Ultra_Nexus

Yeah, the Xbow is over 800kg though and the Red Bull ring will favour a bike.

Ultra_Nexus

No, they are a product of each other

Nottm_S2

The 5th gear thing is on youtube. Its rubbish so as per form for them.

unclefester

No, they are a product of each other
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Are we including gravity in downforce now then? Surely gravity gives you a degree of basic mechanical grip which downforce can be added to.

Ultra_Nexus

Gravity isn't downforce. Gravity applies to the mass of the car - the higher the mass, the more the gravity acts on it. Problem being is that the more grip you need to pull the mass around the corner.

Downforce is a force that only acts straight down. Really it is negative lift and it allows a car weighing 500kg to have the mechanical grip of a car weighing more but without the penalty of mass.

Moving beyond that, there is a way the tyre will work with a certain loading and the continued increased loading will not give you a linear benefit. Basically, a car weighing 1000kg will not have twice the grip as a car weighing 500kg.

eSeM

That could be explained a little better ..... the greater the mass the greater the mechanical grip as a result of gravity.

unclefester

The point being you can't have mechanical grip and downforce as a by product of each other without taking gravity ( weight / mass) into account on its own before you introduce downforce to add more grip without adding more mass / weight.

Edit: What ESEM said

SCZ4

Depends on the circuit (I don't know Anglesey). Westfields are great on tight\slow circuits but anything with a decent straight they lose out to even modestly fast cars, so a bike will make up a LOT of ground which will be hard to claw back under braking and cornering.

I'm saying this as an ex Westfield owner (180bhp Zetec), even with an aersoscreen the car seemed to hit a brick wall at around 90mph, awesome round the tight stuff though and very agile.

Ultra_Nexus

Well, the only time an M3 CSL came past me was when I hit the limiter in 5th at 142 leptons.

Otherwise, I left him like an S2000 would leave a 1.6 Focus.

SCZ4

Fair enough, perhaps the extra power makes all the difference... * I'm not saying it didn't accelerate after 90mph, but it really tailed off. Felt slower than say the S2000 does, aerodynamics of a brick really.

To put it into prospective, I remember running a 13.2 1/4 mile, top speed was 101mph. A friends Cossie did a 13.6 1/4 miles, but a top speed of 112mph.