The modern Formula 1 car is among the most amazing machines ever made. And when you’re going wheel-to-wheel with someone like four-time world champ Sebastian Vettel at 180 mph, you can’t take a hand off the wheel to do, well, anything. Every task a driver might need to do, every bit of information he might need to know, is quite literally at his fingertips.
The modern Formula 1 steering wheel is, therefore, the most amazing ever made. It is, in every way, the nerve center of the car.
That’s because an F1 car has dozens of parameters that can be adjusted on the fly, but only by the driver. Although telemetry provides a nonstop stream of data to engineers on the pitwall and at team HQ, the driver has sole control over things like differential settings, the air-fuel mix, and the torque curve. All of these settings can change several times during a race, or even a lap.
Adjustments must be made while keeping both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the track, which is why a modern F1 wheel might have 35 or more knobs, buttons and switches flanking a small LCD screen introduced this season. Drivers also use small paddles behind the wheel to shift up and down as many as 4,000 times in a race, and a third paddle to engage the clutch.