How Many Gears Are There in a Formula 1 Car?

F1 cars are truly bohemian in performance, with speeds averaging above 180-200 miles an hour. The roar of the engine, the sleekness of the chassis, and the mind-boggling aerodynamic features make it a beast that can not be compared to any other automotive in the industry.

Dare to blink an eye? And you’ll miss the V6 engine fly past you. Over the years, with multiple technological advancements, these F1 cars have come a long way and are distinct from what we once knew as racing cars. The engine, the gearbox, the electronics system, everything has a new face as compared to what once was part of the F1 grid.

Even the number of gears available to the pilot of this vehicle is more than it used to be, which has made a substantial difference in how these drivers approach different corners of a track. Without further due, let’s dive into the number of gears in an F1 car.

Gears in an F1 car

The technical top speed of F1 cars is 360KPH (roughly 223MPH). However, the fastest race speed of an F1 recording during an official Grand Prix was 372.5km/h (231.4mph).

An F1 car changes gears through a semi-automatic sequential transmission, and the onboard computer does the rest of the job for an F1 driver. The steering wheels of this modern-day machinery feature paddle shifters on its rear, using which the driver can select the left paddle to shift down or the right-hand paddle to shift up.

Presently, in the modern 1.6L V6 turbo hybrid engines in place, the number of gears has increased from the old V8s. The previous generation of F1 cars featured seven gears, but since 2014, F1 cars have eight forward gears and 1 reverse gear.

Generally, the F1 superstars use these gears of an F1 car, the same way as you would do on the road. For slow-speed corners like a hairpin, the car can drop to second/third gear, for medium-speed corners the optimal gear choice can be fourth gear, and upwards of fifth gear helps them deliver performance on long straights and super-fast complexes.

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Remarkably, it is a common feat to see an F1 driver perform over 2,000 gear changes in a race distance, which is roughly around 2 hours.

Do F1 cars have a clutch?

When driving a manual transmission vehicle, you must have encountered an additional pedal featured alongside the accelerator and the brake, which is domineered by your left foot. The clutch forms a link between the engine and transmission and further transmits the power of the engine to the wheels of the vehicle.

F1 cars also feature a clutch, but it is not alongside the accelerator and brake pedals and is not engaged using the feet. An F1 clutch is carved out of a multi-plate carbon design that has a diameter smaller than 3.9 inches, weighs lighter than 2.2 pounds, and handles a car that produces 720 bhp.

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Notably, when launching from a standstill or neutral into first gear, the driver operates the clutch manually using a lever mounted on the back of the steering wheel to get the car into motion.

The Reverse gear of an F1 car

Shifting through gears to reach a top speed of 200 miles an hour can sometimes see a driver run out of track and find himself off-road. During these times, the questions arise: can these F1 cars reverse and join the track? The short answer is yes, but the procedure to put them in the reverse gear is not short at all.

The provision of the reverse gear is available to the drivers and compulsion in the rulebook, but these nimble cars are not designed to go backward which hardly see them using the reverse gear. Due to this, drivers at times face real difficulties shifting to reverse.

Normally, the pilot behind the car’s wheel performs a 180° spin instead of engaging the reverse gear. One important point to remember is to never use this helping hand available to the driver in the pit lane, as reversing in that part of the track leads to a time penalty. In such a circumstance, the team is supposed to wheel back its driver back to the garage.

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The FIA standardized the reverse gear for safety purposes and also to minimize the involvement of Marshalls in a Grand Prix.