A change in performance.
Discussion
There was a bit of a step change around the time of Sierra Cosworth touring cars (and Nissan Skylines outside of the UK) and F1's turbo era. You could argue that Radicals have changed club level racing too, giving a higher performance:£ ratio than ever before.
Lotus/Caterham 7s, while technically road cars, were so fast that they are banned from entering road car classes - but that wasn't such a massive change.
Lotus/Caterham 7s, while technically road cars, were so fast that they are banned from entering road car classes - but that wasn't such a massive change.
rhysenna said:
Eric Mc said:
The introduction of turbos in F1?
This. But was that not a slow shift to the big HP that the cars had?The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Eric Mc said:
The introduction of turbos in F1?
Not as much as introducing downforce would have done.Have a look at the laptimes of silverstone in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973.
I reckon the rise would be pretty spectacular.
'67-'69 would be fairly comparable with the Lotus 49 being the fastest car with and without wings. '71 and '73 would be comparable with the Lotus 72. I reckon there would have been more of a shift in laptimes than for the turbo cars.
What about ground effect cars?
I know that for the 1979 British GP Williams found that by making a piece that smoothed over the bottom of the engine they improved their laptimes by 1.3 seconds.
How much better were the Lotus 78/79s on laptime than the other cars of the time?
An even better comparison may be the nurburgring as the F1 cars ran there all years from 1950-1976 excluding 1970 iirc.
In all fairness though, tyre technology came on in leaps and bounds throughout that era. Tyres got wider and wider, but the first true slick was introduced at the 1971 Spanish GP.Didn't Clark get under 8 minutes in 1967, then Lauda got under 7 minutes in 1975?
I may have my years wrong there. :/
In all fairness though, tyre technology came on in leaps and bounds throughout that era. Tyres got wider and wider, but the first true slick was introduced at the 1971 Spanish GP.Didn't Clark get under 8 minutes in 1967, then Lauda got under 7 minutes in 1975?
I may have my years wrong there. :/
rhysenna said:
This. But was that not a slow shift to the big HP that the cars had?
The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Even Group B wasn't a massive jump in power all at once though, the earlier/slower Group B cars weren't making that much more than Group 4 and then they increased power levels steadily over a few years until they got banned.The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Life Saab Itch said:
Not as much as introducing downforce would have done.
Have a look at the laptimes of silverstone in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973.
I reckon the rise would be pretty spectacular.
'67-'69 would be fairly comparable with the Lotus 49 being the fastest car with and without wings. '71 and '73 would be comparable with the Lotus 72. I reckon there would have been more of a shift in laptimes than for the turbo cars.
What about ground effect cars?
I know that for the 1979 British GP Williams found that by making a piece that smoothed over the bottom of the engine they improved their laptimes by 1.3 seconds.
How much better were the Lotus 78/79s on laptime than the other cars of the time?
I would think that downforce increased gradually from its introduction in 1967 (yes, Brabham had tiny nose deflectors that year). There was perhaps a bit of a jump (or perhaps a "negative" jump would be more accurate ) in 1978 with the Lotus 78 and the Brabham fan car.Have a look at the laptimes of silverstone in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973.
I reckon the rise would be pretty spectacular.
'67-'69 would be fairly comparable with the Lotus 49 being the fastest car with and without wings. '71 and '73 would be comparable with the Lotus 72. I reckon there would have been more of a shift in laptimes than for the turbo cars.
What about ground effect cars?
I know that for the 1979 British GP Williams found that by making a piece that smoothed over the bottom of the engine they improved their laptimes by 1.3 seconds.
How much better were the Lotus 78/79s on laptime than the other cars of the time?
GravelBen said:
rhysenna said:
This. But was that not a slow shift to the big HP that the cars had?
The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Even Group B wasn't a massive jump in power all at once though, the earlier/slower Group B cars weren't making that much more than Group 4 and then they increased power levels steadily over a few years until they got banned.The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Life Saab Itch said:
Not as much as introducing downforce would have done.
Have a look at the laptimes of silverstone in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973.
I reckon the rise would be pretty spectacular.
'67-'69 would be fairly comparable with the Lotus 49 being the fastest car with and without wings. '71 and '73 would be comparable with the Lotus 72. I reckon there would have been more of a shift in laptimes than for the turbo cars.
What about ground effect cars?
I know that for the 1979 British GP Williams found that by making a piece that smoothed over the bottom of the engine they improved their laptimes by 1.3 seconds.
How much better were the Lotus 78/79s on laptime than the other cars of the time?
According to my copy of Doug Nye's 'The British Gand Prix 1926 - 1976', the drop in laptime from 1967 (no wings) to 1969 (some wings) was 1.27.0 -> 1.21.3 - fastest race laps. Not insignificant. Though I suspect the DFV found a few horses during that period; quite apart from some inspired driving by Stewart and Rindt in 1969. 1975 results inconclusive due to the weather. For some balance, 1965 fastest race lap was 1.32.2 by Hill's BRM P261. It would seem that downforce made a greater contribution to lap times than even the move from 1.5 to 3.0 litre engines. Have a look at the laptimes of silverstone in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973.
I reckon the rise would be pretty spectacular.
'67-'69 would be fairly comparable with the Lotus 49 being the fastest car with and without wings. '71 and '73 would be comparable with the Lotus 72. I reckon there would have been more of a shift in laptimes than for the turbo cars.
What about ground effect cars?
