gums

Sorry for the long post.... F1 geek here. [/QUOTE]

Actually, I thought it was quite a good one. Thanks for the insight.

John H

I concur. Montreal rocks.

Wreck Me Otter

Agreed that the track is a LOT faster now. The grip is ridiculous.

hacker-pschorr

I'm an open wheel junkie (well, keep IRL out of this) - try to follow both "major" series the best I can. What I find very interesting about your post and F1 vs Champ car with the Montreal lap times......how much of a difference would it be if the current Champ Car's were running the full 900hp they used to have? Toyota beat the record at Laguna by less than 2 seconds - a record that is 5-6 years old (when the Champ Car's were under "full" power). So one could argue that point. Except when you consider the 700hp Champ Cars are damn close to the lap record at Road America (900hp vs. 700hp) by I think 2 seconds.

I cannot help but wonder how fast a current Champ Car could lap Montreal with the full 900hp & F1 tires. Next year the motor is staying the same, in a lighter chassis.

I do not want to see a "spec" F1 series either - it's getting close with the new engine regulations. I say pull the aero off the chassis & go back to steel brakes - this will not keep the high tech out of F1, will make the racing better & force the teams to get creative.

multi21

The horsepower is pretty close between F1 and Cart. I didn't want to get into the "if Cart still had the boost" vs. "if F1 had the V10's" so the comparison is somewhat even.

What you will hopefully agree with me is the track itself. Montreal is a squirt and go track with long straights and HEAVY breaking, the heaviest on the F1 calender. Straight line speed is straight line speed and is a great equalizer. If the time comparisons were made say on a track like Spa or even Monaco or Hungery, the F1 times would be further from the Cart times due to better aero expecially in high G corners. Even this weekend in Monza one could argue that that track is all straightaways and the Cart cars would be evenly matched, but the Lesmos and Parabolic with near 5 g loading are much greater than any side loading at Montreal. But Montreal is all we have to compare so we speculate.

Have fun watching the races this weekend. My dark horse pick for coming in 4-7th is the Williams team (Bridgestone runner with ability to turn up the revs on the long straights).

hacker-pschorr

Oh sure, you pull out the V10 card already

I remember back in the hay-day of CART (before I was really into F1, hard to follow when you don't have SPEED TV). There were always comments about how a Champ Car would be faster at say Road America - would have it's *** handed to it at Monte Carlo. That was back when an F1 driver going to Champ Car was a positive move, not due to being fired or your only option. Back when winning the Indy 500 actually meant something. Wouldn't it be cool if the F1 calendar still included Indy?

The new chassis should be interesting.

multi21

Your right about F1 not being the pinnicle of motor racing not too long ago. My friend used to be the software engineer for the ingnition systems on the NISSAN IMSA team based out of Vista, CA. I believe it was the very early 90's. He claims that they had better aero than the F1 cars of that day and they started the track mapping for the ECU's, etc. etc. that eventually all race teams got into.

Your a bigger Cart fan than me, but I sure would like to see the IRL/Cart merge again. I'd love to see bigger fields and all the driver's thrown back together again. It will happen, but someone has to blink first.... just don't know who ??

gums

Full bodied cars were and always will be better aerodynamically than open wheelers. Back in the day, the CanAm cars used to run faster lap times than the F1 cars. They shared Watkins Glen and Mosport. They had more hp and better aero, for what it was worth back then. CanAm and Champ Car (nee USAC) also crossed paths at St. Jovite. The IMSA cars were probably faster still, as they had full ground effects.
One more comparison of F1/Champ was Long Beach, both competed there.