CART and F1

  • Thread starter Phil
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There are many differences between CART and F1. The first is that you have to understand that CART(Championship Auto Racing Teams) and F1(Formula One) are the names of the series/championship. F1 is a global championship whereas CART is more of an American series even though they have, over the past ten years branched out to Austrailia, Japan, Canada and this year, Engand and Germany. The cars used in the two series are very different. F1 cars are more highly developed aerodynamically and technologically. This is because different teams produce and develop their own cars with extremely large budgets. CART teams have there chassis produced for them by either Lola or Reynard. CART cars have to be versatile because they have to race on ovals and circuits and they do this with very little structural change to keep the costs down. Engines are also very different, F1 engines are limited to 3000cc and are normally aspirated. They are also more technologically developed than the engines used in CART which are turbocharged. F1 engines range from about 740 bhp of the Renault engine to 840 bhp of the BMW. Most rev to about 18 000rpm. Teams either make there own engines, have them supplied by a manufacturer or have them supplied by another team. CART engines are a bit more powerful but don't rev as much. CART teams have their engines supplied by either Ford, Toyota or Honda. F1 cars use a lot of drivers aids such as traction control, launch control and fully automatic gearboxes the help the driver. CART cars don't have these although some teams have been rumoured to have found a way to have legal traction control. They also have sequential gearchange. F1 cars run on groved slick tyres which reduces grip to encourage overtaking whereas CART cars use full slick which provide much more grip. Aerodynamically, when on circuits or road courses, CART cars will have or generate more downforce than F1 cars. F1 cars are much smaller in width and have higher front wings and smaller rear wings with less elements to give them less downforce than previous years to encourage overtaking. F1 is [seen as] the cream of motorsport and is very hard to get into (unless you have a big title sponsor willing to pay $10m). It is also very hard as a team to get into F1 and be succesful. Over the last seven years, Simtek, Pacific, Forti, Lola, Stewart (now Jaguar) have all entered F1 and only one survives today. CART is a much easier series to set a team up in or to drive in because there is little costs compared to F1. Many drivers who have failed in F1 drive in the CART series - Alex Zanardi, Tora Takagi, Shinji Nakano, Michael Andretti, Roberto Moreno, Max Papis, Christian Fittipaldi, Mauricio Gugelmin all have failed in F1 and drive in CART today.

I will carry on with this post tommorow - The Sopranos is about to start :smile:

(Edited by Phil at 5:15 pm on July 1, 2001)
 
Great, Phil!  I've learned a lot.  I sure didn't know that about CART's chassis!  :eek:
 
Thanks Phil, i had a little knowledge in CART and F1, but I like F1 better.  From watching it i thought F1 are bigger and faster... i never really payattention to CART, i thought of it as kid cars.
 
Yes, F1 cars do look like they're going faster (but not around ovals, of course).
 
I expect they do go faster on the normal circuit because they have been built specifically to do so. Later in the CART season, they will be racing at Montreal and maybe on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit that F1 used a few weeks back so we may see a real comparison for the first time.

 
He doesn't. He only drives in the CART series appart from when he made an appearance in the IRL at the Indy 500.
 
Hmmm...OK, now what's the difference between CART and IRL?
 
I've seen IRL races before, if you look at a CART car and an IRL car, you can see a difference, one is bigger than the other. I've only seen a couple of each though so i'm most likely wrong.
 
Yeah, there's probably more differences then that.  :)  But, I believe you've seen more IRL cars than me!
 
Yeah thats the only real difference.

I can't think of any point where he has driven a car with grooved slicks. In fact I think that only F1 have grooved slicks and he has never driven a F1 car.
 
   Well I would like to to say hello to everyone first... The difference between a Cart car an a IRL car the Cart car has more technolgy, turbo, is slightly bigger an runs about 17,000 RPMS, the IRL cars are normally asperated engines, technolgy changes only about every couple of years, slightly smaller, runs about 10, 000 RPMS. I would also say  that the CART drivers are better drivers then the IRL drivers, but not all the IRL drivers are bad!!!!!
 
Well, do the IRL cars race anywhere other than the Indy 500?  :conf:

Welcome to the community, Lee!
 
I can't stand Oval Races :reallymad: they are soooooo boring :sleepgo: Some people actually are in love with those races :lol: how? I have no idea
 
Yeah, a lot of people just go crazy over the stuff here in Kentucky.  :rolleyes:
 
  Yea, Its Tony Georges way to try to control open wheel racing. Besides the super speedways give me a road course any day..
 
I don't expect you will find the Michigan 500 boring. The lead changes every lap - it has to be one of the mot exciting of the year.
 
Quote: from Phil on 2:14 pm on July 5, 2001[br]I don't expect you will find the Michigan 500 boring. The lead changes every lap - it has to be one of the mot exciting of the year.
Is that a NASCAR race?
 
Hi there everyone!  New to GTPLANET, so please forgive mistakes.  Addicted to F1 AND CART - watched them both on TV since satellite invented.  I think they're heading for trouble though.   Too much hype in F1 and not enough action (only overtaking is due to pitstops or retirements).   And CART has to get more US drivers (I mean American - not useless!), and make peace with IRL before its too late.

I rate drivers very nearly equal in both series, and Mario Andretti surely proved it!

Enjoy it all everyone,  
McNab.  
 
The Michigan 500 I was refering to as the CART version but I expect NASCAR will do the same type of race there.

I think F1 has a much higher standard of drivers. Not many have come from CART/Indycars and been successful. There is the rare driver who has got it and can perform well in anything like Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve or Montoya but then you get drivers like Michael Andretti or Alex Zanardi who have been succesful in CART and been terrible in F1. I think it may be down to F1 cars being much harder to drive. That really shows your talent.
 
Oh, OK.  Why would the F1 cars be so much harder to drive?
 
You are wrong about the grips on the wheels. For Example. Look at your hands. Your hands have grooves in them. When you try to hold onto something your hand's grooves prevent the object from slipping......Now if you had hands were smooth and tried to grab or hold onto something the object would slip. You should think more about the physics.
 
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