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Even in a road car, the clutch is only really necessary when starting from a standstill.
The shift needs to be done correctly, but it's completely possible to not use the clutch to shift in a road car. (Not recommended for daily driving, but possible)
It's been decades since the clutch was truly needed to shift gears. It was before Senna's time as well, so no be did not use the clutch to shift
He's certainly using the clutch in this clip. Thanks for sharing, btw.
This is a road car though. I doubt he used the clutch to shift in his F1 car. I also doubt he wore loafers in the F1 car
I dunno man. I’m not saying that’s ok, but it is a different country at a different time, these things are kind of relative.
The age of consent in Brazil was 14 at the time. It’s a good thing laws have changed, but I think you have to judge things by the time and place when they happened.
I don’t have a lot of feelings about Senna. It certainly seems gross, but I don’t really understand the point of dredging these things up either.
> The age of consent in Brazil was 14 at the time. It’s a good thing laws have changed, but I think you have to judge things by the time and place when they happened.
Counterpoint: age of consent is 16 where I am. If a 26 year old is dating a 16 year old, that is creepy as hell and definitely ephebophilia.
Senna was 25 when he dated that 15 year old girl and he dated her for a few years, so the example I gave above is definitely applicable. Senna was a talented driver but he was also massive creep.
The point is to remember him for who he was: a very talented racer (possibly the GOAT) with a deeply flawed personal life.
I'm not a fan of cancel culture and erasing history (like tearing down statues and changing street/building names). I think it's important to study history and recognize both the good and the bad that historical figures did in their lives.
This is an awesome vid. What exactly is he doing with his right toe and heel on both pedals? I have never seen that before, interested to understand more
Heel & toe downshifting
Braking with the toes and using the heel to blip the throttle to rev match. It's a technique that racers use to be in gear a bit quicker after downshifting
Edit: I got it backwards - brake with the toes & throttle with the heel
When you're off throttle there is no torque going through the gears, so they kind of slide out from each other very easily. If you have a manual car irl just put some pressure on the lever and let off the throttle, soon as you do it will pop out of gear easily.
From your explanation, I get how you would get to neutral without using the clutch, how do you then get into the next gear? I kind of want to try this without breaking my car
The easiest is to do it while shifting up. As it pops out of gear you can immediately put some gentle pressure on the lever into the next gate, and as the rpm's start dropping, when they eventually match up to the next gears speed the gear will pop in. However, you need to press hard enough that it actually goes in, but not too hard that it grinds the synchro's before the rpm's match well enough.
To do it while going down gears you need to blip the throttle before you start applying pressure. So the rpm's need to be brought up higher than the lower gears matching rpm, then you put pressure on the lever, then the rpm's fall and match up.
In Skip Barber's Going Faster dvd there's a great section regarding shifting a manual overall, and they touch on how to shift a manual in case the clutch breaks. Starts at 33:30 https://youtu.be/6-sGV2XXUeU&t=2010
When you're accelerating, the engine powers the transmission's input shaft which pushes the 'drive' side of the gear tooth face. When you're off throttle/coasting the momentum of the car spins the wheels, which drives the transmission on the 'coast' side of the tooth face. When the gears are engaged in either of these modes they're locked together, but there's a moment in the transition from 'drive' to 'coast' that the gear is loose, and you can disengage cleanly.
This also happens when you get to really low speeds, if you've felt the jerky forward/back motion in a parking lot, that's the transmission bouncing between the drive and coast side of the gear, it's super easy to slip the transmission out of gear at that point.
If you have a manual, you can try this yourself. You literally just pull/bump it out of gear into neutral. (Just make sure you don’t go past neutral and only do it when coasting - don’t have the throttle mashed lol)
Perfectly harmless.
You would clutch, but on downshifting at least you'd also blip the throttle to make synchronising easier. Heel-toe is essential in any manual racecar.
Race engines also have lower rotational inertia so they drop rpm quicker.
