First F1 car to use a hand operated clutch paddle?

[saviour stivala]

Apart from your proffessor's trust problem, The 1989 Brazilian GP was the first F1 race for an F1 car with no clutch pedal, and the car was the FERRARI 640.

[Farnborough]

My view, and understanding, is in accordance with gold333 .... in that the Ferrari used solely a "rocking" paddle to right hand change up ratio and left hand change down.

Its effectively one piece in design to "toggle" that driver choice in changing gears and NO clutch actuator (for individual hand operations) discussed there.

Information with illustrations is here https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... 0/3124524/ that clearly represents what the steering wheel mechanism was arranged to facilitate this.

[wuzak]

The Ferrari 640's gearbox wasn't a sequential like they are now.

IIRC, the Ferrari wheel had a button which would downshift to a programmed gear directly, say 2nd or 3rd, so the driver didn't have select each gear on the way down.

[Sevach]

Apart from your proffessor's trust problem, The 1989 Brazilian GP was the first F1 race for an F1 car with no clutch pedal, and the car was the FERRARI 640.

I think it had a clutch pedal for the start.
After the start, drivers would change gears without pressing the clutch through paddles.

I don't know the actual answer to which car had the first hand operated clutch, it may have been Villeneuve's 96 Williams.
I remember hearing something about "Hill sticking to 3 pedals and foot operated clutch", "Villeneuve with 2 pedals and hand clutch".
It's possible some other team beat then to it, Benneton? Ferrari? Mclaren?