Last victory for the H?

[philipbain]

F1 stick shifters were always H pattern shifters, they never had the Champ Car style sequential stick shifters, they went straight to semi-auto paddle shift, first introduced in 1989 by Ferrari. The closest any team came to a semi auto system before the era of paddle shifters was Lotus that experimented with a button on top of the gear stick that replaced the clutch pedal and operated and electro-magnetic clutch, I think the system proved too complex and in the end offered little advantage for it's complexity, but a lovely bit of forward thinking to ensure the driver would only have to race with 2 pedals, enabling left foot braking which has been the standard in F1 for years now in F1.

[D-Type]

Going a bit OT, wasn't there a car with four pedals? It had two brake pedals to allow both left and right foot braking.

[LeonBrooke]

Wasn't that a mid-90s McLaren?

[shazbot]

[quote="philipbain"]F1 stick shifters were always H pattern shifters, they never had the Champ Car style sequential stick shifters, they went straight to semi-auto paddle shift, first introduced in 1989 by Ferrari.quote]

I'm being pedantic, but Lotus had a sequential shift in F1 back in the late 50's I think. Known as the 'queer box' it was not the most reliable as the driver was never really sure what gear he would get.

[philipbain]

Going a bit OT, wasn't there a car with four pedals? It had two brake pedals to allow both left and right foot braking.

McLaren, 1997 into early 1998 when the system was banned because Ferrari couldnt get to grips with it! It actually had 3 pedals (the clutch was mounted as a paddle behind the wheel as it is today) and the 3rd pedal was a small pedal that could be operated in a "heel and toe" fashion with the main brake. What this pedal did was apply a higher braking force to the rear inside wheel for whichever way the steering wheel was pointing, so if the wheel was turned to the left the left rear brake would get the extra braking force. The system was completely ingenious and i'm sure gave a speed advantage, though even when McLaren were forced to remove it their cars were still the class of the field in '98, and as a bonus those cars (the 98, 99 & 2000 McLarens that is) looked great too!

[LeonBrooke]

That's really clever - pity they banned it. It would've been great to see it on all cars and see how it affected the racing.