Why does amount of horsepower matter...?

[Buellboy]

I lot of people aren’t considering that the proposed power-to-weight ratio for the new car is similar to the days when 900hp beasts roamed the land. The problem is it takes too much explanation if you want to brag about Indycars having 700hp when the lumbering, heavy, taxicabs still have more... I think we need to find a new way to describe the speed, quickness, and agility superiority IndyCar will have over Cup cars.

You need to have seen one of the old 900hp beasts come of the corner on a road course and then watch the current car do the same thing. The current version is a bit of pig coming out of the corners, it just is not the same:mercy: Horsepower and the need for the driver to control it without burning off the tires is one of the things that separates the great drivers from the rest of the pack.

[gonzo]

1993 onboard with Mansell


1997 onboard with DeFerran


1999 onboard with Montoya


2005 onboard with Bourdais


2010 onboard with Rahal

[tehlrov]

I miss those days.

[Moid]

There are a couple reasons to have a higher power to weight ratio. And it benefits both ovals and road courses.

Think back to watching in-car camera views in the current car. When a driver exits a turn, they mash down the gas all the way. Do that in a car with more power to weight and you end up in the wall. It adds a skill factor. Otherwise you have drivers that can all lap in about the same time. This is one of the reasons Will Power and Justin Wilson are so good...even though the driver factor is dummed down a little bit, they still are able to shine through. It comes down to being able to put the pedal to the metal as soon as you can off a turn without biting it. And right now there is a pretty good sized margin for error. Eliminate that and you will see more passing and GOOD drivers will be able to work their way through the field instead of being stuck behind a line of cars.

With ovals and Indy in particular, it's about having high speeds on the straights. In the "good ole days" as people like to call them, the cars hit 250 on straights with a tow and hit 220 in turns. The average time ended up in the 230's. Now, the disparity between speeds from turn to straight is not that big. Even in the current cars, the only way they get a faster overall lap speed is to go faster down the straights. In order to do that, the cars actually run negative downforce on the rear wing. The rear wing is actually lifting against the downforce from the ground effects. It ends up being such a slippery slope that the cars are scary even for the best drivers coming through turns 1 and 3. That's why TK and Tracy had so many problems. Essentially, they were running so little downforce to go fast on the straights that it made them bite it in the wall. And bottom line, the driver is in less control and it's MORE dangerous.

So to sum it up, more power to weight will lead to more passing on the road courses and will show us more about the drivers talent. And more power to weight on Ovals and Indy in particular will be SAFER!

[Qdoba Addict]

SPEED: What have your SIM tests shown?
BOWLBY: “What we’ve found is that we have better acceleration because of the dragster like layout and low drag and weight. We’ve also got better stability under braking because we can keep more of the braking on the rear wheels behind the center of gravity. The drive-ability envelope has been expanded. Our simulations show it’s going to be a lot of fun to drive. We have targeted maintaining aerodynamic performance at high yaw angles so that drivers can recover from over-cooking it.”

SPEED: Will it be harder to drive, hopefully?
BOWLBY: “It’s going to make the performance envelope bigger so bolder drivers can use more track.”


Source: http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-wing-project/




Has Tony Cotman made any similiar statements about the 2012 formula?

[Hitokiri]

I think more then anything, high horsepower has to do with two things.

1. Tradition. The "glory days" when American open wheel was unified the cars were known for their high horsepower and as Nigel Mansell would admit the Indycars probably had more of it then the F1 cars. That was a sense of pride for American open wheel.

2. Psychological thrill. Just like regular street cars with high horsepower, people are just drawn to them. Can an underpowered 300 HP Lotus Elise beat a 600 HP Dodge Viper on the track - sure why not. Which one would be more impressive to the average person though when it came down to per numbers - the 600 HP Viper. In American culture big motors with high horsepower is king though that is changing a little for most of us that's still the general mindset.

Many say performance but I don't think so. High horsepower doesn't necessarily equal great performance or faster performance nor does low horsepower equal boring races or slow speeds.

[irlracingfan]

I want to see which driver has the most brass by keeping their foot in it the longest. I want to see the car's rear end twitch and the driver have to manhandle the car to keep it straight and off the wall and other cars.

