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Construction of Formula One race cars is unprecedented. The first rule of thumb in designing a bonafide piece of framework is to make it weigh as least as possible. Less kart weight correlates to faster speeds. For this reason, team brains use lightweight material that is hard to construct. The minimum weight of a kart must be 600 kg including driver. This ensures a level playing field, although teams are allowed to keep their money making construction methods a secret from other teams. Team staff is very highly regarded in Formula One business. Their technological and dynamical know-how of machines they build is a valuable asset to any team. And like free agents, they are lured and signed by likes of companies creating a recruiting war for their services. Of course, there are restrictions for creating karts. You cannot add nitro boosts to your machine or use technology that resembles life in year 3000. Teams are always looking to bend rules slightly and coming up ways to beat competition legally.
Professional kart tires have to have optimum characteristics to ensure smooth driving. For one, tires have to have grooving technology built into them. For novices, grooves are indented lines in tires that allow for it to slow down considerably on turns and to adapt to track surface. No matter what technology, kart tires are simply not adept at withstanding rigors of asphalt, concrete, and dirt. For this reason, Formula One racers are allotted two pit stops during course of a 57 lap race to change tires. If you’ve ever watched a Formula One race, team staffers with lightning quick hands have an extremely limited time for which to remove and replace tires in pit stop – often times not exceeding over 7 seconds! Regulations are placed on tire grooves (a minimum of four) to allow for an even playing field for all racers. Remember enthusiasts, grooves serve more to slow down kart than to speed it up.
Chassis construction with its illustrious carbon fiber material, tires with indented grooves, team specialists with a knack for speed, and engines which burn heat like calories is epitome of a Formula One race car. All of these attributes contribute to performance of vehicle in racing lap after lap. As a result of all this technology, Formula One cars leave people breathless reaching consistent speeds of 200 mph. on race track. More impressive is time needed to go from 0 mph to 100 mph – 5 seconds! Formula One is only moving forward with advent of new features - like improved horsepower engines, more lightweight materials, new ballasts to add weight to car, and more. Behind that stylish, mind blowing chassis that pique our interest is that top-class technology that makes Formula One racing so great.
Michael Walker is a freelance author providing information about a variety of go-kart topics including go kart kits, go kart engines and go kart parts.