Hot Stuff

Williams have released some interesting facts about their new F1 challenger. For me the most surprising revelation was that the brake temperatures can reach 10,000 degrees, and at that level it doesn't really matter whether you're talking Centigrade or Fahrenheit. (It's Centigrade)
That is just so incomprehensively hot! A hundred times hotter than boiling water, I suspect that the old ploy of claiming that water was being used as a brake coolant and could therefore be replenished after a race wouldn't even be contemplated these days.

One of my cars has an oil temperature guage and I get worried if the oil runs hotter than about 100 degrees. Compare that to the gearbox of the Williams, which gets up to 1,500 degrees during a race. I guess that's why oil companies get involved with F1, and why they claim that "racing improves the breed". Even if the products will never be used for normal road cars, it means that engineers can use new technology to make cars ever more reliable. I really wouldn't like to be the poor guy that has to change the gear ratios at the circuit though.

I wonder what temperature the engine runs at these days?