The '94 season was the all time high of computerized F1 cars with TC, LC Active suspention, remapping of engines on the fly.
The '94 season was the all time high of computerized F1 cars with TC, LC Active suspention, remapping of engines on the fly.
CART cars are heavier. They are not designed by the teams (as is required in F1). Less high tech but just as fast I would say.
Putting a F1 and a CART car on the same track would result in total ownage by the F1 car but I believe that a F1 car would get smoked by a CART car on an oval. I don't believe the F1 engines can handle 500 miles at 19000rpm (just my thought) and the F1 cars would probably be slower due to more ground effect.
This is just my thoughts and should not be considered facts.
Venturi tunnels
Sort of the airplane wing in reverse idea, the underbody of the car is shaped so as to increase air velocity and create a lower pressure underneath the car, resulting in a net downforce.
First link I could find, read the chassis section
One of the differences between F1 and CART -- CART allows venturis and F1 doesn't. You can still generate downforce with a flat underbody by running it close to the ground, which is one of the reasons F1 cars are always as low as possible within the rules. In the active suspension era of F1 (early 90's), they could manipulate the ride height during the course of a lap to enhance aerodynamics at high speeds.
Demon-Xanth
Lifer
- Feb 15, 2000
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F1 cars do have venturi tunnels and TONS of trick effects (last I checked atleast). AWD only helps you until you can accelerate enough to life the front wheels, then it's just dead weight. added complexity, and added drivetrain loss.
Ground effects have been outlawed in F1 since the early 80's according to what I've read. I think they run stepped bottoms in fact.
Better link than the other one, with pictures (including a HUGE diffuser)
Demon-Xanth
Lifer
- Feb 15, 2000
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I thought thier size has been regulated, but not outlawed. (maybe that's just another series) Though the stepped floor, and some tricks like platforms infront of the rear wheel can be considered those...
Wow, this topic picked up . For those of you interested in the 'glory days' of F1 technology, be aware that Speed Channel is re-running the 1993 F1 season on off-race Sundays. It's only an hour's worth of highlights, unfortunately, but it's definitely an improvement over endless NASCAR replays. The Williams FW14, as someone previously mentioned, was run that year and probably marks the high-water point of F1 technology. Active suspension would be the most notable piece of technology, since you could lower the car in tight sections and raise it for the straights to cut down on the suction effect.
Ground effects, Venturi tunnels, etc. have been outlawed for some time in an effort to keep speeds down (especially after the disastrous 1994 season when Senna died). Tires were grooved several years ago with the same intention but it has had little effect. The bottoms are essentially flat, but stepped. In order to try to replicate the ground effects, they run the car as low as possible, which speeds the rate at which air passes underneath and decreases the pressure, creating a suction effect, but then that air must be returned to ambient pressure using a complicated rear diffuser. You can see them on modern F1 cars, they look sort of like vertical flaps to either side of the gearbox at the very back.
As for the difference between CART and F1, it's been hashed out to some extent. F1 cars use normally aspirated V10s run on normal gas and make about 900 horsepower. CART cars use turbocharged V8s on methanol and make about 750 horse (I believe... wasn't there talk about going to N/A this year? haven't paid too much attention...) I forget the exact numbers, but I do know that both CART and F1 ran at the Montreal circuit last year, and I believe the CART polesitter would have been 5 or 6 seconds a lap off of Alex Yoong at the tail end of the F1 grid. However, the top F1 teams spend upwards of $200-300 million dollars (Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, and probably Renault and Toyota) and even Minardi spends something like $10-20 million. I'd be shocked if any of the CART teams got much over, let alone near, Minardi's budget, especially since all the chassis and engine development is done by outside companies.
This weekend will be the Monaco Grand Prix. It's unfortunately shaping up to be another Ferrari processional, but for those of you who are reading this thread as F1 neophytes, I'd highly suggest you watch it. It will be broadcast live at 7:30AM on Sunday, but there will be a re-broadcast at 9PM and 1AM, so there's no reason to miss it. Monaco isn't often conducive to fantastic racing, but it's a very historical track in a stunningly picturesque location that's fan-friendly, and it's usually the race that attracts the most new watchers. Check it out!
. For those of you interested in the 'glory days' of F1 technology, be aware that Speed Channel is re-running the 1993 F1 season on off-race Sundays. It's only an hour's worth of highlights, unfortunately, but it's definitely an improvement over endless NASCAR replays. The Williams FW14, as someone previously mentioned, was run that year and probably marks the high-water point of F1 technology. Active suspension would be the most notable piece of technology, since you could lower the car in tight sections and raise it for the straights to cut down on the suction effect.Ground effects, Venturi tunnels, etc. have been outlawed for some time in an effort to keep speeds down (especially after the disastrous 1994 season when Senna died). Tires were grooved several years ago with the same intention but it has had little effect. The bottoms are essentially flat, but stepped. In order to try to replicate the ground effects, they run the car as low as possible, which speeds the rate at which air passes underneath and decreases the pressure, creating a suction effect, but then that air must be returned to ambient pressure using a complicated rear diffuser. You can see them on modern F1 cars, they look sort of like vertical flaps to either side of the gearbox at the very back.
