22 replies to this topic

[silver]

Here are Mika`s best starts ever according to McLaren`s telemetry:
Suzuka 99 0-200 kph 3.95 secs (down hill)
Nurburgring 00 0-200 kph 4.00 secs

The start in Nurburgring is the best start ever for McLaren.
Besides those Mika has had a really good starts also in Monza 98, Hockenheim 00 and Hungary 00.

[Grano]

Interesting! Where did you find thoes? Would be interesting to compare for example MH and MS last race.

[slipstream]

I would also be interested to know where you got those figures. I would like see what kind of 0 to 200 kph Times JV got during his lighting Starts earlier in the year. In an interesting comparison I found an acceleration Graph for the team Rahal Reynard-Cosworth V-8 in the July issue of Road & Track and that car went from 0 to 125 MPH in about 5 seconds. That is over 1 second slower than the McLaren but that is not surprising given the McLarens better power/weight ratio and engine response.

[Todd]

That is an interesting number(4 seconds), but I don't think it is consistent with the numbers published in Road & Track for the Jaguar R1 and the Ferrari F1-2000. The Jaguar did a quarter mile in 9.4 seconds at around 152-154 miles per hour. Ferrari was quoted as saying they could do it in about 9 seconds in starting trim. 0-200kph is 124 miles perhour. While acceleration would drop off at higher speeds, particularly in something with as much drag as an F1 car, I'd be surprised to discover that the last 30 mph take 5 seconds. I'll look at the graphs again, but I seem to recall the Jaguar taking almost 6 seconds to hit 100 mph. Mika's car does seem to accelerate better than the others lately, but I'd be surprised if it is that much faster. It would certainly make his accomplishments much less impressive.

slipstream,

Road & Track actually found the 2000 Reynard-Ford to accelerate better than the Jaguar F1 car. It was in an issue with drag racing as the feature.

[Ricardo F1]

Especially at Hungary where they're running so much wing anyway.

[mtl'78]

I've read more than once that an F1 car can do 0-100 (0-60mph)in 0.9 seconds, give or take a few tenths. This was in 1997 with slicks and engine goodies I'm sure... However F1 cars tend not to get slower...

[Oho]

Ave !!!

Mtl'78 I doubt it, as far as I know a top-fuel dragster can do 0-60Mph in about a second with abput 6000 Hp, extremely soft slicks and chassis designed pure and simple for acceleration. The 4 second figure sounds very optimistic as it would mean on the average about: 200 km/h = 56 m/s ==> ~ 1.43g:s acceleration. Sounds well quite a bit with the present groovies when the best road going cars can hardly hit .8g for 0-100kph (~3.6 s for 0 - 100). The increased power of the F1 does not help a lot because the acceleration is limited by tyre grip and the reduced weight comes to play significantly only when the aerodynamics start to produce siginificant downforce.

- Oho -

[silver]

I got those numbers from Finnish newspaper Turunsanomat.
The Turunsanomat F1 hournalist one of the few journalists who belong to MH`s so called inner circle. For example it was him who let us know about Mika`s difficulties with engine mapping changes.

I think (i am not 100% sure though of course) that those figures were probably given to him by MH himself.

[Damop]

I'm with Todd and Oho on this one - those numbers are unrealistic. Oho - good analysis. Simple linear acceleration provides a useful average acceleration. If we had more data we could determine the acceleration g's at a variety of speeds, since the acceleration will definitely be non-linear. If we could interpolate the kind of acceleration at various distances, I think using that we would find that 0-200 kph in 4 seconds is even more unrealistic for an F1 car.

Particlularly for the first 50 kph, traction would be severely limited and acceleration would suffer as a result. Another part of the problem is that it is difficult to keep sufficient heat in the tires to get maximum acceleration. I recall an article I read some time back where Zanardi tested his TCG champ car in the quarter mile, and even short-shifting at 14,000 rpm the rear tires were spinning through all six gears to the end of the quarter mile. Greg Moore's car was tested in Car and Driver in 1996 (by David Empringham) and the car was set up for a tight, twisty track and was running very short gearing and high downforce, and it reached it's top speed of approximately 168 mph in the 1/4 mile. Most of the blistering speed and quick time came after the first 1/8th mile, when the car would generate some downforce and get some grip.

[slipstream]

I checked the McLaren WebSight they say that the 2000 McLaren can go from 0 to 100 MPH in 3.6 Seconds. I still think that if Mika got a really good start he could go from 0 to 200 Kph in around 4 seconds.

[Ross Stonefeld]

The road & track article was a bit bogus. The times are all subjective because they were taken under different circumstances. I was rather disappointed, actually mad, that I excitedley opened the magazine only to find out it was team supplied data.

Ross Stonefeld
Aztec Group Motorsport

[Jecko]

Originally posted by mtl'78
I've read more than once that an F1 car can do 0-100 (0-60mph)in 0.9 seconds, give or take a few tenths. This was in 1997 with slicks and engine goodies I'm sure... However F1 cars tend not to get slower...

I believe the issue had a 97 Maclaren driven by Coulthard racing a couple of Mercedes road cars around Silverstone. It also included a timed start in which Coulthard went from 0 to 100 kph and back down to 0 in about 4 seconds.

