XcraigX wrote: ↑3 years ago
I'm actually kind of shocked that F1 is the slowest. Not surprized that Indy is the fastest (since it's mostly ovals), but that F1 is slower than LeMans cars. (Or is this only the 24 hours and not the entire season?)
That is an artefact of LM and Indy being single races, which are fast tracks, I also hadn't found a good source for Indycar/CART/USAC/CART to derive an average from. While F1 takes every championship round and averages them. So each year includes Monaco and Monza for example with the slow tracks bringing the average down. If you notice the last GP season before WW1 is considerably faster than the previous ones which is due to my source listing only American oval races for that year, hence the jump in speed. For a better comparison between sportscars, see the Can Am I and II averages. CAI is pretty much as unfeathered as sports cars get they hold their own against the F1s of the era, CAII are faired F5000 cars and it shows in the speeds.
White six wrote: ↑3 years ago
Michkov wrote: ↑3 years ago
White six wrote: ↑3 years ago
At which F1 circuit can you best compare lap times across the years? Suzuka? Has that changed the least?
Problem is Suzuka has only been in F1 since 1987 with a period in the 2000s where Fuji jumped in for a while. I'd compare speeds across whole seasons, to get rid of the inherent variability in weather and circuit shape. Lucky for you I have that in graphical form in hand.
Figure 1: Season average race speed for F1/Grand Prix, as well as Indy 500 (Qualy and Race) and Le Mans 24h. X-axis in years, Y-axis in kph
It tells you very little as it includes changes in the circuits, which is what I specifically wanted to avoid. Suzuka pole time has improved by 13 seconds from 1987 to 2019 I note. And 1987 is famous for the big powerful turbos. That's a big leap.
Moncao ,Silverstone, Monza, Silvestone (post Scheckter), Imola, Suzuka, Interlagos will be your best bet there is non that covers the 70 years. Consult [url=
https://www.statsf1.com/en/circuits.aspx]StatsF1[url] for further explorations on the topic.
I disagree, laptime is not a normalized measure, average laptime speed is. Making it easier to compare cars across different circuits and years. That is without knowing what you trying to achieve with the comparison, so for general comparison I still go for average speed rather than outright laptime.