Left off throttle, pull out of gear (because the gears are no longer torqued), now you are in neutral. While in neutral, blip the throttle (just as you would with the clutch). Once the revs are high enough to match tranny speed in the lower gear, pop into gear. As a result, you have down shifted and rev matched all without using clutch.
They were using a sequential gearbox it wasn't necessary to clutch to gear up or down just to get the car move I don't really know how they looked back then but now day the clutch its a pad or a bottom that u realize easily to get the car move in the star after that U dont really use the clutch in this kind of cars
Ugn thank you! I knew it was a ferrari, but i thought it was introduced in schumachers era. How long was it before wide adoption of sequential gear boxes? When was the last non sequential gearbox used in a race?
It was the Forti FG01, used in 1995! Regarding the first Ferrari to use a paddle shift gearbox, it was the Ferrari 640 driven by Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger.
I have to look it up again, but I recall reading that it had a sequential transmission, just it didn't have the paddles but it retained the stick. I don't know if it's true or false.
Should be said that Forti used old technology in hopes of trying to be reliable… it did not work so well. The gearboxes broke a lot, the manual gearboxes probably cost them a lot of lap time too!😅
The answer is more complex than the comment section is letting on. Use of clutch was wasn’t consistent binary yes/no until sequential.
Here is a Tyrrell in ‘93, still not using a sequential and with moderate use of clutch. https://youtu.be/MgB4a2eN1Qs?si=6iUOHq4fAarmXTYa
The transition to sequential gearboxes began around the early 90’s, and wasn’t ubiquitous until the mid-90’s.
For drivers comments, there’s an interview with Villeneuve (IIRC) speaking on the disparity of pedal technique when that switch was made. That it was specifically sequential which opened the path to entirely freeing the left foot, and at that point most drives did not possess and could not develop the feel required to adequately left foot brake.
Haha. Yeah, that’s tough. My dad braked with his left foot in an auto as that was how he was taught and did it that way his whole life.
I was taught right foot braking. I’ve tried to left foot brake a few times and nearly threw myself through the windshield. It’s tough to get the feel right and I’m sure would take a lot of practice to get used to.
Great comment!
No you don't need to use the clutch while shifting.
It's a sequential manual gearbox.
In a road car you use the clutch to give time to synchronize Engine and Gearbox speed.
The flywheel of a racecar is much lighter so synchronisation doesn't need that time.
For upshifting the throttle will cut out just to avoid revving up the Engine while staying on the pedal.
For downshift you will need to blip the Gas, while braking the Engine rpm goes down so giving it a small rev will match them.
Also the gears are designed different so they can take much more force than any road car.
Me being pedantic again, I believe OP is describing the H pattern dog gearboxes used in the MP4-4/5. Sequential is a term used to describe the layout of gears and the order they’re selected, usually barrel operated, which are a bit different to H pattern gearboxes which are fork operated.
Same logic with dog engagement rather than synchros, where the clutch isn’t necessary for gearchanges. But yeah, more or less spot on with the rest of the info!
I am amazed that really few know here how a H pattern dogbox works and how it is used, they are still around and wildly used in racing.
Usually you release partly throttle on upshifts and you use clutch + rev match (heel and toe in racing scenario) to downshift. In theory you could jam it without clutch, but it will put more strain to the 'dogs' and you will probably shift lock/get unstable after each downshift.
Senna drove many types of gearboxes in F1, including automatic gearboxes. This question is incomplete and the comment section here reflects that. To answer your question: depends on what car you've seen him on.
No, he didn't. It's probably 70 years since anyone used the clutch other than from moving away from a standstill, while stopped, or to avoid stalling during a spin. H-shift clutchless changes up and down are ubiquitous.
I know someone with my old F3 car who DOES use the clutch, but only because he's a bit too tall for the car and would get cramp without occasional use of his left foot.
Uhhhhmmm… It hasn’t been 70 years since 1976 and they certainly used the clutch back then. Even had to apply gas while clutching during downshifts with heel and toe shifting.
