Sequential Gearbox Appearance in Formula 1

Sequential gearboxes is a very common sight nowadays, we couldn't imagine Motorsport without it and it even gets installed in most modern daily cars. That wasn't always the case, manual 'H' shifters ruled the world until 1996, when all F1 teams started using so-called paddle shifters.

However, the story of flappy paddles began in early 1960s. The great Colin Chapman tried to adapt a gearbox from a motorcycle to his F2 Lotus racecar. The result wasn't exactly what Colin had expected, as you could imagine, the concept was heavily unreliable. But it was Scuderia Ferrari who managed to make it work, a concept that was developed for 10 years (as they needed to wait until electronic capabilities would catch up with design) debuted in the 1989 Formula 1 season, installed in probably one of the most beautiful F1 cars ever designed - Ferrari 640.

The Scuderia Ferrari 640 ( also known as F1-89 ) was designed by John Barnard and this car was the first one John has ever designed for Scuderia Ferrari. One of the most notable works of his in the past was the Chaparral 2K, which allowed Johnny Rutherford to win 1980 Indianapolis 500.

The powerful V12 of the 640 was still not enough for catching up with V10s of Honda, but this is where the first ever in Formula 1 sequential gearbox helped out the Italian squad. As we mentioned before, the gearbox concept was really unreliable, that meant Scuderia Ferrari was able to finish only 9 races out of 16. But when the car did finish, it crossed the line at no lower than 3rd place. In fact, Nigel Mansell has had a plane ticket booked early for the Brazilian Grand Prix, thinking that he will retire in a few laps after the race start. However, he won the race and obviously missed his flight.

The sequential gearbox allowed faster gear shifts throughout whole circuit, gaining a few tenths of a second at every corner. That looked promising on the Monaco GP weekend, as going as fast as possible through corners on this super-tight circuit is what makes the lap competitive. Hopes weren't high for long, as the only starting Ferrari ( Berger missed the race due his crash at Imola GP ) suffered a breakdown of it's gearbox. The mighty Ayrton Senna took the win with amazing 1 minute gap over his teammate Alain Prost.

The following year Ferrari kept the gearbox concept and that allowed Prost and Mansell clinch 6 wins in total, putting the team in second on the scoreboard.

The concept became ordinary in 1996 when every car on the grid has been equipped with sequential gearboxes.

That is it for this article, hopefully you did get some insight into now-common technology. Feel free to leave a comment with suggestions, corrections or questions.

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