Zero downforce F1 vs roadcars. When did roadcars getquicker?

[glazbagun]

If they did at all?

I was just watching this vid of Clark & co in the 60's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_PxCW8uS9g

...and it made me wonder- when did roadcars get faster than the best of the zero downforce F1 cars? If you were to bring a modern cooking Caterham or a despoilered Subaru to the above race with a bit of hillclimb experience, could you leave them for dead or would even a top drawer driver struggle?

Edited by glazbagun on Tuesday 22 April 22:26

[mikearwas]

Caterham no unless in something like an R500.

I imagine something like the new gt3 rs and possibly a GTR would be a bit quicker but you would have to be quite handy behind the wheel.

[kambites]

I think it'd depend on whether the F1 cars were allowed modern tyres. The 60s F1 cars still have pretty damned impressive power to weight ratios (around 1000bhp/tonne, I think).

ETA: For the '67 German Grand Prix at the 'ring, the pole lap was 8:04 (presumably that's a full lap not bridge to gantry). Has the ring changed since then?

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 22 April 22:29

[ant leigh]

kambites said:

I think it'd depend on whether the F1 cars were allowed modern tyres. The 60s F1 cars still have pretty damned impressive power to weight ratios (around 1000bhp/tonne, I think).

ETA: For the '67 German Grand Prix at the 'ring, the pole lap was 8:04 (presumably that's a full lap not bridge to gantry). Has the ring changed since then?

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 22 April 22:29

Wasn't the original Nordschlieffe grand prix circuit longer?
Wiki suggests more than a mile longer

[glazbagun]

Just found this.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/02/17/f1-car-power...

According to this the 67 McLaren was pushing near 700HP/ton sans driver, but it quickly took a huge leap. I guess that's going to be pretty much uncatchable if the brakes and tyres are up to the job.

[kambites]

ant leigh said:

Wasn't the original Nordschlieffe grand prix circuit longer?
Wiki suggests more than a mile longer

You might be right. I'd assumed that was just the bridge-to-bridge vs bridge-to-gantry length difference?

[Talksteer]

kambites said:

I think it'd depend on whether the F1 cars were allowed modern tyres. The 60s F1 cars still have pretty damned impressive power to weight ratios (around 1000bhp/tonne, I think).

ETA: For the '67 German Grand Prix at the 'ring, the pole lap was 8:04 (presumably that's a full lap not bridge to gantry). Has the ring changed since then?

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 22 April 22:29

The 1967 ring is a little different to the current one. The pit straight is under the GP track.

It makes it a little difficult to compare lap times as the circuit was quite a bit longer. Comparing average speed would probably be more accurate however the part of circuit removed was two long straights so would have a higher average speed than the rest of the circuit.

[kambites]

Ah OK. So rather hard to get a good comparison.

Still, I think people under-estimate how quick 60s F1 cars actually were.

[ant leigh]

kambites said:

You might be right. I'd assumed that was just the bridge-to-bridge vs bridge-to-gantry length difference?

Current full lap (Nordschleife)is 2km shorter than the 67 lap.
BTG is a mile shorter still.

[kambites]

Hmm, that makes the 8 minute lap of the old circuit more impressive then. I reckon you'd at least need something like a Radical to keep up with a late 60s F1 car.

[ant leigh]

Talksteer said:

The 1967 ring is a little different to the current one. The pit straight is under the GP track.

It makes it a little difficult to compare lap times as the circuit was quite a bit longer. Comparing average speed would probably be more accurate however the part of circuit removed was two long straights so would have a higher average speed than the rest of the circuit.

Assuming the lost distance is in straights even at 240km/hr the 2km is still a 30seconds handicap.
Does suggest even with 60's tyres and brakes the F1 cars from that period would be hitting mid 7's

[kambites]

Indeed and we all know how much time tyres can be worth. If the suspension could cope with the stresses, I suspect you'd be looking at <7 minutes current bridge-to-gantry on modern racing slicks, maybe even on road-legal cut-slicks.

[mikearwas]

I thought we were talking about the pre 67 F1 cars with the 1.5 liter engines.

[kambites]

mikearwas said:

I thought we were talking about the pre 67 F1 cars with the 1.5 liter engines.

The OP just said pre-downforce. I always think of F1 cars gaining wings in about 1970, but I might be wrong? There were certainly wing-less Lotus 49s which were DVF powered.

