CART vs. F1?
02-09-2001, 07:52 PM
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You'll have to pardon my ignorance on this subject and I hope not to get flamed but what is the difference between CART's and F1 cars? I know that F1 cars are superior but by how much? I'd love to see some pics to visualize the difference if you have them.
02-09-2001, 10:01 PM
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There is a lot of difference between F1 and CART. F1 rule, every team have to menufactor it's own chassis. In CART, you can buy chassis (Reynard or something else I forgot), or like Penske. They make their own. Therefore, most of F1 cars are designed in a wind tunnel. CART are design for high speed ovals with occasional road course.
All CART engine has to be V8. But, F1 are restricted to 3.0 natural aspirated engine, configuration are free (V8, V10, V12 or anything else).
F1 are using treaded dry tire, the purpose is to slow down the car during cornering and increase passing opportunity. But, the technology in F1 advance so fast that the previous year time is surpassed easily with more regulation to slow the car down.
Also one more major difference, F1 doesn't use Pace car when there is a accident on the track. The track marshal cleans the debrise fairly fast. and, F1 races rain or shine.
Hope this will clear some differences. But, there is a lot more difference between the two. No one can say which car is better. Each car is designed specific for each respected series. But, general rule of thumb. F1 has spend a lot of time studying, testing and less time racing. There are only 16 to 17 races a year and almost testing available every single weekend and weekday around the world.
I have a bunch of Pics that I took of F1 in Indy at the following link.
http://pics.perry.no-ip.com/
check it out.
All CART engine has to be V8. But, F1 are restricted to 3.0 natural aspirated engine, configuration are free (V8, V10, V12 or anything else).
F1 are using treaded dry tire, the purpose is to slow down the car during cornering and increase passing opportunity. But, the technology in F1 advance so fast that the previous year time is surpassed easily with more regulation to slow the car down.
Also one more major difference, F1 doesn't use Pace car when there is a accident on the track. The track marshal cleans the debrise fairly fast. and, F1 races rain or shine.
Hope this will clear some differences. But, there is a lot more difference between the two. No one can say which car is better. Each car is designed specific for each respected series. But, general rule of thumb. F1 has spend a lot of time studying, testing and less time racing. There are only 16 to 17 races a year and almost testing available every single weekend and weekday around the world.
I have a bunch of Pics that I took of F1 in Indy at the following link.
http://pics.perry.no-ip.com/
check it out.
02-10-2001, 01:56 AM
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Hasn't the FIA decreed that ten cylinders are mandatory in Formula 1?
ARTICLE 5 : ENGINE
5.1 Engine specification :
5.1.1) Only 4-stroke engines with reciprocating pistons are permitted.
5.1.2) Engine capacity must not exceed 3000 cc.
5.1.3) Supercharging is forbidden.
5.1.4) [red]All engines must have 10 cylinders[/red] and the normal section of each cylinder must be circular.
5.1.5) Engines may have no more than 5 valves per cylinder.
[Edited by lvs2k on 02-10-2001 at 04:01 AM]
ARTICLE 5 : ENGINE
5.1 Engine specification :
5.1.1) Only 4-stroke engines with reciprocating pistons are permitted.
5.1.2) Engine capacity must not exceed 3000 cc.
5.1.3) Supercharging is forbidden.
5.1.4) [red]All engines must have 10 cylinders[/red] and the normal section of each cylinder must be circular.
5.1.5) Engines may have no more than 5 valves per cylinder.
[Edited by lvs2k on 02-10-2001 at 04:01 AM]
02-10-2001, 06:45 AM
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Botom line is - the F1s are a faster in every respect. If you put an F1 car and a CART car on a track then the F1 car would always win ... and by a fair bit. I can't remember the exact numbers but there'd be at least 5 seconds a lap difference.
