Hello,
For any math savvy people here, are there any conclusions that can be drawn from the following calculations: Horsepower/minute and Dollar/Minute based on ring times.

I honestly don't care about lap times excepting from an engineering perspective. Porsche cars typically seem to be about the best engineered cars on the planet from the perspective of horsepower to quickness on the 'ring. Let's take a look at my bad math and see what this means...

I took most of the ring times for cars from 6:xx mins to 7:40 mins listed on fastestlaps.com. I divided the number of horses by the time the car achieved on the ring. We see that the the best engineered cars have a very low hp/minute. We're talking cars like the KTM X-Bow and Radical SR8/8LM being best in class. Let's take a look at where the Cayman GT4 nets out (the first column is a car's position as far as ring time goes:

Pos Make / Model Time Year Power (hp) / Weight (kg) HP/Minute Cost (USD) Dollar/Minute
1 Radical SR8LM 6.80 00 455 / 650 70.21604938 $143,973.00 $21,172.50
2 Radical SR8 6.92 '05 363 / 650 55.41984733 $143,973.00 $20,815.37
3 Porsche 918 Spyder (Weissach-Package) 6.95 '13 887 / 1634 135.0076104 $887,000.00 $127,625.90
4 Nissan GT-R Nismo 7.13 '15 599 / 1720 84.60451977 $149,990.00 $21,026.64
5 Gumpert Apollo Sport 7.18 '07 700 / 1200 98.45288326 $344,200.00 $47,916.47
6 Dodge Viper SRT-10 ACR 7.20 '08 608 / 1536 85.39325843 $98,746.00 $13,714.72
7 Lexus LFA Nurburgring Package 7.23 '12 570 / 1509 79.83193277 $445,000.00 $61,520.74
8 Donkervoort D8 RS 7.23 '05 350 / 600 49.01960784 $125,038.82 $17,286.47
9 Porsche 911 GT2 RS 7.30 '10 620 / 1370 86.35097493 $250,000.00 $34,246.58
10 Radical SR3 Turbo 7.32 '03 320 / 500 44.50625869 $60,325.35 $8,244.92
11 Nissan GT-R 7.32 '12 550 / 1736 76.49513213 $90,950.00 $12,430.52
12 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 7.32 '08 647 / 1530 89.98609179 $124,990.00 $17,082.92
13 Porsche 911 GT3 RS (991) 7.03 '15 500 / 1300 69.44444444 $175,900.00 $25,009.48
14 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Z07 Package 7.37 '11 512 / 1394 70.91412742 $107,830.00 $14,637.56
15 Gumpert Apollo Sport 7.40 '07 700 / 1200 96.68508287 $400,000.00 $54,054.05
16 Nissan GT-R 7.40 '11 530 / 1736 73.20441989 $84,060.00 $11,359.46
17 Maserati MC12 7.40 '04 632 / 1335 87.29281768 $606,422.00 $81,948.92
18 Pagani Zonda F Clubsport 7.40 '05 650 / 1230 89.77900552 $1,500,000.00 $202,702.70
19 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 7.42 '11 700 / 1575 96.55172414 $381,700.00 $51,465.17
20 KTM X-Bow R 7.42 '11 304 / 855 41.93103448 $88,500.00 $11,932.58
21 Porsche 911 GT3 7.42 '13 476 / 1425 65.65517241 $148,010.97 $19,956.54
22 Ferrari Enzo 7.42 '02 660 / 1365 91.03448276 $650,000.00 $87,640.45
23 Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series 7.42 '13 631 / 1550 87.03448276 $275,000.00 $37,078.65
24 KTM X-BOW RR 7.42 '12 365 / 810 50.34482759 $137,000.00 $18,471.91
25 Porsche 911 Turbo S (991) 7.43 '13 560 / 1605 77.13498623 $182,095.00 $24,497.09
26 Nissan GT-R 7.43 '08 480 / 1740 66.11570248 $76,840.00 $10,337.22
27 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 7.45 '11 500 / 1360 68.77579092 *185950.00 #VALUE!
