Formula 1 Speed Compared to Other Race Cars

formula cars gt cars prototypes stock cars and super bikes different racing disciplines produce very different machines all with different strengths and weaknesses but how do they stack up which would win in a quarter mile drag race or a top speed run or the biggest question i have is which would win in a race around a circuit we've done some calculations to find out so firstly we should run through the cars starting with formula one our benchmark for this test these cars have over a thousand horsepower and weigh around 800 kilograms in race trim but as we know they're tuned for maximum corner speed with lots of downforce and so this may hinder it in a straight line but pay dividends around a lap next is formula 2 with very similar weight but with less aero and less power with around 620 horsepower then we have it's baby brother the formula 3 car this has less power but much less weight then we have indycar formula one's american cousin similar in weight to a formula one car but with a bit less power however they are much more slippery in a straight line then we have formal e much less power than other formula cars more weight but instant torque these are very much designed for smaller twistier street circuits and that's our lot for formula cars next to the gts so we have the three classes that will be racing at le mans this year the new hypercar with a hybrid system powering all four wheels has around 670 horsepower then there's lmp2 very close behind with 600 horsepower and similar weight then there are the gte cars which have 550 horsepower and weigh around 1200 kilograms on the face of it they look very similar to our next competitor the gt3 car but they're made to be extremely slippery for the long straights at le mans the gt3s have a little less power than the gtes that have much more aero and so might not be far off in terms of lap time then comes the dtm cars the german touring car championship these are actually very similar to gtes so we'll see how they stack up then we have nascar which are obviously designed with ovals in mind but are racing on many more road circuits in recent years and then finally we have moto gp they have incredible power to weight ratios but may lose out around the corners as there's much less rubber on the road when compared to a race car and the first test is a nought to 100 kilometers an hour it wraps up the car's traction power torque and weight all in one test however most cars actually aren't great at this for example a modern tesla could give a formula one car a good run for its money race cars tend to have very small light clutches that aren't particularly good at launching but anyway what do you think will win obviously no one has done this combination in real life so we've stacked them up in the virtual world and compiled all of their times to see which would come out on top [Music] the winner is actually pretty surprising the fastest is the hypercar it may weigh more and have less power than a formula one car but its hybrid system powers all four wheels giving it incredible acceleration off the line another key factor is power to weight and this is why you see the moto gp bike doing well it doesn't get a great start due to reduced traction but it does have a better power to weight ratio than anything else here so once the traction is down nearly 1200 horsepower per ton powers it to actually beat the formula one car now powerful bikes do tend to be really hard to launch but once they're off the line the acceleration is incredible the formula e car does really well in this test beating many cars with much more horsepower but that instant torque from the electric motor must make up for it the gaps between the rest of the pack is actually really close with the gt3 and the nascar bringing up the rear as they have significantly more weight than the others in this test for me the most surprising is the hypercar you would expect the power and reduced weight of the formula one car to give it the edge but this initial acceleration is what the hyper cars are best at up to 200 kilometers an hour the hypercars have the advantage in a one-on-one race but if we let them carry on this is where the power to weight is less of an issue and the aerodynamic drag versus power becomes a bigger part of the test this is where the f1 car really takes over you can see that the extra power helps it claw back the time and accelerate up to a top speed of 360 kilometers an hour where the hyper car falls short at 335 but if we let all of the others reach their top speeds there are some interesting results this is essentially a measure of power versus drag and at these speeds the force produced by slicing through the air is immense also many of these cars are tuned for lap time on short tracks and so top speed isn't massively relevant but it's interesting to see anyway the top speed is actually taken by indy car which has less power than the formula one car but thanks to its very slippery body and covered rear wheels it can reach up to 380 kilometers an hour the moto gp bike actually beats the formula one car due to its much smaller frontal area punching a smaller hole in the air it also doesn't create any downforce something that comes with a large drag penalty the lmp2 card beats the formula 2 car but more interestingly it also beats the hypercar a car that is a class above it in the world endurance championship the margins between these two classes are really small this year it'll be interesting to see the lap time difference between these two where the hypercar dominates the acceleration zone but the lmp2 car is actually faster at the end of the straight but acceleration and top speed is one thing lap time around a circuit is a whole different ball game the cars often take different approaches to the trade-off between straight-line speed and corner and grip and we've picked spa as the track for this battle as the majority of cars have raced here and set representative laps in the past couple of years and obviously lewis hamilton holds the lap record here from 2020 with a one minute 41.2 which is quite clearly the fastest car here over a lap the fastest lap in a formula 2 car is held by yuki sonoda with a 157.6 over 16 seconds slower than the formula one car and the fastest formula three lap was seven seconds slower than this with a two minutes five we also know all of the wec times from the six hours of spa this year so let's add them in there too dtm and gt3s have also races track but what's more difficult to predict is nascar motogp and formula e as many of you will know these cars don't race this track and so finding data for this has been really tricky so what we've done is compare these cars using other circuits lap times so for example nascar raced at the circuit of the americas this year with tyler reddick set in a lap of two minutes 12.6 and then the last formula one time was set by charles clare in 2019 with a poll time of 1 minute 36.1 if you work this out it turns out to be a 28 difference and since kota and spa are roughly the same in terms of having long straights as well as many slow to medium speed corners we can apply this difference to get a nascar time of two minutes and nine seconds at a spa now this isn't a bulletproof estimate but it seems to be a pretty good ballpark figure if we do the same with motogp which has raced at red bull ring we also get a 28 difference compared to formula one meaning we would expect nascar and moto gp to be very close in a race around spa and that would be good to watch now with formula e this gets a bit trickier they tend to race much shorter tracks in formula one and so this guess is a little fuzzier the formula e and formula one times around monaco have a difference of 23 but this being a very short stop and start track this wouldn't be massively representative around spa where the long straights would punish the formula e e-car this would make the lap time around two minutes four which seems much too fast we will probably expect around a two minutes ten to two minutes twenty so we went looking for some more data and interestingly jimmy broadbent has lapped both the formula e cars and the formula one car around the nord schleifer in the sim this track has long straight slow corners and everything in between and much more representative for spa interestingly this percentage comparison works out as exactly a lap time of around 2 minutes 10 definitely a ropey estimate but it gives us a good idea formally one may have beat an indycar on a circuit but what would happen if the rolls were reversed and they raced on an oval click here to find out thank you very much for watching and we will catch you in the next one

