But that's not really the point. It's quite obvious that if the regulations the 905 was built to were used today, the cars would be far far far faster. That's bloody obvious. Technology and development only goes forward in motorsport, never backwards. It's always the regulations that hold the cars back. Always, in every class, in every series. The 905 was as fast as it was because the regulations at the time were favourable for building fast cars.
And in general, it's easiest to restrict power to lower overall lap speeds but that's not always what regulations do. For safety reasons, it's important to slow down cornering speeds just as much as straight-line speeds. The 905 ran with the 3.5L developing ~750 hp, not that different from the 2008-2010 era LMP1s. Speed-trap figures were very similar and since lap times are similar too, we should find that cornering speeds are similar as well. Why then? The newer cars have 18 years of car and tire technology to bank on, why are both cars similar in the corners? It comes down to wing regulations (size, location and angle mostly) more often than not, and in this case that's precisely it. The 905 had comparatively little restrictions on wings and thus had huge wings that generated absurd levels of downforce. Peugeot and Audi couldn't do that, but used innovation and development to match and even surpass older cars. It comes down to regulations vs development, it always does.
The modern F1 cars are faster in the corners due to slick tyres and significantly higher downforce than the 2004/2005 cars which tend to hold most of the ultimate lap records. The only thing they lack is engine performance.
This is not true.
Compare 2006 qualifying times with 2012 qualifying times. Both used the V8 engine, but the 2012 cars have the advantage of 6 years of technological/aero development, a few years of engine development, use of DRS, KERS, slick tires and the freedom to run low fuel levels. The only advantage the 2006 cars have is traction control. But the 2012 cars are no faster. Again, it comes down to wing/diffuser regulations (most importantly the much larger rear wings in 2006) which change every year in the FIA's hope of reducing downforce to slow the cars down in the corners. It's a perpetual battle, as teams develop to gain downforce, the FIA look to take it away through regulation. In this way, cornering speeds have stayed roughly the same through the V8 era. The big change was in 2009, when the rules swapped a lot of downforce for the mechanical grip of slick tires.
The 2004/2005 cars had just as much downforce as modern cars, probably more.
I feel I'm just stating the obvious, but perhaps not.
