Supercars are similar, it's all about survival of the species.Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
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Supercars are similar, it's all about survival of the species.Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
First, I'd say it's not uncommon for high power RWD cars to have mechanical understeer (FLLTD) dialed in just to be able to put the power down on corner exit. Exit speed is king. RWD car you'll compromise some entry or mid corner speed to get that. AWD car you might be able to run a more neutral mid-corner balance since you've split the drive torque amongst the 4 tires. If so, could probably carry more mid corner speed. Certainly none less. So right there, no loss for AWD and a potential gain.g-force_addict wrote:Sure it helps performance A BIT when accelerating, but cornering isn't THAT better unless torque vectoring is used.
...dangerous speeds? What does that even mean? Any and all of racing with a high performance car on a track day is dangerous speeds, regardless of whether it's RWD, AWD, or FWD. And while this is admittedly opinion, to the point I made earlier I think you'd find it's common belief that not a ton of a lap time is made on the brakes anyway. So again, no loss to AWD. Lot of lap time is made on better exit. So if AWD wins there (and it does) - then that's a big positive.It can help accelerating... to dangerous speeds yet they can't brake or corner much better.
Yeah and that "properly tuned" drag racing car probably wouldn't it make it around either Monaco or Monza too well, would it? What are we talking about here, drag racing or circuit racing? Either way.. not all cars in a drag race get up on two wheels, so an AWD car will still be no worse and potentially better. For a circuit, you don't make your time having more forward grip in a straight line from a standing start. That happens, at most, once per event. Lap speed is about committing to throttle earliest coming off the corner... and I'd say AWD will have clear advantage there.A car properly tuned for drag racing would actually pull a wheelie! thus making AWD pointless.
There were reasons too why racing took forever to go to fuel injection and radial tires. Not good reasons.Ferrari took decades to make an AWD car for a reason.
Unless Top Gear is lying...Tim.Wright wrote:Like hell it does...WaikeCU wrote: I reckon it is. It's an engineering masterpiece, it has a comfort level of a Rolls Royce Phantom. Has enough ride height to go everywhere, flies on the track and is also marked as exclusive with a price tag.
Not lying, just embellishing as usual.WaikeCU wrote:
Unless Top Gear is lying...
Put up a car in the Pirelli World Challenge Touring Cars, all three drivetrains are permitted there.Jersey Tom wrote:All other things being equal I'd expect an AWD drivetrain to smoke RWD or FWD around a circuit.
The problem is that all other things almost never are equal when its a question of a fundamental layout, and design constraint. Where will the specific performance advantage come from? If the tires are equal, where is the extra lateral grip coming from? How could you expect the height of center of mass to be the same? How could you expect the total automobile mass to be the same? An extra differential and drive shafts and likely increased transmission cooling requirement will not be without mass penalty.Jersey Tom wrote:All other things being equal I'd expect an AWD drivetrain to smoke RWD or FWD around a circuit.
There is no extra lateral grip. The performance increase comes from having extra longitudinal traction. Its using longitudinal grip at is available on the front tyres but is not used in a RWD car.lkocev wrote:Where will the specific performance advantage come from? If the tires are equal, where is the extra lateral grip coming from?
IMO, I actually think 4WD (or most other features) have little to do with how the cars are actually driven on the road - but more to do with marketing. If or if not 4WD is better or not entirely depends on the road, how you use it and the skillset of the driver. Most cars, even supercars, are rarely driven in anger. In fact, the higher the cost of the car, the less likely it is probably used to its effect. That's not to say 4WD isn't good - traction wise, it will always yield an advantage. My point is more that that advantage is rarely exploited by the people who actually own and buy such cars. Despite that, 4WD is still a buying point for people who buy into that - even if they don't extract it. I.e. Audis focus on 4WD is almost a bit like a trademark feature - in BMW, they are traditionally RWD. Lamborghini belonging to the Audi group is simply a reason on why 4WD is in just about every car. It's one of their expertise fields and trademark features.andylaurence wrote:The reason being that the use for a supercar is to drive on the road. A supercar owner wants to be the fastest person on the road. They don't want to be beaten at the lights by an £800 Subaru Impreza and that will happen if they don't have 4WD. The advantage of driving all four wheels at low speeds (by that, I mean within the speed limits where most traffic lights are situated) is massive.