Discussion about how pedestrian the NASCAR cars looked at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) event a couple of weeks ago compared to F-1, Indy Car, IMSA and MotoGP got this started. We know that TV does not do racing justice but the NASCAR boys looked as though they were crawling around COTA whereas F-1 looks like a mad rush. Fortunately, with MotoGP racing at COTA this past weekend, there’s a fresh baseline to compare qualifying lap times and fastest race lap times. Likewise, Indy Car and IMSA on a twin bill at Long Beach and WEC this past weekend and IMSA at Sebring in March. Looked everywhere and concluded that NASCAR does not publish fastest race lap times/speeds probably just to further save face. Interesting to note IMSA DP cars are a couple of seconds faster at Sebring than WEC Hypercars, rather surprising. BHW
what always amazes me is how “slow” the bikes are but watching them live (or even on TV) they look like they’re hauling ass.
I posted about that somewhere as well. I was shocked current DPi's were 2 seconds faster than Hypercars at Sebring. Even the IMSA LMP2s were faster I believe. Don't forget, IMSA slowed down the P2 cars a few years ago for separation from the DPi. Shouldn't LMDh or GTP or whatever it is called be faster than DPi? It is going to be a cluster when they try to balance this mess.
The bikes actually struggle in the corners (where they are still spectacular), and - which is maybe more amazing - they also have issues in braking. They have very limited contact with the ground after all...
Difficult to explain the WEC times at Sebring. Been watching things there for a long time and its usually the case that European teams don't take the bumps seriously and/or they don't know how to set up for them as they're generally used to running on billiard table smooth circuits back home and once they get to Sebring they're on the back foot. I covered the first test of the Audi R8 at Sebring in early 2000 for Audi Denmark. At the time, they had been running the R8Rs from 1999 and the driver's "***** list" book was long. Recalling the R8Rs were porpoising over the bumps, sending huge showers of sparks into the air and not able to keep up with the BMW LMR-V12s which seemed to have tamed the bumps. But with the same R8Rs that they had been running the previous year outfitted with revised R8 suspension in place in 2000, they were not feeling the bumps as before. Once they finally pulled the R8 out, the drivers were commenting that it was a night and day difference. Then they could concentrate of their brake balances which were giving them issues but as the week-long test wore on, they got the brakes dialed in then they could for some serious times. My guess is, when the WEC comes back to Sebring 2023, the cars are going to be more representative of what we'd expect. BHW