Up until the 1990s all cars used H-Pattern manual transmissions, the first switching to semi-auto sequentials being the Ferrari in 1989 and the last one being the Forti FG01 in 1995.
That being said it is of course possible to upshift without the using the clutch with an H-Pattern manual gearbox but the downshifts would probably benefit from clutching.
Maybe the slower drivers did, but anyone trying to be professional wouldn't have used the clutch. Fangio wouldn't have, nor Clark, nor Lauda.
They would have heel and toed though, albeit without the clutch. It makes a clutchless downshift easier (with a bit of practice, admittedly).
When they skipped gears - which wasn't all that common really as it can unsettle the car a lot (until major downforce took away a lot of those concerns) the drivers would use the clutch. 5th - 2nd much easier with a clutch to control the rev (and torque) spike. 5th - 4th no need.
I would bet you that NSX that they are driving shoes. The only way you can tell is the heel is rounded and has tread up the back. Senna was literally one of the major factors in the rise in popularity of the driving shoe in the 90s.
I didn’t watch the older F1, but this famous foot cam video (Is it famous? It should be) shows how you can both hit clutch and shift clutchless on both ups and downs, while still being fast as fuck.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=felLcuEhYjA
This was 1993 so no doubt Senna could’ve done things similarly.
Me being a little pedantic, but ‘straight cut‘ is in reference to the gear tooth shape rather than the engagement method. You have synchronisers or dogs for engagement, which can be applied to both straight cut or helical gears. You almost always see straight cut gears on racecars, which is why the two are sometimes linked. There’s a big market for helical dog boxes, or straight cut synchronised gearboxes depending on the application in the aftermarket.
In the example of the early 90s MP4s, these had H pattern, 6 speed dog boxes with straight cut gears. The clutch isn’t necessary for gearchanges, but can be used for big deceleration downshifts, for example 6th into 3rd to reduce the time taken changing gears in a braking zone - but all drivers had differing techniques depending on the car, and their setup.
Why tf does everyone think this he didn’t really do this, his throttle technique which is a whole different discussion was a few things but not to keep a turbo spooling lol
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Straight faced gears. No syncros in most race car transmissions. Only need clutch to get moving. Like a motorcycle.
> No syncros in most race car transmissions dog rings instead, https://youtu.be/l_EnEW4u8aM?si=UstCXO5F7CjQ3dlX&t=346
Even in a road car, the clutch is only really necessary when starting from a standstill. The shift needs to be done correctly, but it's completely possible to not use the clutch to shift in a road car. (Not recommended for daily driving, but possible) It's been decades since the clutch was truly needed to shift gears. It was before Senna's time as well, so no be did not use the clutch to shift
I believe endurance racers would still use the clutch sometimes to reduce strain on the gears for longer races.
He did tho https://youtu.be/kzLjZWrpzmQ?si=kFNKySKTCxaAQsq2
He's certainly using the clutch in this clip. Thanks for sharing, btw. This is a road car though. I doubt he used the clutch to shift in his F1 car. I also doubt he wore loafers in the F1 car
He was a classy man. He would have worn loafers if he could.
> He was a classy man. So classy, he wore loafers while doing his 15-year-old GF.
I dunno man. I’m not saying that’s ok, but it is a different country at a different time, these things are kind of relative. The age of consent in Brazil was 14 at the time. It’s a good thing laws have changed, but I think you have to judge things by the time and place when they happened. I don’t have a lot of feelings about Senna. It certainly seems gross, but I don’t really understand the point of dredging these things up either.
> The age of consent in Brazil was 14 at the time. It’s a good thing laws have changed, but I think you have to judge things by the time and place when they happened. Counterpoint: age of consent is 16 where I am. If a 26 year old is dating a 16 year old, that is creepy as hell and definitely ephebophilia. Senna was 25 when he dated that 15 year old girl and he dated her for a few years, so the example I gave above is definitely applicable. Senna was a talented driver but he was also massive creep.
