planetf1.com

I've always wanted to know this, I've seen the YouTube vid of zonta a laguna seca, but is there any actual footage of a head to head race. I kno one yr they went to Montreal and were like 7 secs of the pole time in f1, but is that an accurate tool to determine judgement? Enlighten me people

On a 'road course'? - F1 is faster
On an oval? - Indycar is faster

The last time F1 and Indycar shared a circuit in the same season was 2006 at Montreal. F1 pole was Alonso in 1:14.942, while Sébastien Bourdais set pole in 1:20.005 in Champ Car. The fastest lap in the F1 race was 1:15.841 by Räikkönen, while Bourdais' fastest lap was 1:22.325 in the Champ Car race.

But max speed in F1 is only about 220mph, and that's only on the long straights. On an oval, an Indycar will do 240mph+ consistently for every lap.

Would love to see a race between the two, but didn't Honda get their F1 Car to go 413 KPH?

That surely would be down to the fact that very little downforce is required for an oval circuit in contrast to the amount required for a regular race track.

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This is where the party's at.
Webber.Button.Ricciardo.Grosjean.Hulkenberg.Lowndes.Power.Marquez.

Even in low drag an F1 car isn't quite as fast as an Indycar in a straight line. They're different beasts. An F1 car's ace in the hole is its weight. 0-60 in an F1 car is substantially quicker (assuming vaguely standard gear ratios and other variables), and they'll always be faster round a 'normal' street or circuit course. But Indycars are designed to sit at very high speed not steering much, so they will always be better at that. I'd be fascinated to see how quick an F1 car could be if set up purely for an oval, but I'd bet on the Indycar.

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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

F1 cars are setup and geared with the specific circuits in mind. On Monza, they'll go 370 km/u (low downforce, highspeed setup) whereas on e.g. Abu Dhabi they would hit about 320.

F1 cars might or might not be suited to oval racing - I don't know that much about the technical side of oval racing - but I do think they could go faster than they do on "normal" circuits when gearing and aero is set up for it.

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Go Vandoorne - Verstappen - Vettel!

Think it depends what eras you compare.


IIRC their was a time around the mid nineties the Indy cars were quicker. But I think now it's F1.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Just looked it up to remind myself.

The official record they set was 397 kph (they did 400 momentarilly but it doesn't count officially). That's about 247 mph, and 245 mph is not unusual in Indycars. But conditions had to be perfect to spike that high. Running the car at that sort of speed in 'real' race conditions would be impossible, even if it could corner on an oval, which I'm not sure it could with a vert fin for a rear wing.

You can bet the farm there's no way to make an F1 car lap an oval in a time competetive with Indycars unless you do a pretty substantial rebuild and render it illegal for F1... in which case it's not an F1 car anymore!

_________________
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

That Honda ran a pretty interesting, erm, 'rear wing' at Bonneville too:

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Supporter of Valtteri Bottas & Felipe Massa - Williams Martini Racing
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After the 1960 US GP Jack Brabham tested his F1 Cooper T53 at Indy to see how it would go. It was impressively fast, despite only having a 2.5 litre petrol engine when the Roadsters used 4.2 litre alcohol burning Offenhausers. John Cooper found a sponsorship deal and they came back for the 1961 Indy 500 with a modified T54 car, with a lengthened wheelbase and a Coventry Climax engine bored out to 2.75 litres. In the race Jack was handicapped by long pit stops (F1-type wheels rather than Indy quick change ones) and lack of power. Even so, he ran as high as third, was the fastest through the turns and eventually finished a creditable ninth.

if an f1 car was setup for top speed like monza with skinny wings and what not , it would be faster than an indy in an egg circuit(sorry oval) because it will reach that top speed quicker and will corner quicker as well

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Ask no questions, hear no lies

It's been said before that for a F1 car to do a full oval they would need completely redesigned.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

I am not 100% sure, but I think the cars back then had way more similarities than now

Remember when Ferrari was having a tiff with the governing body and threatned to pull out of f1 and join Indy. The even made a Ferrari Indy car. Can't even picture Ferrari leaving to join ansecond tier category, though would've been cool to see how the car went.

