Formula 1 cars, explained for rookies (with Max Verstappen)

world." "This isn't just an engine, it's a Formula 1 engine." Red Bull buys engines from Honda for its

cars

, but that's about to change. In 2026, Red Bull

cars

will use their own custom engines they are working on right now and we are about to be one of the first to see it. "So this building here was not here two years ago, in June, it was our first engine and when you see the workshops you will see what we have been up to. doing, it's quite impressive." Why is it important to build a Formula 1 engine yourself?"The control and connection between the chassis and the engine are really paramount.

It's better to work together, aerodynamics and everything related to that is the way to win." This team's big bet is that if they invest a lot of money and time in a custom engine, they will be able to get a little more speed and control of your car and ultimately win more races. Can you hear me? Well, what's happening now is that I'm in the super secret engine room, but we can't actually show anything like the new engine, but! I'm standing in front of the real Formula 1 engines! I just can't show them to you... "People are going to love it." Well, this is the engine I can show you, we can show you and the reason why!

The one where small parts are hidden is that those are the secret parts that you can't see. If I work in a Formula 1 team working on an engine, what is the goal? Is it maximum power, smaller size? ? "Power. You want as much power as possible because the driver will ask for more power. Even if you have the most powerful engine, you'll want more." To understand why this engine is so great, let me explain how your car's engine works and how it compares. Okay, so your car probably has a four-cylinder internal combustion engine. times and a Formula 1 car also has it, which means that there is a cylinder and inside there is a piston that goes up, up, down and up in four times.

In the first, the air and fuel rush in at the same time. chamber, they are then compressed and heated, then a spark ignites the mixture and explodes pushing the piston down and spinning a set of gears generating a mechanical motion that turns the wheels of the car. The piston then rises and ejects the. remaining gas. That whole process happens inside one cylinder and there are six of them in a V shape, that's why it's called a "V6" engine. Your car can have between 4 and 8 depending on what you drive. car and a Formula 1 car is the maximum number of cycles - that down-up - down-up - each engine can complete its car about 6,000 per minute, a Formula 1 car more than 15,000 which contributes to having more power and more. fast, and these cars combine a bunch of other technology to get a little more oomph, like a turbocharger that compresses air before it enters the cylinder, so it has more punch when you later set a car on fire.

It's a great example of why Formula 1 cars are really important to people like you and me. It's not that this technology is new. It's that hundreds of smart people combine, modify and refine it with millions of dollars to make it better, and those changes help inspire better automotive technology for all of us. The engines they are building here are based on 2026 rules that will use less fuel and more electricity and therefore will make a slightly different sound and we have a sneak peek... Can you hear that? So that's the new engine running? "Right, yes." "Are we allowed to hear it?" "You're allowed to HEAR it, you're not allowed to SEE it." Just running - Ooo!

What did that change in noise mean? "So basically it increased the speed and now it goes into this automated power curve. You can hear it's slowing down, so with each speed we take a measurement. The next speed, measurement. The next speed, measurement. " Like this They are testing it at different speeds, at different power curves to see how it works. "And at that time we always go full throttle, which means everything we have."  Now that we've seen how they build these cars, it's time to see where they compete. And that means we have to go to Bahrain.

They were here! Here we go... Hello! No, I can't record any of this... "Turn 1 is just a couple of kilometers away!" Does this ever get old after 20 years? "No! Every day is a learning day. Every day is different." I can't believe I'm here. This is the new car, the RB20. And you might recognize these guys. Your job is to take the amazing cars that hundreds of people have just built and accelerate them to over 200 mph, facing forces sometimes greater than five times normal gravity, battling competitors to get your team to the finish line first. place. These drivers are legends.

Max Verstappen has been dominating Formula 1 recently... DUH DUH DUH DUH MAX VERSTAPPEN Remember those Red Bull win records? Here are only Max's victories. What does it feel like to drive a Formula 1 car? "Imagine sitting on a roller coaster and you basically go flying, but then it's 5 to 10 times worse, while you have a steering wheel in your hands with all the buttons. Back in the day when my dad was in F1, when I was A little baby, basically, I sat in it and the photos are very cute, but the first time I sat in the car and was going to drive it myself I was a little nervous, even I do that to this day, I feel.

