Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

Its not how high your down force numbers are, its how much of it can be put to use. Put another way, it's the down force "envelope", not the peak figures that matter.

 

What he said. They didn't mention any instrument testing and their 1/4 mile time for the P1 is exactly the same as MT. They probably didn't actually test things.

 

It's actually pretty impressive aero for a car that doesn't brag about it. A Porsche rep quoted to me 'around 650lbs' total downforce max, and that's right in line with the info you were given by engineers. That's nothing to sneeze at especially when you look at that beautiful organic shape.

 

That is very impressive

The 918 uses all of its electronics and works very hard to maintain traction and downforce. The extra weight can also be felt.

The engineers did a very good job with the whole setup.

On the other hand, the p1 does it without breaking a sweat.

I feel the p1 platform has a lot more in it, it could easily handle more power and maintain its handling characteristics.

 

This was just posted on GCF:

News:

The 918 and P1 were just tested at Laguna Seca by Motortrend. Even though the P1 had two sets of new tires (Trofeos), 5 McLaren mechanics and one day of additional track time to test they lost almost 1 sec on the 918.

Article will be out soon.

Edited with some more info: The Motortrend source also states that the 918 is a non-Weissach car which makes the time even more impressive.

 

im begging for an owner to put laferrari out there for testing!!

 

Tire widths are partially dictated by top speed goals too, no? The P1 wants to achieve a higher top speed and greater performance in the top speed realm. Wider tires will marginally hurt at those speeds due to increased frontal area (the cross section of the tires) and increased rolling resistance/friction.

The 918 was designed to perform optimally at track speeds and track conditions. Gives up bragging rights for the top-end of a drag race but benefits with better traction for acceleration. Porsche as a brand are rarely/never in it for top-end speed but rather driving dynamics and track attack. The decoupling of the e-motor being an acceptable compromise means the 918 will lose its drag races against other hyper cars as the speeds get up there... but it wins or holds its own at speeds at which most drivers race at. Seems that the tire choices may follow similar logic.

Question for those that know much more than I do... why does the F40 have wider rear tires than the Mcl F1 despite both having same f/r weight bias and the F1 having significantly more power to put down? Even as a ratio vs. front tires the F1 has less in the back... Then again, the Veyron has ultra wide rear tires... so are my assumptions above entirely invalid?

Finally... Porsche always seem to outperform their power and weight figures, based on the compromises they choose to make (and the balances they select in their car designs). So does the 918 result really shock anyone?

 

If any of these cars was designed for track use and performance it would be the P1. It has a non road legal RACE mode for heavens sake...

 

Yeah! Plus 1300lbs of downforce!

 

Pictures of Motortrend's test, P1 vs 918 @ Laguna Seca, are at Carlos Lago's Facebook profile.

 

This does not surprise me. Porsche under promises and over delivers and McLaren does the opposite

 

Maybe McLaren could get Honda help them with a winning engine as they seem to be doing in F1. No? Oh! Aww.

 

My guess is that the F1 has superior aerodynamics, therefore more grip.

 

That must be Benjamin's P1.

As you can see on this video he does very good lap with traffic 1:33.03 on TrofeoR with P1.

He seemed very sure he could beat 918 time and later comments that he invited Randy Pobst to test his car and anyone to bring 918. (he says he wants 918 to be stock and P1 shows up with McLaren staff lol)

Now if they could get LaFerrari owner to do the same...


here is the onboard 1:33.03 lap by Benjamin.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00S5I8dGSg[/ame]

 

That lap was actually driven by his instructor.

Obviously he owns a Laferrari too but Ferrari don't like customers lending their cars to magazines for instrumented tests. If this is what's happened here then it is a real shame and reflects badly on Ferrari. The only thing I would say in Ferrari's defense is that the Laferrari would need a stickier tyre in order to be compete fairly with the P1's Trofeo's and the 918's MPSC2s.

 

So whitch one is BETTERRR!!! ?????

LF
918
P1

 

You have to scroll through 775 pages to find out!!!

 

it is a shame really. i assume that at one point the ban ( forbidden to any instrumented test) will be lifted no? like the enzo didn't have any laptime until later years.

 

Well, treynor just came on GCF and said the information is incorrect. I just don't know which bit. But he did say that the video, article, and telemetry should give up plenty information.

 

had he said anything about ferrari not letting him track his car with measurement to be released to the public?

judging by the video there were some other cars on the track while he was driving the p1. i assume the track needs to be empty for a real fair comparison?

 

I never asked him about the ferrari. I mostly wanted to know which part was wrong.

Update: treynor has responded by saying that we will have to wait until everything is published.

 

The test was organized with MotorTrend before his wife's Laferrari arrived. Also there was the issue of getting the right track tyre for the Laferrari in order to compete with the MSPC2 on the 918 and the Trofeos on the P1. Ferrari were invited to send their own Laferrari but declined.

 

this whole tire thing is absolutely ridiculous. My goodness. It's no longer run what ya brung? So it was conceded that P1 couldn't compete with its stock tires and went straight to option Trofeo's? So now it's stock vs option vs hold on lemme get some new shoes. So now LaF needs its own track tires otherwise it can't compete? What about the LaF that supposedly dusted P1 time on EVO track? are they going to do this all over again when Michelin comes out with CUP 'X' and LaF has track tires that fit? Chris Harris' recent video comparing Cup2 vs Trofeo on 991 GT3 says quite a lot. Bejeebers.

 

Well just look at it this way, if the P1's time was actually beaten by 1sec, then that just means that the P1 is not as good as the porsche, even with trofeo's on the p1. If the porsche lost by 1sec with inferior tires, then that just means that they are basically even on almost all tracks.

 

The cars have pretty similar specs so tyres are going to be the deciding factor a lot of the time. As the Chris Harris video shows, the Trofeos can be more than 2s quicker than the MSPC2s and quicker still than the standard corsas on the Laferrari.

Run with what ya brung sounds fine but it's hardly an engineering achievement to put your car on stickier tyres than the opposition and then go quicker round a track is it?

The ideal comparison would have been with all three cars on the same tyre at the same time.