There's simply no way a legal F1 car could lap an oval at a speed competetive with an Indy car.

_________________
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

i would like to see it thou, think it would make for an interesting race, just out of curiosity would like to see it

This video once interested me, though I think it might be a heavily regulated promotional event in which Honda made sure their F1 cars were faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PB_BiBn574

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Hardly! as this photo shows, the rear-engined Cooper was dwarfed by the front-engined roadsters that comprised the rest of the 1961 field. Not to mention that the roadsters had 4.2 litre Offy engines running on methanol while the Cooper had a 2.75 Coventry Climax that used pump petrol.

Nice, never seen that before.

Not sure how much it tells us but still cool to see. We know the F1 car will fly off the line compared to an Indy, so over two laps I'm not suprised to see the Indycar destroyed. Still interesting to see them drag together, particularly as the earth car got a bad start.

_________________
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

I'm no expert on this era but wasn't this kind of a re-run of what happened in F1? The established teams had, almost blindly, gone down the big and heavy front engined route? Then a bunch of British garagistes turned up with lightweight chassis' and a Climax nailed to the middle and beat them at their own game.

_________________
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

Ah, thanks. You'd think that the lighter Cooper would smoke them actually

An F1 car could go faster than an Indy car on an oval if it was set-up for an oval. (Teams would use different style wings, and all the other stuff for what is needed for the oval)

I think the point is in their current spec they can't be set up to do ovals. there are what might seem like trivial things done to an Indy to make them run on an oval.

Remember Too F1 cars couldn't put skinny wings on like Indy because Indy uses GE for downforce.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

The fastest an F1 car has ever gone, under any circumstances, is 247 mph. That was under perfect conditions with all the support and time required, stripped of wings and emptied of fuel with engine, gear ratios, suspension, steering, bodywork and everything else specifically tailored. Even then it took them days to hit 247 mph, and it was only for a few seconds. There's no way it could go that fast under racing conditions, and 247 mph is about the speed Indycars race at, endlessly, on the faster ovals. All that's before you consider what would happen when it got to a corner (not a lot, then fire). It would have an advantage in terms of getting off the line but how long would that last?

You could use an F1 car as a basis for a car that could beat Indy's. Perhaps you'd only need to redesign the floor, retune the engine and tweek the drivetrain, I don't know. But then it wouldn't be legal, so beating a legal Indycar would be meaningless.

_________________
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

You do realize this isn't google, right?

Who on the grid likes the colour orange?
what driver has facial hair?
If all driver's girlfriends raced for them, who would win?
Why didn't Ide get a race win?
How many F1 drivers like sherbert?
If F1 wasn't called F1, what would it be called?
Why was Montoya fast in a straight line?
How do drivers handle helmet hair?
Where do F1 drivers buy their fruit from?
Why hasn't Rosberg returned my phone calls?

You heard it here, folks, the above is a list of the front-page-dominating idiot questions asked by Chriso.

Is off-season over, yet?

Yes indeed, the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix was the first F1 race in which a mid-engined car competed (Jack Brabham in a Cooper T43 Climax) and a T43 driven by Stirling Moss scored the first World Championship win for a mid-engined car at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix. The following year saw the first mid-engined World Championship - inevitably it was Jack Brabham in a Cooper.

The 1960 Italian Grand Prix saw the last F1 Championship win for a front-engined car (Phil Hill in a Ferrari 246). Ironically, Cooper and the other British teams had boycotted the race because it was run on the Monza banked circuit. By 1961 there was only one front-engined car in the F1 World Championship field - the 4WD Ferguson P99. When Jim Clark achieved the first Indy 500 win in a mid-engined car in 1965 only 6 of the 33 car field were front-engined, one of them, the 4WD STP Gas Treatment Ferguson-Novi was a development of the P99.

didnt Bourdais in the Panoz DP01 beat the track record at Laguna Seca that was previously held by a 2005 Toyota?

