The Search for the Extra Pedal (2017)
mclaren.com
mclaren.com
I have a few tractors around the farm, all of them have two brake pedals/levers. This even goes for the smallest of them all, an Irus U1200 two-wheel tractor with an 8 hp Hatz diesel.
[edit] got called on the "can't steer" part - It still isn't your steering, but it changes the chassis load and dynamics in a way that lets you modify the way you steer... quite different than the OP brake + accel causing a steering input from the back end, not front end. But lots of things are different 2 wheel vs. 4 anyway.
But I'll give you that it's vaguely similar to OP in some ways, so fair enough - cornering dynamics of 4 and 2 wheels are a bit apples and oranges anyway.
Same thing applies to 4-wheel cars (see: Rally)
The two brake pedals typically look like a single pedal that's been split in half.
Hah, how to tell a city slicker. That makes a ton of sense though. Obviously a tractor is mostly wanting to maintain a slow but constant speed over a bumpy terrain. Having to do that with a foot pedal would be a pain.
At least I know what a PTO is, but only because of reading how dangerous they can be.
The floor gear shift was really just a range selector. Forward and reverse were on a shuttle lever on the steering column, and the PTO had its own transmission system, plus there was a global throttle lever in addition to the floor pedal.
Oh, and dad didn't even own a trailer. He'd drive those things on city streets at 30mph to get to jobs. It was insane in hindsight. He could have crushed a car with the bucket. And I'd ride at city street speeds sitting on a fender above an open back tire. Sheesh.
It's worth noting that the present driver-adjusted differential locking systems they have effectively replicate much of this behavior, but without nearly as much mid-corner control inputs from the driver. When something that works gets banned, the teams always find another (and often better) way of replicating the effect.
https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13671
The MP4/13 (McLaren's F1 car in 1998) also tested an early version of what we now call KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System):
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september...
> It was more work for the drivers, but Coulthard says he adapted quickly: “It was a switch to choose left and right, and an additional pedal,” DC recalls. “Racing drivers, if they have to sing the Russian national anthem backwards while juggling grenades, and it gives them a tenth, they would do it! The competitive animal that you are, nobody would say something is too difficult if it gave you performance.”
I’m a decent stick shift driver and I can’t imagine dealing with four pedals. I’m sorta surprised they didn’t do it with a pair of handbrakes, like in the XC trial cars mentioned but maybe taking your hand off the wheel is too much of a disadvantage in F1?
Seems easy actually. These cars don't really have four pedals. Coulthard's had a clutch pedal but by this point (and to this day) F1 cars only use the clutch to start. So you're only using the extra brake pedal under acceleration and they are already using the left-foot for braking anyway. All you have to do is just change the left foot from one brake to the other after braking into the corner, it's not like heel-and-toe where you are actually pressing three pedals at once.
So you could use your left foot to operate both brake pedals, either individually or together, and your right foot to operate the throttle.
Maybe they could have done the same with breaking - just use the steering wheel position to choose the breaking power split between the wheels.
The second problem is indeed that regulation in the sport leaves less and less room for creativity in an attempt to level the playing field and prevent "abuse". I have a feeling that the regulation now looks more like a whitelist rather than a blacklist. Everybody is allowed to "innovate" the exact same thing.
Although there is a silver lining: with identical cars it's down to pilot skill. I still don't see F1 or FE too exciting right now.
Barring some surprise changes or race-by-race accidents/failures, we're looking a season of 1-2 Mercedes, 3-4 Ferrari, 5-6 Red Bull. That doesn't feel like racing.
Faster and more powerful cars can and are produced, but are barred for reasons of safety and, as the article demonstrates, mere choice of the governing body.
If you look at the different approaches taken with regards to aerodynamics (particularly this season) and engines then there's still plenty of room for engineering challenges (at least in F1, I don't know about other series).
They have put in all these restrictive rules and it’s still horribly expensive.
There are some things that are ruled out of the essence of the formula and some things that get used to define it. For instance, the BT46 Turbofan that chucked stones out the back is not on. Meanwhile, the monocoque chassis with stressed member engine is part of the formula.
The rule changes to this year have resulted in two approaches to front wing aero, right now we don't know whether the Alfa Romeo approach is actually better than the Mercedes approach. That might be mere aero, nothing important, but think how it would work if anything was allowed so long as it was safe.
So there are some things that have to be ruled out such as the high nose that is better design but bad for potentially beheading drivers. If we let anything in then you could go back to the Williams FW14 and allow active suspension and a whole host of driver aids. You could even go further back and allow 6 wheelers, ground effect skirts and V12 engines. If the rules - the formula - was thus cast in stone - open to everything - then within 3-4 seasons the grid would distil into what was the de-facto winning formula. If six wheels really were better than four then every car would have six wheels.
Although the rulebook appears to stifle innovation it does promote it by these small and well thought out changes that happen every few years.
Having said that, I wish there was an 'anything goes' formula with a budget cap. So cars would have active aero, auto-pilot, super-capacitors, tuned-mass-dampers, low-profile tyres that weren't designed for needing pit-stops, performance enhancing drugs for the drivers, grid-girls advertising cigarettes - well maybe not some of these things that were once considered a vital part of the spectacle, but you get the idea.
Tyre strategy could be about running the same set of tyres all weekend. Normal cars don't change the tyres every hour. I know that the pit stop upsets the order a bit, however, if there were two sets of tyres for the weekend and you had to use both sets in the race then that could work out fine.
There is an environmental cost to lugging those tyres all around the globe, it is a bit out of touch with the times plus it doesn't say much about the product if it only lasts less than two hours. In Formula E they get this right and I am sure Michelin are getting the right message to their customers about what a great tyre they make.
The pit stop could even be a mandatory toilet break if the real point of it is to just upset the racing order. Or the drivers forced to pull into the pits to drink 500ml of water. Nobody wants to be dehydrated, do they? (Or to use the olden days phrase, 'thirsty').
Never mind that in a performance landing (such as short field) you use not only brakes but also yoke/stick (2 degrees of freedom) for one hand and throttle for another. The exam standard for commercial pilot is to be able to touch down on a designated 100ft stretch of runway with centerline between main wheels). Add to that your usual wind, turbulence, and thermals on the approach path which make every landing different, and you'd realize that what ground drivers do isn't very exceptional, and that one could train to get proficient in juggling a lot more controls at once:)
This is just a manual precursor to those systems. No?
But probably if your car has VSC then it has the capability to stabilise by braking the wheels individually.
Today, many cars -- even performance cars -- use brakes in place of a differential. In fact, IIRC, McLaren road cars don't have mechanical differentials at all, and they're hardly slow!
Instead of a mechanical device employing a series of clutches that only allows x% more speed or torque or whatever to another wheel, you can (effectively) infinitely vary the amount of power to each wheel by selectively applying brakes. What used to be a crude/cheap traction control hack quickly became 'better' than the real-deal mechanical device.