31 replies to this topic

[Andrew Hope]

I'm sorry if this has been discussed, searched but couldn't find anything. It's surprising to me that I can find little information on actual top speeds of Formula One cars throughout history. Perhaps my Googling skills are terrible, but I only ever seem to run into pre-mid 90s references to top speeds in random quotes ('Driver X lost it at 190mp/h', 'That bend is taken flat out at 290km/h', etc.).

So my question is, does anyone know off the top of their heads a few statistics they might be able to throw at me? I'm not conducting any research or anything, I don't want anyone digging through records or trying to find obscure websites for me, I'm just curious as to what the highest, regularly-attained speeds for various years and cars were during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Technical data, horsepower, weight and all those types of specifications are easily found but it's hard to find out actual top speeds.

So if anyone knows anything off the top of their heads, I'd appreciate it. Who, what, where and when was the 200mp/h barrier broken? What's the highest confirmed top speed at a GP weekend for each decade of the 60s, 70s, and 80s? That sort of thing.

Thanks for the time.

Andrew.

[Terry Walker]

Not easy to find out because:

Depends on track and gear ratios used (Monaco slow, Spa fast)
Not important from the teams' view - it's lap times that count, not max speed.
Accurate speed traps rare at older GP events, telemetry unknown
Can only be arrived at by calculating from max revs obtained in top, on circuit, against mph/1000 rpm calculated from drive wheel rolling radius. (did it redline in top gear anywhere on track? Unlikely except on very long straights).
Use of wings and other aerodynamic aids dramatically increased grip at expense of straight line speed, another complex trade-off.

Unless there was some special reason to note it, probably few drivers, after the race, could say what max revs they reached on the straights, only whether or not they were inside the red line.

Maxmum speeds therefore usually an educated guess, no more.

[Dan333SP]

The 1980s should be easy, I'm sure I'll be corrected but I think I've read somewhere that one of the turbo cars at the peak of their power ('85 or '86 IIRC) hit 216 mph at a track used regularly, probably Monza. Obviously with the sort of horsepower they were running that really isn't very impressive as the cars of the early 2000s were going 10 mph faster with far more downforce and a little less power, but it was all in the aero efficiency and drag, the cars of the 80s were basically overpowered bricks in terms of slipperiness. I'd imagine the cars of the late 1960s were hitting nearly 200 mph, maybe just over that, at Spa, which had to be the fastest track in the world at that point. Maybe they achieved higher speeds in the draft battles at Monza? By the 1970s, the power wasn't really going up very much relative to the late 60s and the cars were also carrying far more drag with the wings and wider tires of the time, not to mention the movement towards chicanes and abridged versions of the older, faster tracks. I don't think the cars of the early 70s would top 180 with much regularity, and maybe by the end of the decade the 200 mph barrier was being breached at some tracks but I'm not sure.

[john aston]

I think there is very little data pre 90s for the reasons stated- top speed not important in its own right.But a couple of comments-I am surprised at the apparent speeds of 50s and early 60s cars- not very powerful at all ,in some cases less bhp than many a modern hot hatch but 160 plus at some circuits.No downforce and tiny frontal area I guess?
At Brands Hatch GPs in the early and mid 80s a radar speed display was installed just before Paddock. I recall the Lotus Renault turbos pulling 177 mph there.

[Barry Boor]

To echo Terry's statement, when I was teaching, kids who learned of my motor sporting interest, frequently asked about the top speed of F.1 cars. My standard answer was always the same - "It depends....."

Their reaction was regularly similar too - "You don't know nuffink!" But said with a Welsh accent.

Edited by Barry Boor, 08 April 2010 - 07:15.

[Ray Bell]

Does the '60s include the last year of the 2.5-litre formula?

I recall 190mph being mentioned there in relation to AVUS in '59, so 180 at Rheims, Spa and Monza shouldn't have been out of the question.

Bearing in mind that by '63 the lap times were being eclipsed by the 1.5 cars, they can't have been very far behind.

