Why can a 1400 lb F1 car handle 1000 plus horsepower but a Viper can't?

I've been thinking about how cars with extremely high horsepower can hope to use that power. Normally I would dismiss the Henessey Vipers/Ligenfelter Corvettes/Top Secret Supra type cars as pure penis size compensation machines, or at best, drag racers.

http://www.streetfire.net/video/0200-mph-bugatti-veyron-vs-hennessey-venom-1000-t_127084.htm

I watch this video and think that there's no way in hell this exact same car wouldn't be faster around a racetrack if they took away half the power.

So what is the difference that makes a 3500 lb Viper unable to handle the power, but a 1400 lb 1980 Renault F1 car able to do so. 30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better, and if so, how?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax_gSjlpXEw

Driver interaction- the pedals are not on/off switches. Mark Donahue once said something like, "Until I can spin the tires at the end of the longest straight, I don't have enough horsepower."

Those shots from the 80s look very much foot to the floor, even out of the slower corners. I guess what I'm asking is why the F1 cars aren't going sideways down every straight as they "almost spin the tires" but the much heavier Viper is twitching off line through 4th gear.

BTW, Steve Millen is driving that Viper, so I don't think he's treating the gas pedal like a switch.

Torque and mass will do wonders.

MrBenjamonkey wrote: I guess what I'm asking is why the F1 cars aren't going sideways down every straight as they "almost spin the tires" but the much heavier Viper is twitching off line through 4th gear.

Downforce thanks to the purpose-bred aerodynamics, mostly (and in the 80's, ground effect!). Lots of different design considerations - lower COG, giant tires that last like 100 miles each, 1 uncomfortable driver - also, most times, a complete lack of torque in exchange for wicked high end power.

Insane amounts of downforce helps the car grip quite a bit.

eastsidemav wrote: Insane amounts of downforce helps the car grip quite a bit.

exactly what I was thinking. f1 cars are engineered around their engines, everything is built for speed and grip.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wicked high end power is simply a way to use shorter gears for a given vehicle speed. Shorter gears are simply a way to increase torque at the wheels. Therefore, having no torque at the engine shouldn't matter as far as the rear tires are concerned.

The downforce thing makes a lot of sense. I started thinking about this after making the statement "there's no tire on earth that can handle 1300 rwd hp, decent cornering loads and 3500 lbs." Evidently, throw in some wings and its not that hard to make a tire that will handle 1400 hp, cornering loads and 1400 lbs.

MrBenjamonkey wrote: So what is the difference that makes a 3500 lb Viper unable to handle the power, but a 1400 lb 1980 Renault F1 car able to do so. 30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better, and if so, how? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax_gSjlpXEw

In 1980, F1 cars had insane amounts of downforce and giant slicks.

So, there you go.

Plus, IIRC, those "1400hp" engines could only make that power for one or two shiningly awesome laps. There's only so much heat that can be dealt with. Actual race power was maybe half that.

edit: And it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the downforce was insane The downforce was so great that the suspension had to be very stiff, and drivers were having spinal problems. Brabham (I think) came up with the idea of the aero being on a separate chassis from the driver, which was banned under the "no moving aerodynamics" rule. IIRC, some of those cars would decelerate at 2g or so, at high speed, just by releasing the throttle.

Tires are twice as wide, weight half as much. Chassis probably 4x as stiff.

Knurled wrote: Brabham (I think) came up with the idea of the aero being on a separate chassis from the driver, which was banned under the "no moving aerodynamics" rule.

Lotus.

But yeah.

Wait, wait, since when is there such a thing as too much power?

Claude at OptimumG blew my mind when he was talking about the forces generated by and acting on an F1 car.

MrBenjamonkey wrote: ....30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better

Tire, suspension, engine and chassis technology have all improved exponentially in that time frame.

Think of what you were capable of performing 26yrs ago and what you can do now. Do that and you'll get the idea.