Channel: Driver61

Views: 2,554,034

Keywords: Formula 1, Driving, Coaching, Motorsport, Engineering, F1, Racing, Incredible Motorsport, Driver61, GTE, WEC, LMP2, Hypercar, Toyota, Alpine, Porsche, BMW, Performance, Drag Race, Spa, Spa Francorchamps, Visualised, red bull, formula e

Id: a-lfocbxnn4

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Farrisioso]

Leclerc didn’t even have pole at Cota in 2019

[u/ZodiacError]

there is so much wrong in this video I don't even know where to start. I honestly expected more care put into this from this channel and an engineer. This is not nitpicking, it's actual wrong information.

• Hypercars aren't allowed to use the hybrid boost under 120kph, so the 0-100 ranking is already wrong
• Hypercars have beaten LMP2 in the speed traps at both circuits this year, so that is also wrong
• the formula showed in the video isn't calculating percentages. Percentage would be slower lap time divided by faster lap time. this would put both NASCAR and MotoGP further back
• DTM cars don't exist anymore anyways and they are completely different to GTE.
• the LMP2 which is showed in the video is actually a Hypercar

I call major bullshit on this one and it's sad because this topic could make a great video.

anyone interested into a more factual analysis on this topic should read this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/motorsports/comments/gr3rbo/how_lap_times_in_different_motorsports_compare_to/ it's from 2019 but should give you an idea. I am working on this stuff myself and collect the data each weekend.

[u/vsouto02]

This video sucks hahaha. So much wrong information.