Headlights on race cars?

[Slow]

Just watching a replay of a race which took place at night. What sort of headlights do race cars use?

Is it just main beam only? Would think it would blind all the crews in pit lane if so.

[Spare tyre]

Not sure, but I seem to remember they turn em off when going into pit

[Warby80]

There is a short piece in this video about the Laser/LED headlights that Audi used on the LMP1 cars for the World Endurance Championship.

https://images.app.goo.gl/DVHTFxVkBE7cboxL8

[carl_w]

I should imagine that the beam pattern is defined by the regs.

Of course there are no cars coming the other way so no need to dip, other than to avoid blinding drivers via their mirrors which presumably now have some sort of auto dip function.

[shirt]

Regs usually state no. Of permitted lights not the beam pattern.

What lights they have depends on the cost of the car. Usually looking for flood beam and apex lighting. Dipped for courtesy in the pitlane which can be automated along with rev limiter by gps.

[Adam Kindness]

Night racing we've done (club level).... we switch off the high intensity LDE light bars when coming into pits, leaving either running lights and/or apex lights

[andy97]

Most cars will have an “anti dazzle film”
across the back window to help prevent glare in the rear view mirror.
Headlights remain on full beam on track.

[IanUAE]

We swapped out the standard headlights on our Honda DC5 and fitted 2 LEDS lights in the headlight unit. We angled these as 2 apex lights, 2 halfway between straight on and apex and a light bar on the bonnet.

We also fitted a LED strip up the A posts and across the top of the windscreen so we could spot the car on the start finish line / tv footage.

In the pit lane we left 2 lights on and fitted "tea bag" film on the rear screen (cuts the dazzle down dramatically).

[Chris Sideways]

This is my old Lotus using standard lights on high beam, you can’t see a bloody thing in fact after my first lap I radioed the pits for them to confirm they were actually on

https://youtu.be/BJXZcFxKT2w

https://youtu.be/YyE_gIrdgYU

[denis362832]

Spare tyre said:

Not sure, but I seem to remember they turn em off when going into pit

Headlights definitely remain on full beam on track.

[blueg33]

denis362832 said:

Spare tyre said:

Not sure, but I seem to remember they turn em off when going into pit

Headlights definitely remain on full beam on track.

At Le Mans they turn off the main beam lights when they come into the pits. I guess it helps put crews see the coloured LED’s that identify the car.