[slipstream]

Ross, I agree with You about that Road Track Issue. When I frist saw that Road & Track I thought they were going to Test the Race Cars and I was very looking forward to reading the results , but instead they only used Data suppiled by the Race teams and in case of the Jaguar it sounded more like a Guess. By the way the people at Jaguar said that the Jaguar-Cosworth would do the 1/4 mile in 9.4 Sec. at 184 mph.

[Indian Chief]

I think that those 0-200 times are consistent with data I read about the 1996 Williams a few years back. I read that Hill had a start from 0-100 km/h in 1.7 seconds. So, 0-200 km/h in 4 seconds sounds reasonable.

[PAD]

I remember Nigel Mansell (must have been early 90's) saying that a VW Golf GTI would do 0-60 mph in about 8 seconds, whereas an F1 car would do 0-160 in the same time

[Sean L]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jecko
[QUOTE]I believe the issue had a 97 Maclaren driven by Coulthard racing a couple of Mercedes road cars around Silverstone. It also included a timed start in which Coulthard went from 0 to 100 kph and back down to 0 in about 4 seconds.[/QUOTE]
Shouldn't that be 100mph. That sounds reasonable in 4 seconds.

slipstream is right for 2000 Mac. I've got an exe file that brings up a graphic of the MP4-15 with all the specs for just about everything you care to drag the pointer over.
Here's some of the performance stats:
0 - 97km/h .... 2.3 seconds
0 - 161km/h .... 3.6 seconds
0 - 161km/h - 0km/h .... 6.6 seconds
300 - 100km/h .... 2.5 seconds
300 - 0km/h ....3.5 seconds
Top speed 360km/h .... on some tracks

[Damop]

Of course McLaren would never over-inflate their test numbers. "360 kph - on some tracks". How about very few tracks, and hardly ever. The main piece of data to consider is that it takes 2.3 seconds to get to 97 kph, and an additional 1.3 seconds to get to 161 kph. If you plot acceleration (as v vs t) it comes up as a curve, and gets asymptotic as vmax is approached. At speeds above 161 kph drag will begin to play a larger factor (since drag increases as the square of velocity), so 0 to 200 kph in 4.0 seconds is quite unrealistic - even by McLaren numbers that would leave the car 0.4 seconds to accelerate between 161 kph and 200 kph. I think the R&T numbers are probably as close to the truth as anything else.

There is a way to do this - we know the length of the F1 cars, so why doesn't somebody who is good with graphics packages scale off a distance that is 1/4 mile from the overhead replay of a start, then time the cars (especially MH) from when motion starts to that distance.

[mtl'78]

BTW guys, I meant to say, 0-60mph in 1.9 SECONDS, and not 00.9!

0-60 in 1.9 is pretty reasonable, very quick, but in other aspects F1 cars are between 2 and 3 times quicker than production cars, when compared over a lap. 0-60 in 1.9 makes the 0-100 in 4 quite possible. I wonder how much faster this would be in a Turbo?

60 mph is well within 1st gear on an F1 car, so if the ratio is set for max acceleration, it could be acheived in very little time!

[Sean L]

Damop that would only work if you could see a shot of the full 1/4 mile for the entire time it took to complete. It would have to be quite a wide angle too. I don't know whether they have a camera that faces directly downwards (from a helicopter) either.

[Damop]

Speedvision has a weekly program called "The Road to Indy" or something like that where they look at a lot of behind the scenes stuff. One segment they have is Martin Brundle's driving school. Last night Martin tested the Jordan against a Ferrar 550 Maranello in an acceleration contest. He showed that the Jordan could accelerate to 100 mph and back to 0 again before the 550 came anywhere near 100 mph. It took him just over 6 seconds to accomplish that feat. Eyeballing the time when he started to brake from 100 mph, I would estimate that he accelerated from 0 to 100 mph (161 km/h) in about 5.3 seconds. Now, the Jordan isn't that much slower than the McLaren, and Martin still keeps his skills fresh, so that bolsters the idea that 0 to 200 km/h in 4 seconds is unrealistic.

Jordan - a=8.44 m/s^2 ---> 0.86 g
McLaren - a=13.89 m/s^2 ---> 1.42 g

[DangerMouse]

My standard production bike is capable of 100MPH in under 7 seconds and running high 9's, with an all up weight giving 0.51 BHP per KG. An F1 car doubles that power to weight ratio giving around 1.1 BHP per KG and has far more traction than any road bike - so these figures are entirely feasible and indeed probable even if you take aerodynamic drag into account.

[Damop]

Unfortunately DM, physics don't work that way. Doubling the power to weight ratio will not double the acceleration.

[slipstream]

Damop, I think that the Jordan or any current F-1 car will go from 0 to 100 mph in less than 5.3 seconds. Car and Driver tested a 1996 Reynard-Mercedes Champ car a couple of years ago and it went from 0 to 100 mph in 4.6 sec. The question is could a current F-1 car accelerate faster from 0 to 100 mph than a Champ Car ? I think thhe answer would be Yes. Not only does the Jordan have a much better power to weight ratio it is also much more responsive and those 2 factors would overcome any traction problems that it might have .