Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

Regarding Ring Times.

A few things I would ask.

Tweaked engine?

Non legal road tires disguised as legal from OEM's falsely dressing race tires with street logo's and markings.

Ride heights that destroy entire front ends in less than one lap.

Watch the videos. Does the data match the possible grip limit of street legal tires? Note speed in corners.

IMHO the 918 Ring time is real.

Next year the speed limits will come off at The Ring and the games will begin again.

 

all legit points brought up. the stakes are so high these days, you wouldn't put it past anyone to 'cheat'. couple of months ago, i heard whispers as well regarding what you mentioned per 'dressed up' non street legal tires. 2 car manufacturers. that's all I'll say. games, serious games.

 

Hell the Ring debate has been settled for a long time, the 918 is the Ring King and that's it.

The prototype that ran the record was a lot slower than the production cars, and even that one piece roof a certain someone was pointing out as a major advantage is now a production item, Ferdinand Piech's personal 918 has a one piece roof instead of the 2 split halves. As if that makes a difference.

 

There's absolutely no way for you (or anyone else outside of the people that run that lap) to verify that bold claim.

If you're basing that claim on the premise that the production car MUST BE an improvement (in every metric) over the prototype that run that time is flawed.

This is not to say that the 918 is not what it's made out to be. But it's still important to not make unsubstantiated claims like those.

 

Lieb ran the 6:57 without using active aero, the wing was set on high downforce/high drag mode. It's not hard to see there are seconds to be had just from that alone.

You may not have connections, but a lot of members here have connections to various carmakers. Information is not hard to come by, but disclosing them is another story. Being a 918 customer means I already have greater access to information over a normal Porsche customer, on top of that I had Porsche Canada's CEO, who happens to be Dr. Walliser's long time friend, accompanied me on a trip to Weissach last April. Among all the people present during the record lap, I have personally spoken to more than 10 of them at various time during Porsche functions, including one fellow named Mark Lieb.

Version 1.0 of the shipping firmware was released some 7 months after the record lap, I was one of the first 'outsiders' to drive a 918 with that version and I had Dr. Walliser sitting shotgun with me on the Weissach track. Brake tuning, shift logic, energy management and other strategies were changed after the record lap as he was telling me at various point on the track. Even the front motor was re-certified for a high max rpm after the lap. As of today there were 3 more major software updates done after the shipping version. In short, yes the current customer cars are quite a bit faster than the early prototype that ran the record lap.

 

It's not unsubstantiated. It's purely simple math and physics.

If you refer to the Motor Trend test between the P1 and the 918, look at the acceleration numbers between the two cars on each part of the track, you will see the 918 is actually making a lot more power than original factory claimed 887hp.

Basically, if you assume the P1 is making its claimed 903hp, and factoring in the 918's actual weight and the speed trap numbers at each of the straights, the 918 is roughly making around 930hp.

P.S. I did a 0-60 test on my 918 in E-Mode this weekend and it recorded a 5.0, 5.1, 5.1 on three runs. This number is much faster than any magazine tests of the pre-production 918 cars.

 

It only makes sense that the car will be much better than an early prototype. Think software and if you are an early beta tester, you will notice some shortcomings of the software that, once further developed for final release, works much better. Think of the lap record holder as the beta version.

The 918 that ran the record lap time was done way back in 2013, almost exactly two years ago - well before the car was released to the public. Porsche knew that it was not the final configuration, but they wanted to run a fast lap time as a marketing strategy for the release of the car.

If Napolis is correct and the speed limits are coming off the Ring next year, I fully expect that Porsche will take another run there with the 918 as it will confirm to them and their car owners how much the car has improved.

 

According to Porsche, the 918 can do even better at the Nordschleife. If the 918's time is beaten, they will be back to do a better time.

 

some of us had heard back in the day that 'final' customer cars would be pushing somewhere around 920hp when delivered--via optimized e-motors and slight petrol engine tweak...now more or less confirmed that the car in fact is making quite a bit more than the factory quote.

5 flat in e-mode? that's very very impressive. the factory number was 6 seconds?

 

you are flat out wrong on this one. end of.

