Formula 1 on the oval track

[F1Wolf]

After watching the Indy 500 for a while last night, I am wondering, how cool or uncool would it be to have 1 F1 race on the classic oval track ...

[Jose]

i really dont get why people enjoy a race in a circle hehe. i think that to truly apreciate it you have to be there an see the speed the cars are carrying through the oval.. wich in a f1 car should be veeeeeery fast!

[F1Wolf]

the indycars are not too slow either and it looks rather scary watching them brushing those walls :-)

[Steve Robbo]

It seems that F1 has the best drivers in the world, and mostly inexperienced drivers brush the walls at Indy. The safety car periods ruined what promesed to be a good race yesterday.

[Jose]

i used to follow it a lot, when mexican Adrian fernandez was on CART series...remember one time a narrator said a car, got through 404km/h in an oval, it wasnt indianapolis, i think there is a faster one.....

wonder what speed does an f1 would get on that!!

[Kotenok]

Hi there guys!

I don't follow the American IndyCar series, but I know what an IndyCar car is. Let's say that a F1 race in an oval would be ever more dumb than a IndyCar race.

It would be a pursuit to create a car which works in high speed ring but without heavy cornering and in difficult middle speed and high speed corners in usual circuits. Tremendous challenge which aren't easy at all, because F1 cars mainly are designed to live about 1 hour and 20 min race, the races in ovals are much more longer and reach about 3 hours of race, well it's difficult because the FIA banned these exotic materials which would in fact make it a little bit more possible to make the cars more long-lasting and safe in harder conditions.
By the way, Wolf is certainly correct. A F1 car is slower than an IndyCar, the difference is the downfore which the car carry! Even if the IndyCar carry a much heavier chassis and less powerful motor (rev-limited to 10,300 rpm and produce approximately 650 hp), but the IndyCar owns their own turbo boost, but the Push-to-Pass from the ChampCar didn't arrive to this new series.

Here is a bit about specs differences: specifications and car comparison.

Not only the motors would suffer more, the suspensions and tires in F1 are really stiff and not designed to such a race, we saw in the past F1 cars having problems to pass by a single corner from Indy and the success from many to safe the tires at the right temperature or not produce oversteer while passing by was very difficult (one year we saw a F1 catching the wall at full speed, and another year after the same crash happened such a pantomime with 6 cars driving there, and last year was not better when we couldn't see much overtaking in such a circuit where overtaking is the rule [of course due the intrack in Indy]). I think the problem from F1 cars in Ovals comes from the weight balance and suspension setups, which is thought to maximize the speed in slow and middle speed turns.

Here is a good post about the main differences between IndyCar Series and Formula One which is good enough to understand why a F1 car isn't made for these circuits:

http://stason.org/TULARC/sports/formula-one-motor-racing/6-3-What-s...

I guess European manufacturers haven't a great interest to be there in the USA, while Ford, Acura (well, Honda, isn't it?) and Toyota are the kings there and I guess Renault nor Mercedes or FIAT would find market easy there (well I suppose the people from the states heard about European manufacturers and F1, but the interest isn't big... But I have heard USA is the country with more demand of imported Ferrari's [maybe after Monaco??? HAHA]). It's rather difficult to say which manufacturer is interested in open their market views, Ferrari and Toyota Honda did there and with great success. But I don't imagine FIAT, Renault or Mercedes Benz being there top sellers ever, among others European manufacturers also.

I would like to see the levels of drag from the IndyCar, would like that a new idea about the aerodynamics compromise is find out, the welcome back to slicks if Bridgestone finally manage to produce them right and hope that the next season's PTP button powered by the KERS systems isn't such a drastic change (drivers still have to show us something, right?). But what I wish is that F1 remains in circuits with more than 4 wide turns, the interest still is on find a way for overtaking and in ovals such a thing wouldn't happen much more than just in the pit-lane.

[Stew]

I followed the CART Indy car series very closely for quite some time. Never went to Indy, but did see 2 races at the Michigan Oval. That is the oval that is faster than Indy. Also went to the Molson Indy in Toronto Ontario 7 times. I live nearby.

I'm not much of a fan of the IRL because I don't much like Tony George, drivers are not as good as when it was CART, and there is more to racing than just turning left all day.

It's hard to say which car is faster really, like comparing apples to oranges. IRL is devoted to ovals and so the cars are upside down airplanes. If F1 were to get into oval racing the car would change drastically for those races and it would take a lot of time to adapt.

That said, Indy isn't for the faint of heart. Yes some rookies ground the sides off their cars against the walls on Sunday, but there have been some superior races in the past (when it was CART) when guys like Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Rick Mears etc. smacked the walls too. The corners at Indy are the toughest there is at high speed. As Fittipaldi once said, entering the first turn into the short shoot, don't blink your eyes or you're into the wall at the next corner.

[Jose]

i know an f1 car is veery different from indy... and that an f1 car is not made for ovals and bla bla... but i think this is not the point of this topic... because if f1 had a gp on an oval the teams would take special parts for that.. as they do for monaco..(special aero package,, special wheel lock. etc.. ) soo thats not an issue..

[Kotenok]

It's very expensive to create such a package for the teams... Better said it is to create a new car for a single race or a group of races. An oval track demands different suspension and drag levels than a conventional circuit as I understand, this makes the teams completely dependant to the chassis shape, and would be needed to create a new chassis? Possibly yes.

That's why a F1 car doesn't work there, I pointed it before in the post, the weight balance (it is a compound of the car's unsprung parts) is one of the most important features for an F1, it provides stability and in such circuit as an oval track where centrifugal force are higher, a common suspension doesn't work well because it's too much hard. Without the proper balanced car, they slide as well because there isn't enough stability and tires get damaged heavily.

About the aerodynamics, that's easier to fit on a F1 chassis as we see it during all season happen. But to such circuit as an oval track, I guess again need to be a complete new package to be competitive in straights and stable in high-speed turns. The teams would consider reducing wings downfore, but the drag wouldn't be enough so maybe the wider sidepods which actually are fitted to the Dallara chassis could be used then.

PD: If the answer looks a little bit chaotic, I can't explain why :-P

[Cletus van Horton]

I remember the coverage of the inaugural US GP at Indy on SPEED. The guys were speculating on the same issue, and I forget which engineer they spoke to but they inquired about an F1 car's performance on the oval versus an Indy or CART car. The engineer explained a lot of the difference would result from the restrictions those circuits place on their teams/cars due to budget or simply regulations. Those open wheelers could get much faster but the car doesn't have the financial freedom or technical development Formula One has.
So they just said "Well, if you'd just setup the car for the oval with all the luxuries F1 can afford, what type of speed would it do?"
The engineer replied that most teams would be able to beak the 250 mph barrier, but would require slicks for nothing more than safety concerns.