Road cars faster than race cars. Is this wrong?
Discussion
Just looking at how things are going with the new 1340bhp Koenigsegg wasting the Suzuka lap record (and it's hardly the start) and all this PC stuff about maximum safety slowing down race cars, but no-one seems to worry about this with road cars [that are not required to be able to go faster than 70mph]. Isn't it about time race cars were released again back to the aura that made you go "wow"?
Just seems all a bit feeble to me. The passion, soul and how can an oil billionaire be allowed to go faster than someone with proven talent?
Erm, discuss.
Edit: faster than race cars! Mods: please save me!
Just seems all a bit feeble to me. The passion, soul and how can an oil billionaire be allowed to go faster than someone with proven talent?
Erm, discuss.
Edit: faster than race cars! Mods: please save me!
But if you actually bother to look at lap records at any circuit in the UK and any hillclimb venue you will see that even very quick road cars aren't on the same planet as even small engined single seaters like Jedis and superkarts would blow any daft hypercar into the middle of next week around any circuit with corners .
Just a local example - stuff like Nissan GTRs and F430s might struggle to reach mid 90mph on my local hillclimb's top straight. Which is 55 mph less than a Gould will manage .
Take my local circuit - the F3 lap record is around 1 min 13- with 220bhp. GT cars like McLaren F1s, 911GT2s etc were doing 5-6 secs slower . And when we had the much vaunted Time Attack cars , some of which were boasting 1000bhp , they were over ten seconds slower.
Another UK track- lap record was 1 22ish by a 2 litre 160bhp F3 car and stood for decades - about 14 seconds a lap faster than a 911GT3 will do- and its time is matched by 40 year old 100bhp Formula Ford cars running on narrower tyres than on a Focus ...
Trackside it's the same - a Lamborghini Fandango might impress teenagers on the High Street but on track they rarely look quick , especially if you have just been watching some real racing cars.
Just a local example - stuff like Nissan GTRs and F430s might struggle to reach mid 90mph on my local hillclimb's top straight. Which is 55 mph less than a Gould will manage .
Take my local circuit - the F3 lap record is around 1 min 13- with 220bhp. GT cars like McLaren F1s, 911GT2s etc were doing 5-6 secs slower . And when we had the much vaunted Time Attack cars , some of which were boasting 1000bhp , they were over ten seconds slower.
Another UK track- lap record was 1 22ish by a 2 litre 160bhp F3 car and stood for decades - about 14 seconds a lap faster than a 911GT3 will do- and its time is matched by 40 year old 100bhp Formula Ford cars running on narrower tyres than on a Focus ...
Trackside it's the same - a Lamborghini Fandango might impress teenagers on the High Street but on track they rarely look quick , especially if you have just been watching some real racing cars.
Edited by coppice on Thursday 28th May 07:26
Edited by coppice on Wednesday 3rd June 07:07
Castle Combe FFord 1600 lap record is now down to 1:09.07s. Back in 2008 when the Saloon championship permitted the 4wd 600bhp Evos of Norris et al, they could only lap in the 1:13s albeit on 1B tyres and in cars that were 1400kgs comapred to the 500kgs of the FFord.
Not sure what the point I am making is! FFords hgave 110-115 bhp at best but are quicker round most tracks than any road car, sure circuits like Silverstone have big long straights and wide corners where the FFord will quickly lose its advantage but if you discounr tracks like Monza, Bahrain, Sepang and only use non-F1 tracks, you just cant beat a racing car of almost any capacity or power
Not sure what the point I am making is! FFords hgave 110-115 bhp at best but are quicker round most tracks than any road car, sure circuits like Silverstone have big long straights and wide corners where the FFord will quickly lose its advantage but if you discounr tracks like Monza, Bahrain, Sepang and only use non-F1 tracks, you just cant beat a racing car of almost any capacity or power
The point was, compare hyper cars of 20 or 30 years ago to an F1 car.
I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
mattikake said:
Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, .
Really? What road car can get near an F1, LMP1, LMP2?LMP1s have over 1000hp and silly amounts of downforce.
No modern road car has even come close to Bellofs time at Nurburgring
Edited by RobGT81 on Thursday 28th May 15:35
Edited by RobGT81 on Thursday 28th May 15:36
mattikake said:
The point was, compare hyper cars of 20 or 30 years ago to an F1 car.
