IOM TT Lap time - could a car beat it?

[GravelBen]

GravelBen said:

How do bike vs sidecar times compare for other circuits?

Found some times for Caldwell Park - the narrowness should favour the bikes in comparison to other circuits:

Car record: 1:21.1
Bike record: 1:26.7
600cc bike: 1:33.0
F2 sidecar: 1:41.2

Assuming they all use the same circuit layout, the sidecar is pretty slow.

[RobGT81]

Put Loeb in something with slicks and wings and I believe he could smash it.

[Corpulent Tosser]

AdeTuono said:

Skinley said:

Apologies for not reading the entire thread, and for being a bit late to the party, but here goes;

I've found a rather simple drawing which illustrates why I think a bike should be faster on the IOM TT than a car,



A bike could 'straight line' this series of bends flat out.

There is not a car in the world that could do the same, no matter who is driving.

If the entire TT course was composed of corners like that, maybe. But it's not, is it?

No it is not, but there are many sections that are like that and a bike will be able to carry more speed through them, the other problem cars would encounter are the undulations where bike become airborne, as they are much narrower aiming an airborne bike between the hedges and walls is easier than doing the same in a car.
The car's suspension would also have to be able to cope with the bumps and undulations, to my mind this would be more a rally car than a high downforce single seater, which would compromise top speed.

The fast guys at the IOM are those who carry speed through the fast sections, they are flat out for fairly long spells on surfaces which would IMO be a problem for a single seater cars, it would probably have to be a hybrid specifically build for the task.

I doubt a car could go much quicker than a bike round there, but it would be interesting to find out.

[lindrup119]

RobGT81 said:

Put Loeb in something with slicks and wings and I believe he could smash it.

+1



/thread.

[coppice]

I have yet to encounter any race track , fast or slow , where bikes were quicker. I know the guys who do the TT are all superhuman etc but the fact is that any racing bike would not see which way nearly any modern single seater went. Bikes are not just not quick through bends - how many times do we need to say this?

[Corpulent Tosser]

coppice said:

I have yet to encounter any race track , fast or slow , where bikes were quicker. I know the guys who do the TT are all superhuman etc but the fact is that any racing bike would not see which way nearly any modern single seater went. Bikes are not just not quick through bends - how many times do we need to say this?

A modern single seater would be in bits before it got halfway round.

[anonymous-user]

Skinley said:

Apologies for not reading the entire thread, and for being a bit late to the party, but here goes;

I've found a rather simple drawing which illustrates why I think a bike should be faster on the IOM TT than a car,



A bike could 'straight line' this series of bends flat out.

There is not a car in the world that could do the same, no matter who is driving.

Sidecars, like this,
have more in common with cars than bikes, much more rubber on the road, higher cornering speeds, shorter braking distances, lower CofG etc. Yet their lap times at the TT are a couple of minutes slower than the fastest bikes.

Except for the fact that once you are into an AERO car, you can just drive round corners at full speed without lifting!


Gp2 singleseater on hillclimb

That^ is a fairly "mild" aero car by singleseater standards, and that course is for most of it's length a LOT tighter than the IOM lap, and yet, for a lot of the corners he hardly even lifts the throttle.

Also, "singleseaters would fall apart around the IOM lap"? er, have you seen the kerbs they hop over? Far far more agressive than any bump on the IOM course, and big enough to have a motorbike off the track entirely.

[Corpulent Tosser]

I think you underestimate some of the jumps at the IOM.

[RobM77]

Corpulent Tosser said:

coppice said:

I have yet to encounter any race track , fast or slow , where bikes were quicker. I know the guys who do the TT are all superhuman etc but the fact is that any racing bike would not see which way nearly any modern single seater went. Bikes are not just not quick through bends - how many times do we need to say this?

A modern single seater would be in bits before it got halfway round.