If you look at the specs then the CART cars actually have a more power ... I think they have about 550kW while the F1 cars have about 450kW. The engines are much smaller in F1 (by resdtriction). Though, despite the power advantage, the CART cars weight a lot more than F1 cars. F1 cars weight about 650kg (that includes drivers and fluids) while the CART cars weight about 850kg.
In F1 every single component is 'state of the art' (and therefore incredibly expensive) while the CART cars are made more from the 'of the shelf' parts. You can run a decent CART team (for a season) for about $10 - 20 million. While that will barelly finance you for one race in F1. Some of the better teams have a budget of about 1-2 billion per year. If you ask 'where the money goes' - well the FIA keeps on thinking of ways to make the cars slower (ie. worse handling and weaker) while the teams try and work around that deficit and manage to go faster every year. What this does though is make the F1 cars very evil handling cars - they are quick (fatster than anything else ... and in particular CART cars) but the only reason why they are quick is 'cos they have power and downforce. All the grip on the car is from the downforce - moment that goes, the car is literally a piece of projectile brick that handles like one as well. This is not necesarry the fault of the F1 temas but more because of the rules - like giving that tyres that have no grip, making the cars thinner etc - it all adds up to a crappy handling car but the team manage to get speed out of the cars by applying more power and downforce. They don't really have a choice.
When you look at CART cars, they are heavier, but generally speaking a much nicer handling vehicles. The downforce helps them (a lot) but without the wings they still drive pretty damn well (as you often see CART cars driving without wings. F1 cars can't do that). Ultimately though, they are slower through the corners as they don't have the same ultimate grip as F1 cars. And they are slower on the straight as they can't match the weight to power ration of F1 cars.
Because of this, the CART cars are actually able to race each other unlike the F1s. F1 are at the moment designed to be fast ... but fast without anyone else on the road. Once there is someone ahead of you, the F1 car loses most of it's speed (because it loses downforce). In F1 races, one car cannot get past another car even though it's quicker unless the other car makes a mistake or let's you by. It's been claimed by F1 teams that you need to be 3-4 secs quicker per lap in order to be able to pass someone. This does not look good when you concider that the top 10 cars are usually all withoun 1 sec and that that the whole field can usually fit into the 4 sec margin.
Though, then the CART races are not left up to to drivers/cars (and their speed) but more to 'pot luck' as the fastest guy rarely wins. You do need speed (though average speed will do) and then a lot of luck and 'educated guesses' beaucse CART races are decided by accidents (ie. pace cars) and pit stops (timing them around the accidents and making less of them because of them). In CARTs you can build up a 40 second lead and then lose it in one lap just because someone had an accident and the pace car came out. On the other hand F1 races are decided in qualifying and by DNFs. From the qualifying you can usually narrow down the winner to four people and then even between them some will not finish so it makes the choices even smaller.
If you look at the specs then the CART cars actually have a more power ... I think they have about 550kW while the F1 cars have about 450kW. The engines are much smaller in F1 (by resdtriction). Though, despite the power advantage, the CART cars weight a lot more than F1 cars. F1 cars weight about 650kg (that includes drivers and fluids) while the CART cars weight about 850kg.
In F1 every single component is 'state of the art' (and therefore incredibly expensive) while the CART cars are made more from the 'of the shelf' parts. You can run a decent CART team (for a season) for about $10 - 20 million. While that will barelly finance you for one race in F1. Some of the better teams have a budget of about 1-2 billion per year. If you ask 'where the money goes' - well the FIA keeps on thinking of ways to make the cars slower (ie. worse handling and weaker) while the teams try and work around that deficit and manage to go faster every year. What this does though is make the F1 cars very evil handling cars - they are quick (fatster than anything else ... and in particular CART cars) but the only reason why they are quick is 'cos they have power and downforce. All the grip on the car is from the downforce - moment that goes, the car is literally a piece of projectile brick that handles like one as well. This is not necesarry the fault of the F1 temas but more because of the rules - like giving that tyres that have no grip, making the cars thinner etc - it all adds up to a crappy handling car but the team manage to get speed out of the cars by applying more power and downforce. They don't really have a choice.