I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
The gap isn't closer at all; whatever you call rich people's playthings (super , hyper , uber or mega cars) they are not very quick on the race track in absolute terms. More examples- the 1000bhp Bugatti couldn't even match a Caterham R500 at Dunsfold ; safety is nothing to do with it (although racers are far safer now than then) but there is no way on earth a 1200 bhp Brabham BMW would keep up with a contemporary F1 car; and consider that a 918 is (from memory) 5 seconds a lap slower than a KART at Laguna Seca . Straight line speed- a Bugatti or P1 does a ss 1/4 mile in high 9s or low 10s - two seconds slower than the better street legal drag cars costing rather less than a LaFerrari. I've watched a lot of motor sport since the early 70s and I have yet to be really impressed by the speed of any road car compared to race cars. The figures get headlines which impress the kids- 1000bhp - wow - but if it's in some plutocrat's hypercar it will have 1200-1500kg to drag around . That's why they won't see which way a little bike engined Jedi went. They don't stop ,they don't accclerate and they don't corner anything like as fast. Don't take my word for it- go to a hillclimb or sprint and see how relatively slow a GTR is compared to a cheap as chips single seater.
Trouble is that Top Gear has misled people into thinking that the ultimate speed is what the Stig can do in some silly road car nobody can afford - ignoring the fact that spending the same cost as a set of Veyron wheels will enable you to go infinitely faster on track in a machine designed for it.
mattikake said:
The point was, compare hyper cars of 20 or 30 years ago to an F1 car.
I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
I dont think there were any "hyper" cars around in 1985, there were some fast sportscars but that was about it. I certainly wouldnt describne the Countach, the Testarossa or the 959 as "hyper cars".I'll pick 1985. F1 cars were running 1000-1500bhp and 3-5G in corners and hyper cars were around 450bhp and had little downforce - around 1G in corners. Forget brakes, weight, handling... Top race cars were on a different planet. Now the gap seems to be a lot closer, seemingly almost entirely down to "safety" grounds.
One wonders what makes road cars almost as safe as F1 cars these days. No wait, they're not.
Incidentally, the difference between first on the grid (Senna, 1:08) and last (Martini, 1:16.6) at the 1985 European GP at Brands in 1985 was 8.6 seconds which is huge, the difference between the front and the back of the grid was staggering so its hardly fair to use the best car/driver combo in the comparison. The front of the F1 grid was on a different planet to the back, never mind anything else!
According to wiki, a GT3 BMW Z4 can lap Brands in 1:27.2, is a GT3 Z4 comparable to a Porsche 959? Would you consider the 11s difference between Martini and the Z4 "on a different planet" given Senna was 8.6s ahead of Martini?
Bellof, now there was a driver!....
The Suzuka lap record is 1.31 - by Raikkonen in an F1 car. The Koiniggsegg 'wasting the lap record ' actually amounted to a lap 40 seconds slower .Yup - 40 seconds - count 'em.
I repeat- even (or especially?) hyper cars do not live up to their reputation when it comes actually to going fast around race tracks .
Maybe OP has never seen a pukka racing car live?
Enough said ?
I repeat- even (or especially?) hyper cars do not live up to their reputation when it comes actually to going fast around race tracks .
Maybe OP has never seen a pukka racing car live?
Enough 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.
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.
iva cosworth said:
Another point to illustrate this.
I was passenger in an XR2i at an RSOC track day at Donington.
Not a fast car,but race prepared and driven very well.
It was wasting all but the best Cosworths.
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 I was passenger in an XR2i at an RSOC track day at Donington.
Not a fast car,but race prepared and driven very well.
It was wasting all but the best Cosworths.
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
I'm not sure whether we were on slicks or roads.Yes,nowhere on the straights but caught them up by braking way later
in a well set up and driven light car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Top_Gear_test...
Non qualifiers at bottom- renault R24 - 0:59.0 in the wet.
And like said, hypercars are for posing, whatever the stats.
Non qualifiers at bottom- renault R24 - 0:59.0 in the wet.
And like said, hypercars are for posing, whatever the stats.
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.Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff