What is faster, Formula1 or MotoGP?

[Nuvolari_the_legend]

The most people say that MotoGP is faster than F1 but when you look at the official F1 site and you will find that the fastest time at Silverstone is: 1:34.661- K Raikkonen (2012). Look at the MotoGP site and the fastest time is: 2'02.888. I'm confused, can anybody help me.

[SectorOne]

Top speed and acceleration a MotoGP bike is easily the quickest machine. (0-100km/h might be in favor of F1)

Around a circuit an F1 car is king and always will be king relative to motorcycles in all shapes and sizes.

[Nuvolari_the_legend]

most people

"Most people" are wrong to say that. Among other things (vastly smaller tire contact patch & braking ability), motorcycles don't create downforce like a car with wings can - F1 or otherwise.

You say "tire contact" but bikes have a better tire contact when you compare it with the weight of a bike and the that is the same story with the brakes. You also say "downforce", well that's right but bike's don't need downforce really. A normal bike goes round a corner faster than a normal car. That's because bikes lower there center of gravity in a corner because the lean. Because F1 cars generate quite a lot downforce, about 70% is aerodynamic grip and the rest is mechanical grip, they are almost as fast in the corners as bikes (I'm not sure about that) and and because a immense powerful engine they are just as fast or even faster on the straights (I'm also not sure about that) but that is just theory and in the real world things can be different.

[Billzilla]

As mentioned above, an F1 car is easily faster than any bike around pretty much every track you can find.
The wings that make the cars so fast around the corners slow them down in a straight line but it's the cornering speed that is so much higher that makes the difference.
If you look at the lean angle of the bikes you can get a pretty good guess as to the lateral G's they are making in the corners and it's in the low 2's. A halfway reasonable car with some wings, a little ground effect, and good slicks will easily beat that - My rattly old racer would pull 2.3 G's at high speed.

Another real-world example is is the lap times around Sepang in Malaysia. I did five 12 Hour races there and one of the fastest cars, a Lamborghini Diablo, was just able to crack the two minute mark in qualifying. It was basically a hotted-up road car as it still had the complete road car chassis & suspension but a very good (loud!) engine and a lot of development. That lap time was a touch faster than the best GP bikes at the time and about 26 seconds slower than the F1 cars.
Other tracks give different results though, of course.

[jamsbong]

Motorbikes are generally very fast machines and takes great talents and skills to tame such machines. A top end road bike easily eats up cars like Ferraris which costs 10x to 100x more price; on a short straight line contest.
Moreover, the thrills of riding bike are way more intense than driving a car.
I suspect these are the reason why bike lovers believe bikes are the fastest thing on the planet.

However, the reality is that under racing car vs racing bike situation, cars are usually way faster because of aero.
If a bike has some form of the ground effect system, then we will have a different argument.

[Cam]

Silverstone 2012 - MotoGP vs F1

MotoGP - 20 laps @ 41:16.429 ---> AVG per lap = 123.8 secs
F1 - 52 laps @ 1:25:11:288 ---> AVG per lap = 98.2 secs

round numbers, lots of variables, rough guide, estimate, etc...

[Greg Locock]

Phillip Island lap records from wiki

Formula 4000 1m25
Formula 5000 1m30
MotoGP 1m30
Moto3 1m38
Formula Ford 1m38

Now much as I love the F5000s, they aren't even close to the performance of a modern F1 car. And how much does a season cost in a Moto3 compared with an FF?

Basically, if you had to design a tire for maximum grip, would you try and hold the contact patch square to the road, or would you roll it around all over the place? If you want to go fast round corners, do you want 3g of downforce, or 0.5g (at best Late edit - not even that see next para)?

The trouble with downforce on a bike is that ifit is symmetrical on the bike then it is acting like extra mass, that is it is on the same vector as the mass*acceleration, so although it helps to push the tire down onto the road, it also increases the outward thrust at the CP. Net result is bad not good once you exceed say 45 degrees of lean.

Now you could do something clever to make the downforce push down more than out in a corner, but I don't think that's happened yet.

[Cam]

Phillip Island lap records from wiki

Formula 4000 1m25
Formula 5000 1m30
MotoGP 1m30
Moto3 1m38
Formula Ford 1m38

Now much as I love the F5000s, they aren't even close to the performance of a modern F1 car. And how much does a season cost in a Moto3 compared with an FF?

Basically, if you had to design a tire for maximum grip, would you try and hold the contact patch square to the road, or would you roll it around all over the place? If you want to go fast round corners, do you want 3g of downforce, or 0.5g (at best)?

wow F5000 times are bang on with Moto GP. Wouldn't have picked that. There's only a few tracks that a lot of categories all use - I think Austin might be a good comparison, or Silverstone. Is some kind soul would run the numbers.......

[Websta]

Any benefit that a bike gets from leaning during cornering is also utilised by race cars (and to a greater extent). Race cars "lean" on their outside tyres. As far as how the center of mass comes into play, I am not sure sure but I don't see how a bike's different center of mass characteristics are better than a cars when cornering (a lot of other factors involved). A bike design is not at all suited to getting around a corner, but it is very well suited for high top speed and acceleration.

