A comfortable and safe seat


As awkward as it may sound, a Formula 1 car is a fairly comfortable race car. In fact, the Jordan EJ13 was designed to be as comfy as possible as the drivers must endure astonishing accelerations and vibrations during the ninety minutes of a typical Grand Prix. Each driver has his own seat and these are made of a reinforced advanced composite called carbon fibre. It is a flexible woven material that is impregnated with resin and cured for a few hours in a pressure cooker called an autoclave. When harden, a piece made of carbon fibre has twice the strength of steel while being five times lighter!

According to the FIA F1 technical rules, in case of an accident rescuers must be able to pull the entire seat and the driver out of the cockpit. Safety crews use coloured clips that are already attached to the seat for an easy and fast removal.
 
“To make a seat is a long process. We start off with placing a plastic bag inside the cockpit in which we pour two chemicals that react together, forming a rapidly expanding foam that becomes hard in just a few minutes,” says Phil Howell, a Jordan mechanic who has been with the team since the Formula 3000 days.


The driver, wearing his racing suit, sits in the cockpit on top of the bag, compressing the foam so that it takes the exact shape of his body. In other words, the foam fills in the gaps located between the back of the driver and the monocoque chassis. “The driver remains in the cockpit for fifteen minutes so that the foam becomes hard,” Howell continues. “That gives us a fingerprint of the body of the driver. We then give that piece of foam to the guys at our composite department. The pattern makers will first produce a mould out of the piece of foam and that mould be then be used to create the final carbon fibre seat. The carbon seat is cooked in the autoclave for a few hours until it becomes extremely hard. We then trim it so it fits snugly in the cockpit and install the clips. We also put some foam inserts here and there so that it is more comfortable.”

“It takes up to five days to produce a seat – a little less if the composite department works during the nights,” Howell adds. “But drivers are picky. Normally, we need to make two or three seats before a driver is fully happy. Most of the time, he finds the seat to be okay when he’s just sitting in the car but after having been tossed around for the two hours of a Grand Prix, he asks for changes! However, we made one seat for Giancarlo Fisichella at the beginning of the 2003 season and it was fine; Fisico never complained about it.”

The weight of the seat is also a concern. “We try to keep the weight of the seat below 2.5 kilograms,” Howell concludes. “And that is including all the straps, bolts and washers.”



28 Oct 2003

René Fagnan