Top Speed Comparison

Top Speed Comparison

Post by The Digital L » Thu, 13 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
or a real F1?

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Daisuke Yan » Thu, 13 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:

> Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
> Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

> BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
> or a real F1?

As far as the top speed during the race: Indy (240mph+ at MIS), Le Mans-
LM class (230mph+? on the back straight), and F1(200mpt+).\
Acceleration wise, proabably: F1(I heard various numbers, but supposedly,
they can do 0 - 100 mph(160kph) in well under 2 seconds), Le Mans-LM
class, and then Indy.
I would think that, on a same road course circuit, the order would
be F1, Indy, and then Le Mans-LM class.  But it, again will depend on
what type of road course, I guess.  Tight course would be advantageous
to the Le Mans-LM class cars since they have lot more down force.
I don't think that road legal/race ready McLaren F1 would come anywhere
close to any true F1 cars, even the Forti's, for quickness.
These are all my guesses.  Does anybody know in detail?

Daisuke Yano


 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Alex Wild » Fri, 14 Jun 1996 04:00:00


: Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
: Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

Drag racing, I'd have thought.

: BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
: or a real F1?
:

I seem to remember a UK magazine testing Prosts 1993 championship winning
car and saying that it did 0-170 mph in a shade under 10 seconds. I can't
see a current F1 car being quicker as Prosts had traction control and more
power.

The McLaren F1, in road car trim, does 0-170 mph in 17.2 seconds, and /only/
acheves 125 mph in 10 seconds. However the most impressive acceleration
figure for the F1 is; 180-200 mph in sixth, 7.6 seconds.

After looking through a F1 road test I just had to post this snip-it;

    "Full throtle at 60mph in sixth produces a noise closer to the
     Mustang in Bullitt, only louder. It's a growling crackle that bores
     into your brain.... Drop four gears and repeat the exercise and...."

Alex.

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Torgeir Fos » Fri, 14 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:

> Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
> Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

> BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
> or a real F1?

The oval races in Indycar racing is probably the fastest with average speeds on some circuits at over 240mph.
The qualifying record is over 400kph (250mph), AFAIK, which was set at Indianapolis.
The fastest F1 race currently is Monza, I think, where they have a top speed at the end of the main straight
of about 340kph (~211mph). Hockenheim is also very fast.
I read some place that the MacLaren F1 street car actually was faster in acceleration than an F1 car due to
the nonexistant downforce. I don't know if this is true, but generally I would think that an F1 car would be
MUCH faster around a racetrack. On the icnsportsweb.com page they claim the Renault Williams can do 0-100kph
in ~2secs. In another article I read in this newsgroup (I think)some time ago, there was a printout of the
telemetry from a Williams Renault from the 93 season which showed an acceleration of 0-278kph in ~11s !

Torgeir

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Matt Peters » Fri, 14 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Quote:

> The oval races in Indycar racing is probably the fastest with average speeds on some circuits at over 240mph.
> The qualifying record is over 400kph (250mph), AFAIK, which was set at Indianapolis.

   Nope, not even close.  The qualifying record is closer to 235mph
(379kph?) than to 250mph!  I think the qualifying record is 235mph by
Mario Andretti at Michigan International Speedway.  Even then, the
record average speed (with pits stops, yellows, and such) is around
180mph for a race at Indy,

Matt Peterson

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by GAUNTL » Sat, 15 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:
>Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
>Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

>BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
>or a real F1?

The McLaren F1 gets to a mere 1.1g max the forti would get 4g {this is
all in tyre grip and the higher grade mechanical suspension. The
weight of the forti would be a major bonus. There would be an massisve
difference in downforce also as the mclarenF1 has no front wings and
nothing much to speak of in the rear wing department.

The main differance in acceleration would be after 100mph when the
real race car would keep up a fair rate but the road car would start
going up pretty slowly {braking would also be way better in the
mcLaren race car due to the weight of the car and the awesome tyre
grip}.

Indycars have greater top speed as they run on superspeedways where
they will reach speeds of about 245 at the end of the straights {turbo
charging}

An F1 car will have better acceleration as there will  be no turbo lag
when the driver floors so u get max power and therefore torque
straight away in indycars there would be a brief lull.

I don't know shit about le mans so i wouldn't pretend i do........

Beans on the other hand are very nutritious and a great addition to
any meal time

GAUNTLET

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Jay A. Cari » Sat, 15 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:


> > Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
> > Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?

> > BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
> > or a real F1?
> As far as the top speed during the race: Indy (240mph+ at MIS), Le Mans-
> LM class (230mph+? on the back straight), and F1(200mpt+).\
> Acceleration wise, proabably: F1(I heard various numbers, but supposedly,
> they can do 0 - 100 mph(160kph) in well under 2 seconds), Le Mans-LM
> class, and then Indy.
> I would think that, on a same road course circuit, the order would
> be F1, Indy, and then Le Mans-LM class.  But it, again will depend on
> what type of road course, I guess.  Tight course would be advantageous
> to the Le Mans-LM class cars since they have lot more down force.
> I don't think that road legal/race ready McLaren F1 would come anywhere
> close to any true F1 cars, even the Forti's, for quickness.
> These are all my guesses.  Does anybody know in detail?

Jacques Villeneuve has stated that he thinks his "old" Reynard-Ford can
outdrag his Williams. Plus, he thinks it (the old car) would be more than
a match for his Williams at Silverstone.

Jay
--

The Racer Archive
<http://student-www.eng.hawaii.edu/carina/ra.home.page.html>

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by plantm » Sun, 16 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Quote:
>Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
>Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?
>BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
>or a real F1?

It seems to me that Indy car are pretty rubbish, for all their tubo
charging and small wings there always seems to be a pretty bog
standard road leading the races :)

Plantman

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by plantm » Sun, 16 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:


>>Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
>>Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?  How about their acceleration?
>>BTW, which is quicker?  The road legal/race ready McLaren F1 supercar
>>or a real F1?
>It seems to me that Indy car are pretty rubbish, for all their tubo
>charging and small wings there always seems to be a pretty bog
>standard road leading the races :)
>Plantman

Perhaps if Indycars had turbo chargers and not tubo ones they might be
ok - oooooooops

Plantman

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by torg.. » Sun, 16 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Quote:


>> The oval races in Indycar racing is probably the fastest with average speeds on some circuits at over 240mph.
>> The qualifying record is over 400kph (250mph), AFAIK, which was set at Indianapolis.

>   Nope, not even close.  The qualifying record is closer to 235mph
>(379kph?) than to 250mph!  I think the qualifying record is 235mph by
>Mario Andretti at Michigan International Speedway.  Even then, the
>record average speed (with pits stops, yellows, and such) is around
>180mph for a race at Indy,

The Pensky Mercedes had qualifying engines with 1000+ bhp and reached speeds of around 400kph,
not in average lap speed, but top speed. Also, what I meant with average speed was over a lap.
The average race speed would, as you say, be much slower.

Torgeir

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Rui Pedro Mendes Salguei » Sun, 16 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Quote:
> Which is the quickest type of racing in the world?  Is it Le Mans,
> Indy or F1?  What are their top speed?

Top speed is easy: the current speed record in a closed race circuit
(this excludes the dried salt lakes used for speed records) is 404 Km/h
in the old version of the Hunaudieres straight (Le Mans). Very close
following is Indyanapolis at 403 Km/h this year. This means that next year,
if the rules are not changed the Indy (or IRL) cars will get that record.

Both these speeds were done in qualifying. In the case of Le Mans the
speed was reached by a small French Team (WR ?), which was not able to
fight for pole position and so concentrated instead in the top speed ,
so the newspapers would talk about them.

The Hunaudieres straight used to be about 5 Km long, but now it has 2
chicanes which broke it in 3 parts, so these kind of speed are no longer
possible (it was considered too dangerous and without sport interest.
And the public was not allowed in that part of the circuit anyway).

BTW in the old days the Mulsanne corner, which ends the Hunaudieres straight,
was taken at 50 Km/h. Even today it is still a somewhat low speed corner
with speeds at around 110 Km/h. Now that is an interesting braking area.

Le Man: http://www-24h.univ-lemans.fr/ (but it is down at this moment.)

F1s have much lower top speeds with the record at around 340 Km/h
in Hockenheim.
I think somebody already mentioned Keke Rosberg qualifying lap at
Silverstone 1985: 258.978 Km/h. This is the fastest lap ever in F1.

It would be interesting to send some of these race cars to the Nardo ring.
This is a test track owned by Fiat (?) in the south of Italy which is a
ring 12 Km long and with banking. It has been used for speed records,
like when Mercedes noticed that nobody had improved the 50000 Km record
for quite some years and beated it with the 190/2.3-16 (mid-80s).

The McLaren F1 (stupid name for a car that is racing at Le Mans) is
capable of around 373 Km/h. The problem is to find a long enough straight.
One of those cars was at Portugal last year to beat the national speed
record which was something very old and slow. The official one, of
course. The non-official one was probably done by the journalist that
drove the only (at least at the time) Portuguese F40 from Oporto to
Lisbon and got to slightly more than 300 Km/h.