Appleseed wrote: Torque and mass will do wonders.

answer is right here....

huge displacement, means a huge torque curve. Huge torque for a vehicle that is huge.....

F1 engine torque isn't neatly wrapped around 200#/ft @ 2000 rpm. Perfect example was Singapore... Vettel was in 2nd gear and nearly stalled the car.... Viper - just put your foot down...

Massive power is useless without traction. Massive downforce provides incredible traction but sucks up massive power. The solution was stupidly simple.

oldsaw wrote:

MrBenjamonkey wrote: ....30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better

Tire, suspension, engine and chassis technology have all improved exponentially in that time frame.

Yes, which is why F1 cars aren't allowed to run ground-effects aerodynamics, turbochargers, or 18" wide slicks anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Formula_One_regulations is an interesting read.

oldsaw wrote:

MrBenjamonkey wrote: ....30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better

Tire, suspension, engine and chassis technology have all improved exponentially in that time frame. Think of what you were capable of performing 26yrs ago and what you can do now. Do that and you'll get the idea.

To that end, modern F1 cars are heavier with less power and turn faster lap times.

F1 cars generate enough down force to drive upside down :O

skierd wrote:

oldsaw wrote:

MrBenjamonkey wrote: ....30 year old tires really can't be better, can they? Is the suspension design really that much better

Tire, suspension, engine and chassis technology have all improved exponentially in that time frame. Think of what you were capable of performing 26yrs ago and what you can do now. Do that and you'll get the idea.

To that end, modern F1 cars are heavier with less power and turn faster lap times.

Actually, current F1 rules have the cars at a dry weight equal to the Lotus 79, which was raced in 1978. Yes, the turbo cars of the 80's had more power, but they didn't have the ability to put that power down as efficiently as now.

I daresay that today's aero is producing a much more effective package than what we saw 20-30yrs ago. Combine that with the huge improvement in tire technology and you get uglier (imho) but much faster cars.

Think of torque in a very simple way.. Imagine your car sitting on the ground, and you put a torque wrench on the axle and try to spin the tire on the pavement (car is stationary and cant be moved in this example). Imagine you are a BEAST and you can put any amount of torque on the torque wrench. So you figure out that it takes, say, 1000 lb ft of torque to spin the tire on the ground. You decide to simulate a motor that makes 500 hp at 2000rpm.. thats 1310 lb ft. The tire spins. Now you decide to simulate a motor that makes 500 hp at 8000 rpm. Thats only 330 lb ft! The tire doesnt even come CLOSE to spinning.

You can hit the tire with 1100 lb ft of torque one time per second, and it will spin every time. You can hit the tire with 900 lb ft of torque 875600 times per second, and it will never spin.

HP is just an extrapolation of X torque @ X rpm. HP does not make you lose traction.. torque does.

skierd wrote:

oldsaw wrote: Think of what you were capable of performing 26yrs ago and what you can do now. Do that and you'll get the idea.

modern F1 cars are heavier with less power

i am following that trend myself.

Watching this weekend's race at Suzuki, the commentators said that the Red Bull cars were peaking at 5G's in some corners. That's fighter pilot territory and takes an immense amount of downforce and mechanical grip to achieve.

In reply to Vigo:

in this vein, i think you mentioned a large part of it in your first post, OP.

someone please correct me, but if you're assuming similar contact patches, with similar downward force from weight of viper/downforce of old f1 aero, then the tires of the f1 car will still have less work to do to overcome the lower inertia of the f1 cars lower mass.

F1 cars make more downforce without ground effects than the cars did 30 years ago.

People are missing another important point here. Put some young guy like Hammy or Vettle, or even the convict (Webber) in a 1,000hp Viper and watch them make it dance like a Miata. Those guys really are super human when it comes to reflexes and driving ability. Conversly put an average Joe in an F1 car and watch them put is sideways within 1/2 a lap, that is if they managed to get it off the line to start with,