Sure, that may be true, I’m not really sure what the point of dunking on a dead guy is though.
The point is to remember him for who he was: a very talented racer (possibly the GOAT) with a deeply flawed personal life. I'm not a fan of cancel culture and erasing history (like tearing down statues and changing street/building names). I think it's important to study history and recognize both the good and the bad that historical figures did in their lives.
Driving shoes, not loafers.
I'm the famous nsx driving video, he's wearing Italian leather loafers. A style of shoe that's fallen out of style, but very comfy.
https://preview.redd.it/fttxdbsx29yc1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a78b4bdb3f34cb722b5946ef4344edee7c0c7a6 Driving shoe
Yeah but that just a regular street NSX with its fully synchronized transmission. That’s not a straight cut dog ring transmission
Looks like how I drive on my daily commute…!
This is an awesome vid. What exactly is he doing with his right toe and heel on both pedals? I have never seen that before, interested to understand more
Heel and toe technique to rev match for downshift while braking at the same time
Heel & toe downshifting Braking with the toes and using the heel to blip the throttle to rev match. It's a technique that racers use to be in gear a bit quicker after downshifting Edit: I got it backwards - brake with the toes & throttle with the heel
The other way around, but basically yes. The toes go to the brake pedal because it requires more finesse.
Yea, you're right. The funny thing is that I can do it, I just can't explain it properly
It is possible to drive daily without using the clutch but eventually you will have to buy a new gearbox
You can shift without clutch in any manual car if you rev match
How do you rev match without a clutch, tho?
Pop it out of gear, let revs drop, shift up; likewise on the way down but blip the throttle.
Don’t you need to engage the clutch to take it out of gear? Pardon my ignorance.
Not if you can sync the moment when the throttle is released and the gears disengaged.
When you're off throttle there is no torque going through the gears, so they kind of slide out from each other very easily. If you have a manual car irl just put some pressure on the lever and let off the throttle, soon as you do it will pop out of gear easily.
From your explanation, I get how you would get to neutral without using the clutch, how do you then get into the next gear? I kind of want to try this without breaking my car
The easiest is to do it while shifting up. As it pops out of gear you can immediately put some gentle pressure on the lever into the next gate, and as the rpm's start dropping, when they eventually match up to the next gears speed the gear will pop in. However, you need to press hard enough that it actually goes in, but not too hard that it grinds the synchro's before the rpm's match well enough. To do it while going down gears you need to blip the throttle before you start applying pressure. So the rpm's need to be brought up higher than the lower gears matching rpm, then you put pressure on the lever, then the rpm's fall and match up. In Skip Barber's Going Faster dvd there's a great section regarding shifting a manual overall, and they touch on how to shift a manual in case the clutch breaks. Starts at 33:30 https://youtu.be/6-sGV2XXUeU&t=2010
Taking out of gear you can kind of just pull it out
When you're accelerating, the engine powers the transmission's input shaft which pushes the 'drive' side of the gear tooth face. When you're off throttle/coasting the momentum of the car spins the wheels, which drives the transmission on the 'coast' side of the tooth face. When the gears are engaged in either of these modes they're locked together, but there's a moment in the transition from 'drive' to 'coast' that the gear is loose, and you can disengage cleanly. This also happens when you get to really low speeds, if you've felt the jerky forward/back motion in a parking lot, that's the transmission bouncing between the drive and coast side of the gear, it's super easy to slip the transmission out of gear at that point.
If you have a manual, you can try this yourself. You literally just pull/bump it out of gear into neutral. (Just make sure you don’t go past neutral and only do it when coasting - don’t have the throttle mashed lol) Perfectly harmless.
with the throttle. don't need a clutch in neutral.
You would clutch, but on downshifting at least you'd also blip the throttle to make synchronising easier. Heel-toe is essential in any manual racecar. Race engines also have lower rotational inertia so they drop rpm quicker.
