Race cars

Formula 1 cars are like normal cars in many ways. They have gas engines, gears, and steering wheels. However, they are built with only one thing in mind, and that’s WINNING RACES!

A technical masterpiece
Every bit of a Formula 1 (F1) car is light and very strong. At its peak speed
of 225 mph (360 kph) air flows over it with the  force of a tornado, so it is as low and streamlined as possible.

Pit-stop pressure

 At pit stops, a driver refuels and gets new tires. This is  all done in about 30 seconds. That’s about the same amount of time as it takes to read this paragraph!

G-force 

A Formula 1 driver is shoved around violently inside his car as it twists around the track. A pushing force called g-force, which can be up to six times more powerful than gravity, shoves him backward, forward, and sideways as he races. You see g-force at work in a normal car by watching water sloshing in a cup.

Inertia 

G-force is caused by inertia. The law of inertia says that moving objects try to travel straight at a constant speed. When a car stops abruptly, your body tries to keep going forward. 

Steering wheel 

Because an F1 driver is concentrating so hard on winning a race and because the space he is in is so tight, all the controls for the car are on hand on his steering wheel. He has just two foot pedals—the brake and the accelerator. 

Up to speed

Once you’re on the move, you naturally want to go as fast as you can. But what makes sports cars really fast and tankers really slow? Speed isn’t just about raw power—other factors are at work.

Speed, velocity, and acceleration 

You measure speed by dividing the distance traveled by the time it takes. Speed is not the same as velocity, which is a measure of how fast you are going in a particular direction. You feel acceleration when you pedal your bike really hard. Acceleration measures how quickly your velocity is changing.

Horsepower? 

Engine power is still measured using a very old unit—the horsepower. It is based on how many horses would be needed to provide the same amount of pulling power. An average mid-sized car is equivalent to 135 horses.

Pulling power

 If you have a powerful engine you can accelerate very fast, which is why a sports car will always beat a lawnmower. But if you give a ride to an elephant your acceleration will suffer. That is because it takes more force to speed up heavy objects.

Milk tanker vs. Ariel Atom

 Both have a 300 horsepower engine. A full tanker can weigh as much as  110 tons (100 metric tons). The Atom weighs half a ton. Even though they have the same pulling power, the weight of the milk means the tanker takes 35 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h). The Atom can do it in 2.7 seconds, making  it one of the fastest accelerating  road cars in the world.

Not such a drag 

Nothing accelerates as fast as a dragster—not even the space shuttle. Dragsters can go from 0 to 330 mph (530 km/h) in less than 4.5 seconds. They use nitromethane as fuel, which provides twice as much power  as gas. The rear wheels have to be really big to  transfer the high power made by the enigne.