28 McLaren MP4-12C 7.47 '10 600 / 1434 82.41758242 $231,400.00 $30,991.07
29 Porsche Carrera GT 7.47 '03 612 / 1380 84.06593407 $440,000.00 $58,928.57
30 Porsche 911 Turbo (991) 7.48 '13 520 / 1595 72.22222222 $100,006.00 $13,363.83
31 Mercedes SLS AMG GT 7.05 '12 591 / 1620 80.95890411 $202,505.00 $28,724.11
32 Porsche 911 GT2 7.52 '07 530 / 1440 72.50341997 $192,560.00 $25,617.74
33 Porsche 911 Turbo S 7.53 '10 530 / 1585 72.40437158 $144,595.00 $19,194.03
34 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350R 7.53 '16 500/ 400 68.30601093 $-
35 Porsche 911 GT3 7.53 '13 476 / 1425 65.0273224 $131,350.00 $17,435.84
36 Pagani Zonda F 7.55 '05 602 / 1371 82.12824011 $500,000.00 $66,225.17
37 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 7.55 '10 450 / 1400 61.39154161 $132,800.00 $17,589.40
38 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta 7.55 '12 740 / 1725 100.9549795 $323,745.00 $42,880.13
39 Koenigsegg CCX 7.55 '06 806 / 1456 109.9590723 $695,000.00 $92,052.98
40 Koenigsegg CCR 7.57 '04 806 / 1418 109.8092643 $650,000.00 $85,903.08
41 Audi R8 GT 7.57 '10 560 / 1520 76.29427793 200000* #VALUE!
42 Nissan GT-R Spec-V 7.57 '09 492 / 1680 67.02997275 $76,840.00 $10,155.07
43 RUF RT12 7.58 '05 650 / 1573 88.43537415 300 000 #VALUE!
44 McLaren 650S Spider 7.58 '14 650 / 1468 88.43537415 $267,900.00 $35,327.47
45 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 7.62 '13 507 / 1702 68.79240163 $75,000.00 $9,846.83
46 Porsche 911 Carrera S 7.62 '11 400 / 1415 54.27408412 $96,400.00 $12,656.46
47 Porsche 911 Turbo 7.63 '06 480 / 1585 65.04065041 $144,000.00 $18,864.63
48 Lexus LFA 7.63 '10 560 / 1609 75.88075881 $298,000.00 $39,039.30
49 Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera 7.63 '10 570 / 1430 77.23577236 $237,600.00 $31,126.64
50 McLaren Mercedes SLR 722 7.63 '07 650 / 1724 88.07588076 $455,750.00 $59,705.24
51 Ferrari 458 Italia 7.63 '09 570 / 1485 77.23577236 243090* #VALUE!
52 Ferrari 430 Scuderia 7.65 '07 510 / 1402 69.01217862 $250,000.00 $32,679.74
53 Porsche 911 Turbo 7.65 '09 500 / 1570 67.65899865 $133,595.00 $17,463.40
54 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 7.65 '13 659 / 1750 89.17456022 $54,995.00 $7,188.89
55 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 7.07 '06 640 / 1805 86.48648649 $320,000.00 $45,283.02
56 McLaren Mercedes SLR 7.07 '03 626 / 1693 84.59459459 $455,000.00 $64,386.79
57 Porsche 911 GT3 7.07 '09 435 / 1376 58.78378378 $112,200.00 $15,877.36
58 Mercedes SLS AMG 7.07 '10 571 / 1620 77.16216216 200000* #VALUE!
59 Porsch Cayman GT4 7.07 '16 385/1380 52.02702703 $85,000.00 $12,028.30
Can we use this in a meaningful way to make observations about how well the car does with horsepower being way below some of the other cars with impressive times. I'm one of those that hates seeing monster, high HP engines that use nothing more than brute force to get to where they're going fast. I'd also like to do the maths around Dollar/Minute next. Thoughts?

Edit: I didn't do the math to the 10ths. Only to the second.

 

i want my click back

 

Didn't realize it was that awful a post. Harsh. :-(

 

I found it interesting, but maybe that is due to me being an engineer? I would like to see dollar/minute as well!

