5 replies to this topic

[Williams]

In a recent article in Race Tech, a company called Surface Transform talks about it's carbon-ceramic brakes, which are said to be able to withstand higher temperatures, become effective at a very low temperatures and are relatively impervious to the effects of rain. Apparently they are debuting with an F1 team in 2002, yet the article doesn't say who the team is. Any ideas on this ?

[Yelnats]

I don't know but it's not likely to be Ferrari as di Montezemolo believes they are already perfect. : as follows ......"We have already tried to innovate but it was not easy to improve a car that was already perfect,"

Could this be another case of "FAMOUS LAST WORDS".

[david_martin]

Ceramic rotors have recently appeared on some bespoke high performance road cars. Both Porsche (on the 996 turbo S) and Mercedes (through AMG on the S, SL, and CLK) are offering high capacity braking systems with ceramic rotors which are supposedly suitable for road use at low temperatures - which was been the traditional achilles heel of CF rotors.

[thornwell]

I may be mistaken, but for some reason or another I remember reading that Williams were working on this. I can't remember where I read it, but it had to be at least half a year ago.

[Fredd]

Williams sounds right to me because i think they were the only team to be using a different make of brakes from the rest of the field.

[random]

I have ceramic pads on my car right now. http://www.carbotecheng.com/ They've worked quite well at the track and unlike many track pads, don't leave corosive residue on the car or wheels.

I'm not aware of any aftermarket ceramic rotors, although I expect they could be expensive. The ceramic brake option for the porsche 996 is about $5,000 US.