Shifting: Can Someone Explain This?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ix9ctLsc7M&search=montoya

A few seconds into the clip as Montoya pulls away from a corner, he uses his right hand to fiddle with the settings on his steering wheel, and all the while the car makes 2-3 consecutive upshifts. My understanding is that this can only be done by pulling on the right paddle....yet his hand is visibly away from the paddle. Does the car automatically upshift?

 

Most paddle shift systems are designed with the paddles to be pulled forward or flicked back depending on how the driver wants it. Most drivers have them set so you can go up a gear by pulling the paddle toward the wheel but go down by flicking it away on the right side and the opposite way on the left so they can shift up or down with either hand if you are following me. JV, i believe had one paddle and the hand clutch on the right to do all the shifting and none on the left, if i remember right.

 

its hard to see but i think further along in that clip u can see him moving his left hand to up shift.

 

Well I saw on a video of Schumacher's steering wheel that both sides of the steering wheel has the upshift and downshift. So there's both functions on both sides.

I don't know if that's the deal with Montoya's car but I'm sure it's similar.

 

It's old footage (jaguar). At that time fully auto was legal, now it's banned again.

 

Jaguar? Then why is there a roundel on his steering wheel? And the HP on his helmet. Its a Williams BMW.

 

No Sam... he's racing against Jaguars....

 

Oh....you meant its old footage because he is racing against Jags....for a moment there....and full auto was legal. Ah, with fchat I learn something new everyday.

 

I'm pretty sure the lever is a single piece that goes across the back of the wheel on both sides. It's not like a street F1 system with two entirely separate paddles and 2 hinge points.

The way an F1 car's system works is that when you pull the right paddle towards yourself to upshift, the left side moves away from you. So it's like a see-saw. You can push the right paddle away from yourself for a downshift or towards yourself for an upshift. At least that's how I remember it. I don't know if you can pull both paddles towards yourself to go to N like street cars. Maybe the clutch on the steering wheel works like this. You can see it in Frank Mountain's Buying MS's Car video.

 

When they reveiwed the Enzo on Top Gear I understood that you could pull the paddle 5 times if you'd like and the computer would then make five upshifts at the optimum time/rev. If the car doesn't upshift all five and you get to a corner you'd then have to pull the paddle an additional number of times to compensate for the gears the computer did not use.

I may have misunderstood but here is the video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4636126912979578001&q=top%20gear%20enzo

 

that video seems to be gone here is another link:

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/view?&h=105&w=140&type=msmedia&rurl=hotbimmer.com%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D13428&vurl=http%3A%2F%2Fdownloads.bmwboard.com%2Fvideos%2Fferrarienzo_topgear.wmv&back=p%3Dtop%2520gear%2520enzo%26fr%3DFP-tab-web-t%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3D%26ei%3DUTF-8&turl=scd.mm-so.yimg.com%2Fimage%2F1848749040&name=ferrarienzo_topgear.wmv&no=6&tt=8&p=top+gear+enzo&oid=c5af2a223d6e9f7c&size=77.7MB&dur=627