[hansfohr]

The 70's
Pedro Rodriguez reached 301 km/h in the BRM P153 down the awsome Masta straight during practice for the 1970 Belgian GP. Likely Chris Amon broke that barrier too, 'forgetting' to lift for the Masta kink on the last lap and smashing the laprecord in the process.

Not yet marred by those bloody chicanes the 300 km/h barrier was apparently also exceeded at Monza in 1971.

The 80's
In 1983 Patrick Tambay's Ferrari hit 346 km/h on the (in)famous Mistral straight at Paul Ricard. That was a record, although that was achieved in practice with a phenomenal turboboost.

[Terry Walker]

I doubt that maxiumum speeds have changed all that much over the years, all gains being made in cornering. The giant 1930s Auto Unions and Mercedes Benzes reached incredible speeds on the Avus. Tilkedromes with lots of short straights followed by hairpin bends puts a premium on accelleraton and adhesion, not high speed in a straight line.

Edited by Terry Walker, 08 April 2010 - 07:53.

[Allan Lupton]

The banked track at Monza, when the combined track was used, is perhaps as good a candidate for high top speed as anywhere, and may even be documented somewhere.
Pomeroy (The Grand Prix Car) lists some top speeds for the fastest cars, year by year up to 1953.
1934 Auto Union 165mph
1935 Mercedes-Benz 175
1936 A-U 185
1937 M-B 195
1938 M-B 180
1939 M-B 195
1947 Type 158 Alfa Romeo 160
1948 Type 158 (2-stage)Alfa Romeo 170
1949 1.5 litre Ferrari 165
1950 Type 158/159 Alfa Romeo 185
1951 Type 159/159A Alfa Romeo 195
1952 2 litre Ferrari 155
1953 2 litre Maserati 160

Edited by Allan Lupton, 08 April 2010 - 08:09.

[David Wright]

In addition to the problems already mentioned I'd add the issues of speed when in a tow. There is a well known driver quote that the original 1964 Ford GT40 exceeded 200 mph at Le Mans. For years I struggled to understand how it reached these speeds with only 350 bhp, when later GT40s required around an extra 100 bhp to achieve the same speed. Then I came across an article in Autocar which explained that the over 200 mph speed was achieved with a tow, and that the speed without a tow was 190 mph.

The above example also illustrates that speed is approximately proportional to the cube root of power - so the introduction of the 1.5 litre formula didn't have as much effect on top speeds as you might think. But drag too, with ever wider tyres and then wings also had an effect. Chapman said the 1965 Lotus 33 was slower on the straight at Spa than the 62 Lotus 25. Brabham said the 1966 Brabham BT19 was slower on the straight than 1960 2.5 litre Cooper. Teams arriving at Spa in 1970 found they had over-greared their cars - the wings and wider tyres meant their 1968 data, the last time they ran at Spa, was obsolete.

I'd suggest the first time the 200 mph barrier was broken from 1960, was in 1970 when Rindt ran without wings at Monza in his Lotus 72.

Edited by David Wright, 08 April 2010 - 08:28.

[Allan Lupton]

Yes speed proportional to cube root of power is a reasonable rule. At those speeds most of the drag is aerodynamic, so is proportional to speed squared and of course power is force (in this case drag) times speed.
Wings bring more variables into the equations having some profile drag but more importantly induced drag which is the consequence of any lift (positive or negative) they generate.
There is some interesting work that can be done regarding the drag induced by the rotation of those wide tyres. There is a good case for enclosing them in a tight-fitting "mudguard" (as seen on some Clubmans cars like the Mallock below)

The question that is unresolved vis a vis the 1964 GT40's 200 m.p.h. on horsepower only sufficient for 190 is what was it that was good for 200 m.p.h. that the GT40 could follow in the wake of?

[hansfohr]

I doubt that maxiumum speeds have changed all that much over the years, all gains being made in cornering.

