AceAceBaby wrote:
Hi! You know those black rubbery things on the corners of the car? They affect the braking! No, really!
They do indeed, as do lots of other things, more specifically the brakes.
On a track at high speed the braking is applied before going into the corner so as to ensure that the maximum friction from the tyres when going through the corner is being used for cornering, also known as the traction cycle, traction control helps with this but I believe it has been banned again by F1.
The amount of grip you have effects this, so the tyres play an important part of this cycle but so does everything else that effects grip (road surface, dry/wet/dirty track, down force, gradient of the road,the weight of the car changing as more fuel is being consumed etc), and it will all effect when you apply the brakes.
The braking system in F1 cars are so fundamental to the way the car is driven that they are one of the areas of F1 car design that they are looking at applying technology limitations on to make races more entertaining to watch (in fact there already is with ABS and power brakes being banned), as braking for a corner is arguable the most important test for a F1 driver.
In the Top Gear episode, which is what I was taking about in the first place, the brakes where mentioned as one of the main reasons for the massive difference in lap time.