Mid 80es turbo engines, questions on top speed and lap times

[Töm87]

Hey guys, we all know the stories about the 1000Hp+ turbo engines of the mid 1980es.
Not really being a technical geek, i am quiet suprised, that top speeds and lap times weren't really all that outstanding.

For example, in the Italian Grand Prix of 1986, Berger set the top speed at 352 km/h. Of course very fast, but not as fast as one would excpect.
I mean F1 cars of the late 90es/ early 2000s had similar top speeds with a lot less hp.
So how come those cars didn't go faster? Was this due to the terrible turbo lags?

Also looking at lap times is a bit suprising.

The pole in 1986 in Monza was 1:24:07. Not really what you would expect of a car with 1000Hp+


I know my questionis probably silly for you experts. But how come cars weren't faster on "engine tracks" like Monza with those huge amounts of power?

[luke!]

I think that is a good question. Big evolutive steps have been made in the past years in terms of aerodynamic efficiency and general drivability. It's often said that power is nothing without control and infact the cars became faster with the progress made with the aero package and with the electronic systems.

[wesley123]

They had power to turn into drag and thus, drag didn't really matter

[RicerDude]

A combination of huge rear tyres, wide suspension, bulky chassis and side pods to satisfy the cooling demands of the extremely powerful engine and huge barn door triple deck rear wings to compensate for the ban on ground effects made for very inefficient and draggy cars.

[riff_raff]

Those early 80's turbo engines had horrible power delivery characteristics. Lots of turbo lag followed by a rapid jump in torque. The aero and suspension technology was also nowhere close to what it is currently.

Might be interesting to look at the lap times of the 90's cars when active suspension, ABS, TC and auto shifting were allowed.

[NoDivergence]

Because of the lack of aero grip and suspension technology, corner exit speeds coming onto the straights were much lower. That combined with engine characteristics meant that the peak power was only useful well onto the straight.

[xpensive]

As power to overcome drag goes with the cube of speed, it means that if Berger needed 1330 Hp for 352 km/h,
then 1000 Hp would had been good for enough for 320 km/h and 820 Hp would have taken him to 300 km/h.

Other than that, they were a for cry from today's ground-effects, why the had a barn-door for a rear wing.

[Töm87]

Thanks guys, seems like i overestiamted the general capabilities of those cars.

Still, i think it's really intersting that in 1989 for example, they were already laping quicker, albeit having some 500 HP less in qualifying. Quiet a fascinating technology develeopment.

I

[Smokes]

Also don't forget the tyre technology has made a big difference to lap times until this new pirelli era. It would nice to see an 80's turbo car run on the modern bridgestone compounds and see what lap times they could do

[neilbah]

variante rettifilo was quite different then, maybe two extra corners made a slight difference. Track changes are unfortunately one reason its hard to make direct comprisons over the eras. The brakes were probably not as good and brakes are important to lap time as are the other things mentioned.

[garrett]

Not really being a technical geek, i am quiet suprised, that top speeds and lap times weren't really all that outstanding.

Talking of 1986, in the case of the Ferrari F1/86, there was a huge gap between topspeed which was very competitive in most races and lap times, which were mostly poor. The reason was the bad handling of the F1/86, especially in middle-fast corners. Alboreto and Johansson complained they had to fight with the car almost all over the circuit as soon as there was a curve... Whereas the 032 tipo engine was one of the more powerful in the field, what led to good topspeeds on the straights, overall the car`s lap times were mediocre. One example I can tell is the French GP at Le Castellet, where both Ferrari were unbeatable concerning their topspeed on the Mistral (although it was the shortened version of Paul Ricard already!!). The best topspeeds were: Johansson 342,2, Alboreto 341,7 Palmer 317,4, Patrese 316,1 Prost 315,8, Warwick 315,2 Berger 314,7 Danner 314,6 Senna 314,5, Rosberg 312,8. Nevertheless, Alboreto ended up 6th in qualifying, 0,6 behind polesetter Nigel Mansell and Johansson 10th 1,1 sec behind. Mansell later complained about Alboreto being in his way on his flying lap....so, as the engine power was unbelievable, the chassis in some examples were to blame for slower laptimes!

[OO7]

The car was running a barn door rear wing to cope with the power, that is the reason.

[prokopi]

These very powerful turbo-engines need at last some time to achieve their highest boost. Also cars back in 86,87 had poor aerodynamic L/D ratio.

[Randall]

The car was running a barn door rear wing to cope with the power, that is the reason.

I remember watching the cars practicing in Montreal on a humid morning it was probably 1985 and it would have been my 1st Live F1 experience. We were walking around the track with general admission tickets and were on the long straight between 12 and 13. I seen what looked like huge ribbons running off the back of the wings and was wondering out loud what I was seeing. A more knowledgeable fan explained it was vapour trails, moisture from the compressed moist air off the wing. Was I ever impressed by that. I think it was most notable off the Ferraris.
But please excuse this is all from memory. I don't remember if I have pics but I wasn't good enough with my Minolta X700 to remember any outstanding pics from back then.

[xpensive]

This is where the 1000+ hp went, check out the rear wing;