F1 cars (past and present) vs Indy cars.

There are several YouTube videos on this...and in the ones I have seen recently, I'm surprised at how much better the Indy cars are than I expected. Here are some samples for your reactions.

The MOST POWERFUL F1 CAR in History VS INDYCAR On The INDIANAPOLIS OVAL

Can an INDYCAR OVAL beat a Current F1 CAR at Monza Combined ?

Oval INDYCAR vs F1 At Le Mans WITHOUT CHICANES

NASCAR Fan Reacts to F1 VS IndyCar Direct Lap Comparison At CoTA

F1 vs IndyCar | Max Verstappen vs Álex Palou | Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course - 2025 Season

I'm sure a lot of this is computer generated, but it still can be made from real data. The last one showing Max vs Alex Palou is the best...though the Monza one is very interesting.

 

Depends on the era. At one time not too long ago, F1 spent anywhere from $400 million to $450 million(depending on the team) per year on their cars and upgrades.

An IndyCar team spends less than $20 million per year.

It's literally apples vs oranges.

 

All that matters is who is in front at the finish line. Depending on the track, F1 is hot and on it from lap one...Indy cars can take two or more laps to get up to top speed.

 

F1 is hot from lap 1 to probably lap 8, then it becomes a tire management issue (track dependent) and hopefully it goes smoothly from there unless there's a Red Flag, Yellow Flag, or a SC. You gotta have a backup tire compound for those inconsistencies.

The corners is where F1 excels, more so than IndyCar because of the batteries coexisting with the suspension geometry and tire compound(F1 tires take more than a ton of lateral and centrifugal load happening at the same time). Then you have DRS for the DRS zones.


Wait till 2026, when F1 cars have active aero on the front wings and rear wings and floor extends a little more outward from the rear wheels which gives more downforce loading. So many aero bits on an F1 car....its crazy.

 

F1 teams design and build their own new cars every year.
Then, they constantly develop them during the season, and travel to 24 different locations all over the world.

Indycar teams buy turn-key specs car from Dallara, and aren't allowed to develop them.
The same design can last several years. The teams travel to 17 events in the US only .

The engineering, operating and logistic costs are on different scales,

 

And really what is the purpose?

Somewhere in between might work?

 

pole qualifying times from COTA, the only track F1, WEC, Indy and NASCAR have all raced on in recent(ish) times:

F1: 1:32.029, Valteri Bottas, Mercedes W10, 2019
LMP1: 1:44.741, Neel Jani, Porsche 919, 2017
Indycar: 1:46.017, Will Power, Dallara DW12/Chevy, 2019
Hypercar: 1:57.655, Robert Kubica, Ferrari 499P, 2025
Nascar: 2:09.636, William Byron, Chevy, 2024

I'm a big IndyCar fan, but the cars aren't even close. and NASCAR...lol.

 

I'm just looking at the videos and saying that I'm surprised Indy cars do so well in these demonstrations...whether real or simulated based on data. Basically, as pointed out, Indy car is spec car racing with only two engine options. F1 is going to end up the same way through its own path of bad management and overcomplicated technology. Bottom line, I'm just not as impressed with today's cars, drivers, and races, as I was in the past. In all honesty, the think the modern safety features have hurt the quality of the sport and of the drivers. The risk of death and serious injury put the sport of auto racing on a different...on a highter level. Now, making a mistake costs you some free practice time and/or it cost the team money to rebuild the car. But hey, its just money. There is no more real 10/10ths racing...flat out, yes, but not 10/10ths. The history of auto racing, going back to the early 1900s, was about how much did you really love speed, how much were you willing to risk to be the fastest one on the track. I don't think there is a driver on the F1 grid today, with the exception of Alonzo, who has the real balls of a race driver.

 

Exactly this. The only place where an indycar will beat an F1 car is at a proper oval and it has it's oval aero package installed.

Indycar is about the same as F2 speeds on any normal racing track.

 

Colton Herta should do alright in F2 next season then.

 

The first comparison has Benneton in high DF configuration and IndyCar in low DF configuration.
This is not anything close to a fair comparison.

The second configuration has Monza in 1965 configuration.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, ...

Trying to compare the incomparable is a waste of time.

 

I was fortunate to be there to see a master class by Mario, and an event that will probably never be repeated. The results would be the same today but the gap would be even more obvious.

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http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/us-racing/f1-vs-f5000-remembering-a-single-seater-showdown-at-the-questor-grand-prix

 

I've done a lot of physics work on Racing Simulators over the years and typically I put zero trust in any of these comparison videos as most of the time the physics are WAY off. Many of these downloaded cars for Assetto Corsa or whatever sim I find the cars to be way too fast from the developer. There is no way, me an ordinary guy that races on a sim for fun from time to time can be 5 seconds faster than real life. Or the power, the downforce or the drag will be wrong. It's quite hard to get it reasonably accurate across the whole setup window too.

As far as I know there were two times where Indy/Champ cars could be compared to F1. COTA as mentioned before. But also in 2002 around Montreal.
Pole for Champ car: 1:18.959
Pole for F1: 1:12.836

Using real life setups, an Indy car would destroy an F1 car around a big oval like Indianapolis. F1 simply doesn't have a minimal downforce package to run high speed ovals.

Gil De Ferran still holds the closed course speed record of 241.428 mph average around California Speedway in 2000 during the Champ Car season.

Around a road course, it typically isn't even close. F1 is much faster. Obviously it can depend what year or generation of F1 car vs which Indy or Champ car. But there are many many years of F1 cars that are faster than the fastest Indy or Champ car.