How many gears does a F 1 car possess?

Answer 1

Formula One cars use semi-automatic sequential gearboxes with six or seven forward gears and one reverse gear. The driver initiates gear changes using paddles mounted on the back of the steering wheel and electro-hydraulics perform the actual change as well as throttle control. Clutch control is also performed electro-hydraulically except from and to a standstill when the driver must operate the clutch using a lever mounted on the back of the steering wheel. By regulation the cars use rear wheel drive. A modern F1 clutch is a multi-plate carbon design with a diameter of less than four inches (100 mm) , weighing less than 2.20 lb (1.00 kg) and handling 900 hp (670 kW) or so . Continuously variable transmissions have long been banned, thus creating contention in the introduction of the new seamless shift gearbox, a type of dual-clutch transmission which nearly eliminates the brief power interruption during a gear change. The ultimate advantage of this is said to be from five to ten seconds over a complete race distance, which is a significant gain when races are sometimes only won by three seconds or less. As of the 2007[update] race season, most of the top teams are using seamless shift transmissions. Shift times are around .05 seconds for the 2007 season.