RE: Sub-seven and why it matters: PH Blog

[pagani1]

Apart from the willy waving, will this bring extra sales? Methinks not, but it does increase expenditure on the R & D so it just gets added to the list price and the options price. This of course brings us to the notorious options price list so beloved of every Porsche dealership. It will be interesting to compare tech spec, prices and options lists for the 918, P1 and LaF, to see which is best £ for lb etc etc as this contest isn't over yet folks. Meanwhile the best two performance car companies on the planet can't get an F1 win or front row grid place for love or money at present, but a fizzy drinks company with a french engine can and regularly and monotonously does.

[Krikkit]

plenty said:

Debaser said:

The lap times might be a pissing contest, but they are also a good indicator of how capable the car is at going (very) fast along a country road.

In theory yes, if there were perfect visibility and the guarantee of nothing coming the other way, but in the real world the ability to cover ground on the road is primarily a function of driver skill and confidence (thereby rendering the 'Ring time nothing more than a theoretical exercise for road cars).

As all performance metrics are, ultimately. You have to have a very committed (i.e. very little mechanical sympathy) and skilled wheelman to put a very fast manual through a 0-60; I'm not sure I'd have the bottle to try a full-on vMax run in a Veyron or hypercar. That doesn't mean the measure is less valid, just that the meaty bag behind the wheel is outclassed by the machinery.

[zebedee]

pagani1 said:

the best two performance car companies on the planet can't get an F1 win or front row grid place for love or money at present, but a fizzy drinks company with a french engine can and regularly and monotonously does.

Ferrari has a revenue less than Red Bull's and their operating costs will be massively higher seeing as all Red Bull do is buy some very cheap chemicals/'foodstuffs' whereas Ferrari are buying in massive amounts of high tech materials and paying people to assemble it all, not to mention all the R&D etc.

The Red Bull empire is a triumph of marketing and in F1 the more money you have, the faster you are.

[boxsey]

matsoc said:

I agree it didn't looked the most exciting lap I ever seen on the Ring but this can also show how capable and composed the car is.

....and how good the driver is. The fastest drivers often make it all look a bit easy.

[markcoznottz]

Joe911 said:

markcoznottz said:

Joe911 said:

British Beef said:

Did the Mclaren F1 ever record a ring lap?

We've talked about this a great deal and to my knowledge there are no credible times.
There is a time quoted somewhere (wikipedia maybe) but I believe it is utter rubbish.
Given current F1 values it seems unlikely there will ever be a time set.

The standard cars brakes aren't up to much tbh. Not that many totally bog standard cars left now though, lots are being 'enhanced'.

Interesting, other than Flemke's project - what have you heard about?

I'm sure the factory have modified quite a few cars to the higher downforce spec and oz wheels etc, which I think comes with larger brakes.

[Joe911]

markcoznottz said:

I'm sure the factory have modified quite a few cars to the higher downforce spec and oz wheels etc, which I think comes with larger brakes.

They have, but all that stuff are just standard/known mods - while they will do anything they can for a customer - there are some things they categorically will not touch (they are very concerned about modifications being made and the the car is involved in an accident and people get killed) - like custom brakes. Even changing the steering wheel is an issue (not homologated, or whatever). There are though a bunch of things that are already 'approved' - like the HDF kit, the more powerful engine, etc.
Of course with the interior you can have pretty much anything - sat/nav, iPod, funky colours, etc.

[Debaser]

Bonefish Blues said:

Debaser said:

The lap times might be a pissing contest, but they are also a good indicator of how capable the car is at going (very) fast along a country road.

Were these (types of) cars not very wide and hence effectively speed limited on many roads I'd agree with you.

I regularly drive cars over two metres wide along B roads and my speed is only very rarely limited by the width of my car. It's only a factor on a road too narrow for centre markings, but then I'd have to slow down in any car.

[Debaser]

Krikkit said:

plenty said:

Debaser said:

The lap times might be a pissing contest, but they are also a good indicator of how capable the car is at going (very) fast along a country road.

In theory yes, if there were perfect visibility and the guarantee of nothing coming the other way, but in the real world the ability to cover ground on the road is primarily a function of driver skill and confidence (thereby rendering the 'Ring time nothing more than a theoretical exercise for road cars).

As all performance metrics are, ultimately. You have to have a very committed (i.e. very little mechanical sympathy) and skilled wheelman to put a very fast manual through a 0-60; I'm not sure I'd have the bottle to try a full-on vMax run in a Veyron or hypercar. That doesn't mean the measure is less valid, just that the meaty bag behind the wheel is outclassed by the machinery.

I agree it's not likely to be driven at these speeds on a country road very often, but I don't have a problem with cars being developed to do it. Also, a driver is likely to have more confidence in a car that feels stable and composed at speed on a typical B road.

[canucklehead]

fairly impressive, you've got to admit.

but it's still 46 secs off Stefan Bellof's time in a 30-year old car (which was, oh surprise, a porsche). ok it was a 956, but it seems that performance-wise the hybrid hypercars are still a ways off from reaching early-80s racecar speeds, even with electronic everything and modern tire technology.

what would be interesting to know is if porsche think the hybrid gubbins helped or hindered the time.

[71tuscan]

T0MMY said:

71tuscan said:

I would even dare to bet they installed exactly the amount of batteries necessary to make it do only one extremely good lap on the Ring.