Some of the tracks I've raced single seaters on are bumpier than the TT course; Castle Combe for example on the run up to Quarry. Check out the F3000 and GP2 hill climb videos, including IOM hillclimb videos over sections of the TT course (and if you time the cars on those sections quite a few of them are quicker than the bike lap record - we did that on a previous thread). Don't forget that all single seaters right up to F1 hop over some pretty big kerbs. The chassis has to withstand huge cornering loads and bottoming out under 100s of kgsof downforce - they're very strong. Non issue.

[Corpulent Tosser]

RobM77 said:

Corpulent Tosser said:

coppice said:

I have yet to encounter any race track , fast or slow , where bikes were quicker. I know the guys who do the TT are all superhuman etc but the fact is that any racing bike would not see which way nearly any modern single seater went. Bikes are not just not quick through bends - how many times do we need to say this?

A modern single seater would be in bits before it got halfway round.

Some of the tracks I've raced single seaters on are bumpier than the TT course; Castle Combe for example on the run up to Quarry. Check out the F3000 and GP2 hill climb videos, including IOM hillclimb videos over sections of the TT course (and if you time the cars on those sections quite a few of them are quicker than the bike lap record - we did that on a previous thread). Don't forget that all single seaters right up to F1 hop over some pretty big kerbs. The chassis has to withstand huge cornering loads and bottoming out under 100s of kgsof downforce - they're very strong. Non issue.

You could be right, but I am not just talking about bumps, some of the jumps, many of them mid-corner, would IMO be a major challenge for most single seaters, a Le Mans style car might be a better proposition, the right car might manage a faster average, but I doubt by very much.

[Tom74]

A properly set up car will be quicker, and I would expect anyone having a professional go to properly set up their car.

Yes, its bumpy, but suspension and aero would cover that, its not that bumpy or I would have died a lot driving my (ex) corvette at triple figure speeds!

[RobM77]

Corpulent Tosser said:

RobM77 said:

Corpulent Tosser said:

coppice said:

I have yet to encounter any race track , fast or slow , where bikes were quicker. I know the guys who do the TT are all superhuman etc but the fact is that any racing bike would not see which way nearly any modern single seater went. Bikes are not just not quick through bends - how many times do we need to say this?

A modern single seater would be in bits before it got halfway round.

Some of the tracks I've raced single seaters on are bumpier than the TT course; Castle Combe for example on the run up to Quarry. Check out the F3000 and GP2 hill climb videos, including IOM hillclimb videos over sections of the TT course (and if you time the cars on those sections quite a few of them are quicker than the bike lap record - we did that on a previous thread). Don't forget that all single seaters right up to F1 hop over some pretty big kerbs. The chassis has to withstand huge cornering loads and bottoming out under 100s of kgsof downforce - they're very strong. Non issue.

You could be right, but I am not just talking about bumps, some of the jumps, many of them mid-corner, would IMO be a major challenge for most single seaters, a Le Mans style car might be a better proposition, the right car might manage a faster average, but I doubt by very much.

Cars manage mid corner bumps and jumps much better than bikes, that is one area where a car does have a definite advantage. For starters, due to today's high downforce era most jumps aren't really jumps anymore, but even if a single seater does get airborne, as they used to before high levels of downforce, here's Lauda proving it's ok in the 70s in an old spaceframe chassis:



And as for bumps, just a couple of examples out of thousands out there:





Bikes can handle jumps and bumps, but only really in a straight line, as with the first picture; much more than a brief hop when cranked over in a corner and a bike will go down, and a sequence of bumps at high speed can start a bike tankslapping quite easily, whereas a tank slapper in a car is just another term for over-correction, bumps won't cause it unless in really extreme circumstances. Four wheels really helps stability on bumpy surfaces, because what a bump does is give the vehicle staccato inputs that will cause wildly varying slip angles, and a car will just shrug that off if the driver does the right thing, whereas on a bike, balance and stability is what keeps the thing on its wheels.

Regarding the lap time comparison, just look at the difference in ring times over 20km and consider how much longer the TT course is - I think we'd be talking minutes difference, not seconds...

Edited by RobM77 on Thursday 6th March 18:20