The car comparisons of Formula 1, IndyCar Series and NASCAR Cup Series cars

[Jolle]

for acceleration of a F1 car, their 0-100 km/h are quite low in comparison what power they have, but that's not what F1 cars stand out in. Every driver you hear, it's three things that set them apart from any racing series:
- Acceleration that feels like it never stops and it feels linear, all the way up the gears.
- Braking, everything about it.
- How quick the cars change direction.

This combined with an extreme small window where they operate and they snap directly after you loose traction.

[Big Tea]

It’s a magazine metric, but pretty useless outside of that, unless you’re racing to 60mph.

But it can be a car length sooner into the first bend can it not?

[Hoffman900]

It’s a magazine metric, but pretty useless outside of that, unless you’re racing to 60mph.

But it can be a car length sooner into the first bend can it not?

But what’s the application?

We have rolling starts (IRL and NASCAR) so 0-60mph is a stupid metric for race cars.

All professional race cars are optimized for the racing they do, with the rules they have. 0-60mph doesn’t matter for an IRL or NASCAR so they won’t be fast there.

A Caterham is fast to 60mph but has the aero equivalent of a house as you approach 100mph and beyond.

[Just_a_fan]

It’s a magazine metric, but pretty useless outside of that, unless you’re racing to 60mph.

But it can be a car length sooner into the first bend can it not?

Again, if one looks at the usual supercar drag race times, quite often, the car that is fastest to 60 isn't the fastest to the 1/4mile. And the 1/4mile time would be more useful in the drag to the first corner at most racing circuits, for example, if one were using such metrics to determine a race car's potential.

[Just_a_fan]

It’s a magazine metric, but pretty useless outside of that, unless you’re racing to 60mph.

But it can be a car length sooner into the first bend can it not?

But what’s the application?

We have rolling starts (IRL and NASCAR) so 0-60mph is a stupid metric for race cars.

All professional race cars are optimized for the racing they do, with the rules they have. 0-60mph doesn’t matter for an IRL or NASCAR so they won’t be fast there.

A Caterham is fast to 60mph but has the aero equivalent of a house as you approach 100mph and beyond.

Exactly so. An F1 car does a standing start but none of them will be tuned to give the best 0-60 time because it's of little importance. If the driver gets wheelspin then it's swamped. If he bogs down then he's swamped. Not because the others have better 0-60 times, though, just because they get a better launch.

[Big Tea]

This is of course showing my lack of knowledge of series I don't watch

[Tommy Cookers]

A Caterham .... has the aero equivalent of a house as you approach 100mph and beyond.

well .... tell that to Brausch Nieman - or Arthur Mallock

Nieman's Lotus 7 did 128 mph on a 1500 pushrod - and slipstreamed Clark's winning Lotus 25 V8 at Kyalami
and 'they' refused F3 entries for Mallock's U2 only because it didn't look 'streamlined'

these cars layouts gave less mechanical drag than the more advanced cars layouts

[Hoffman900]

A Caterham .... has the aero equivalent of a house as you approach 100mph and beyond.

well .... tell that to Brausch Nieman - or Arthur Mallock

Nieman's Lotus 7 did 128 mph on a 1500 pushrod - and slipstreamed Clark's winning Lotus 25 V8 at Kyalami
and 'they' refused F3 entries for Mallock's U2 only because it didn't look 'streamlined'

these cars layouts gave less mechanical drag than the more advanced cars layouts

I would if they were still alive. They hit a brick wall. Everyone who races those things knows that. I've seen them hit 128mph as well, with 32mm chokes (rules) and stock valve sizes (rules). Their power to weight however puts them in classes where their competition is doing 135-140mph at that same point on track.

They run in SCCA FProduction as well as vintage in the States. I also know THE racer / builder for them here as well. For the same engine / power, a Ginetta G4 is MUCH faster.