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The most beautiful F1 car ever. It was cool watching him gather speed with each successive lap. Seemed like a bit of a handful on corner entry…
Struggling on downshift.
Racing gearboxes of that era were typically non synchro. It takes skilled rev matching and/or double declutching to prevent that slight gear crunch, especially on downshifts. Something a youngster likely hasn’t done much in their driving career.
Yes one of my favourites. That and the 72 and 33.
Tim
At first yes, I think it was cold. It smoothed out as he went on. Still a distinct clink into gear though.
I have followed him since he is local to us. I think his experience with dog ring boxes goes back 20 years in the Jim Russell series. I think several things are going on. First, the gearboxes used on the 49 were the FG400 and DG300, which take up to 400lbs/ft and 300lbs/ft respectively.
Yes, cold oil will make shifts feel rough. The other is, these heavier duty boxes take some force to change gears because there is more mass, particularly the FG400. The faster the shift, the better, but fast cross gate changes can result in a missed shift and bending valves. It also sounded like the choices of gear ratios were not ideal. It didn’t sound like he was double clutching when changing down. If one sets up the gears for a 1300 -1500 rpm drop for each gear, with a quick partial dip of the clutch,. Double clutching isn’t necessary when changing down, but it takes practice.
If one reads “Methods of Changing Gear” by William Hewland, there’s some things one can appreciate.
Methods of Changing Gear.doc (27.5 KB)
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I presume this is Alex McAlister’s Lotus. It appears at the Historics on a somewhat regular basis.
My comment goes to the fact that there are a number of downshifts where the rear wheels lock and immediate steering input is needed to catch the car. One can hear the lack of a blip and the locking of the rears.
With someone so skilled as this driver, I’m surprised. I would have expected an over blip if anything.
Just an observation. Alexander Rossi is a true talent.
As to the comment about non-syncro…race cars today still use dog engagement gears. What is different is modern cars have ECUs that provide the matching of revs versus the skill of the driver.
Thanks Dan, great info/insight!
“Double clutching isn’t necessary when changing down”… I’ve always practiced the opposite, no double clutch on the up shift, but double clutch on down shifts. Have I been wrong all these decades???
@khmai Kiyoshi,
I will double clutch, particularly when downshifting from 4th to 1st, like going into T2 at Laguna.
@twebb Yes, Rossi comes close to spinning when he changes down several times entering a corner. It’s hard to get right if you’re not familiar with the car or the gear choices are not optimal. In addition, just a little shift linkage wear or misadjustment will give the driver no end of grief.
When I rebuilt my Crossle two years ago, we replaced all of the linkage brackets, removing all of the play in the assembly. That made a huge difference in shifting and confidence in the car. Shifting was no longer vague.