The transmission in the BAR F1 car is not a CVT, it is simply a manual transmission that can shift gears without a loss of power transfer. It is likely similar to what this company produces:
I was at Melbourne over the weekend and made a point of listening closely to the BAR's gear changes. Here's what I noticed (I was at Turn 1 in the Brabham stand).
DownShift: No significant speed advantage noticeable on the down shift, sounded about the same as the rest.
UpShift 1st/2nd: In the lower gears, first/second the time to change gears seemed just as long as the other teams.
UpShift 3rd/4th......: Noticeably faster that the other teams gear changes. A very very fast drop in engine revs as the gears changed. No 'crackle' noise as the engine dropped in revs - many of the cars make this crackling noise when the revs drop during gear changes. BAR's were more like an instantaneous drop in revs, although you could hear a mechanical noise as if something was happening in the gearbox.
So 'by the ear' it's definitely not a CVT of any sort. I'd suggest it's more like a pre-selector of sorts - or a ZeroShift (as mentioned to above in this thread).
Interesting to note that the gear changed 'seemed' to take as long as the others when the car was travelling at low speed in turn one, but once it sped up the difference in speed of the gear changes became more apparent.
Didn't help BAR much, lack-lustre performance for them overall really.
Just got back from Melbourne myself..... I was lucky enough to meet Geoff Willis..... I have to say he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met from F1... He was more than happy to give me advise as to how to get into F1 etc......
I asked him about the car in general & more specifically on the gearbox... He wouldn't tell me one bit about it....... "No comment" was his reply.All this was going on in the parking lot while Nick Fry was getting very impatient.......
As Cliff mentioned the gearbox seemed to take approximately the same time to shift gears as other cars....From what I say saw over the wkend, I'm finding it hard to believe that BAR have got a 'continous power on the wheels' if you'd like to call it that gearbox.... Could this be a case of attracting media attention? I dont know.... My guess is they are using some sort of an arrangement with 2 clutches, similar to McLaren.
However from my observations, BAR's traction control kept kicking in all the time & would cut back the engines power much longer than any of the other cars....
RBR, Renault & McLaren looked very impressive......
9.3 Gear ratios :
9.3.1 The minimum number of forward gear ratios is 4 and the
maximum is 7.
9.3.2 Continuously variable transmission systems are not
permitted."
