Turning acceleration
The F1 car can accelerate to 300 km/h (190 mph) very quickly, however the top speeds are not much higher than 330 km/h .
On low-downforce circuits greater top speeds are registered at Gilles-Villeneuve circuit (Canada) 325 km/h, at Indianapolis (USA) 335 km/h, and at Monza (Italy) 360 km/h. In the Italian Grand Prix 2004, Antônio Pizzonia of BMW WilliamsF1 team recorded a top speed of 369.9 kilometers per hour.
This is because the top speeds are sacrificed for the turning speeds. An F1 car is designed principally for high-speed cornering, thus the aerodynamic elements can produce as much as four times the car's weight in downforce, at the expense of high drag factor. In fact, at a speed of just 130 km/h, the downforce equals the weight of the car. As the speed of the car rises, the downforce increases same as drag.
The turning force at low speeds (below 70 to about 100 km/h) mostly comes from the so-called 'mechanical grip' created by tires themselves and finely tuned suspension. At such low speeds the car can turn at 2.0 g. At 210 km/h already the turning acceleration is 3.0g, as evidenced by the famous esses (turns 3 and 4) at the Suzuka circuit. Higher-speed corners such as Blanchimont (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps) and Copse (Silverstone Circuit) are taken at above 5.0g, and 6.0g has been recorded at famous Suzuka's 130-R corner. This contrasts with 1g for the Enzo Ferrari or McLarenF1, one of the best road sports cars.
These turning accelerative forces allow an F1 car to corner at amazing speeds, seeming to defy the laws of physics. As an example of the extreme cornering speeds, the Blanchimont and Eau Rouge corners at Spa-Francorchamps are taken flat-out at above 300 km/h, whereas the race-spec GT cars in the ETCC can only do so at 150–170 km/h. A newer and perhaps even more extreme example is the Turn 8 at the Istanbul Park circuit, a 190° relatively tight 4-apex corner, in which the cars maintain speeds between 265 km/h and 285 km/h and experience between 4.5g and 5.5g for 7 seconds - the longest sustained hard cornering in Formula 1 (and hence all motorsport).
Check Corners, Cornering and Mosley equation article!
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