Questions about starting line and blueprints.

[PaulHansen]

Hello fellow F1 fans.
I have two questions, I hope you guys can help me with.

1.
I have always wondered if there’s a sensor in front of the car, which prevents the cars from crossing the white line where they start the race from? I mean, the drivers can't see precise where they have to stop, and centimeters counts when the lights go. Do you know what I mean?

2.
Is there a place where I can download official and exact blueprints of a F1 car? I used to make 3d models a couple of years back, and I think about making something again, starting with a F1 car. I'm a guy who loves details in my work, so if there's a way to get exact car/part measurements, it will be appreciated.

I hope you can help.
- Paul.

[stefan_]

1. I don't have any idea.

2. Check out (I don't know if I'm allowed to put links to other websites) this website. You can find blueprints of F1 cars and not only, but I don't know if they are the "official" ones which I highly doubt you will be able to track down.

[Richard]

There is a transponder in the car and in each grid box, the regs have a diagram showing the exact location.

It seems the FIA are more concerned about jump starts so they monitor movement. It appears they rely on the marshals to check if the car is behind the white line.

The marshals are supposed to wave a yellow flag if a car is not in position, then the start is aborted and the cars have another formation lap. However, there are incidents every year where a car is shown on TV a few inches over the line but no action is taken. As I recall the only time a start has been aborted is when a car is in the wrong place.

I suspect the difference of a few inches out of position is negligible compared to the importance of reaction times. Put it another way, 0.5m head start is negligible when travelling at 27m/s (100 kph). That 0.5m equals 0.02 seconds, it's tiny.

[beelsebob]

There is a transponder in the car and in each grid box, the regs have a diagram showing the exact location.

It seems the FIA are more concerned about jump starts so they monitor movement. It appears they rely on the marshals to check if the car is behind the white line.

The marshals are supposed to wave a yellow flag if a car is not in position, then the start is aborted and the cars have another formation lap. However, there are incidents every year where a car is shown on TV a few inches over the line but no action is taken. As I recall the only time a start has been aborted is when a car is in the wrong place.

I suspect the difference of a few inches out of position is negligible compared to the importance of reaction times. Put it another way, 0.5m head start is negligible when travelling at 27m/s (100 kph). That 0.5m equals 0.02 seconds, it's tiny.

I agree and I disagree. The difference of half a meter (or even less) into the first corner can be the difference between being "along side", and stopping a driver turning in on you, and not being along side.

[PaulHansen]

richard_leeds and beelsebob, thank you very much for those great informations.

- Paul

[shelly]

As far as I know every f1 chassis is fitted with 3 transponders put at fia detrmined positions in the car. This system is used for timing (thereis more than one system to take intemediate split times to achieve redundancy) and probably helps in detcting jump starts. I do not know if you can determine exact position from staring line with them.