It was Johnatan Palmer that was driving the McLaren. Some journalists
also drove it but they couldn't reach more than about 350 Km/h, due to
the smallness of the braking area. This was done at a military air base.

--
http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/f1/  an ex-tiffoso until the end of 1997

.pt is Portugal| `Whom the gods love die young'-Menander (342-292 BC)
        Europe |    Villeneuve 50-82, Toivonen 56-86, Senna 60-94

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Chindog » Sun, 16 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:



>> The oval races in Indycar racing is probably the fastest with average
>> speeds on some circuits at over 240mph. The qualifying record is over
>> 400kph (250mph), AFAIK, which was set at Indianapolis.
>    Nope, not even close.  The qualifying record is closer to 235mph
> (379kph?) than to 250mph!  I think the qualifying record is 235mph by
> Mario Andretti at Michigan International Speedway.  Even then, the
> record average speed (with pits stops, yellows, and such) is around
> 180mph for a race at Indy,

> Matt Peterson

        Hi,

         Yes, this year both Michigan and Indianapolis qualifying times were
    around 235 mph.     In Le Mans top speeds used to be over
    400 km/h before they added two chichanes on Mulsanne straight(sp?).
        Lap times are nowadays around 215-210 km/h in qualifyings.

--
Markus Pelkonen

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by Matt Peters » Mon, 17 Jun 1996 04:00:00



Quote:
> Top speed is easy: the current speed record in a closed race circuit
> (this excludes the dried salt lakes used for speed records) is 404 Km/h
> in the old version of the Hunaudieres straight (Le Mans). Very close
> following is Indyanapolis at 403 Km/h this year. This means that next year,
> if the rules are not changed the Indy (or IRL) cars will get that record.

No, no, no:

Michigan: 232.025 mph (374.23kph) - 1996 (Vasser) - pole
          234.275 mph (377.86kph) - 1993 (Andretti) - record
qualification

Indy:     233.100 mph (375.96kph) - 1996 (Stewart)- pole
          236.986 mph (382.24kph) - 1996 (Luyendyk)- record
qualification

I'm not sure why you think that the record is around 400kph (you aren't
the first person to post that figure, BTW).  Maybe someone sent out a
press release with math errors?

Matt Peterson

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by James P. Spence » Mon, 17 Jun 1996 04:00:00

Quote:



> > Top speed is easy: the current speed record in a closed race circuit
> > (this excludes the dried salt lakes used for speed records) is 404 Km/h
> > in the old version of the Hunaudieres straight (Le Mans). Very close
> > following is Indyanapolis at 403 Km/h this year. This means that next year,
> > if the rules are not changed the Indy (or IRL) cars will get that record.

> No, no, no:

> Michigan: 232.025 mph (374.23kph) - 1996 (Vasser) - pole
>           234.275 mph (377.86kph) - 1993 (Andretti) - record
> qualification

> Indy:     233.100 mph (375.96kph) - 1996 (Stewart)- pole
>           236.986 mph (382.24kph) - 1996 (Luyendyk)- record
> qualification

> I'm not sure why you think that the record is around 400kph (you aren't
> the first person to post that figure, BTW).  Maybe someone sent out a
> press release with math errors?

> Matt Peterson

I must be missing something.  If the test is simply what is the fastest
close course, then it almost certainly would be one of the high banked
ovals used by NASCAR.  In this regard, Mark Donahue tried for (and I
thought set) a closed course record on the Talladega track using a
moth-balled Porsche 917 CanAm car.  Does anyone recall what that speed
was?

--
========================================================================
==

                 "We don't need no stinkin badges!"
========================================================================
==

 
 
 

Top Speed Comparison

Post by DJOU » Mon, 17 Jun 1996 04:00:00


Quote:
> Top speed is easy: the current speed record in a closed race circuit
> (this excludes the dried salt lakes used for speed records) is 404 Km/h
> in the old version of the Hunaudieres straight (Le Mans). (...)

> In the case of Le Mans the
> speed was reached by a small French Team (WR ?), which was not able to
> fight for pole position and so concentrated instead in the top speed ,
> so the newspapers would talk about them.

Actually that team was WM, but you may have confused because WR have run at
Le Mans for two years with a Peugeot engine, and WM was using a Peugeot
engine too : a 6 cylinders with two turbos.
You said they only aimed at breaking the 400 km/h limit (what is true), but
they managed to be third once...

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