To me i always found that F1 cars were better in the corners and under breaking, but that Champ Car was better in terms of top speed

It was still not a level playing field, Indycar had years of development and teams have knowledge of what makes them tick at ovals, the parts are especially designed for it. From inside motorsports knowledge and personal engineering knowledge of open wheel cars, if all things where equal an F1 car would go faster. But that equally would have to come in the form of a team like McLaren or Ferrari doing proper development for oval set-up (which could potentially take more than 1-2 seasons)

As it is, IndyCars in oval trim are specially developed for ovals with people with years and years of knowledge in that area, they have the instant advantage of many years. To make things equal the same principles would need to be applied to the F1 car development.

But then, after 2 seasons of development, wouldn't your F1 Oval car just be...a slightly different Indycar?

Depends, if there was no limits to the regulations then no, but then it becomes unfair, I guess it all depends on what limits are used. Even IndyCar's are restricted from going to fast, as it's to dangerous. The limits could be endless if it wasn't for the danger.

Yeah true they don't they rekin if the engineers went nuts, that there is enough downforce to make them drive upside down. I have seen that motegi clip but kinda hard to spot which car is which as iam on a iPhone ATM .

Although I'm a fan of of another team, I'd love to see Red Bull taking the challenge of running their car on an oval. They're probably the only F1 team that would put money and time in such event.

Meantime we're just trying to guess.
Even Indicars use very different trims (bodiwork, transmission, suspension, etc.) for oval and "street" tracks. So it'd be closer to the truth if we compare their "street" setup to F1 cars. IMO even an F1 car could be good on an oval without being "illegal"

With a good gear ratio and a proper set up, F1 car could reach speeds over 450km/s or even 500km/s.

Bugatti Veyron is well down on F1, compared to power/weight ratio. Its capable of speeds around 430km/s.

If you do a special set-up, F1 car can easily beat Champ Car in oval.

I think you'll find the answer to several of the above is L'Oreal...

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Where I'm going, I don't need roads

I think the argument is they can't be set up for it without deviating from F1 rules, Indy uses ground effects which lets them get the skinny wings and still grip. If you reduced the downforce on an f1 car to get the speeds they would simply not make the corners.

Remember in '06 some couldn't handle one corner never mind a full oval. Would todays Pirellis do a full course? With the way the side walls were getting sliced I doubt it.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

The cars could handle the corner fine. There were questions over one of the brands of tyres, but not because of wearing out, it was more a construction issue I do believe. That the Pirellis wear out would have not bearing on whether they could cope with the corners.

Within the rules, F1 aerodynamicists would be able to design a aero package that could easily allow them to go as fast as Indycars, and be able to make the corners with little fuss. Yes Indycars use more ground effect, but still they run significantly less downforce than F1 cars.

Anyway, most Indycar races these days are on what Americans call "road" courses, on those, even HRT's would win easily. On the ovals, most aren't the big super speedways, most, require the cars to slow down significantly for the bends, with relatively minor aero development (still within F1 rules), F1 cars would be faster on these. On the Super Speedways they would need more drastic aero set up, but as I said earlier, even within the rules of F1, F1 cars would likely be faster than Indycars.

I'm not suggesting that those in F1 are better than Indycar, just that Indycar is a one make series, with very little development, where as F1's purpose is a constant development race , even at a restricted rate, the stuff they've learnt puts the cars in a different league all together. Back in the early to mid '90's, it would have been a different story entirely.

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"you can never be too paranoid"

If your argument includes allowing a F1 car or Champcar to be modified beyond is its normal settings then your point is moot since said car would no longer be considered a F1 car or Champcar.

I should've specified in post, I meant to say in current regulations as those cars are both today. Do you think though if possible using drs would it be faster on oval than Indy car?

Simply no