Today’s F1 drivers use paddle shifters and have steering wheels in their cars with more buttons and functions than a lap top. Back in the 1980s though, things were different. The driver still had an actual stick shift to manipulate as he was flying around the course…and they were flying around the course back then. This video is from the era of turbocharged F1 cars, 1,000+ horsepower beasts without nearly the chassis technology and advanced composites used to build the machines that compete in the series today.
This video is in-car footage showing Scotsman John Dumfries racing in Adelaide, Australia. It is amazing to watch his hands at work here because it is almost like he has three arms. The jobs of simply steering the car takes two and then he is furiously grabbing gears up and down as he races around the track! This video also gives some sense of how powerful these cars were and how brutal their performance was. Modern drivers have lapped these oldies and marveled at the fact that the engine acts more like a light switch more than a normal power plant. Apparently these cars had major turbo lag due to their tiny displacement and large turbos, but when things got spooled up, watch out! The 1,000+ horsepower all showed up and once and you best be ready for it!
Nothing against the extremely talented men who drive today’s Formula One cars but to watch the old school dudes who did it before them in action, well, there is no comparison!
H-pattern shifter too. No wussy sequential shifters here.
Note that at 0:23, he manages to sneak in a anti-roll bar adjustment with his left hand between shifts.
This is a good reminder of an episode of Top Gear when Lewis Hamilton drove one of Aryton Sennas iconic orange and white Honda powered cars from an era gone bye. After his lap, he comes to the pits and begins to rave about how awful it handles and how hard it was to drive.
You could watch the respect for the drivers of those cars intensify in those moments. His respect for Senna grew even more too.
Truly incredible to simply be able to drive them, not to mention race and win.
Remember when they tried to get Richard Hammond to make a simple lap in a Formula car and he couldn’t? That really puts into perspective how difficult it is to drive something like these.