 

I think it's interesting, but not all that useful. Cost is influenced by a whole lot more than engineering effort and desired lap time, in fact I would argue that they may be even smaller factors than many others, such as:

- Expected production run, which determines how quickly you need tk recover your fixed R&D costs

- Amount of equipment/engineering shared with other models

- Quality of components that don't incur significant engineering costs or contribute to lap times (interiors)

- What the company can get away with charging purely due to brand image

Also, the biggest contributor to hp/minute is going to be weight, not engineering -- and not all heavy cars are poorly engineered, nor are all light cars well-engineered. A better though still imperfect way to make engineering to be a factor would be horsepower per weight per minute. But even then, tire selection is probably a major lurking variable.

 

That is not the conclusion I draw. Notice how some very well engineered cars are at the bottom, like the Porsche 918. Just a casual look at the list tells me that weight matters a lot and raw horsepower is not enough to guarantee a good lap time. Top three cars are track only specials and cannot be driven legally on the street in most countries.

 

+1 on all counts.

 

A good way of seeing "engineering" is to graph power to weight on one axis, and time on another axis. This is still flawed as the same driver did not drive the cars, nevertheless, the Ring times are the fastest time posted by a good driver.

Value? That's not graph supportive. Price is another dimension you can add to your graph. But you'd have a 3 dimensional graph. That would also be interesting to do. If you have Mathematica, this is done easily.

 

Too bad you wasted so much time - a simple math error makes all your numbers incorrect.

Using just the first car as an example - 7:25 DOES NOT equal 7.25 minutes. As there are only 60 seconds in a minute, the correct number would be 7 + (25/60) = 7.4167.

Maybe there are some good adult education courses nearby. . .

 

The problem is that this is always going to optimize to the lightest, lowest powered car, kart, or motorcycle.

Or bicycle: a human can put out about 1 hp peak, 1/3 hp sustained. A world class time-trial biker can maintain nearly 35 mph, meaning they could circle the ring's 12.8 miles in about 22 minutes. This works out to an astounding .05 HP per minute- your best car was 41. So the best engineered car in the world is... a bike?

You can come up with some interesting "most with least" metrics, but as always the answer depends on the question. I'd personally ask a different one...

 

Hey now, thanks for catching that. I'm not quite yet at the point of needing adult education classes, despite always looking for something new to learn every day of my life. I didn't need to learn today how to correct my silly error in a few minutes with excel.

I'm not sure, however, where you can go to learn to not be a douchebag. If I find out I'll let you know so you can work out your issues.

For anyone else interested, I've corrected the numbers above and have added some of the requested info (dollars value in terms of time ring lap time). I've also attached a zip with the spreadsheet

 

this is 100% true. To be quite honest, I like your analogy, however it's not in the spirit of my scenario. 22 minutes isn't competitive with anything on the ring. However my calculations were meant for cars that are in an extremely competitive space as far as times go. In that sense, we need to set the criteria to be some range of times that we want to measure against. If there was a car that was doing roughly 22 minutes on the ring, the bike would, in fact, be the far superior choice and offer the best value, assuming there is no monetary value on a human life (my life insurance policy would skew this in such a way to be at the opposite end of the spectrum).

 

1) Trust but verify is the motto
2) Always check and double check prior to asking for an opinion
3) Can't take criticism, don't post
4) Mud wrestling a pig doesn't work - the pig likes it and you get dirty

 

On 3)…. Telling a fellow poster that he needs adult education is not criticism. It's disrespectful. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is disrespectful.

 

On point 4 you're spot on. I should have hit ignore and not responded. In general you're coming from the right place, but I think you're missing the bigger picture. I hope you give me the opportunity to respectfully disagree with some of your points.
Let's be fair. This forum along with the entire internet are filled with bad information. Much of it is done with good intent but it gets posted anyway, gets called out, corrected, and people move on. I won't stop putting myself out there because I made a mistake. Could I have been more accurate? Absolutely. My bad, however was I really destroying someone's day by asking an opinion and taking the time to draw up a spreadsheet to try and ask a question?
On this point you are right but at the same time so much more wrong. I will always graciously accept criticism, however I will never sit back and be spoken rudely to in a scenario where, if I were in their presence, I would ***want to** crack someone in the jaw if they had that degree of arrogance and disrespect. There is no reason for Digital Thugs to not treat people like garbage because they're protected by the intangibility of the Internet. Nobody talks to someone like that in person because there are consequences. People need to realize this and start treating each other in the same way people treat people in person.

**Stated very poorly. fixed.