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What Do All of Those Buttons & Dials on a Formula One Steering Wheel Do?

F1 UI is A-OK

By Rain Noe - July 8, 2016

in UX | Tech | Sports

Bet you didn't know this: Those crazy F1 steering wheels can cost up to $50,000 alone, because they're made with carbon fiber (to keep the weight down) and loaded up with technology and connectivity features. You're undoubtedly wondering what some of those features are. While some might seem obvious, like allowing the driver to control the fuel-to-air mixture, adjust the brake balance and signal the pit crew, others are completely unexpected.

Because there is no single standard design, different teams can add different features to suit their driver's needs. Here are a few that may surprise you:

Numerical dials connected with bookies allow drivers to bet on the outcome of the race in real time

Center compartment stores engagement ring for spontaneous post-race proposals

Large LCD screen allows driver to order from Seamless or GrubHub

Pressing this button instantly purchases a pony. (The dial surrounding it selects the breed)

The purple buttons add "likes," in quantities of 1 or 10, to Prince's memorial Facebook page

This bank-connected button allows you to automatically stop repaying a loan

This button kills all power to the kitchen at home, allowing OCD drivers to focus on the race instead of worrying that they left the stove on

Beer can be plumbed directly into the driver's helmet and turned on with this button. For IPA's, the bitterness level can be selected using the dial

Seriously though, if you are curious as to the features of F1's current crop of steering wheels, here are two videos that go into detail. The first starts off by addressing the fairly recent switch from a small alphanumeric display to a proper LED screen, then goes into detail with the functions:

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The second video looks at how two different drivers can choose different options to tailor the wheels to suit their individual preferences.

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Comments

Dee An

8 years ago

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Really? This article scores poorly on user experience.
I don't want to watch the video just to find the answer to the headline. This could be expected of Gawker Media. FFS, you've had enough time to add spoof annotations, but you haven't the courtesy to you readers to distil the video into text?

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Juan Cano

8 years ago

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Wow! Really cool! But I still don't understand what they actually do do!

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Jason Pokines

8 years ago

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Lame, but hilarious. :)

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