Actually, all that is possible whether the driver HAS to lift or not. I can tell you from experience that the competitive drivers are driving the car as fast as the law of physics will allow. If a driver can make a full lap without lifting because he/she has the gonads, the mental focus, and the reflexes to "dance" the car through the corners on the edge of control, then that is just as good IMO as HAVING to lift.
I enjoy good, competitive RACING, where the driver has to set up the pass, not push someone out of the way. I like guys who will 'take the high line' or use the over/under move to get the guy next to him to go in hot and swing out high, then dive under him. The car's power/weight, downforce/grip, and acceration/traction ratios are such as to make these things challenge the laws of physics.

[jcmark611]

Men are obsessed with "bigger is better." That's all.

[SpeedwayRyan]

Re: Speed coming out of the corners:

Won't turbos help in that regard?

Hopefully...turbos have the inherent issue of turbo lag, though. If the engine RPMs drop too much in the corner, you won't get much power right after mashing the accelerator...the engine needs to rev up a bit before the turbos then spin up and provide boost. Keeping engine RPMs up through the corner to avoid turbo lag might end up being important. When the engine is at high RPM, the turbo will be providing plenty of boost and the engine will be making power...it's low-RPM situations where it's an issue.

There are a lot of variables, though...for instance, smaller turbos can spin up faster and thus lag is less of a problem...but it's a give-and-take when it comes to avoiding lag vs. high-RPM performance.

[Indy500fanatic]

You need to have seen one of the old 900hp beasts come of the corner on a road course and then watch the current car do the same thing. The current version is a bit of pig coming out of the corners, it just is not the same:mercy: Horsepower and the need for the driver to control it without burning off the tires is one of the things that separates the great drivers from the rest of the pack.

Watch ovals..you wont have the pig coming off a corner issue then...

second...ya 1000 hp with drivers not burning the rear tires off...guess ya never heard that wonderful NOT! sound of traction control. Ya carties had it..the bap bap bap..sounding like the 1000 hp car that the drivers couldnt keep from burning the tires off..sounded like the car was farting...ya, the good old days eh???

[IndycarAddictus]

Watch ovals..you wont have the pig coming off a corner issue then...

Well that would have worked for me if I had not seen something more exciting first. I also think traction control should be done with the drivers foot. So I should take you are good with the horsepower we have now?

And not directed at you but just to be clear, I do not worship at the alter of horsepower will cure all. The local short track here has plenty of good racing in the lower classes. But my take is that indycar should be at a higher level, and what we have now just is missing "the wow" factor we once had, it needs more hair and teeth. Honestly I view the current spec as ideal for the lights series.

[vintage]

I see a lot of people on here bemoaning the lack of horse power in the current series. Why does horse power matter? I tend to be more impressed with technology that can get a 400 hp engine to power an Indycar @ 230 mph rather than some overblown 1000 hp engine powering the same car to the same speed....

Dumbest question ever.

[vintage]

Watch ovals..you wont have the pig coming off a corner issue then...

second...ya 1000 hp with drivers not burning the rear tires off...guess ya never heard that wonderful NOT! sound of traction control. Ya carties had it..the bap bap bap..sounding like the 1000 hp car that the drivers couldnt keep from burning the tires off..sounded like the car was farting...ya, the good old days eh???

What's with the "ya" thing - is that how people talk in Milwaukee?

[FTHurley]

Picture yourself driving past Princess Gate in Toronto, turn one, hard right hander, 1000 horsepower under your foot. If you mash it to hard, you spin the tires, put the car sideways and into the wall or a competitor. Do it to softly, and you'll find yourself in the back of the pack as the field blisters past you down the back stretch. So you try to find yourself that balance, meanwhile Andretti is beside you going through the corner sideways as he has pushed the limit almost past the point of adhesion but not quite.

Now, do it in a less powerful car, and you can all just mash the throttle and point the wheel and you all get through the corner equally.

I'm not sure this is actually correct in the universe in which most of us live. If 1000 hp breaks the tires loose in a 1500 lb car, then sure, maybe 650 hp won't do the same thing in that car. But we're not limited to that car. This is all in the context of a new car. And you can light the tires up in a 1000 lb. car with a hell of a lot less than 1000 hp.

The other thing about higher speed is that it shortens the straights, giving even fewer places and less time to pass. Great, even less passing. But they sure are screamin'!

[FTHurley]

Dumbest question ever.

I know. Anyone who passed senior year physics is more concerned with power to weight ratio. Didn't take a thread to know that.

Oh, that's not what you meant?