Hmm, it looks like wings first appeared in mid-68, so I guess the 69 cars would have had some downforce.

[lamboman100]

In a nutshell, it has taken about 25 to 50 years for the best roadcars (e.g. Nissan GTR) to catchup with the best racecars (e.g. 1960s F1). Interesting stat and thread.

[thegreenhell]

ant leigh said:

kambites said:

I think it'd depend on whether the F1 cars were allowed modern tyres. The 60s F1 cars still have pretty damned impressive power to weight ratios (around 1000bhp/tonne, I think).

ETA: For the '67 German Grand Prix at the 'ring, the pole lap was 8:04 (presumably that's a full lap not bridge to gantry). Has the ring changed since then?

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 22 April 22:29

Wasn't the original Nordschlieffe grand prix circuit longer?
Wiki suggests more than a mile longer

It's not just the lap length that has changed. The circuit was extensively modernised in 1970, some corners reprofiled, the track widened from 7m to 9m, and many jumps flattened. There are now only a couple of opportunities to get airborne if you're quick enough, but previously there were famous jumps at 13km on Kesselchen, Brunnchen and over the bridge on the entry to Schwalbenschwanz. This is the Nordschleife on which Clark did his 8:04 lap.

Kesselchen (13km)


Brunnchen


And Clark's Lotus 49, also at Brunnchen


I'd love to see what a Lotus 49 could achieve there now in terms of laptime, but I'm sure it would be at least as quick as any modern road car.

[thegreenhell]

It's impossible to give a definitive answer without actually running the cars side by side, but here is a simple analysis.

If we take 1967 as the last year of non-downforce F1 (wings started to appear throughout 1968) and look at which tracks they raced on back then, then compare to modern laptimes, it should give something of a comparison. As already discussed, the Nurburgring changed quite significantly between then and now, as did most tracks in fact. It looks like Mosport in Canada is the only Championship track still used in the same configuration. Pole position in 1967 (Jim Clark, Lotus 49) was 1:22.4. It's hard to find reliable laptimes for modern roadcars at the track, but the link below gives a laptime of 1:21.6 for a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racecar, 1:28 for a Radical Prosport GSX-R 1000, and 1:35 for a BMW E36 M3 racer.

http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Mosport_Internation...

There was also a non-championship race at Brands Hatch. Pole position (Dan Gurney, Eagle-Weslake) was 1:32.2. Again, reliable roadcar laptimes are hard to find, but it appears that the BTCC lap record (set in 2010) is 1:31.6.

That seems to support the hypothesis that a 1967 F1 car (non-downforce and treaded tyres) is still substantially quicker around a circuit than a new road car.

[007 VXR]

Back then cars were made to be as fast as possable, now the rules try to slow them down.
How fast would a moden F1 car be IF the rules were removed ?

[Vaud]

007 VXR said:

Back then cars were made to be as fast as possable, now the rules try to slow them down.
How fast would a moden F1 car be IF the rules were removed ?

Too fast, a driver would not be able to drive them for sustained periods, or cope with the sustained cornering speeds.

Red bull mocked one up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010

[ant leigh]

thegreenhell said:

It's impossible to give a definitive answer without actually running the cars side by side, but here is a simple analysis.

If we take 1967 as the last year of non-downforce F1 (wings started to appear throughout 1968) and look at which tracks they raced on back then, then compare to modern laptimes, it should give something of a comparison. As already discussed, the Nurburgring changed quite significantly between then and now, as did most tracks in fact. It looks like Mosport in Canada is the only Championship track still used in the same configuration. Pole position in 1967 (Jim Clark, Lotus 49) was 1:22.4. It's hard to find reliable laptimes for modern roadcars at the track, but the link below gives a laptime of 1:21.6 for a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racecar, 1:28 for a Radical Prosport GSX-R 1000, and 1:35 for a BMW E36 M3 racer.

http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Mosport_Internation...

There was also a non-championship race at Brands Hatch. Pole position (Dan Gurney, Eagle-Weslake) was 1:32.2. Again, reliable roadcar laptimes are hard to find, but it appears that the BTCC lap record (set in 2010) is 1:31.6.

That seems to support the hypothesis that a 1967 F1 car (non-downforce and treaded tyres) is still substantially quicker around a circuit than a new road car.

Interesting analysis and some good pictures. As mentioned earlier power to weight is impressive for the 60's formula one cars and looking at the photo's you can see why. You can also see why it was so dangerous to drive them.