Gaz. wrote:
It's hard to compare lap times across different eras due to track changes, surfaces, tyres & weather but I guess a good indicator is the Brazilian GP fastest laps:
1994: Schumacher, Benneton, 1:18.455 lap 7, sunny.
1998: Hakkinen, Mclaren, 1:19.337 lap 65, fine
2013: Webber, RBR, 1:15.436 lap 51, cloudy
Don't all three cars have roughly 750bhp? The time must come from somewhere?
I completely agree with your points but the example is not the best possible, imho. Still I' gonna extend on that and sorry for going slightly OT, everyone.
In 94 and 98, the cars had 600kg while in 2013 it was 642kg and this accounts around 1,4s
(1) in advantage for the lighter ones.
And this is very accurate calculation, the error wouldn't be more than a one and a half tenth
In 94 cars had around 730HP, in 98 800HP and in 2013 around 750HP with engine alone plus the KERS's 80HP extra(used two times in a qualifying lap during over 13s). So this would make 2013 and 98 cars roughly equal on power and with an advantage of around 2s
(2) over the 94 car.
Again a quite precise calculation as each 10HP accounts for around 0,3s of advantage, on an average circuit(I read this info from one of F1 engine manufactures PR couple of years ago). In Interlagos it will be even more but I'll stick with this figure.
In 94 they had very old compound slick tyres that were quite hard. The same for the 98 ones(I mean old compound relative to now) but with the addition of grooves. Still, compared to the 97 slick tyre, it still gave more grip, according to Bridgestone. In 2013 we had Pirelli's(ok very far from Michelin/Bridgestone or even Goodyear technology) very soft slick tyres that might be, with a conservative guess, 3 to 4 s
(3) faster than the tyres used in the 90s.
Also, the lastest cars had the benefit of DRS which can account to around 1,5s
(4)(when it was allowed everywhere and on qualifying used twice) on a track like Interlagos.
It rained in 2013 Brazil Q, so I have to get the pole from 2012 of 1.12.5(DRS everywhere). While the pole in 94 was 1.15.9 and in 98 it was 1.17.1
You can see that the times from 94 and 98 pretty much agrees with the aero figures I have as the 98 car had 50HP extra HP and some 0,5s advantage in more advanced tyres(compound-wise) despite the grooves. Overall, neglecting minor track changes, tarmac conditions, temperatures and etc(btw, all those things account for a big margin but I don't have means to compare it) there is around some 3s separating the 94 and the 98 cars(1,2s from 94 to 98 pole + [0,3s/10HP]*5 + 0,5s tyre improvement.) There was also the fact of 94 cars having 2m of track against the 1,8m of the others, btw.
If you reduce 2012 pole to a 600kg car, you get, by
(1) 1.11.1.
Then, accounting the 2012 car power advantage over the 94 one, through
(2), you get from 1.11.1 to 1.13.1.
Accounting now the tyre improvements and using a extremely conservative guess of
(3), you get from 1.13.1 to 1.17.1
Finally, the DRS factor
(4) takes it to 1.18.6
This calculations, based on info I collected for over a decade, shows how 90's cars had an advantage over the newer ones. Figures
(1),
(2) and
(4) are fairly precise. The
(3) one probably is even much bigger than that as I have some data of the evolution of tyre forces over these years but I don't know precisely how much it accounts for. I based that altering grip figures on a lapsim.
And this all makes perfect sense as 94 car had a very big diffuser(no need to say anything), very low ride height(which account A LOT for downforce) and more surface area on FW.
In 98, the cars were already raised(higher ride height due to plank as is the case now), had lower RW(thus slight less downforce), their diffuser was a bit smaller than the 94 ones and they had less surface area on FW.
In 2012-2013(or any recent year), cars kept the high ride height of the 1995 cars, have a narrow, although high, RW and very small diffuser. The FW downforce was back to around the values of the 94 ones as the wing was equally low, had/have slightly less surface area but with steeper angles. The thing is that they don't have even nearly as much rear downforce as the 94, or even the 98 ones due to the amount of restrictions.
). Sentiment to "good old times" is one thing - technical development reality - something different.