I know that for the 1979 British GP Williams found that by making a piece that smoothed over the bottom of the engine they improved their laptimes by 1.3 seconds.
How much better were the Lotus 78/79s on laptime than the other cars of the time?
chevronb37 said:
According to my copy of Doug Nye's 'The British Gand Prix 1926 - 1976', the drop in laptime from 1967 (no wings) to 1969 (some wings) was 1.27.0 -> 1.21.3 - fastest race laps. Not insignificant. Though I suspect the DFV found a few horses during that period; quite apart from some inspired driving by Stewart and Rindt in 1969. 1975 results inconclusive due to the weather. For some balance, 1965 fastest race lap was 1.32.2 by Hill's BRM P261. It would seem that downforce made a greater contribution to lap times than even the move from 1.5 to 3.0 litre engines.
Weren't the Monaco laptimes only 1/4 second faster in 1966 than 1965 or something?How about Rheims? French GP 1965&1966 iirc
1966 wasn't really a true 3 litre year. There was a lot more competitive 3 litre engines in 1967 than '66.
What about the switch from front to rear engines.
They are comparable as they were still in the 2.5 litre era.
I still reckon downforce is the real winner here.
Life Saab Itch said:
Weren't the Monaco laptimes only 1/4 second faster in 1966 than 1965 or something?
How about Rheims? French GP 1965&1966 iirc
1966 wasn't really a true 3 litre year. There was a lot more competitive 3 litre engines in 1967 than '66.
What about the switch from front to rear engines.
They are comparable as they were still in the 2.5 litre era.
I still reckon downforce is the real winner here.
I actually agreeing with you in that case! I think downforce looks like the biggest contributory factor in that era. Though a fast circuit like Silverstone illustrates the power difference between 1965 and 1967 when the DFV was on stream in the 49s. To watch trackside, a P261, BT11 or Type 33 is still a bloody quick car but you can't argue with an additional 150bhp.How about Rheims? French GP 1965&1966 iirc
1966 wasn't really a true 3 litre year. There was a lot more competitive 3 litre engines in 1967 than '66.
What about the switch from front to rear engines.
They are comparable as they were still in the 2.5 litre era.
I still reckon downforce is the real winner here.
GravelBen said:
Even Group B wasn't a massive jump in power all at once though, the earlier/slower Group B cars weren't making that much more than Group 4 and then they increased power levels steadily over a few years until they got banned.
When the Group B cars migrated to RallyCross, the jump was immense and fuelled a massive leap in the interest the sport attracted. I used to marshal the startline at Brands and remember vividly pre-group B spectators being very thin on the ground then, a year or so after they started appearing, spectator banking and grandstands were rammed - and this in December, January and February. For reasons I've yet to fathom, this interest started to wain a lot in the mid-90s and has never really regained any of the public excitement it previously had.DanDC5 said:
GravelBen said:
rhysenna said:
This. But was that not a slow shift to the big HP that the cars had?
The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
Even Group B wasn't a massive jump in power all at once though, the earlier/slower Group B cars weren't making that much more than Group 4 and then they increased power levels steadily over a few years until they got banned.The Reno had similar HP to the atmo's at the time it raced for the first time?
DanDC5 said:
I think the biggest change group B bought to rallying was 4wd to be honest. That was the one factor that improved performance more than any power increase on it's own would have done.
I'd disagree. Don't forget that the quattro competed as a Group 4 car to start with. To the bitter end, the quattros were based upon 'proper' series production road cars.Group B allowed smaller runs (200-off, with 20 evolutions spun off), greater engine sizes, and a generous 'turbo equivalence' formula, which in turn allowed much more extreme solutions: bespoke spaceframes, enormously powerful special engines, advanced materials, and so on. Audi struggled to sell their 200 Sport Quattros, Ford couldn't shift the RS200s, Austin-Rover had a field full of 6R4s (at least they hadn't paid to have them homologated for road use; at the time, therefore, you could pick up a 6R4 in Clubman spec from the factory for around £10k), and so on.
Was Group B such a big change? Group 4 had required 500 examples, something which was as often as not achieved with sleit of hand (nobody seriously believes there were 500 Stratii produced). If you'd put a turbocharger and 4WD on a Stratos, was it very different from an RS200? What about the 'proper' R5 Turbo with a bigger engine and 4WD? Even in 2WD, 1.3T guise, in the right hands and on the right day the R5 could beat the 'proper' Group B cars on tight tarmac stages.
For the amount of publicity (potentially) generated by rallying at the time, producing 200 cars, even if sold at a loss, was worth doing. As explored by the recent BBC4 programme, the 205 T16 Group B programme was widely credited with (at least, in part) saving the entire company.
The big change to Group A was the same issue; this time, it was 2500 homologated models (in a year) out of a production run of at least 25,000. So no more 'specials'; the homologation regime was designed specifically to make it financially suicidal to try to produce something so extreme... and yet, 'ordinary' road car technology had by now caught up with much of what had been considered 'exotic' in Group B, so everything didn't really slow down all that much.
Comparing the rules (Group 4 vs Group B vs Group A) and the outcomes, I think we find that the only big differences were engine power and chassis construction. A 'proper' steel monocoque, strengthened with a decent cage, could withstand much bigger crashes than the spaceframe Group B cars could ever do, whilst the power of the Group B cars did rather overwhelm everything else without - necessarily - making the cars all that much faster. 4WD would have come along and produced a step-change in loose-surface performance with or without Group B.
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