Or am I wrong? I'm no engineer, so I am not sure!

[autogyro]

http://oi43.tinypic.com/330civq.jpg

We had an idea for a downforce bike when we were working on Geoff Garsides LSR vehicle which used gyrostabalised spindles.
I think a system could be devised.
Of course riding it would probably be tricky.

[coaster]

I often snooze for about 30 to 40 minutes during an F1 race, being so late in Australia, and such long races. (2hrs +)

Motogp keeps me munching popcorn start to finish, far better racing!

[Tommy Cookers]

As mentioned above, an F1 car is easily faster than any bike around pretty much every track you can find.
The wings that make the cars so fast around the corners slow them down in a straight line but it's the cornering speed that is so much higher that makes the difference.
If you look at the lean angle of the bikes you can get a pretty good guess as to the lateral G's they are making in the corners and it's in the low 2's. A halfway reasonable car with some wings, a little ground effect, and good slicks will easily beat that - My rattly old racer would pull 2.3 G's at high speed.

useful info
we are given 63deg bank in MotoGP (how/where from/what is the 63 deg really referring to ? I wonder)
the 63 deg of lean has to supply the force to yaw the wheels against their gyroscopic reaction to being yawed
this was shown (eg by Tony Wilson-Jones of Royal Enfield in an I Mech E paper in 1951) to 'cost' 2-4 deg of lean
so arguably true MotoGP centripetal g is about 1.8

[Tommy Cookers]

Basically, if you had to design a tire for maximum grip, would you try and hold the contact patch square to the road, or would you roll it around all over the place? If you want to go fast round corners, do you want 3g of downforce, or 0.5g

The trouble with downforce on a bike is that ifit is symmetrical on the bike then it is acting like extra mass, that is it is on the same vector as the mass*acceleration, so although it helps to push the tire down onto the road, it also increases the outward thrust at the CP. Net result is bad not good once you exceed say 45 degrees of lean.
Now you could do something clever to make the downforce push down more than out in a corner, but I don't think that's happened yet.

isn't the effect of aero 'downforce' on cornering actually neutral ?

broadly, the lean angle from the vertical is the inverse tangent of the tyre's coefficient of friction
eg at a representative 61 deg lean and a corresponding Mu of 1.8
because a unit of the geometrically down component of the aero 'downforce' boosts cornering force by 1.8 units
while the associated geometrically centrifugal component of aero 'downforce' is also a 1.8 unit vector
(similarly the effect of aero 'lift' is also cornering neutral)

ignoring practical factors like rider body lean, bike attitude effects on AoA, and front:rear distribution of aero forces
body lean actually produces gains in cornering from downforce (and losses if there was lift)

if we had a V wing (like a Beech Bonanza tail) producing 'downforce' a rider could gain more (if using 'oversteer'/powerslide)
because the inner wing would be producing useful force geometrically down (and amplified for cornering by Mu)
and the outer wing (if held at a low or zero AoA by the oversteer angle) would be producing little force anyway

'oversteer' by its effect on whole-body AoA has with current machines some benefits by producing favourable whole-body force
(ie both geometrically downwards and centripetal components)
given also the huge geometrical conflicts in the (cornering) contact patch, 'point and squirt' riding makes ever more sense

[gillette]

Phillip Island lap records from wiki

Formula 4000 1m25
Formula 5000 1m30
MotoGP 1m30
Moto3 1m38
Formula Ford 1m38

Now much as I love the F5000s, they aren't even close to the performance of a modern F1 car. And how much does a season cost in a Moto3 compared with an FF?

Basically, if you had to design a tire for maximum grip, would you try and hold the contact patch square to the road, or would you roll it around all over the place? If you want to go fast round corners, do you want 3g of downforce, or 0.5g (at best)?

wow F5000 times are bang on with Moto GP. Wouldn't have picked that. There's only a few tracks that a lot of categories all use - I think Austin might be a good comparison, or Silverstone. Is some kind soul would run the numbers.......

Austin:
Formula1 - 1:39.3 Top speed on back stretch 198 mph/320 kmh
MotoGP - Marc qualified at 2:03.2 @ 212 mph, and if I remember correctly race laps were getting down to 2:04.
Grand Am - Daytona Prototypes were doing laps @ 2:00.
V8 Supercars didn't run the full track.
If I remember from the race the 458 italia class last November were lapping in the 2:15ish range.

[Greg Locock]

Tommy -Yes, neutral if you ignore second order effects, but in the case of tire sensitivity to load the second order effects are important. Basically when the bike is upright you'll get more traction, and more drag, in corners you'll get more force at the contact patch, and by its nature that force will still be aligned with the cg, so the bike will pretty much behave as if it is heavier so far as the tires are concerned. Not a good thing. And you'll get more drag.

So, unless you can arrange for non symmetrical lift, which is certainly possible as autogyro suggests, then plain simple downforce is no path to cornering glory for two wheelers.

Now it is possible that I have ignored something obvious since I've not really thought about this much, but the vector diagram is so straightforward I think the conclusion is robust.