What if? F1 vs LMP1 2014

[bhall]

Ultimately, the unfortunate fact is that there's a maximum safe speed at which we can whiz humans around a race track. There's also a maximum speed at which any of the whizzing is in any way interesting.

Formula 1 hit that speed a good 3 decades ago. Now the top end of other sports are also hitting that speed, and the result is that lots of car racing is the same speed. There's very little that can be done to make F1 extraordinary from this point on. We'll just have to accept that.

Everything mankind has ever done was considered too dangerous at some point before it was done.

(Besides, F1 is now slower than previous versions of itself.)

[sennaf1god.94]

so are they already faster today in Silverstone...

In the first day of practice they are running at the very same pace as last year:

Lucas di Grassi´s R18: 1m43.134s

Xpect the pole to be in the 1:41´s, so still no big jump in performance...

[Artur Craft]

This year's crop of LMP1 cars are producing around 1000bhp, which – with a minimum weight of 900kg – gives them a power-to-weight ratio of 1.11bhp/kg. In comparison, F1 cars in 2014 are producing around 780bhp with a minimum weight of 690kg, producing a marginally higher power-to-weight ratio of 1.13bhp/kg.

Wrong calculation because the previously 900, and now 870kg of LMP1 cars are WITHOUT driver, while F1's 691 is WITH driver included.

The LMP1 combo will weight around 250kg more than F1 combo.

Considering that 10kg increase in weight accounts to around 0,4s, then, 250kg will account for 10s !

How does Wurz knows how much downforce an F1 car currently have, though?

Even if it was true, LMP1 have 36% more weight and I don't think it will also have +36% more downforce to make it better on downforce/weight which is what really matter in cornering

If F1 cars were simply running on Michelins, that would make enogh difference that this conversation would never have happened.

Yup, but that advantage of LMP1 cars will be reduced this year because now a max width of 310mm is allowed versus 370mm in F1.

[Pierce89]

so are they already faster today in Silverstone...

Umm.... nope. The fastest they've gone today is 1:43. F1 is signifigantly quicker.

[Cold Fussion]

The LMP1 cars will be closer to 500 hp rather than 600.

That's awfully low man, I don't think so.

They have a lower fuel flow rate ( I think it is 24 g/s oppose to 27.8 ), if the F1 engines have roughly 600 HP, there's no way the LMP1 engines are going to have 600.

[Emerson.F]

This is from the last generation cars but might proof usefull.

[sennaf1god.94]

Well.

Many things came to my mind today, after seing this top speeds at Silverstone. Take into account that F1 speed traps last year were 311.8kph:

Team Car Class Driver Top Speed Lap Session
14 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 - H Neel JANI 308.6 2 Free Practice 1
20 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 - H Brendon HARTLEY 305.1 19 Free Practice 1
8 Toyota Racing Toyota TS 040 - Hybrid LMP1 - H Anthony DAVIDSON 285.0 3 Qualifying Practice
7 Toyota Racing Toyota TS 040 - Hybrid LMP1 - H Alexander WURZ 284.2 14 Free Practice 3
13 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 - Toyota LMP1 - L Fabio LEIMER 278.4 4 Qualifying Practice
2 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro LMP1 - H André LOTTERER 277.6 33 Free Practice 2
1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro LMP1 - H Lucas DI GRASSI 275.5 15 Free Practice 2

Compare that with last year smaller engine´s cars:

Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro LMP1 Marcel FÄSSLER 289.0 8 Qualifying Practice
2 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro LMP1 Allan McNISH 288.2 9 Qualifying Practice
7 Toyota Racing Toyota TS030 - Hybrid LMP1 Nicolas LAPIERRE 285.2 6 Free Practice 3
8 Toyota Racing Toyota TS030 - Hybrid LMP1 Stéphane SARRAZIN 285.2 20 Free Practice 3

Also notice the fastest time today wasn´t too far from my predicted 1:41...

Lucas DI GRASSI, Loïc DUVAL, Tom KRISTENSEN Audi R18 e-tron quattro M 1:42.477

So, I understand that at least both Toyota and Audi are currently sandbagging, with Audi in big stile...

[WhiteBlue]

With 1:44.2 LMP1 is still considerately slower than last year's F1 1:33.x.
But the racing is brilliant, plus the technology is fascinating. F1 take notice!

[sennaf1god.94]

With 1:44.2 LMP1 is still considerately slower than last year's F1 1:33.x.
But the racing is brilliant, plus the technology is fascinating. F1 take notice!

Well... two aspects missing there:

a) Current F1´s are 3-4 second slower, take China as a measurement:

1:36.808 (2013)
1:40.402 (2014)

So xpecting a 1:37 as the reference raw pace for Silverstone, then LMP1´s might be up to 7 seconds slower...

b) Current F1 stints have a wider time range than LMP1´s.

Today we could find that times during the F1 race have differences as huge as 6 seconds between the start of the race and the first laps after the last pistop. Where LMP1 stints reduces to 1-2 seconds from one pit stop to another.

So we should have a 1:46- 1:40 range of times for backmackers during the 2014 British GP, therefore LMP1 cars should actually battle them at least during the first half of the race.


Take notice that last year´s fastest race lap was a 1:42.767 by Allan McNish, so I guess that the track today wasn´t up to optimum temperature (it rained after the first stop), and therefore there´s a margin of 2-3 seconds that relates to asphalt´s performance. And we´re not considering yet the sandbagging, or setup factors (Porsche and Toyota raced in LeMans trim)...

[sennaf1god.94]

(Porsche and Toyota raced in LeMans trim)...

Toyota will run its two TS040 Hybrids in low-downforce Le Mans configuration in this weekend's Spa World Endurance Championship event.

The Japanese manufacturer, which finished 1-2 in the Silverstone series opener earlier this month (pictured), has opted to gain experience with its Le Mans aero at Spa, a circuit that traditionally requires lower downforce levels than the British track.

Porsche raced its 919 Hybrids at Silverstone at low-downforce levels as it gears up for its first bid for outright honors at Le Mans since 1998.

I guess I was wrong and Toyota will run an even lower downforce LeMans-setup for Spa... but considering the little differences between the two cars pictured above at Silverstone...

How low can be the low downforce setup of the TS40???

[gixxer_drew]

Everything mankind has ever done was considered too dangerous at some point before it was done.

(Besides, F1 is now slower than previous versions of itself.)

Yes!

I get we want everything to safe and I think we have to do that to an extent. Since Senna died 3 F1 trackside workers died and not one driver. How safe do we need it to be? If we are so safe, do we stop inventing life saving technologies? If we do not push the limit of what is possible, we merely create entertainment.

Imagine if we talked about going to the moon like we do about driving an F1 car. It would have never happened.

We dont have a cold war to continue pushing us to new heights. Is sport not a better way? We can choose how hard we push and maybe F1 of the past had gone too far, but surely it being more likely to die working track side than driving a car has gone back the other way....