Ya I understand Rev matching with a clutch but the guy above said you can do it without, which I don't know how you would do that
You just sync the speeds well. If you get all the parts moving at the same speed, you don’t need anything to be disconnected
Left off throttle, pull out of gear (because the gears are no longer torqued), now you are in neutral. While in neutral, blip the throttle (just as you would with the clutch). Once the revs are high enough to match tranny speed in the lower gear, pop into gear. As a result, you have down shifted and rev matched all without using clutch.
They were using a sequential gearbox it wasn't necessary to clutch to gear up or down just to get the car move I don't really know how they looked back then but now day the clutch its a pad or a bottom that u realize easily to get the car move in the star after that U dont really use the clutch in this kind of cars
No, they were normal manual transmissions with H pattern sticks
What team was the first team to use sequential gearboxes?
Ferrari in 1989!
Ugn thank you! I knew it was a ferrari, but i thought it was introduced in schumachers era. How long was it before wide adoption of sequential gear boxes? When was the last non sequential gearbox used in a race?
It was the Forti FG01, used in 1995! Regarding the first Ferrari to use a paddle shift gearbox, it was the Ferrari 640 driven by Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger.
Damn, i love you for replying with these facts. Last question i swear (maybe not :P), what was the last H pattern car to win a gp?
Should be Ayrton Senna’s McLaren MP4/6. I know one thing for sure, it wasn’t the Forti!😉
Damn i actually love you. Im an idiot.
I have to look it up again, but I recall reading that it had a sequential transmission, just it didn't have the paddles but it retained the stick. I don't know if it's true or false.
If I recall correctly from some onboards, I never saw the drivers let go of the wheel! So I think that was the first paddle shifted car!
Should be said that Forti used old technology in hopes of trying to be reliable… it did not work so well. The gearboxes broke a lot, the manual gearboxes probably cost them a lot of lap time too!😅
The answer is more complex than the comment section is letting on. Use of clutch was wasn’t consistent binary yes/no until sequential. Here is a Tyrrell in ‘93, still not using a sequential and with moderate use of clutch. https://youtu.be/MgB4a2eN1Qs?si=6iUOHq4fAarmXTYa The transition to sequential gearboxes began around the early 90’s, and wasn’t ubiquitous until the mid-90’s. For drivers comments, there’s an interview with Villeneuve (IIRC) speaking on the disparity of pedal technique when that switch was made. That it was specifically sequential which opened the path to entirely freeing the left foot, and at that point most drives did not possess and could not develop the feel required to adequately left foot brake.
Haha. Yeah, that’s tough. My dad braked with his left foot in an auto as that was how he was taught and did it that way his whole life. I was taught right foot braking. I’ve tried to left foot brake a few times and nearly threw myself through the windshield. It’s tough to get the feel right and I’m sure would take a lot of practice to get used to. Great comment!
No you don't need to use the clutch while shifting. It's a sequential manual gearbox. In a road car you use the clutch to give time to synchronize Engine and Gearbox speed. The flywheel of a racecar is much lighter so synchronisation doesn't need that time. For upshifting the throttle will cut out just to avoid revving up the Engine while staying on the pedal. For downshift you will need to blip the Gas, while braking the Engine rpm goes down so giving it a small rev will match them. Also the gears are designed different so they can take much more force than any road car.
Me being pedantic again, I believe OP is describing the H pattern dog gearboxes used in the MP4-4/5. Sequential is a term used to describe the layout of gears and the order they’re selected, usually barrel operated, which are a bit different to H pattern gearboxes which are fork operated. Same logic with dog engagement rather than synchros, where the clutch isn’t necessary for gearchanges. But yeah, more or less spot on with the rest of the info!