A combination of that really. Obviously a mighty improvement in cornering speeds leads to much higher topspeeds on the straight, particularly if the bend leading up the straight is a fast one (f.e. Parabolica, Mistral).

The giant 1930s Auto Unions and Mercedes Benzes reached incredible speeds on the Avus.

Bernd Rosemeyer topped somewhere near the 360/370 km/h bracket in the streamlined Auto Union C type, averaging 276 km/h on his fastest lap. Unheard of, still today.

[Giraffe]

Jan Fatthauer crashed his 9ffGTR Porsche based roadcar at 230mph/370kph at Bruntingthorpe just recently.....

http://www.thisislei...il/article.html

Edited by Giraffe, 08 April 2010 - 09:19.

[David McKinney]

Not a Grand Prix car, and not a Formula 1 car, and not in the 60s, 70s or 80s

Edited by David McKinney, 08 April 2010 - 09:32.

[Giraffe]

Not a Grand Prix car, and not a Formula 1 car, and not in the 60s, 70s or 80s

What would we do without you, Inspector McKinney?

(For those that need it pointing out, my post was purely to illustrate that there are road cars today capable of exceeding the speeds achieved by Grand Prix cars, Formula 1 cars, and cars from the 60's, 70's & 80's, and other eras for that matter).

PS The car in question has a top speed of 257mph/413.5kph!

Edited by Giraffe, 08 April 2010 - 09:57.

[llmaurice]

One permanent recollection is that holding a pit board out at Avus in '59 was quite a daunting task ,especially when the Ferrraris came past .
I seem to remember 190 plus being talked about , unfortunately not with the Lotus 16 !

[sandy]

Fixed.

[simonlewisbooks]

In 1957 Lex Davison attempted to achieve an Australian Land Speed Record in his 3 litre Ferrari (ex Peter Whitehead), basically a 1952 / 53 monoposto with a larger engine and was recorded at 155mph. This with an extra litre, long run up to the measured mile etc., so whether this makes Pomeroy's claim of 155 mph for a 1952 2 litre a little optimistic or not I don't know, but there it is.

(A number of cars tried for a number of records and the fastest car and hence the Australian Speed Record Holder was Ted Gray in the Tornado, a 4.5 litre Chev. Corvette engined monoposto, who recorded 157mph).

Similarly I seem to recall a wonderfully esoteric attempt on the Irish Land Speed Record in about 1979 - it was featured in AUTOSPORT but I can't find the right issue to check the details .
From memory the car was the PR Reilly/Mike Wilds Shadow DN3 and it's driver was Viv Candy. As the Irish have a very enlightened attitude on these matters, the course was, naturally, a section of closed public road with spectators hanging out of the hedges. However the speed wasn't that overwhelming, something like 168mph, but that may well have been more to do with the nature of the course and the available run-up space.
Around the same time an article in MOTOR had speed for Silverstone examined using the new technology of a Police radar gun. Watson's fully skirted ground-effect McLaren was the subject of the experiment and didn't get much above 160mph even on Hanger straight, which seemed pretty unimpressive even then!

[David McKinney]

(For those that need it pointing out, my post was purely to illustrate that there are road cars today capable of exceeding the speeds achieved by Grand Prix cars, Formula 1 cars, and cars from the 60's, 70's & 80's, and other eras for that matter)

I could just see the thread heading off into discussion of road car, Le Mans car etc etc speeds

[Giraffe]

I could just see the thread heading off into discussion of road car, Le Mans car etc etc speeds

You need something for your nerves, David!

[nmansellfan]

At the 1967 Belgian GP, Jim Clark was clocked at 193mph in his Lotus 49 on the straight toward the Masta Kink. I read somewhere that he said this was on the rev limiter of the DFV in top gear, and it was like hitting a brick wall when it chimed in, so there was possibly more speed to come. The ZF gearbox of the early 49's didn't have interchangable gear ratio's though, you had to change the whole gearbox, and he was already on the 'longest ratio' gearbox anyway...

