smartnetjetwife said:
not quite true. there have been a number of rules in the last decade to slow the cars down to increase safety and whatnot. off the top of my head, they have reduced ground effect (which effectively created a vacuum under the chassis), smaller diffusers, minumum width of chassis, and most notably grooved tYres (no "i" ).
cars now a days do have better brakes, suspension, for a while traction control, launch control, and safety features
The rules changes of the last decade are just part of a continuing effort, going much farther back than even ten years, to slow the cars down (they still have traction control, by the way). Every rule change is counteracted by the engineers. Don't forget that the TRACKS have been changed, too. No track has remained untouched, with every single one being altered to limit cornering speeds, additional runoff areas (sometimes kitty litter, sometimes just grass or pavement), added chicanes, etc.
Just to show you how much faster today's cars are than the older ones, I looked up the pole position times for a few data points for a few tracks that are least changed, but will just give up three years' worth as representative of the general decline in lap times. I chose 1984 as the starting point, which was, as I recall, the last year of unrestricted turbocharging (in any case, the '84 lap times were uniformly faster than the '83 lap times), meaning no boost limits. The second year I chose was 1992, the year of the Williams FW-14, with the wide slicks, full-active suspension, semi-auto transmission, traction control, ABS, and the old formula 3.5 liter V-10 engine. The last year I chose was 2004, the last year for which all results are available, and keep in mind that '04 is the only of the three years chosen with a SINGLE qualifying lap with RACE fuel on board, not the best of several attempts with minimum fuel.
Below are the year's respective lap times.... Note that there was no race in Belgium in '84 so I used '83, and I used Belgium '02, since rain in qualifying skewed the results in '04 and there was no race there in '03:
Monaco- 1:22.6/1:19.5/1:13.9 [8.7secs faster]
Canada- 1:25.4/1:19.7/1:12.2 [13.2secs faster]
Belgium- ('83)2:05/1:50.5/('02)1:43.7 [21.3secs faster]
Monza- 1:26.5/1:22.2/1:20 [6.5secs faster]
The brackets show the lap time improvement in the 20yrs between '84 and '04. I tried to use tracks that are substantially unchanged, which knocked out such places as Imola, Hockenheim, the Nurburgring, etc. Keeping in mind, again, that in each case the tracks above have been altered over the years so they are not 100% accurate comparisons, but since each track is now either longer or redesigned to be slower, or both, I think it's a decent comparison.
And before you ask, yes, I really should find something better to do with my time.
