Road cars faster than race cars. Is this wrong?

[ATG]

coppice said:

Maybe OP has never seen a pukka racing car live?

You do have to wonder. I remember very clearly the first time I saw proper high performance single seaters on track coming out of a corner and accelerating down a straight. It was all happening about a quarter of a mile in front of me and it just looked wrong. The acceleration just looked physically unrealistic. It was a very cool moment.

[coppice]

Yes- losing your single seater virginity is a memory that lasts. Mine was lost at Deer Leap at Oulton to Jackie Stewart in the Tyrrell. I could not believe the speed or the noise , or the fact that JYS had an armful of opposite lock as he came out of Lodge. Next up was Rodriguez in a screaming V12 BRM . Addicted for life ....

[hunter 66]

Not so sure anymore ........ the new Aventador looks unbelievable 6.59 at the Ring on 1 timed run only !!.
The race pace of the Huracan Supertrofeo one make series of 2.01 at the Silverstone faster than GT3 interesting to see what the SV will do on road tyres .
The gap has been massively reduced by tyre technology and road cars now with 700 plus BHP whereas GT restricted to 500 bhp...

[Jimmm]

The BMW Z4 set an 8:17.394 at the 24 hours of Nurburgring which includes doing the grand prix track and they had speed restrictions in place on the Nordschleife. It takes nearly 2 minutes to do the grand prix track. That puts it at over 40 seconds faster than an Aventador around the Nordschleife. I'd say that is a fair enough gap considering the Z4 is supposed to link to the Z4 road car.

[hunter 66]

Agreed Jimm ( less as leave the GP a little earlier ) but the difference has been dramatically reduced in the last 5 years . I race GT3 cars and am amazed how these times for road cars has progressed in relation to the progress of say GT cars .
I would think the road Aventador SV would not be more than 5 -7 seconds a lap ( at Silverstone) of top GT car ( GTE , GT3 all about the same ) which is amazing.
It would be interesting to see.

[Jimmm]

5-7 seconds slower for about 3 laps, then I expect the times would substantially drop off compared to a GT3 car. I suppose the headline figure is all that counts though. The fact that race cars are engineered to keep up the speed they are doing for hours is often overlooked.

[Transmitter Man]

An interesting thread.

I wonder if this comparison would shave a few seconds off the gap between road and track car (use the same slicks on both to make things a little more evens stevens)

George Plasa's (RIP) Judd powered BMW hillclimber: https://youtu.be/l-lbxIJD3V8

against (customers were asking Horatio for a road version of) this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHeDCJcPlJ4

so he produces the Zonda 760RS: https://youtu.be/Yb05nRyDrY8

I'm sure the stripped out hillclimber would still eat the Pagani for breakfast but on a less tight circuit would he be that far behind?

Finally, Zonda R track car v's Belloff = 10% difference: http://jalopnik.com/5599675/what-the-pagani-zonda-...

Edited by Transmitter Man on Saturday 13th June 09:12

Edited by Transmitter Man on Saturday 13th June 09:22

[Dr JonboyG]

iva cosworth said:

The McLaren F1 GTRs that raced at Le Mans from 1995 were de tuned to fit the regs so these were probably slower

than the road car.

They still won.

They were lighter, and much much faster around a track than the road car because they had slicks and aero.

[130R]

Radical SR8 will beat a lot of race cars, not sure it's really a "road car" though.

[Fantuzzi]

Jimmm said:

Koenigsegg One:1 hypercar lapped in 2.17.57

Super GT Lap Record AFAIK 1.49.842 + At last years 1000km they still ran the entire 1000km (173 laps!) at under 2 minutes a lap avg. based on the classifications. I would take from that that even the most hyperest of hypery cars such as the One:1 are still a long way off modern race cars. It'd be interesting to see how fast the Koenigsegg could do 173 laps of Suzuka as well becuase that 1.49.842 is in a car engineered to do that distance.

Beat me to it, but I was going to use the 300 class as an example, rather than the 500 class. The most recent 300 (GT3 spec) class lap in 2014 was 2.01, with times ranging from that to 2.03. And they are 'only' GT3 cars, which are heavily based on road cars and are designed to be accessible to a gentleman driver.

That's a big gap. 16 seconds, 14 to even the people at the back. And as I said GT3 cars aren't even batst crazy.

Evo put a lowly BTTC car around their circuit, it was mental fast even compared to the top leaders at the time, cant find it now, but Im sure it was something silly like 1.03 compared to a 458s 1.19 (that's a time with the assistance of Ferrari at the circuit as well...).

[Transmitter Man]

130R said:

Radical SR8 will beat a lot of race cars, not sure it's really a "road car" though.

They consider it is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburg...

and interesting to note within one second of the Zonda R's time which of course is not a road car.

Radical: https://youtu.be/acSGbO0MGGI

Zonda R - Still my favorite: https://youtu.be/YPd0ATqvoJM

[coppice]

The simple and depressing fact is that an awful lot of people who consider themselves petrolheads will lap up every scrap of PR from companies who have pitched their hot hatch, people carrier or hypercar around Nurburgring quicker than their market opposition (see the adolescent hysteria about the P1 and 918 times around the Ring) . Within context it's vaguely interesting but it is never considered in absolute terms because F1 apart, said petrolhead knows sweet fa apart from watching a BTCC race now and again. The speed of pure bred race machinery , not to mention the spectacle, is light years ahead of any compromised and heavy road car.