Like it's shooting out, do you get that kind of feeling that I still get in an F1 car sometimes?" And in the case of these cars, as there are no two drivers alike, there are no two Formula 1 cars alike, not even for the same team.  "They have a whole book of Max's measurements for me, so they know exactly my seating position, my pedal position, my sitting position..." "The seat is very important, it's a carbon seat. Naturally, you're in a very unnatural position..." I actually sat in what I think was your seat in the factory RB19. "Probably a little wide!" It actually fit pretty well! ....Did I just tell world champion Max Verstappen that our butts are the same size?

Anyway, here's what his steering wheel looks like and here's one of the engineers who helped design it. Would a flyer for each of the different teams look totally different? "Yes. So they all look very different." On each team's custom steering wheel, there are dozens of buttons, knobs, and switches, all intended to optimize the engine, tires, brakes, and more in every possible scenario while the driver drives. "Drivers memorize all the buttons so they can do it without looking at the steering wheel... 'Sorry... it's okay... no, we're fine.' You might have to make a pit stop at any moment. moment...

That was a pit stop. At least once in each race, each car must leave the track and enter its pit box, where approximately 22 members of the pit crew swarm the car to quickly change tires and other parts. pit stop lasts less than 2 seconds. They give out a trophy for the fastest pit stop and when we were at the Red Bull factory we could see theirs. These tires just came off the car and they are very hot.. now it hurts! .So hot. I have to try to stack these tires and listen, they have a very hard job. "A couple more tries..." They didn't fall off!

For each race, they all have a hard, medium and soft option, or, if it's raining, two different types of rain tires. Soft tires have the most grip but wear out the fastest and hard tires are at the opposite extreme. of that spectrum and the medium is medium. When they say "my tires are finished", what do they mean? "The drivers will feel when it loses grip..." Choosing the right tires at the right time is a big part of a team's race strategy... During a race, you'll hear the drivers talking to just one person. person, your race engineer, but that race engineer is also talking to a huge team of strategists, all trying to figure out the best way to win.

Some of those strategists are on the track, but most of them are actually back in the factory, in a big room like this. It looks like NASA! And the people in this room aren't just coming up with plans, they're using supercomputers to run simulations on tons of possible outcomes.  "It's millions, even over the course of a career, and we run it in the Oracle cloud." Millions?? "Millions, yes." Those simulations take into account weather and brake heat and tire performance and everything other drivers do and then transmit those simulations to the track. "The goal is always to try to win a race, so you have to think about what is the best you can do, but also what your competitors could do and how you should react to that." Is all this in real time? "Yes, exactly, we are talking constantly, the intercom in the pit turns on constantly, there is always someone in one of your ears.

Actually, the headphones are dual, so you can hear a car in one ear and the other." The car in the other ear, so you're always listening to multiple conversations trying to take them all in. It's basically like playing a board game, that's how I always think of it." The most complicated board game in the world! A winning Formula 1 car is not just about the technology inside that car, but also the technology behind every move the car makes every lap of the race, but what I think is cool is that even with all those strategists and supercomputers and simulations, at the end of the day, it all comes down to human skill. "Sometimes.

It's hard to concentrate, you know, because you always have someone around you asking you questions and you're just trying to concentrate as much as possible, but you have to have that ability, you know?" Everything we've talked about. from the design to Building, painting, simulating and testing... it doesn't happen just once. A Formula 1 car is never finished. A team constantly learns, changes and rebuilds between each race, over and over again. One of the things that strikes me most about Formula 1 and Formula 1 cars is that they look a lot like a Lego game. It really has to be that all the perfectly formed individual pieces come together to form a whole.

This is a theme I've noticed in many of my Huge If True episodes. Technology has always been a story of human ingenuity, but increasingly it is also a story of human collaboration. I think that's really the story of a Formula 1 car and the story of much of the technology that we all enjoy. I think there's something really magical about a team of engineers, designers, strategists, athletes and all these people coming together to build something that gets better and better. I find a lot of hope in that. If we can build cars like these... What else can we do?

I can't believe this is real life. One of the things I have kept in mind is that most of the people who work on these cars will not be able to go see a race, at least not with their team, because there are a limited number of people that Formula 1 allows each. . equipment to bring to every race and I know the only reason I can do this is because you watch and subscribe to this program and I feel really grateful. I hope these kinds of stories make you a little more optimistic about what we can build as we work together.

So if you're enjoying this video and want to help us go to more amazing places, subscribe and tell me in the comments where we should go. And we have some amazing episodes coming up, I can't wait to show them to you.