Surely they can't strip out the cars or they're no longer "standard". Presumably they just filled the batteries with less electricity to save weight

I didn't mean stripping out the standard car. I meant the design of the standard car might have been mainly influenced with the ring time as purpose. If the ring had been 3miles shorter, they might have designed it with a slightly smaller battery pack to save an extra 1347 grams, even if it would compromise 'real life' performance.

[MikeyBoy2000]

7mins 04 seconds - 'Not bad for an old guy'...

Walter is the master.

Makes you wonder what he could do in a 918 he is happy with!

[TheJimi]

zebedee said:

The Red Bull empire is a triumph of marketing and in F1 the more money you have, the faster you are.

Not entirely accurate, I don't think.

Remember Toyota's dip into F1? Didn't they have the biggest budget or spend at the time?

Didn't get 'em very far!

[Krikkit]

canucklehead said:

fairly impressive, you've got to admit.

but it's still 46 secs off Stefan Bellof's time in a 30-year old car (which was, oh surprise, a porsche). ok it was a 956, but it seems that performance-wise the hybrid hypercars are still a ways off from reaching early-80s racecar speeds, even with electronic everything and modern tire technology.

what would be interesting to know is if porsche think the hybrid gubbins helped or hindered the time.

Pop slicks on some of these cars and you might get a bit closer, but the 956 is a pretty special machine - nothing in traditional racing guise is anywhere near as radical these days, regulation has killed it off.

Don't forget you're talking about 800kg, 650+hp, near-unlimited aero regulations.

[nbetts]

TheJimi said:

Not entirely accurate, I don't think.

Remember Toyota's dip into F1? Didn't they have the biggest budget or spend at the time?

Didn't get 'em very far!

That is because they spent it all on flying M Gascoyne in from Blighty to Germany every day on a private Jet...

[nickfrog]

Sport Coupe said:

nonuts said:

It could be that the battery is dead at the end of the lap and it can only do it's true top speed with the full charge earlier in the lap.

This.

Begining of lap the Boost indicator is full, whereas at the end of the lap it was nearly gone.

Not great for track days then.

Not sure how often you do track days but I reckon the car would be OK even with the battery discharged.

[havoc]

Debaser said:

Krikkit said:

plenty said:

Debaser said:

The lap times might be a pissing contest, but they are also a good indicator of how capable the car is at going (very) fast along a country road.

In theory yes, if there were perfect visibility and the guarantee of nothing coming the other way, but in the real world the ability to cover ground on the road is primarily a function of driver skill and confidence (thereby rendering the 'Ring time nothing more than a theoretical exercise for road cars).

As all performance metrics are, ultimately. You have to have a very committed (i.e. very little mechanical sympathy) and skilled wheelman to put a very fast manual through a 0-60; I'm not sure I'd have the bottle to try a full-on vMax run in a Veyron or hypercar. That doesn't mean the measure is less valid, just that the meaty bag behind the wheel is outclassed by the machinery.

I agree it's not likely to be driven at these speeds on a country road very often, but I don't have a problem with cars being developed to do it. Also, a driver is likely to have more confidence in a car that feels stable and composed at speed on a typical B road.

I'd have to disagree - a typical B-road would undo a lot of cars with very quick N'ring times, mainly because of the rapid lumps/bumps/etc in the road, which in a stiff car mean you have to drive at 8/10ths to allow the suspension to keep up. And I'll vouch for that because I've gone from an (allegedly stiff but actually better than a Golf GTi) DC2 ITR to a (properly stiff, track/'ring-spec) FD2 CTR. And despite being notably quicker and grippier than the DC2 with more immediate steering, I'm no quicker down some of my favourite B-roads as the Civic's suspension can't cope with flat-chat blats. Indeed the (softest of the 3, with the most expensive dampers) NSX is probably better still, if you ignore the width of the car and the slower steering.

So exactly how are all these R35s and 991 GT3s etc. going to cope with a B-road? The answer is they're not...as they're not designed for B-roads - they're too big and too quick - they need a sweeping A-road to start getting interesting. So you come down a class of car, to RS3s, 1Ms, etc. ...and find they're also now too stiff and too quick for B-roads. So you end up with mid-spec hot-hatches, which often don't have the expensive dampers to deal with the stiffer springs and (note!) minimal sidewalls they're now sold with.

So the best current B-road car is probably something like a Twingo 133. Because out of all of the above that's the only car which will feel like you're working it at speeds which won't get you a driving ban.

[T0MMY]

Or an MX5...

[anonymous-user]

It's worth noting that if we plot "The people that can actually afford a new edge Hypercar" and "The people who are good enough drivers to actually exploit a new edge hypercar" on a Venn diagram, the intersection would be astonishingly small. As the J-Leno video proved...... ;-)

[CraigyMc]

Max_Torque said:

It's worth noting that if we plot "The people that can actually afford a new edge Hypercar" and "The people who are good enough drivers to actually exploit a new edge hypercar" on a Venn diagram, the intersection would be astonishingly small. As the J-Leno video proved...... ;-)

I know he's portly, but that doesn't mean he takes up more space on a venn diagram than anyone else...

[otolith]

hairykrishna said:

It's not that bumpy. A don't think an F1 car on Monaco suspension settings would struggle. I think the real reason modern F1 car hasn't set a time is the risk to reward ratio. There would be no real point to it and it'd be pretty dangerous.

And it would put the performance of even the fastest road cars into a context which would not enhance the usefulness of a NS time to the marketing department.