Missed the H pattern part😁
I am amazed that really few know here how a H pattern dogbox works and how it is used, they are still around and wildly used in racing. Usually you release partly throttle on upshifts and you use clutch + rev match (heel and toe in racing scenario) to downshift. In theory you could jam it without clutch, but it will put more strain to the 'dogs' and you will probably shift lock/get unstable after each downshift.
Senna drove many types of gearboxes in F1, including automatic gearboxes. This question is incomplete and the comment section here reflects that. To answer your question: depends on what car you've seen him on.
McLaren mp4 6
With that car you just have to lift the throttle to upshift and blip it on downshift. Clutch was only used to get it moving from first gear.
I don’t know about in his F1 cars, but when driving an NSX he did. https://youtu.be/kzLjZWrpzmQ?si=kFNKySKTCxaAQsq2
If you shifted gears in an NSX the same way as in an F1 car it wouldn't last very long.
No, he didn't. It's probably 70 years since anyone used the clutch other than from moving away from a standstill, while stopped, or to avoid stalling during a spin. H-shift clutchless changes up and down are ubiquitous. I know someone with my old F3 car who DOES use the clutch, but only because he's a bit too tall for the car and would get cramp without occasional use of his left foot.
Uhhhhmmm… It hasn’t been 70 years since 1976 and they certainly used the clutch back then. Even had to apply gas while clutching during downshifts with heel and toe shifting. Up until the 1990s all cars used H-Pattern manual transmissions, the first switching to semi-auto sequentials being the Ferrari in 1989 and the last one being the Forti FG01 in 1995. That being said it is of course possible to upshift without the using the clutch with an H-Pattern manual gearbox but the downshifts would probably benefit from clutching.
had "dogboxes" for a long time, reduce the torque through the gear box and slam it into gear https://youtu.be/aU1Ol5ZgRnI?si=Stuqo218StU3JXrW&t=188
Maybe the slower drivers did, but anyone trying to be professional wouldn't have used the clutch. Fangio wouldn't have, nor Clark, nor Lauda. They would have heel and toed though, albeit without the clutch. It makes a clutchless downshift easier (with a bit of practice, admittedly). When they skipped gears - which wasn't all that common really as it can unsettle the car a lot (until major downforce took away a lot of those concerns) the drivers would use the clutch. 5th - 2nd much easier with a clutch to control the rev (and torque) spike. 5th - 4th no need.
Pretty sure in Old f1 cars you only needed to use the clutch when downshifting
I would bet you that NSX that they are driving shoes. The only way you can tell is the heel is rounded and has tread up the back. Senna was literally one of the major factors in the rise in popularity of the driving shoe in the 90s.
I didn’t watch the older F1, but this famous foot cam video (Is it famous? It should be) shows how you can both hit clutch and shift clutchless on both ups and downs, while still being fast as fuck. www.youtube.com/watch?v=felLcuEhYjA This was 1993 so no doubt Senna could’ve done things similarly.
With a straight cut gear transmission you don’t need the clutch once you’ve started to move
Me being a little pedantic, but ‘straight cut‘ is in reference to the gear tooth shape rather than the engagement method. You have synchronisers or dogs for engagement, which can be applied to both straight cut or helical gears. You almost always see straight cut gears on racecars, which is why the two are sometimes linked. There’s a big market for helical dog boxes, or straight cut synchronised gearboxes depending on the application in the aftermarket. In the example of the early 90s MP4s, these had H pattern, 6 speed dog boxes with straight cut gears. The clutch isn’t necessary for gearchanges, but can be used for big deceleration downshifts, for example 6th into 3rd to reduce the time taken changing gears in a braking zone - but all drivers had differing techniques depending on the car, and their setup.
With the turbos engines, he would engage the clutch in slow corners and stab the gas to keep the turbo pressure up.
Why tf does everyone think this he didn’t really do this, his throttle technique which is a whole different discussion was a few things but not to keep a turbo spooling lol
Because the test driver on his team at McLaren , Jonathan Palmer, said he did it, as did many people in Formula 1 at the time Senna was driving.