Analysis of a Formula 1 car accelerating from 0 - 220 km/h

Topic Description

The topic I chose for my physics culminating project was analyzing an F1 car
accelerating from 0 - 220 km/h. I chose this topic because I love cars and F1 is my favorite sport
and my favorite driver, Lewis Hamilton was driving the car in the video. As the F1 car
accelerates from a stand still, the velocity changes rapidly. Because of the major velocity change,
the car needs to have a lot of traction which it gets from the tire sliding against the track surface
to create friction. F1 cars also generate even more traction because they have various different
wing and aerodynamic elements that push the car and tires into the asphalt to create more
traction.

Analysis/Measurements

Kinematics

Some of the measurements that I needed were already in the video. In the video you can
see just above the halo (the device that protects the driver) a digital readout of the speedometer
and tachometer as well as brake and throttle inputs. Since the speedometer was measured in
km/h, I had to convert to m/s by multiplying the km/h value of 220 by 1000 to get 220,000 m. I
then divided by 3600 because there 3600 seconds in 1 hour. Finally, I got a value of 61.1 m/s.
Now that I had vf, vi was easy because it was already 0 km/h, so 0 km/h = 0 m/s.

To find time, all I had to do was use a timer and start it from the moment Lewis applied
the throttle. I then stopped it just before he applied the brakes which gave me 61.1 m/s. When I
stopped the timer, I had a value of 4.925 seconds.

Now that I had time and velocity, I could calculate the displacement. To find the
displacement I used one of the big five equations, Δd = (vf+vi)/2 x Δt. First I solved the brackets
which gave me a value of 61.1 m/s. Then I divided that by 2 to get 30.5555 m/s. And finally I
multiplied that by 4.925 seconds and got a displacement of 150.5 m.

To calculate the acceleration I just used the acceleration formula, a = Δv/Δt. To find Δv, I
subtracted vi from vf to get 61.1 m/s. I then divided this value by 4.925 seconds and got an
acceleration of 12.406 m/s².
 Forces

To begin calculating the forces acting on the F1 car, I made a free body diagram and an
action reaction diagram. I first calculated the normal force but in order to do that I needed to
research the mass of the car which turned out to be 752 kg. I used ΣF-y = Fnet-y then I simplified
it to Fn = manet - Fg. After that I just put in all the values I researched and solved from before
and got an Fn of 16,700 N [up].

To find Ff, I used the formula µk = Fk/Fn. To find µk I researched the coefficient of
kinetic friction for an F1 car and got a value of 1.7. I then rearranged to solve for Fk = µkFn and
got 28,000 N [backwards].

Now that I had friction I could calculate the applied force. First I found the sum of the
forces which was 9,329.312 N. Then solved for Fa by rearranging ΣF-x = Fa + Fn to Fa = ΣF-x +
Ff to get an Fa of 37730.2464 N [forward]

Energy

I started off by calculating the work done by the acceleration by using the formula
Wa = FaΔd cosθ. After doing the math I got an answer of 5,678,402.083 J. Then I converted it
into watts by using W = J/s to get 1,152,975.042 W. I then divided by 1000 to get the answer in
kW to get 1,153 kW. Finally I multiplied that by 0.00136 h which I got by dividing
4.925s/3600s. The final answer was 1.577 kWh. The same process was done to find the work
done by friction with the answer being -4,274,000 J and 1.187 kWh. For gravity and the normal
force the answer was 0 J and 0 kWh.

To find the net work I just added all the numbers up. Wnet = Wa+Wf+Wg+Wn so I just
added the Wa and Wf because Wg and Wn were both 0. The answer I got was 1,404,061.456 J.
To get the answer in kWh I used the same method I did before to get an answer of 390 kWh.
Now to get the power I used P=W/Δt so 1,404,061.456/4.925 = 285,088.6 watts.

Potential Errors

There are a few things that could be potential errors or inaccurate measurements. Since
we did not learn about air resistance in class, I did not account for air resistance or drag force that
would act on the car. Because my calculation did not include air resistance, my answers would be
wrong because there is a force missing. I also researched the coefficient of kinetic friction and
because the coefficient of kinetic friction on F1 cars is not something most people would look for
when doing google searches on F1 cars It was a bit tricky to find an answer. Most sources I
found said 1.7 with a few saying 1.5 or 1.6.

Citations

F1 W12 E performance. Mercedes. (2021, March 2). Retrieved December 20,

2022, from https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/car/f1-w12-e-performance/

MyTutor. (n.d.). The friction coefficient of formula 1 car tyres are around 1.7
in dry weather. assuming sufficient power from the engine, calculate the
theoretical best 0-100 km/h acceleration time in seconds. (neglect downforce,
G=9.81m/s^2). MyTutor. Retrieved January 5, 2023, from
https://www.mytutor.co.uk/answers/9684/A-Level/Physics/The-friction-coeffi
cient-of-Formula-1-car-tyres-are-around-1-7-in-dry-weather-Assuming-suffici
ent-power-from-the-engine-calculate-the-theoretical-best-0-100-km-h-acceler
ation-time-in-seconds-neglect-downforce-g-9-81m-s-2/

YouTube. (2021, December 4). Lewis Hamilton practice start at Jeddah! 2021
Saudi arabian grand prix! YouTube. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGC2uNjVB6U