Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Imagesį2 cars tended to lap at around 10 to 15 seconds slower than F1 cars. Formula 2Ĭhristian Lundgaard, ART Grand Prix and Guanyu Zhou, UNI-Virtuosi NASCAR also has a slower acceleration time, going from 0-96km/h in around 3.4 seconds. The current top speeds recorded in NASCAR are around 321km/h, quite a bit slower than F1 and Ind圜ar. The cars' weight also works against them in terms of outright top speed.
WORLD CIRCUIT RACER DRIVERS
Since the 1980s, NASCAR has been actively restricting the top speeds of its cars as a safety measure after a number of incidents that injured spectators and drivers alike. Photo by: John Harrelson / NKP / Motorsport Images Race winner Ryan Blaney, Team Penske, Ford Mustang BodyArmor Again F1’s cornering speeds hand it a significant advantage, even on tracks with few turns: Valtteri Bottas’s pole time of 1m02.939s in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix in 2020 far outstripped the 1m23.450s set by MotoGP’s polesitter Maverick Vinales that same year. Like F1, MotoGP machinery can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in around 2.6 seconds but it takes the bikes quite a bit longer to reach 300 km/h - approximately 11.8 seconds from a standstill. MotoGP is significantly faster than the Moto2 and Moto3 classes that have top speeds exceeding 295km/h and 245km/h respectively.
He beat the previous fastest speed of 362.4km/h, set by Johann Zarco at the Losail International Circuit in FP4 for the Qatar GP in 2021. Jorge Martin holds the record for the top recorded speed for MotoGP in an official session, reaching 363.6km/h at Mugello in 2022 during the Italian Grand Prix on a Pramac Ducati. Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport ImagesĪcceleration: 0-100 km/h in approximately 2.6s
WORLD CIRCUIT RACER DRIVER
Will Power won the Honda Indy 200 at Mid Ohio in 2020, with the Australian driver averaging 113.978mph over the 90-minute race far below what you’d see on an oval. Ind圜ars adopt more downforce for street circuits and road courses, and while this makes them faster in these circuits’ tighter corners, their top speed naturally decreases as a result. In 2020 Marco Andretti secured pole position for the Indy 500 with an average speed of 231.351mph (327.32km/h) over the course of four laps, although this is a long way short of the record: Aerie Luyendyk averaged 236.986mph (381.391km/h) in qualifying for the Indy 500 in 1996, with his four-lap time of 2m31.908s still unmatched today. Ind圜ar’s top speeds are achieved at the largest oval speedways, where the cars run in their lowest downforce set-up. While this is more than is ever achieved in F1, Ind圜ars tend to take a little bit longer to get up to these kinds of speeds. Ind圜ars hit some of the highest top speeds in motorsport, getting up to 380km/h at the end of some straights.
Ind圜arĪcceleration: 0-100km/h in approximately 3s They were unsuccessful, but set a 397.36km/h (246.9mph) top speed, to claim the highest speed in an F1 car. This record is held by Honda, who took their RA106 to the Bonneville Salt Flats in the US, a site famous for top-speed runs, to try and break 400km/h. While 372.5km/h (231.4mph) is the fastest speed set during a race, the fastest speed set with an F1 car is much higher.
Meanwhile, F1's pole time set by Valtteri Bottas in 2019 was 1m32.029s, averaging 206.374km/h. While F1 isn’t as quick in a straight line, the series' focus on downforce and cornering speeds means that F1 cars are generally faster over an entire lap.īoth F1 and Ind圜ar race at the Circuit of the Americas and in its first appearance at the circuit in 2019 the Ind圜ar pole time was 1m46.018s with an average speed of 186.349km/h. While this is certainly fast, F1 cars aren’t quite the fastest single-seaters – that accolade goes to Ind圜ar. Valtteri Bottas currently holds the record for the highest speed in an F1 race, hitting 372.5km/h (231.4mph) in the 2016 Mexican Grand Prix.
WORLD CIRCUIT RACER FULL
This might seem slow given their top speed, however as a lot of their speed comes from the aerodynamics (which works better the quicker the car is going), they can’t unleash full power from a standing start. F1 cars accelerate from 0 – 60mph in roughly 2.6 seconds.