Autocar did an interesting little comparison a year or two ago between a Dallara F3 car - slicks 'n wings and 220bhp-ish - against a Nissan GTR. To the surprise of absolutely nobody who has ever watched F3 live the GTR was blown into the middle of next week . But if you have never seen pukka race cars live you wouldn't believe the speed- and forget Motors TV as an example as long camera angles and often featureless race circuits give an entirely wrong impression. Try Old Hall or ..ahem .. Coppice with a Monoposto car costing less than McLaren's sandwich bill for Q1.

[Scuffers]

iguana said:

DanielSan said:

I've seen ex Clio cup cars on track days with GT3 RS's, unless there's a long straight where the extra power puts them back in the game the 911's are nowhere. I didn't realise quite the gain in performance slick tyres had until then

You are comparing racers in racecars with spako drivers in the porker, a slick shod race Clio cup racer, esp the newer ones is fast indeed no mistake, but its not in the same league as an RS with a proper driver.

exactly,

your typical road going GT3 is a total snail compared to a current 911 GT3R race car, just because you can pass some old duffer on a trackday in his GT3, don't think this is representative of just how fast one can go.

As said, Top gear times have really not helped understanding what a fast car really is, I have seen 50 year old historic formula fords (100Hp at best) make the top end of the trackday cars look silly.

Back to Bellof's time, yes that really was something special, however, a current LMP1 car would annihilate that time (with a brave enough driver), his Porsche 956 compared to even the later Group C cars was a complete dinosaur.

[Transmitter Man]

coppice said:

The simple and depressing fact is that an awful lot of people who consider themselves petrolheads will lap up every scrap of PR from companies who have pitched their hot hatch, people carrier or hypercar around Nurburgring quicker than their market opposition (see the adolescent hysteria about the P1 and 918 times around the Ring) . Within context it's vaguely interesting but it is never considered in absolute terms because F1 apart, said petrolhead knows sweet fa apart from watching a BTCC race now and again. The speed of pure bred race machinery , not to mention the spectacle, is light years ahead of any compromised and heavy road car.

Autocar did an interesting little comparison a year or two ago between a Dallara F3 car - slicks 'n wings and 220bhp-ish - against a Nissan GTR. To the surprise of absolutely nobody who has ever watched F3 live the GTR was blown into the middle of next week . But if you have never seen pukka race cars live you wouldn't believe the speed- and forget Motors TV as an example as long camera angles and often featureless race circuits give an entirely wrong impression. Try Old Hall or ..ahem .. Coppice with a Monoposto car costing less than McLaren's sandwich bill for Q1.

Handling and aero aside why do you think Autocar picked a lardarse of a car at 1,700kg+?

Was it to make a point?

Tax disc holding hypercars of 2015 are by comparison the weight a packet of Rothmans.

So, in effect Autocar made no point at all.

[Scuffers]

Transmitter Man said:

Handling and aero aside why do you think Autocar picked a lardarse of a car at 1,700kg+?

Was it to make a point?

Tax disc holding hypercars of 2015 are by comparison the weight a packet of Rothmans.

So, in effect Autocar made no point at all.

At a guess, because the GTR is viewed as THE performance car to beat?

asides that, 1,700Kg's is pretty typical for cars these days, anything homologated/road going all tends to be over 1,400Kg's absolute min, the McLaren P1 has a dry weight of 1,395 kg

[coppice]

Exactly - and neither the squillion quid P1 nor 918 (or the daft Ferrari with the silly name ) would see which way an F3 car went either.

[corozin]

Scuffers said:

Back to Bellof's time, yes that really was something special, however, a current LMP1 car would annihilate that time (with a brave enough driver), his Porsche 956 compared to even the later Group C cars was a complete dinosaur.

To put the differential into perspective, the Bell/Stuck 962 back in 1986 was pounding around Le Mans in around 3m24s whilst the current cars, on a track which now has the Dunlop Esses, and two chicanes on the Mulsanne, were comfortably under 3m20s and qualified under 3m17s.

Amazing though Mr Koenigsegg's creation is, I doubt that it would be any faster than a GTE Pro car at La Sarthe. Road cars just don't have the low weight, downforce or tyres to make up the difference

[marshal_alan]

arent 99% of road cars faster than a citroen 2CV race car??? you see those things racing and in everything else when the pace car goes into the pits on a rolling start and the lights go green the cars accelerate away with 2CV's they dont

[coppice]

I have seen very little lap slower than 2CVs - but the racing is better than most. I certainly wouldn't say 99% of road cars were slower around a circuit as the 2CVs do maintain speed by simply heroic cornering.And a field of them sounds like a low flying Lancaster.

[heebeegeetee]

coppice said:

Exactly - and neither the squillion quid P1 nor 918 (or the daft Ferrari with the silly name ) would see which way an F3 car went either.

And if they compared a hypercar with a top race car - an F1 car, for instance, the result would be even more embarrassing.