As for the difference between CART and F1, it's been hashed out to some extent. F1 cars use normally aspirated V10s run on normal gas and make about 900 horsepower. CART cars use turbocharged V8s on methanol and make about 750 horse (I believe... wasn't there talk about going to N/A this year? haven't paid too much attention...) I forget the exact numbers, but I do know that both CART and F1 ran at the Montreal circuit last year, and I believe the CART polesitter would have been 5 or 6 seconds a lap off of Alex Yoong at the tail end of the F1 grid. However, the top F1 teams spend upwards of $200-300 million dollars (Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, and probably Renault and Toyota) and even Minardi spends something like $10-20 million. I'd be shocked if any of the CART teams got much over, let alone near, Minardi's budget, especially since all the chassis and engine development is done by outside companies.
This weekend will be the Monaco Grand Prix. It's unfortunately shaping up to be another Ferrari processional, but for those of you who are reading this thread as F1 neophytes, I'd highly suggest you watch it. It will be broadcast live at 7:30AM on Sunday, but there will be a re-broadcast at 9PM and 1AM, so there's no reason to miss it. Monaco isn't often conducive to fantastic racing, but it's a very historical track in a stunningly picturesque location that's fan-friendly, and it's usually the race that attracts the most new watchers. Check it out!
CART cars are pretty damn fast... Speed Channel does comparisons a lot to F1 cars if they run the same course. Every time the F1 drivers average faster and bests are much faster. Speeds are faster as well in comparison to the same curves with F1 cars versus Champ cars.
While F1 cars are limited in displacement, tires, etc when Champ cars are less so... but the sheer amount of R&D and technology for the F1 cars completely outclasses CART. F1 cars on a oval track would be just fine... they would just change setups to have less downforce, different gearing, etcetc. They can even tweak/detune the engines to live at high RPMs for long periods of time.
You can't really underestimate F1 engineers. They do some amazing things every single year.
CART is the poor cousin of F1- the tech regulations in F1 have constantly been made more and more restrictive in an attempt to slow down the cars (grooved tires, narrower chassis, etc), but even so they will smoke a CART car around any road course. That's the beauty of F1, tighter and tighter technical rules are put into place, but the engineers constantly find new ways to make the cars faster and faster.
As far as ovals, its really an unfair point- a F1 car is not made to run on an oval. Even so, setup for an oval, a F1 car would most likely be considerably quicker than a CART car. If an oval track was part of the F1 season and the cars were engineered to run on ovals, we'd see speeds higher even so. Remember that on a road course (Monza), F1 cars hit over 225mph on a straight. I belive one F1 designer stated that if a F1 car was setup for top speed, it could run over 310mph.
Juan Pablo Montoya (CART champion, dominated Indy 500) once said sometimes driving a F1 car, you go through a corner so fast, one moment you're approaching the corner, then suddenly you're past it, and you have no idea what happened.
no real need for that. They did play around with AWD F1 cars in the past, but RWD was found to be more effective.
IIRC, they put the wooden planks in immediately after Senna's death at Imola '94 to get them up off the ground to avoid another horrific tragedy. The stepped bottoms were put in the next year or so, again, to raise the majority of the underbody surface, which would inhibit downforce as compared to a flat bottom, not to mention a real ground effects chassis.
What a disaster the grooved tires have been. When is the FIA going to wake up and give them back some mechanical grip and underbody aero, and take most of the wings away? I think they should just rip the wings off totally, but then they wouldn't have those nice advertising billboards.
There are more restrictions on CART, to keep costs down, to keep it more competitive. The difference in budgets has already been pointed out. In terms of sponsorship money and worldwide audience, there is no comparison. The F1 budgets are insane, some of the teams have their own full size wind tunnels. CART isn't trying to compete with F1.
Besides the weight and horsepower difference, there's the issue of carbon fiber vs. steel brakes. IIRC, J. Villenueve said the biggest difference between F1 and CART was the braking distances.
Technical achievement is something I can appreciate. But when it comes down to F1 racing, usually only one team gets it all right in a given period of time. And they win. In dominating fashion. Which generally makes for sh!tty TV, unless it rains. Maybe Bernie's next scheme will be to invest in a cloud-seeding machine.
It's strange that you feel it's the technical achievement of the teams that will always put you atop the F1 podium. I think the Ferrari situation last year had really less to do with technicial innovation with the cars and more to do with tires and Ferrari's "collusion" with Bridgestone. Now with the tire situation more on a level playing field this year, you're seeing other cars really compete.
Alonso's Renault was suprisingly fast on some of the circuits and the McLarens have been stellar... mainly because of the insane driving of their young rising star Raikonnen. Montoya has been in quite a few of the races but Williams seemed to have lost some/most of their horsepower advantage this year.
With the possible exclusion of TC being discussed earlier this year, many people were afraid that it would just widen the gap between Schumacher (with his insanely masterful throttle control) and the other drivers. But it doesn't quite seem that way anymore... at least to me.
