BONUS: The secrets of semi-automatic gearboxes
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2022
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we have a bonus episode for you, lifted directly from our sister podcast: The Race F1 Tech Show.
Each week, host Edd Straw and former F1 technical director Gary Anderson dive headfirst into the wonderful world of F1 technology, discussing the sport’s big technical talking points, getting into the nitty gritty of car design and engineering, and answering fans’ burning tech questions.
On this week’s show, Edd and Gary take an in-depth look at a bit of serious F1 tech that’s used by every team on the grid: The semi-automatic gearbox.
With the help of special guest John Barnard, the man responsible for bringing the first iteration of the paddle-shift box to F1 in 1989 with Ferrari, we look at how the technology works, what performance benefits the system has brought to F1, and how gearboxes have developed over the last 30-plus years.
Gary also talks through his experience of developing such technology at Jordan in the Nineties, but not before giving his opinion on F1’s recent cost cap controversy...
And in our listener questions section, Gary answers a question on the performance characteristics of 2022-spec F1 cars in wet conditions and low-speed corners.
To have your burning tech question answered on the show, send a voicenote or email to podcasts@the-race.com
And if you enjoy the podcast, please search for The Race F1 Tech Show in your preferred podcast app and be sure to like, subscribe or follow to make sure you never miss an episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, Ed Straw here to introduce a special bonus episode for you from our sister podcast, |
| 0:05.3 | The Race F1 Tech Show. Each week, I'm joined by former F1 technical director Gary Anderson to talk |
| 0:11.4 | through the big tech topics of the day and to hone in on other technical talking points you may |
| 0:16.5 | not know much about. If you enjoy it, just search for the Race F1 Tech Show in whatever podcast app |
| 0:22.6 | you're listening to this in, and either follow or subscribe. And now over to me. |
| 0:29.7 | The Athletic. |
| 0:41.6 | The Race F1 Tech Show, brought to you by Aramco. |
| 0:46.2 | We kick off our new series with an in-depth look at semi-automatic gearboxes, |
| 0:48.5 | with the help of special guest John Barnard. |
| 0:52.7 | Gary Anderson talks through his experience of developing such technology at Jordan and gives his opinion on F1's |
| 0:54.9 | cost cap controversy. And in listeners' questions, we discuss 22-spec F-1 cars and their |
| 1:00.7 | performance levels in low-speed corners. Welcome back to the Race F1 Tech Show, brought to you |
| 1:07.3 | by Aramco. We're delighted to have our second series up and running, and we've got a veritable cavalcade of tech topics to come. I'm Ed Straw, and as always, I'm joined by the star of the show, Gary Anderson. Gary, of course, has half a century of experience in and around F1, has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. So welcome to the new series, Gary. You'rearing to go? Yeah, all |
| 1:27.8 | round to go. Yeah, it's a good series because it obviously tries to bring home questions that |
| 1:32.1 | you answer, that want to be answered as opposed to just blurbing on about something needlessly. |
| 1:37.4 | Yeah, and there's going to be lots more later in the series, lots of different topics, |
| 1:41.3 | lots of different areas of discussion, and there is even the |
| 1:44.2 | chance in every episode for listeners to ask a question which Gary answers. That's towards the |
| 1:48.9 | end of each episode. So look out for that later on. But Gary, as always, we start off by |
| 1:56.0 | letting you pick a technical topic that's caught your eye in Formula One this week. So what's your choice? |
| 2:01.7 | Well, I think it would be negligent not to discuss the cost cap and its relationship to development. |
| 2:08.6 | You know, technically, the racing cars are all about development, new parts, new ideas, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Race Media Ltd, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Race Media Ltd and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.