Does the McLaren F1 handle well?
 

You can start the discussion after watching this video:


I think it is a good hadling car, but the suspesion set up looks too soft. What do you think?

^^ It does lean a bit indeed :shock:

Do scheiße films always have a happy ending?

Re: Does the McLaren F1 handle well?
 

It is definitely soft - designed for the average street with its bumps and stuff and not the track. All it needs to be a killer road/track car is bigger brakes, stiffer rear suspension and perhaps a wing in the rear to add some downforce.

The first generation racing F1 GTRs had the following enhancements to make it track ready:
- Rear wing for more downforce at the rear
- Redesigned diffuser and side skirts
- Removal of rubber bushes at the front
- Replacement of the soft compliant rubber bushes for rigid aluminium ones in the rear
- The road height and camber geometry was not changed to comply with contemporary regulations
- Air restrictor to reduce engine power
- Removal of cats and exhaust silencers
- removal of extraneous trim and equipment
- Enhanced oil cooling but while other cars used a "crash" gearbox, the F1 went with its road going gearbox with synchromesh.
- 18" OZ racing wheels with lower profile tires
- Carbon brakes - curing one of the biggest weaknesses of the car

All in all not that much done to it to take a road legal car and make it a Le Mans and GT Championship winning cars.

there are many other road cars for the road that do better on the track... very many; not even including the upper eschelon super exotics.... which they all do better on the track as well.

But, do you think the BMI guys wanted video of the F1 spinning out from under them? I'm sure there would've been more left in teh car, but that is driving it ath the limit where it understeers, then snap oversteers without warning, or simply just snap oversteers.... i don't think so.

the car doesn't handle well, even considering the soft suspension.

the question on the brakes is a different one... I'm not familiar as to if the F1's brakes had fade issues on the track or not, but if the tires can lock up, then its not the brakes that are the issue.

restricting the F1? I seem to recall the restricted F1's still made jsut 10 or so less hp....

yeh, the F1 is ugly, and handles for crap. There are better things to spend money on if you have the extra.

you are entitled to your opinion of course

as are you, no matter how wrong it is :P hehe :wink:

You dont know crap about the F1 either :lol:

Ah, the classic BM video - one of the first to show a street F1 on a track. If memory serves, this was the episode where they compared it against a bunch of other cars, including 964 RS, and a F355, I think.

Any way, the Brits in general, and Gordan Murray in particular, tend to prefer softer set-ups, which helps the car deal with their crappy 'B-roads' and such. Murray asked Ron Dennis from the outset, whether they intended to race this car. naively, Ron answered no at the time. Thomas Bscher, now head of Bugatti was one of those instrumental in getting Ron to reconsider. That's why the GTR happened.

The best track day F1, to the best of my knowledge, remains the F1 LM (only 5 made). It used straight cut gears though (very noisy), which kind of takes away one of the greatest aspects of F1 ownership - the engine note.

True

Considering the track conditions (92% humidity) the laptime was really good. So no doubt it is a very fast car and a more than competent track car.

The guy was missing a couple gear shifts (especially across the gate ones).

Forgot to thank you for the video - its always good to see the F1 - the greatest car in the world - fuck the naysayers :D :wink:

There was a similar topic a while ago:

http://www.motorworld.net/forum/showthread.php?t=42263

My opinion: It's not a very forgiving car, you have to know exactly what you're doing, especially with 627 bhp right under your right foot. But to say that it handles like shit, is exactly that: bullshit.

^ Open your own steamboat topic! :lol::wink:

The latest Evo pits the F1 against the 9 other cars including the Veyron,
GT3, Enzo, CGT, NSX-R. the author mentions how he thought the F1 was overrated. Then he got to drive it for the first time. He brings up some valid faults but leaves an F1 fan!