Ah this was the view from my seat in Spa 2009 –

This was the view (from the official website) of the track in 1970.

This will be my view in 2010

Enjoy the race!

Circuit of Spa Francorchamps | Circuit > History

Ok, I was just thinking… last year I was at the Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps and I remember it being 7,003m and 95cm (call it 7004m) round the track, and I remember it being a 44 lap race. Doing the sums means that the cars travel 308176m or 308.2km – or about 193 miles.

And then, because I am a petrol head, I started wondering how far the pistons in the engine move in that time – sad I know but here we go…

A 2.4lt V8 engine means that each cylinder is 300cc. To achieve 300cc but to minimise the stresses, the stroke of a Formula One engine is approximately 39.7 mm (1.563 in), less than half as long as the bore is wide (98.0 mm). This is called an ‘over-square’ configuration.

Ok, stay with me. The current lap record (2002) held by Michael Schumacher, is 1’43.726’’ at an average speed of 241,837km/h.

Let’s image 44 laps at about this rate– the race would be won after 4532 seconds, which is a bit under an hour and a half.

Just for arguments sake, we will assume the engine averages at about 15,000rev/min during the race, which is 250 revs per second, so in each second a piston in the engine has moved up 39.7mm and down 39.7mm, 250 times. It therefore moves 19850mm or 19.850 metres every second.

Times this by the 4530 seconds of the race and you get: 89920500mm or 89920.5m or lets call it 90km. If you multiply this by 8 then the pistons in all the cylinders cover a combined distance of about 720 km or 450 miles – which is more than twice the race distance.

Is the technology of an F1 engine just amazing or what!