When you look at CART cars, they are heavier, but generally speaking a much nicer handling vehicles. The downforce helps them (a lot) but without the wings they still drive pretty damn well (as you often see CART cars driving without wings. F1 cars can't do that). Ultimately though, they are slower through the corners as they don't have the same ultimate grip as F1 cars. And they are slower on the straight as they can't match the weight to power ration of F1 cars.
Because of this, the CART cars are actually able to race each other unlike the F1s. F1 are at the moment designed to be fast ... but fast without anyone else on the road. Once there is someone ahead of you, the F1 car loses most of it's speed (because it loses downforce). In F1 races, one car cannot get past another car even though it's quicker unless the other car makes a mistake or let's you by. It's been claimed by F1 teams that you need to be 3-4 secs quicker per lap in order to be able to pass someone. This does not look good when you concider that the top 10 cars are usually all withoun 1 sec and that that the whole field can usually fit into the 4 sec margin.
Though, then the CART races are not left up to to drivers/cars (and their speed) but more to 'pot luck' as the fastest guy rarely wins. You do need speed (though average speed will do) and then a lot of luck and 'educated guesses' beaucse CART races are decided by accidents (ie. pace cars) and pit stops (timing them around the accidents and making less of them because of them). In CARTs you can build up a 40 second lead and then lose it in one lap just because someone had an accident and the pace car came out. On the other hand F1 races are decided in qualifying and by DNFs. From the qualifying you can usually narrow down the winner to four people and then even between them some will not finish so it makes the choices even smaller.
02-10-2001, 07:00 AM
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Originally posted by Stealthy_S2K
No one can say which car is better...
No one can say which car is better...
Formula 1 racing is the most popular spectator sport in the world after soccer.
Formula 1 teams' annual budgets are virtually unlimited. Therefore, they have the most advanced racing cars in the world and the best drivers in the world.
If an F1 team is not willing to spend upward of $400 million a year on their team -- like the top two teams do -- they're not going to win many races.
Italy regards the Ferrari F1 team as a significant contributor to national prestige - sort of like how in the U.S. we view our NASA Space Program. Therefore, the Italian government indirectly funds Ferrari's R&D and operating budgets to "do whatever it takes" to build the most advanced race cars and secure the best drivers for Ferrari.
The F1 drivers are the "best of the best". To use a baseball analogy: F1 is the Majors and CART is the Minors. Some CART champions coming off championship CART seasons have been offered drives in Formula 1, couldn't compete, and fired after their first F1 season! Pretty humiliating but an indication of just how competitive F1 is!
I guess it boils down to whether or not you are interested in following the top tier of automobile road racing. If you are, there is no question what you must watch: Formula One!
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02-10-2001, 10:25 PM
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Originally posted by MJMSC
...a McLaren (sp?) - what a fine piece of machinery !
...a McLaren (sp?) - what a fine piece of machinery
!
Ferrari narrowed the gap between their cars and the McLarens enough so that Michael Schumacher could put Ferrari over the top.
As you know, "Schumi" is the best Formula One driver out there today. He is getting old though and probably has only another couple of seasons before a younger driver takes the reigns...
02-11-2001, 10:11 AM
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Originally posted by DavidM
Botom line is - the F1s are a faster in every respect. If you put an F1 car and a CART car on a track then the F1 car would always win ... and by a fair bit. I can't remember the exact numbers but there'd be at least 5 seconds a lap difference.
Botom line is - the F1s are a faster in every respect. If you put an F1 car and a CART car on a track then the F1 car would always win ... and by a fair bit. I can't remember the exact numbers but there'd be at least 5 seconds a lap difference.
It might be interesting when the CART guys run at Montreal... if the track is kept the same for both series, you then will have an EQUAL venue to base a comparison... until then, its pretty much speculation.
