Which racing series does the fastest lap times?

It would be F1 by far. You can take the camparison of the Cart cars and F1 cars at the Montreal Circuit. F1 cars are some 4-5 seconds quicker than cart on that circuit. As for Long Beach, again, because for one the downforce they have compared to Cart and IRL. Also they produce more HP and are lighter. As for the oval, that would be a tough one to figure out. F1 has never really ran on a oval, whereas IRL and Cart do. But again going with the current technology of all three series, I think F1 be faster. The only camparison I would use is Monza. I think the top speed for F1 at Monza is 368 km. So I would think at an Oval they would be faster.

 

F1 probably has the most leeway in adjusting a car to a track (gearing, power, and downforce) so I'll go with them because of that.

 

The Nextel Cup cars have about 800 hp, but I think they weigh around 3,600 lbs, correct me if I'm wrong. That's a lot of momentum at 190mph!

Rally cars are around 400hp iirc.

 

F1 has to be the faster than Cart/IRL/etc. as the hp to weight is greater, and arguably have the best aerodynamics. No question on circuits and it's just a matter of set up for an oval speedway.

However, I remember reading/hearing a while back that a 250 super kart could go quicker than an F1 around Monaco.... I don't know if this was really true but the comparison was interesting.

 

I want to say F1 it seems as if they have much more mechanical grip over other race series.. Look at them at indy they go thru the final turn on the F1 track without lifting and dont have to drift down to the apex then drift back out. I saww Webber in a Jag a couple of years ago and he passed a Minardi on the outside in practice in the last corner.

Try that in a champ car or IRL car and you eat concrete.

 

It all really depends on the track. F1 would generally be quicker the twistier the track. Some of the old GTP and group C cars were blazing fast and on some circuits might have turned a faster time. On an oval an F1 car would be considerably slower than a champcar or and IRL machine mainly because of the downforce limitations of the flatbottom and the FIA plank. WHile the speeds would be close down the straight they would not be able to corner as fast as a champcar or an IRL car. Like i said it all depends on the circuit, but generally i believe an F1 is probably the fastest. In a straight line nothing beats a top fuel dragster, lol

 

Today Lemans cars no way, due mainly because of HP and weight. Prototype Lemans cars are restricted to some 600 hp and 2100lb.

 

Maybe not today's but some older group C cars were basically F1 cars with bodywork.

 

I would say F1 cars will be fast on all 3 circuits. They can easily change the aero settings and gear ratios for high speed runs on oval tracks....

 

A flat bottom car would be too unstable to drive on a superspeedway. They were talking about bringing them back at indy several years ago but it was nixed because of safety. Once a champ car gets up to speed they would be faster on an oval. It's not just a matter of proper gearing and downforce, F1 cars are not designed for ovals.

 

I think F1's carbon brakes are the single biggest thing that makes them far faster around streets and road courses.
Aero and high tech, high HP motors are a very distant second.

 

If someone gets time, maybe they can pull up track records from different series on the same tracks. CART and NASCAR at Laguna Seca or Sears point.
F1 cars and ALMS cars in Europe somewhere.
It would be real interesting to have times to compare.

Rick

 

Not sure how it could be unstable...

If F1 cars can go through part of the oval in Indy with stable handling, and reach speeds of over 200mph before turn 1, so imagine if they did not have to set the cars up for the infield, then they can easily lap the whole oval faster than the rest of the race cars out there... this of course combined with the rest of the factors I mentioned above plus suspension settings (camber, etc.) and tire construction for the banked turns.

What do you guys think?

BTW, there was a feature they did on Schumi a couple years ago (either Dateline or 60 minutes) and asked him how fast an F1 car can go. He said if there were no aero involved and they set the gears to go for top speed, it could go up to 400 - 500 mph. Hard to believe, but this is from the boss's mouth.

Did anyone else see the show I'm talking about?

 

Well no aero involved, with all wings taken to nil it would be a small arrow pretty much. Like a top speed Salt Flats car. with 900hp.

BTW, Indy cars hit nearly 250 at Indy- they are designed to. I was going to post this earlier, but Fchat died for a sec: if it's on a track shorter than 1 or 1.5 miles, the F1 car will always win because it can use its supreme downforce to take the corners at a much higher speed, the straights aren't long enough to matter all too much. On anything longer, an Indy car will win. Especially at Martinsville (tiny, with not much banking) the F1 car would kill anything else.

 

That is only one corner, a champcar or IRL car actually takes about 2 laps to get up to speed. By that time you would be going way faster than you would if you went through that turn just once a lap. An F1 car might have the potential to run faster but the design limitations don't make it possible to reach them. The lack of ground effects would make them highly unstable at those speeds for a sustained amount of time. As far as the feature goes i didn't see it but i think an engineer would be the one to ask that not Schumi. At 500 mph with no aero involved if you hit a pebble on the road you'd be airborne.

 

as i mentioned above, imagine if we take the infield equation out and just let the F1 car go around the whole oval - setting it up for the oval, then it could potentially be faster than IRL or Cart...

What lack of ground effects? Doesn't an F1 car produce so much downforce (wing, diffusers, etc.) that's why it is capable of going through corners the way it does compared to other types of race cars.

I would agree it would be more relaible to ask an engineer rather than schumi, but I would assume he would at least know what an F1 engine is capable of doing...at the same time I am not saying this is what they will be doing on an oval. With or without pebbles on the road...

 

a little off track but doesn't MotoGP come close to F1?

 

Without getting too technical and bearing in mind i'm not an engineer, this is how it goes. An F1 car is a flatbottom car with a diffuser which is a flat plane starting with a "splitter" and ending in a diffuser section. The splitter is a lip at the front of the underwing that causes a clear division of air going under the car and air going around the car. The flatbottom makes the air on the top to have to go farther than the bottom, therefore creating lower pressure and lifting the car off the ground. Champcars have an under-tunnel, also called a Venturi tunnel. This non-flat bottom sucks the car downward due to the creation area of low pressure. This is what makes a champcar more stable than an F1 car at sustained high speed. While an F1 car might be potentially faster i wouldn't want to be in that car driving it. A champcar is way more stable at high speeds due to it's design. This is the design limitation i speak of.

 

There was a video of Jensen Button in the '04 BAR Honda vs. a Honda powered speed V-hull boat vs. a MotoGP Honda bike. The boat obviously lost, too much drag because of the water. The bike (I think it was a 1 liter bike) got off the line faster and was a head a bit, but then Button flew by him a few seconds later.

There was a video (I'm thinking 5th Gear) of a Ducati 999 (street, not race bike) vs a Gallardo around a track. They were very close, but I think the Gallardo won. If there were more straights on the track, the Ducati would've won. I think a Yamaha R1 could've beaten the Gallardo, though.

 

pretty good explanation....now we need steve matchett and company to confirm this!