J.A.W. wrote:If aero-downforce had been banned from F1, or allowed for Moto G.P. then lap average speeds
would be much closer, as A-G pointed out earlier..
So wait, you now want to handicap cars of their ability to add downforce to make them as quick as they are to prove that bikes would be closer otherwise? What's the point then of comparing bikes to cars in the first place?
J.A.W. wrote:f BMW chose to put an attempt up on the N-Ring with one of their superbikes in equivalent trim to
the prestige performance cars that do spectacle laps there, - even with a rider such as went round
on the old Yamaha (@ 7:10 in public traffic), - no doubt the road spec cars would be "destroyed".. fact..
Perhaps you need to look-up the word fact, as it doesn't really apply here. I'll call it speculation, or a guess, and pretty far from an educated one too. I'll ask again;
Have you ever even driven on the Nordschleife? (And no, not on PlayStation). The only way *any* bike will actually improve its time on the Ring, is going to be through more power, better acceleration and a higher top-speed. Bikes are already on the limit brake wise (can't beat physics) and cornering (there's only so much you can lean into a corner) - so if a bike will ever improve its time, it's by going faster on the straights - which we already have established is where the bike wins, hands down. Adding power won't just add a significant improvement however, as there is also some limit to how much of that power you can actually get on the road when you are already on or close to the limit of grip. That's what we call diminishing returns. If that 7:10 time is closer to ~7:25, it's head to head with a much slower Nissan GT-R. Or - forget the Nissan, take the Megane. It's something like 215bhp/tonne and did the 'Ring in a staggering 7 min 54 seconds. That's 30 seconds slower than what we assume the R1 would have did it in - as i said, roughly ~1.5 seconds per km slower.
A R1 will do 0-100kmh in roughly 3 seconds, 0-200kmh in under 8 seconds. We can assume 100-200kmh takes roughly 5 seconds. Brutal.
The Megane RS Trophy-R (2014) does 0-100kmh in 5.8 seconds, 0-200 in 23 seconds. I'll be nice. Lets assume it's 20 seconds. So 100-200kkmh takes around 14.2 seconds. Or to put it differently, from a standing start, when the Megane hits around 120kmh, the R1 is already past the 200kmh mark, pulling away at over 22m/s every second.
Can you even imagine what kind of a difference that is in outright acceleration? That R1 bike, well *any bike* will murder it on anything that half resembles a stretch of straight tarmac. Yet, amazingly, that Megane only loses ~1.5 seconds per km on the 'Ring. At the end, after 21km of the entire 'Ring, it's
only 30 seconds off the pace. That is quite eye opening and shows how that Megane must be
murdering the R1 everytime a corner comes up. And the 'Ring isn't all corners, that's with the long straight, which begs the question; How close would that Megane have been before it hits the straight at the end of the lap?
Which again, is logical to me, but seems entirely lost on you. All you seem to care about is that the bike did a quicker lap, without wanting to understand why and in which area the bike naturally excels, while losing out in other areas.
In the mean time, cars will continue to improve year by year, by the nature of better tyre (tech), which leads to more grip and higher cornering speeds, better acceleration through better power/weight ratios (as cars become lighter again). Which is why we've seen 'Ring times crumble as newer faster cars make it round even quicker. Sure, diminishing returns means that the improvements will be getting smaller too or that more ordinary production cars like that Megane are getting closer to more focused cars.
