Vintage F1 compared to today's supercars

[strad]

I see why you're minus 12

[Tim.Wright]

I don't believe for an instant it will happen to me.

No, the only thing that would happen to you would be massive embarrassment.

Any schmuck driving a Hurrican could out-drive you or just about anyone in a 70's F1 car. You'd most likely get beaten by a kid in a civic....

BS... Never have been one to let reality get in the way of a good rant have you?

No civic is doing 7min on todays shorter Nordschleife. The last F1 season there (1976) saw a pole lap of 7m.06s over 22km. These days the fastest production super car does 7m13s on a track 2km shorter than in 1976.

[Cold Fussion]

The Koenigsegg One:1 lapped Spa in 2:32.14, the F1 2015 pole time was 1:47.197. You are going to have to go a long way back in history to find F1 times that are 40% seconds slower than today.

[SR71]

The Koenigsegg One:1 lapped Spa in 2:32.14, the F1 2015 pole time was 1:47.197. You are going to have to go a long way back in history to find F1 times that are 40% seconds slower than today.

Or wait until next year when we get some official numbers on the AM-RB 001...

[djos]

The Koenigsegg One:1 lapped Spa in 2:32.14, the F1 2015 pole time was 1:47.197. You are going to have to go a long way back in history to find F1 times that are 40% seconds slower than today.

The Koenigsegg One:1 would have been a lot faster (i'm not sure by how much) if the officials hasn't binned their flat out runs for being 2 db above the permitted noise levels.

[Greg Locock]

That's a curious claim. I vaguely remember some journalist driving an open wheeler on public roads and remarking how easy it was to drive (obviously not near the limit) . However I'm sure your enormous experience says otherwise. Just the power and brakes means you could drive point and shoot, and not even have to worry about cornering quickly.

[langwadt]

That's a curious claim. I vaguely remember some journalist driving an open wheeler on public roads and remarking how easy it was to drive (obviously not near the limit) . However I'm sure your enormous experience says otherwise. Just the power and brakes means you could drive point and shoot, and not even have to worry about cornering quickly.

I've always heard journalist say F1 etc. cars being very hard to drive because nothing really "works" unless you drive fast enough to get everything int the working window, which you can't because nothing "works"

[Greg Locock]

I imagine for obvious reasons he wasn't running race tires, and he'd have had a conventional engine and gearbox, and appropriate brake pads. It was road registered.

[J.A.W.]

Topically, 'Octane' magazine August 2016 has a review inc test drive of a `70s F1 car, an LEC (Ford-Cosworth V8).

Driven around Silverstone by Richard Meaden, he reckons it is..

"Light, deft & incredibly responsive, far from being tricky to drive it's actually a friendly & straightforward machine to operate...
...It's natural & intuitive, like a super-powerful, super-grippy yet super-exploitable Caterham 7."

Belies the super-horror stories by more'n a wee bit, then..

[djos]

...It's natural & intuitive, like a super-powerful, super-grippy yet super-exploitable Caterham 7."

Belies the super-horror stories by more'n a wee bit, then..

I think the "horror" stories have more to do with the fatality probabilities if you get it wrong and crash, not the driveability.

[J.A.W.]

Yes, well djos, ironically enough, the LEC F1 car tested had been rebuilt from a wreck following a '100 mph horror crash',
& moreover, one which the driver survived...

[djos]

Yes, well djos, ironically enough, the LEC F1 car tested had been rebuilt from a wreck following a '100 mph horror crash',
& moreover, one which the driver survived...

You only need to look back at fatalities in F1 up to and including the 70's to see the number of drivers who died. It's also true that track safety played a big part, however engineers like Colin Chapman were renown for saving weight at all costs and not prioritising driver safety.

[J.A.W.]

To be fair djos, pretty much the same applied to crashing most road cars then too, even the exclusive 'supercars' - of the day.

[djos]

To be fair djos, pretty much the same applied to crashing most road cars then too, even the exclusive 'supercars' - of the day.

True.

[mertol]

Well ofcourse he drove it at a modern race track and probably not very close to the limit and with modern tires. The tracks were very bumpy back then. From what I experienced in simulators the cars are all over the place on bumpy tracks like oulton park, bathurst or nordschleife.