- 0 – 60mph in 2.3 seconds
- 100mph in 3.8 seconds
- 0mph to 100mph and back to 0mph again in 5.5 seconds
- Top speed back to 0mph in 3 seconds
- The FW31 will reach its top speed at Monza where the drivers will record
220mph around the track
- The energy required to slow a car from 315kph to 185kph is the same amount
needed to make an elephant jump 10 metres in the air!
The Driver
- The team's drivers will get through 64 sets of overalls, 32 pairs of race
boots, 112 sets of fireproof undergarments, 142 pairs of race gloves and 150
balaclavas over just one season
- Both race drivers will have a minimum of 2 helmets at their disposal this
season
- The drivers will sign approximately 250 autographs at every Grand Prix
- The drivers will carry out an average of 20 interviews per race
- A Formula One driver burns approximately 600 calories per Grand Prix and
loses on average two kilograms in weight
- During a race, the average temperature in the cockpit will reach 50 °C
- Drivers' heart rates reach peaks of 190 beats per minute during a Grand
Prix. |
