FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[Stephen]

Well, on the face of it you would assume the F1 car, however over a 20 mile stretch of road outside Amsterdam the F1 car averaged only 0.4 mph faster than a BMW M5 road car (unlimited). On the Afsluitdijk dike, the Redbull Racing F1 car driven by Dutch driver Doornbos completed the stage just seven tenths faster than the previous record set by the BMW.

See the run for yourself here.

I wouldn't have expected this result at all, although Doorknobs did approach the 20 mile dike, that protects Amsterdam from the sea, with caution. Perhaps the sliproad was bumpy - but anyway, the BMW must now be one of the most affordable 200mph+ road cars now available.

[Selcouth_Feline]

They did comething similar on Top Gear as well - they were trying to set an indoor speed record and they took an ordinary family saloon car and also an F1 car. The F1 car was expected to do miles better but was only fractionally better because it couldn't get the power down and it kept spinning it's wheels through all the gears

[Marco]

An F1 car would trounce anything on a proper track, it's designed for high speed cornering, hard acceleration and braking. It is not designed to run high on its suspension on bumpy roads, and I would be surprised if Doornbos didn't lift during the run due to cooling issues - the engine is not built to take full power, in seventh gear, for a whole 6 minutes (or whatever it was). However, an Indycar/Nascar would tear another a$$hole in the BMW over a 20 mile stretch of road.

[bud]

Horses for courses

[neil]

Yep it's non sensical, there are many motors more powerful than an F1 motor. The cars are built for racing, accelerating and reaching the maximum speed very quickly, being able to brake ten times quicker than anyone else and corner at unbelievable speeds.
The comparison is just dum