At the same GP, Dan Gurney was clocked at 196 mph in his Eagle apparently.

Like Dave Wright says, i would say Rindt at Monza in 1970 would have been one of the first to break 200mph in his Lotus 72, reportedly (I think i read it in DCN's 'Skullduggery' column in Classic and Sportscar magazine about 20 years ago) his car was geared for 205mph without wings.

Moving into the 80's, even on the much shortened Mistral Straight, Nigel Mansell clocked 325.3km/h (about 202mph) in the Williams Honda FW11B during qualifying for the 1987 French GP, see below:



This would have been with the 4 bar boost restriction, so maybe 1000bhp maximum. With another possible 200bhp and another half mile of straight at least on the long circuit, what were the cars of 1985 achieving in qualifying, or were the peak speeds of 1983 never bettered at Paul Ricard?

Edited by nmansellfan, 08 April 2010 - 12:00.

[Ray Bell]

There is a fly in the ointment with what I posted earlier about 180mph for the 1960 Coopers at Rheims...

That is that Bill Patterson for quite some time just after this had the fastest speed recorded down the straight at Bathurst *edit* 169.81mph *edit*. Sure, he was down a little in capacity, but the other cars weren't. In fact, some of those who came along to try, and it was before the really wide tyres came in, had 2.7s. David McKay had a 2.7 to equal Patto's speed.

This on a straight with a very long run in, most of it being steeply downhill. Makes you wonder.

Edited by Ray Bell, 08 April 2010 - 21:58.

[Roger Clark]

The banked track at Monza, when the combined track was used, is perhaps as good a candidate for high top speed as anywhere, and may even be documented somewhere.
Pomeroy (The Grand Prix Car) lists some top speeds for the fastest cars, year by year up to 1953.
1934 Auto Union 165mph
1935 Mercedes-Benz 175
1936 A-U 185
1937 M-B 195
1938 M-B 180
1939 M-B 195
1947 Type 158 Alfa Romeo 160
1948 Type 158 (2-stage)Alfa Romeo 170
1949 1.5 litre Ferrari 165
1950 Type 158/159 Alfa Romeo 185
1951 Type 159/159A Alfa Romeo 195
1952 2 litre Ferrari 155
1953 2 litre Maserati 160

I think that these figures were calculated, using Pomeroy's celebrated theory that, all other things being equal, lap speed varies with the square root of maximum speed - or the sixth root of engine power.

Edited by Roger Clark, 08 April 2010 - 19:07.

[Roger Clark]

Does the '60s include the last year of the 2.5-litre formula?

I recall 190mph being mentioned there in relation to AVUS in '59, so 180 at Rheims, Spa and Monza shouldn't have been out of the question.

Bearing in mind that by '63 the lap times were being eclipsed by the 1.5 cars, they can't have been very far behind.

Brabham's 1960 T53 was 4 seconds a lap faster than Clark's '63 25 at Reims.

[Nick Wa]

Ray,
Rheims also had a very long straight with a long run in that became very steeply downhill. If in 1960 Brabham was doing 180 m.p.h. then Phil Hill was doing close to 190. In the early laps Hill would come screaming down the hill 50 - 60 yards in the lead but when he braked Brabham would shoot by and lead into Thillois. In fact at least on lap 1 McLaren sailed by as well, if he did it again I'm not sure but I remember being disappointed when he didn't. When Jack eventually managed to lead for a whole lap Hill tried to match the Cooper's braking only to find it necessary to go the long way round the hairpin, a feat which he later repeated.
I have always thought that there a maximum speed limit, if you go any faster we will change change the formula. If you still go too fast we will put in a few chicanes. Should this not work we will force you to throw away a few toys. Finally if all else fails we will move the circus to a nice new field(?) where a shiek has built a new "Tilkedrome".
Come to think of it as a grumpy old man that was the last F1 race I enjoyed!