The wood planks were, as you said, put in place to try to keep teams from running at the absolute lowest level possible. Watching F1 Decade, you see cars bottoming out and leaving Roman candle-esque trails of sparks from the titanium undertrays rather frequently. Now, you're only allowed something like a millimeter of wear on the wood undertray before you're disqualified. Did you see the TLC special on Senna's death? Blame it on the safety car......
I too am fully in favor of going back to full slicks. "Saving F1" topics have gotten pretty tired on the internet, most of them include getting rid of driver aids (TC/LC/auto shifting), bringing back slicks, and reducing reliance on aero downforce. I don't know if I'd advocate totally removing the wings, since I think they're an important part of the open-wheel aesthetic today, but I definitely think the road to more passing is paved with increased mechanical grip
.Another good point. Carbon brakes are tremendously effective when up to temperature, but take getting used to. I believe Alex Zanardi had problems getting used to them when he was at Williams and if my memory serves me correctly he even tried to go out with steel brakes because he felt more comfortable. Nonetheless, brakes are an underappreciated but extremely important part of F1. Since most overtaking opportunities take place in an outbraking scenario, they are really critical.
I have to stop agreeing with you! lol... one of the reasons I'm really into F1 is the level of technical wizardy inherent in carbon-fiber bodies and carbon brakes and 20,000 RPM engines, but at the same time, racing should be about racing. I'm glad that the FIA tried to do something about the 'spectacle' this year, but I fear Monaco is going to be another Ferrari processional. Fingers crossed for my main main Juan Pablo!
I disagree. I don't think Schumacher has 'insanely masterful' throttle control; IIRC, he is not known for being a manual-start master. Next year, without the benefit of LC, I think we may see him losing places at the start. As for your other comments, I agree that Bridgestone's collusion with Ferrari definitely contributed to their success, but I don't think you can attribute it all to tires. As much as I hate Ferrari, I have to put the F2002 on the list of all-time best F1 cars. The first several races may have been a bit misleading about the shortcomings of the F2002, because Ferrari could have won them if nothing had gone wrong. Thankfully, something did, but the fact remains that they were still the guys to beat. Still are, in fact. As a big Williams fan, it would pain me to see McLaren run away with the championship if the MP/4-18 is killer, but better them than Ferrari!
And an advantage in tire technology isn't a technical achievement? It didn't really matter how they achieved the advantage, the point is they had it, and are heavily favored the minute the teams unload at the track. I'm not saying it was fair BTW.
Look at recent F1 history (last 20 yrs). Teams rise and fall. They dominate for a year or two or three, then somebody else puts it all together and becomes the class of the field.
Ferrari still seems like the team to beat. If the race goes off with no rain, no wrecks, no mechanical failures, I think most people assume Schumacher will win. I agree, things are closer so far this season. Maybe we are transitioning into another team's era of dominance. But right now, even if somebody could consistently run with the Ferraris, they still have to pass them. With the aerodynamic state of the cars, on-track passes for the lead (or even many lesser positions) are almost non-existent. Most races are won or lost in the pits, which is boring to me.
Yeah, I did see that one. Fvcking POS safety car :|
Holy crap, are you serious? LOL, how long did that experiment last?
I'm not anti-technology. Just anti-processionalI have to stop agreeing with you! lol... one of the reasons I'm really into F1 is the level of technical wizardy inherent in carbon-fiber bodies and carbon brakes and 20,000 RPM engines, but at the same time, racing should be about racing. I'm glad that the FIA tried to do something about the 'spectacle' this year, but I fear Monaco is going to be another Ferrari processional. Fingers crossed for my main main Juan Pablo!
I agree. I would much rather watch F1 just because there actually is a point to it. CART is the same as NASCAR which is a left turn contest. That new commercial they have with some driver, I forget I just caught the end of the commercial, where he only makes left turns is pretty good. The point is the F1 cars are awesome, and they are home to the best driver(s) in the world.
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i don't recall cart and F1 racing the same track... if its happened recently remember that cart has slowed down quite a bit since 1994.
as for limitations, cart has tons of regulations and actually uses smaller engines than f1 cars atm.
Hey, that commerical is IRL, don't lump CART (ChampCar) in with that crap
Not a big fan of ovals myself. But the CART ovals events are more watchable to me than just about anything else that doesn't make right turns. The CART races I've watched on high speed ovals with the Hanford device were actually pretty exciting.
See KMHPaladin's post further up. Montreal last year.
Probably provided great fun in the the perennial F1 vs. CART "we're better than you are" Usenet threads.
Originally posted by: SludgeFactory
Hey, that commerical is IRL, don't lump CART (ChampCar) in with that crap
Not a big fan of ovals myself. But the CART ovals events are more watchable to me than just about anything else that doesn't make right turns. The CART races I've watched on high speed ovals with the Hanford device were actually pretty exciting.
Hanford device? Huh?
- Mar 20, 2000
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that'd be why, i haven't paid attention to either series in the last 2 years. i do know that CART had way more power than it does now back about 8 years ago. but CART is almost dead, what with all the old timers going on about how they have to race at indianapolis and blah blah. i wonder if CART would be on top of nascar had that arse tony george not broke up the series?
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