When you look at CART cars, they are heavier, but generally speaking a much nicer handling vehicles. The downforce helps them (a lot) but without the wings they still drive pretty damn well (as you often see CART cars driving without wings. F1 cars can't do that). Ultimately though, they are slower through the corners as they don't have the same ultimate grip as F1 cars. And they are slower on the straight as they can't match the weight to power ration of F1 cars.
I assume that without wings, you mean the wings tilted back in a low drag/downforce manner, and not PHYSICALLY no wing. A lot of the CART grip does come from the undertray as well. Again, I mention that we need to compare the 2 cars on the SAME track to make a fair comparison. I will mention that a few years back, Al Unser Jr. driving the new Penske machine (in preseason testing) did lap Silverstone faster than an F1 car, so that somewhat blows your theory about the F1 car being faster... and while he didn't do so well in F1, Alex Zanardi did complain about the "lack of grip" in an F1 car... I know he is not the best example, but it might be interesting to see Juan Montoya's performance in F1 and see how it fares. Recall that Williams was not exactly a stellar team when Zanardi ran for them. And just to show how important the car is in F1, how do you explain Jacques Villeneuve going from Champ to Chump in 1 year of F1? Surely it wasnt his driving, it must have been the car/team. And then Zanardi stepped right into this team. Luckily, the Williams BMW team has been better than the Williams Supertec team was. This is bound to help Juan Montoya out.
Because of this, the CART cars are actually able to race each other unlike the F1s. F1 are at the moment designed to be fast ... but fast without anyone else on the road. Once there is someone ahead of you, the F1 car loses most of it's speed (because it loses downforce). In F1 races, one car cannot get past another car even though it's quicker unless the other car makes a mistake or let's you by. It's been claimed by F1 teams that you need to be 3-4 secs quicker per lap in order to be able to pass someone. This does not look good when you concider that the top 10 cars are usually all withoun 1 sec and that that the whole field can usually fit into the 4 sec margin.
CART fields are that close together too, and usually closer... In qualifying, its not uncommon to have 20 cars within 1 second. I dont see your point... As for them being able to race each other, isnt that what TRUE racing is about? I dont know if watching 2 sets of cars beat the rest of the field by some crazy margin is really racing. Recall when the McLarens lapped the entire field at Australia a few years back? I certainly dont call that racing.
Though, then the CART races are not left up to to drivers/cars (and their speed) but more to 'pot luck' as the fastest guy rarely wins. You do need speed (though average speed will do) and then a lot of luck and 'educated guesses' beaucse CART races are decided by accidents (ie. pace cars) and pit stops (timing them around the accidents and making less of them because of them). In CARTs you can build up a 40 second lead and then lose it in one lap just because someone had an accident and the pace car came out. On the other hand F1 races are decided in qualifying and by DNFs. From the qualifying you can usually narrow down the winner to four people and then even between them some will not finish so it makes the choices even smaller.
So, CART races are not up to the driver, just luck? I guess that means that in F1 unless you drive for Ferrari or McLaren, you have bad luck? In CART, yes you can build up a lead and then lose it and that showcases where a good driver has to drive extra well to build the lead back up. I have a hard time considering F1 real racing anymore. When 1 of 2 teams is usually the winner, its not really racing anymore.
In F1, if you drive a Ferrari or McLaren and the car doesnt break, your team doesnt botch your pitstop, and you dont crash, you will VERY likely win. Even a certain mistake can be overcome because you have a faster car than your competition.
You can do ALL that in CART, but someone could still outdrive you. Because the cars are VERY equal.
Care to pick which team will win the season opener for CART? I'd say you have MUCH better odds of picking the winning team for the F1 season opener. Ferrari, McLaren. Maybe thorugh some altercations, Williams or Jordan might have a chance... I prefer to watch racing vs a game of follow the leader...
thats my .02 worth on the topic...