 

Not sure if Porsche will go back at all. The war and the battle has been won. They are the undisputed Ring King among the trio. There is no need for them to 'show' customers how much better the production car is over the prototypes. Everyone who drove the early prototypes noticed the difference already when they drive their own.

The Ring lap record run was supposed to celebrate the start of the 918 production on Sept 18, 2013. But pretty much right after the record run, Dr Walliser suspended the production plan and delayed the car for 6 months to improve upon the data collected. Had Lieb used the active aero and energy management strategy hence discovered, there was already 10 seconds to be had not counting every other improvements since. Anyone care to guess what time a production 918 can lay down if they decided to go back?

 

Conservatively, 6.45 on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 N1 tires. IMO, either Porsche or one or more owners should go back and get a production 918 lap benchmark!

 

What about weight? 99% of the time pre production cars are significantly lighter than production cars.

The McLaren F1 prototype is vastly faster than actual production models, for example. They used that car to set the top speed record.

A pre production car does not have the onus of Government regulation as well, so again, possibilty of speed hacks.

I think that its highly probable that a regular 918 will have a hard time matching or beating the prototypes time, especially by any significant amount.

 

I don't want to guess...I want an experienced race car driver to show everyone. Maybe Mark Webber could take his shiny new toy straight into the record books. Mark, are you listening?

 

I think the only difference between XP5 and the production F1s was its lack of a rev limiter.

And re: top speed--wind resistance is a bigger factor than weight.

I'd be willing to bet that the production 918s are faster than the prototypes. Porsche's been seriously over-delivering on its products for the last 3 years or so now...and they practically live at the 'Ring.

 

Agreed. Weight has almost no impact on top speed other than a heavier car will take longer to reach its top speed. Frontal area matters a lot. Veyron could be another 1,000 lbs heavier and if given enough room, would still hit its 260+ top speed.

I think the McLaren was simply de-limited, that's it.

As for the continued debate between P1, LaF and 918, there is no debate really. Lap times, especially the one that "matters", favor the 918. The 918 "wins" this comparo.

The F40 won its comparo vs. the 959 back in its day, in terms of both top speed and overall performance.

In an era where you almost can't avoid weight due to regulations (safety), technology now trumps brute force as tires and traction limitations are so critical as power gets so high.

 

its hard to claim an overall winner when all three havent been tested at the same time still... which im blown away that it still hasnt happened this summer.

 

Regarding the F1, no rev limiter, trick engine, and special tyres. Production F1s could do no better than 340 kph. I am sure the Mc fraternity will get all livid and kicking now...

 

Well, the opportunity was there on Top Gear this spring. But two of the three manufacturers "turtled". I don't suspect they did this because they thought they were going to win.

 

Motor Trend magazine did a head to head comparison between the P1 and the 918 at Laguna Seca.

A standard non-Weissach 918 showed up and beat the P1 head on by 0.8s on a single set of tires. P1 used 2 sets of Trofeo Rs and went out multiple sessions but no dice. Same track, same race car driver, same conditions.

 

I think 4WD gives really too much advantage in circuits in general, except for monza and few others, damn, if an aventador sv is in the line with a 599xx, it's clear that a 918 will be faster than RWD p1 and LaF. On the other hand, I would like to see a special GTO/Speciale version of a Ferrari 4WD in the future, even a 4WD XX car to finally set a monstre time all around the main circuits. Porsche knew that the only way to beat the other two was getting much more traction and grip in the curves, despite the weight, following the lesson of the GTR, but improving it.

 

Yep so now we need to see a 918 go up aginst a customer non factory supported laf.

 

Not at all. Only very slow circuits lend themselves to 4WD in the dry.

 

Won't work. The N1s are GT3RS specific. 918 will not be comfortable with those on. N0 specs are 918 specific and the RS will have a hard time driving on those also.

 

Agreed. The only circuit the 4wd has no advantage on corner exit will be on the high speed track of Ehra-Lessien.

Every other circuit on Earth have corners that benefits the 4wd traction of the 918 over the other 2 simply because of the amount of HP those cars has to put through the rear tires only.