Why The FIA Banned 6-Wheeled F1 Cars

We've covered everything from fdx to diffuser tricks to steering solutions, but for this band episode we're jumping into the time machine and going back a little further than usual, as we saw at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. between an F1 car on four tires and three can make a big difference unless your name is lewis hamilton of course, but instead of less tyres, how about in the past teams have tried their hand at adding more tires to see if they can earn more? Performance increases with different results, so let's take a trip back to the late 1970s and delve into the six-

wheeled

formula one car in 1976.

Tirol introduced its p34, the first and only world six car to race in Formula One. The P-34 was the product of lateral thinking at Tirol as they looked for a way to outwit their rivals, most of whom used the same Cosworth DFV engine and Hewland's gearbox designer's ambitious plan. , Derek Gardiner, was to use four smaller wheels at the front of the car. To locate them behind the front wing to reduce the frontal area of ​​the car and also with the aim of improving response at the front, the p-34 featured four 10-inch wheels mounted at the front of the chassis with the steering directly attached to the front axle.

While a crank arrangement was used to steer the second, it was also anticipated that having four wheels at the front instead of two would improve braking, this actually turned out to be more of an Achilles' heel than an advantage, but the team made numerous changes to In an effort to improve braking during its service, the other problem they had was the car's wheelbase, which would be shortened or lengthened if one axle was unloaded or locked before the other, causing it to Driving and setting up the p-34 was especially difficult and due to the wheels, being much smaller at the front, they also went through more revs than their larger counterparts at the rear of the car, so overall this had a significant impact on tire life, a problem that was further exacerbated by Goodyear's rear tire upgrade and the lack of development of the small front tires that only Tirol used during this period Giorgio Piola had unprecedented access to the car and resumes the story everything happened by pure coincidence while I was flying to Rio and I ended up sitting next to Kentural on the flight and in life you have to be good but also lucky, so Ken knew Giorgio's work and told him He asked if I would be interested in doing the press kit for the car, which meant he could get a lot of information and take a lot of pictures of the car.

It was one of my best jobs. He was very attached to that car, Giorgio said, as he had a very good relationship with Tyrell's chief designer, Derek Gardner. I made three big cuts of the car. An incredibly detailed top view. Derek helped me with this top view. p34 is one of the most difficult drawings he has made. Piolar explains that with his usual cut-out drawings you can use tricks like placing the body over an area you're not sure about and want to darken. However, it was different with this general drawing. It was open and I had to be extremely precise with everything exactly where it should be, even down to the position of the pipes, as Piola says to me, it was one of the best drawings I've ever done, but no one published it at the time.

As it had 32 annotations, this was too much detail and was not something that could be published in a magazine at the time because it was a huge hand-drawn illustration, the arrows and numbers simply could not be removed, the work was later digitized, but let's reimagine what it was originally intended to look like number one adjustable aluminum splitter number two i think you get the general idea the p-34 had its moment in the sun by taking victory in the swedish grand prix the biggest problem persisted as The tires continued to hamper performance; lack of development by Goodyear inevitably led to the project's downfall and the P-34 was withdrawn from service after the 1977 season and six-wheel designs were subsequently

banned

.

Arterial's foray into this solution had led the team to add an axle. at the front of the car, several other teams had seen the opportunity to do something similar at the rear, one of them being the March 240. Having seen the Tyrol P34, Robin had heard of March and started his own six-engine project. wheels, but unlike the Tyrrell his design there would be four wheels at the rear of the car instead of two, he used the 240 as the designation of the car with two main wheels, four driving wheels and zero rear wheels, the car generated a large number of interest and the car appeared on the cover of Auto Sport a couple of times ago.

Many times, the first, after a soft launch by the team that was designed to try to attract sponsors to the team's departure, was facing a financial crisis and needed a cash injection not only to keep the six-

wheeled

project alive but also to keep the team racing. The 240 put additional financial pressure on the team, as it had to design and build components that had not previously been lifted rather than simply pulling them off the shelves as they and many of their competitors did. The overall concept of the 240 was solid, improving traction grip and reducing downforce due to the narrower rear wheels that would normally be used at the front of the car, this also solved one of the limiting factors of the p-34, the lack of development of smaller front tires, only they used, which Goodyear could not.

The development of funds due to the financial burden on the team led to compromises with the design of the 240 and some of the planned structural improvements to the gearbox necessary to handle the stresses involved were not carried out, this led to some problems of torque and wiped out some of the gains. which would otherwise have been made as a consequence of these increasing financial and technical problems, the car never raced and a modified 761 took its place that season, although good ideas have a way of coming full circle and Williams later tried it. with a six-wheeled version of the FW08 in 1982, this was mainly due to Williams not being able to acquire the current performance differentiator that helped teams like Ferrari and Renault to have a turbocharged engine, so they decided to try to gain their unfair advantage of another way, after all, more wheels are equal. more wins within a few years and with ground effect in full swing, the ability to place the narrow wheels further out would allow the venturi tunnels and bodywork to be lengthened and widened to the rear of the car, resulting in a significant increase in downforce while achieving the kind of drag reduction improvements that Robin heard about in his 240.

It is clear that Williams' design took advantage of the preliminary work done by March a few years earlier and had even enjoyed some of the knowledge that Hulun had gained when designing the gearbox for that project, but since Williams had taken the Lotus 79 and designed a better version of that concept for the FW07, the idea behind the six-wheeled vehicle was to improve that gearing concept. initial, clearly having an additional axis and play. The lack of wheels at the rear of the car meant that the car would be much heavier than the minimum weight they were allowed to run, but with a massive increase in downforce, this was immediately compensated for.

Williams put a lot of effort into converting the fw07 for testing. that theory and even planned to race the fw08 with those guys, until the governing body

banned

four-wheel drive, which turned out to be even more infuriating for patrick head when sir frank williams told him he had agreed to do it at a meeting with the other teams at marinello patrick head's attempt to create a six-wheeled machine would have been a big step forward for williams, as the car was reportedly a few seconds faster than its predecessor, but alas it was not to be and was archived without Having turned a wheel competitively, while Tyrrell actually raced and won with a six wheeler, Williams came the closest to following in his footsteps, there were others who also tested designs including another 240 setup for brm and ferrari with its rather unique twin rear wheel. axis 312 t6 this only adds to the mystique of an era of grand prix racing where it seemed like all you needed to do was be able to dream a little bigger than your competitor and that concludes our dive into multiple moments in which the teams of F1 tried to reinvent themselves. the wheel so to speak and decided that if four wheels were good then six wheels must be even better, an argument with which the fia naturally disagreed.

What is your opinion on six-wheeled vehicles? Do you think four is the magic number or do you think Mercedes? Tyrol's great-great-grandson would be even more dominant today if they had another pair of Pirellis on board and what other band innovations would he like us to discuss next. Let us know what you think in the comments below and stay tuned for the next one. band episode