[JtP1]

I am sure Bruce MaClaren was quoted as saying his Cooper 2.5 litre 4 cyld Climax was doing over 190 mph at Spa. Skinny tyres in those days.

Re the GT40 at Le Mans. It was 211 mph the car recorded on the Mulsanne straight early in the race after leap frog slipstreaming 3 Ferraris in succession down the straight. Iirc it was Richie Ginther at the wheel in 1964. Check DSJ in Motorsport in mid 64 for a full report.

[Vitesse2]

Some benchmarks from 1938. The IMRC timed cars over a 1 km section of the Carrigrohane Straight during the Cork GP. Sadly, the field wasn't up to much, but the fastest was Wimille's Bugatti T59/50B, which recorded 147.25mph/236.98km/h. Dreyfus' Delahaye managed 145.00mph/233.35km/h.

Later in the year, similar figures were gathered on the straight at Pescara, again over a flying kilometre. The Mercedes Benz W154s were fastest, with Caracciola measured at 276.923km/h/172.072mph and both von Brauchitsch and Lang at 268.656km/h/166.935mph, although those numbers are unnrealistically over-accurate, as timing was only to the nearest fifth of a second. Hasse managed 264.075km/h/164.088mph in the Auto Union D-type and Trossi 257.142km/h/159.781mph.

The following year,Villoresi managed 236.842km/h/147.167mph with a Maserati 4CL voiturette: in 1938 Bira had been the fastest voiturette driver in Cork at 138.75mph/223.30km/h with his ERA C-type 'Hanuman' and Severi had achieved 227.848km/h/141.578mph at Pescara in an Alfetta.

Surprisingly, the E-type ERA may have been the fastest pre-war voiturette: it was allegedly timed (by Mercedes Benz) at over 170mph at Reims in 1939.

I believe the flying kilometre times were issued for some of the post-war Pescara races too.

[Roger Clark]

I am sure Bruce MaClaren was quoted as saying his Cooper 2.5 litre 4 cyld Climax was doing over 190 mph at Spa. Skinny tyres in those days.

Re the GT40 at Le Mans. It was 211 mph the car recorded on the Mulsanne straight early in the race after leap frog slipstreaming 3 Ferraris in succession down the straight. Iirc it was Richie Ginther at the wheel in 1964. Check DSJ in Motorsport in mid 64 for a full report.

In the 1964 Le Mans report, DSJ said that the fastest timed speed was the Maserati at 308kph (191 mph). The fastest timed Lola-ford (as he insisted on calling them) was 305 kph (187 mph)

In "Reflections" a month later he said that a radar speed indicator showed 340kph (211mph) when Ginther slipstreamed past three Ferraris on the first lap. He pointed out that these radar guns could be as much as 10% in error. On its own, he said, the Ford was about equal to the Ferraris at 185 mph.

[Roger Clark]

Surprisingly, the E-type ERA may have been the fastest pre-war voiturette: it was allegedly timed (by Mercedes Benz) at over 170mph at Reims in 1939.

Timed by the same men who stripped the paint in 1934?

[Vitesse2]

I did say "allegedly" See Weguelin p125.

Of course, the rider to that is that for all its streamlining and newness it was no faster over a full lap than 'Hanuman', built in ERA's "Early English Perpendicular" style, dating back 5-6 years.

Edited by Vitesse2, 08 April 2010 - 20:40.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Brabham's 1960 T53 was 4 seconds a lap faster than Clark's '63 25 at Reims.

At Rheims, yes...

But what about Spa? Goodwood? Silverstone?

Or was it '64 before the times came down that much?

[Roger Clark]

At Rheims, yes...

But what about Spa? Goodwood? Silverstone?

Or was it '64 before the times came down that much?

In 1960, Brabham lapped spa in 3 min 50. In 1963 G Hill was on pole in 3 min 54.1. The 63 cars were comporable with 60 at silverstone and slightly faster at Goodwood but maximum speed was of less importance at these circuits.