Why F1 Wheel Nuts Cost £50'000

We know F1 is expensive - but did you know a simple wheel nut costs nearly £1000?

And that one F1 team can spend upwards of £50 thousand pounds a weekend on WHEEL NUTS?

Let me explain

Now, F1 wheel nuts haven’t always been that expensive, there has been a long history of steady development to get them where they are now. And actually, in the early days of F1, they used to hammer the wheel nuts on!

Yep, this was because impact guns weren’t a thing. And the other option was using several studs - which take a long time to change.

So F1 cars used these single centrelock nuts - with these wings on the side. Some had 2 and some had three - and the pit crews would carry a mallet to the pitlane to hammer off the nut, change the wheel and hammer on a new one.

➤Follow Driver61 on:

➤ Follow Scott on:

#F1 #Formula1 #WheelNuts

[jacobbarton]

“after all the effort, it was banned next season” sums up f1 so well

[TIG]

Not a big Mercedes fan but still felt terrible for Bottas when he had to sit and watch the great drive he put on get nullified by bad luck.

[Deplrable]

6:02 ah yes, the mythical 8 sided hex nut

[xtianeskay]

Don't you think the video should have the title "why F1 wheel nuts cost 1000£" instead of 50.000£?

[camerone]

this is pretty cool, I was involved in designing the wheel nuts (and hubs) for my school's FSAE car and it's neat to see how the pros do it. We also machine centerlock nuts out of aluminum, but pit stop times aren't particularly important for us so we use a simple clip for retention

[ZwilnikSF]

I've actually got a Caterham one from 2014 when they were auctioning off old bits to get to the last race of the season. (cost me a lot less than £1000 though! ). Now I know why it has a green plastic ring on it :)

[mojoanniebert]

The spline drive wheel nut / socket was developed in 1994 by a small company named “Metalore” (who are still involved in F1, Prototype and Sports Car Racing) Newman / Haas was their test team in 1995 and Metalore was also the 1st distributor of Paoli Pit Guns in North America. By 1996 every team in the CART paddock ran that design and it became the norm world wide.

[roryevans]

With the wheel guns being spec I honestly thought the wheel nuts were also a shared part just like the tyres, I had no idea so much innovation went in to wheel nuts, it’s nuts 🥜 😂

[radamus]

With NASCAR's introduction last year of the single nut, we saw a lot of evolution, growth. Wheels were flying off everywhere. They still don't have it down perfect getting those drive pins seated. The F1 guys do it so fast you have to watch in slow motion to see them actually do it where it looks like they get em lined up perfectly every time.

[matthewcornelius]

You also have to think of the machines they use to make these parts. A Yasda or Doosan multi axis multi spindle machining center can cost over 1 million dollars. The cam software to program and design costs tons of money. The tooling for the CNC machines costs tons of money. The inspection tools to measure the parts after machining cost tons of money. All these tools require calibration and certification. The level of knowledge to operate and efficiently use these systems to make these parts require highly skilled, and sometimes highly paid professionals to run. As an application engineer I always look at these parts from a production standpoint and can clearly see why it has the price it does. Believe it or not, if another shop were to set up and try to make the same parts from scratch at $1000 per part, I bet it would be hard to break even.

[videomaniac]

You're making me feel much better about the $12, 000 I'm spending on a set of forged magnesium monoblock wheels for my sports car.

[AvB.]

I never thought THAT much efford went into designing and making the weel nuts. It's easy enough to see why the engine or the bodywork is so expensive (only to constantly see cars that lost bits of the later doing the exact same times as before), but the attention to detail that goes into the small parts gets overlooked so easily.

[proto]

My 1960's Trumphs, MGs and Sunbeams with wire wheels also had a winged, center nut, and all came with a lead mallet with wooden handle to secure and remove them. Even though the lead was soft, it still dented the chrome plated nut wings a bit.

[PorchPotatoMike]

The right side nuts are red and the left are green? Apparently none of the engineers are sailors.

[OMM.F]

Sauber seems to have a cheaper version💀

[WatchJRGo]

Should probably mention that the hammer on/off nuts are called knock offs 🍻

[thomas]

Something I've always wondered is how F1 teams manage fuel pre-race. They obviously have a set quantity of fuel to use but they have drive the car to the grid, do a parade lap etc. It doesn't look like any F1 team tries to save fuel pre-race and they all drive to park ferme after the race. How do they know exactly how much fuel was used?

[PREDATOR]

I like how Scott compared the USB cable connection with the wheel nut. I hate the USB and never get it right at the first try.

[sharg]

Pure aluminium is soft yes. But that's not what is used. Aluminium alloys can be both hard and strong.
And as a machinist that have worked with materials from basic aluminium alloys (it's never used pure) to heat resistant superalloys like Inconel I know that machinable aluminium alloys are among the easiest to work with. However I'm sure the alloys in these are very specific, perhaps custom made. I wouldn't be surprised if several teams use secret alloys, thus the in-house manufacturing (otherwise they would save a lot by buying from one external shop, it ain't a difficult part with unusual requirements)

[riptear]

If they fail that's when they cost way more...