Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

Bravo Riccardo you mean.

Top specs though...

 

Both.

 

Exacto. The electric motor is also in a much better place than hanging off of the rear of the gear box where it is on the F70. That's why a TT V8 is a much better solution than a V 12 in a car with KERS. DRS and KERS, very F1. On a race version you'd also want KERS charging so when there's a yellow you can recharge. On our car we use paddles for KERS and KERS recharge as it 3 peddle/sequential shift which I like better than pure paddles.

DRS is also fantastic. Road P 4/5 has it and at VMAX you can really feel the difference. The Veyron DRS makes the car a little floaty and it will be very interesting to see how it makes P1 feel at speed. On road P 4/5 the difference is subtle but P1 will have a huge downforce/drag difference when it's used and I'd be careful when learning it's characteristics.

 

A lot of that is cooling space between the batteries. These battery packs HAVE to be kept cool or they will China Syndrome.

 

Jim, I have a question:

How precise can you calculate the Ring time of a car without having tested on the ring? Is it possible they meant that the come close to 6:51 - but from below ?

 

I believe they have tested at the Ring. They very well could be below us. Especially with DRS which will really help on some sections.

 

From the picture posted by Peloton25, it seems the battery pack sits higher than the bottom of the engine. It may be on top of the fuel tank. Not sure if there could be battery accessibility issues in case it was the opposite.
Another solution could be a single package (battery pack and fuel tank) where the fuel is used to cool the batteries, similar to the systems used to cool nozzles and combustion chambers on space launchers (rockets).

By the way, according to this "old" article, the solution adopted by Ferrari is similar:
"The fuel tank and batteries are located just behind the cockpit, set as low as possible to lower the centre of gravity."
Ferrari F150 (2013) first details on hybrid Enzo | Automotive & Motoring News | Car Magazine Online

Regards

 

I guess that means that all the Pagani Zonda's driving around the roads of the world are not legal also.

 

Not sure that you want to heat the fuel in a Electronic F1 car vs Mechanical F1 (P 3/4) or have it surround batteries. Liquid cooling also requires recirculating pump and radiator. We do use KERS coolant with our system. Using fuel is an interesting thought. Ferrari used the fuel tank as a heat sink to increase AC efficiency in TR's and in our P 3/4 to heat fuel to enable it to vaporise easier.

Regards

 

In the US it does. HP's latest is but Zonda's aren't. His Ring record car isn't street legal anywhere. (6:45)

Technically 962's could now be made US road legal so I guess the record Stephen (died too young) set is safe. (6:09}

 

I do agree, Radicals can be extreme for road use, although i have seen many owners drive to and from trackdays i have attended.

But what i do find amusing is that people shoot down cars like the Radicals for being to close to racecars, but Mclaren and Ferrari go out of there way to tell us how much there cars are linked to there F1 racers.

Mclaren referenced "Formula 1" three times in the press release posted a page back.


If Ferrari decided to build a small, 800kg, 600bhp, high downforce "race car" for the road, inspired by the 333 SP, i'm pretty sure we would all be praising it highly.

 

Stefan. And 956.

 

I read the technical specifications and I have 2 questions that I could not find an answer to (or I simply did not understand):

1) Does the DRS operate ONLY while the button is pressed? Meaning that if I want the wing in less-drag mode one has to keep his (or her) finger on the button?

2) Does the IPS operate ONLY while the button is pressed? It wasn't clear whether the KERS helps give power to the gasoline engine at all times (depending on the mode the driver has selected of course) or only when pressing the IPS button. The article said that the KERS helps improve low-end torque and effectively cancels out any turbo lag, but is this only if one presses the IPS button? I would think that one would want the KERS working at low RPM's at all times wouldn't you (for more throttle response)? Then if you wanted it to kick in again for more power at high RPM's you would press the IPS button. Not sure how exactly it works in the P1.

Thanks

 

As much as these cars want to be high performers on the track (and no doubt they will be), they are road cars first and foremost. There is a HUGE difference between a road car that is fast on a track and an all-out race (or track day) car. I'm not talking just about the performance difference either (which is significant). Comfort levels are vastly different. Noise, vibration, etc... are much higher than one would be willing to put up with on a daily basis.

I've never driven a Radical so I cannot comment on how comfortable it is on the road, but I've been around enough race cars to tell you that you don't want a race car as a daily (or even occasional) driver.

 

People really need to understand how sophisticated the simulators OEM Automakers and high dollar race teams have are. You're not getting anything exactly right, but the more input information you have, your output can be made really, really, really close.

A friend of mine at an OEM had been benchmarking a competitor's yet to be released car, used their own simulator, input what they knew about shared components from other cars that automaker was already using, and they came within 2 seconds of the actual Ring time the competitor produced. And that's without having exacting specifics available. If you actually know what you're putting on the circuit, these are not estimates that should be blown off as guesses.

 

And what does the US have to do with the Nurburgring, or the host of legal European cars in these discussions?

If a production car can legally drive across Europe to the gates of the Ring, that makes it count in my mind. I really don't see what legislation on the other side of the world has to do with it.

But I'm totally lost as to why people care so much about these random production Ring times, especially since we all know that its purely a marketing strategy, and how easy it is to cheat due to there being no regulators or governing bodies overseeing proceedings.

 

This might have something to do with it: U.S. To Be Biggest Market For Ferrari Enzo Successor

 

Jim, always wanted to ask you this, sorry to hijack the thread... how's the weight distribution on the P4/5 C? How did you guys "decided" and tuned for that particular weight distribution?
Regards

 

As a single country the USA is still top, but Ferrari sell almost double the amount of cars in Europe each year compared to North America.

2009 - North America - 1467
Europe - 2752




Have any of the F70 mules even been to the Ring?

 

2012 numbers are different:

North America - 2,000 units

I couldn't find figures for all of Europe:

UK - 673
Germany - 750
Italy - Says sales dropped by 60% but I couldn't find a number.

 

Pagani asked customers before they develop Huyara if they want a V8 in the car, they all wanted a V12......


We all see mclaren F1, Ferrari f40, f50,Enzo, Carrera gt beeing tracked........NOT

 

In the beautiful emerging market that is stated as the future of economy, SOUTH AMERICA, 70 or so are sold anualy and I don't think you can even spec them.

 

True. RIP. That was some drive.

 

In 2011 without KERS it was great and we deceided by testing and racing.

In 2012 with KERS it wasn't great but we still did fine at the 24.

Since then we've done a lot of engineering, moved a lot around and lightened components to bring it back to 2011 F/R set up even with KERS and the car is a lot better and faster.

In road configuration which is happening now we'll be really good even with KERS.

(See P 4/5 Competizione thread for more details)

 

You know the biggest problem with all this talk of giant horsepower and such? Someone can go by a Nissan GTR and with about 20k of mods have a reliable 800+ horsepower with tremendous track capability. Look up some of the videos on YouTube of the modded versions that have been lightened by about 250 kilos.

HOWEVER to quote a female guest of a recent Topgear episode who had owned a GTR and is quite the gearhead. She said yes the car was fast but it felt like driving around in an electronic box that she really didnt control. Pretty much sums up all these upcoming hypercars