well you can argue that RWD doesnt HAVE to weigh as much as a GT-R to get the same level of performance.

however, like i said, in order to counter that you can simply add more power. im not saying adding power will offset the negative effect on suspension, but likewise you can design the suspension to deal with the weight.

well then you can say oh but RWD can add more power too!

but then i say, yes but you WILL reach a point where the car can no longer take it. it will be TOO powerful to control. THAT is where AWD will come into play. the LIMIT is higher because physically speaking, you have more contact patch to use that power.

a real world example of this is the SL65 AMG Black. it makes so much torque that it has to be electronically limited because it just spins the tires otherwise. OTOH the veyron makes 1001 hp and is AWD. without AWD the veyron would be useless...

 

LOL. you are highly misinformed.

racing teams will lose weight regardless of the rules. that is obvious.

why bother with AWD if you have traction control? it's the other way around! traction control was made BECAUSE they couldnt use AWD. and it's not like you can't use AWD with TC so there goes that idea...

and why did traction control get banned? because it was TOO good. you can go flat out in the corner, pull 2-3 g's and STILL stay on track because the TC was THAT good. and of course you have to include the downforce but that's a whole 'nother story...

 

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing stopping an LMP1 car being AWD. So why has Audi made the R8, R10, and R15 all RWD? Surely, few companies have the AWD experience Audi has.

Baseless speculation is nice and all, but this is a faulty argument.

The rules state the MINIMUM weight. Not the maximum. Since AWD systems add weight, minimum weight rules do not restrict their use. Thus, if a team believed the extra weight of an AWD system would be beneficial, they would be free to use it as long as the car wasn't too LIGHT, not too heavy.

Basically, what you're is that AWD isn't used because it's too heavy.

 

What were they banned from, exactly?

 

What does this even mean? After the race, the car is weighed. If it weighs too little, you get disquallified. Am I missing something here?

You're practically making my argument for me. The traction control was so good that it would negate the potential benefits of AWD in the corners. Why add a bunch of weight to the front of the car when you can just write T/C into the software?

Regardless, lap times didn't suffer when they ditched TC after 2008. Of course, a big part of this is down to the return to slicks.

 

1.) yes but that doesn't matter as much as you think. if we're talking about supercars, you dont expect good mileage and maintenance costs. if you're talking streetcars then you know why cars like the evo dont exist and cost so much. you get what you pay for.

2.) like i said, you can design it to lessen the weight imbalance. will it be better than RWD probably not. will it help it get to the point where the advantage would be so nil that its not worth mentioning? yeah pretty much. GT-R. nuff said.

3.) read my other post. there will be a limit to how much power you put down on 2 contact patches. AWD spreads it out more even = you can have more power, AND USE IT!

4.) LOL. depends on how you implement it. if you were to design the perfect AWD sportscar you will program it to send all power to the front upon slip? ok then...

5.) quite simply, the technology didnt exist. traditionally AWD sucked as a sportscar setup. but the evo and GT-R are changing the world of AWD sportscars. they get no respect because of their tuner status BUT only NOW are the german powerhouses BMW, VW/AUDI, Porsche using tq vectoring rear diffs when the evos and GT-R's have used them for a decade...

 

British touring car

Link:
The Unfair Advantage: Round 2 Part 1



Excerpt:

Due to their 1996 success, Audi began the 1997 season with an additional 95kg weight penalty to aid in making the all-wheel-drive cars more competitive with their less dominant rivals. The Audi team cars dropped back in the standings considerably, resulting in a choice by the FIA to lift the penalty later that season but all-wheel-drive would eventually be banned by the FIA governing body in France for 1998.

It would appear that Audi's quattro all-wheel-drive system had again become an “unfair advantage” as it had for other Audi Sport endeavors in the 1980's. Even without the added weight penalty the A4 quattro touring car weighed in at 1040kg vs. the 975kg weight of its front-wheel-drive rivals. The results of their winnings clearly show the advantage bestowed on the cars via Audi's famed quattro all-wheel-drive system.

Many other manufacturers complained about the dominating aspect of all-wheel-drive over the more popularly used front-wheel-drive TOCA cars. What is less known is that both Ford and Nissan experimented with all-wheel-drive variations of their own Mondeo and Primera models for the German Super Touring Cup but were unsuccessful. This proved that it wasn't just all-wheel-drive that provided the advantage, but also Audi's careful engineering and years of experience with quattro's use in motorsport.

 

Because traction control only maximizes the amount of available traction, traction control doesn't create traction. AWD systems have more available traction than RWD because all four wheels are being driven. There's no arguing that. The extra traction that an AWD vehicle enjoys allows AWD vehicles to exit corners much faster than a RWD car. AWD puts more power down while exiting a corner than RWD because AWD vehicles have more available traction.

And you didn't answer my questions about Audi's unfair advantage, and the GT-R being able to outperform the lighter RWD Corvetter Z06?

 

it means even if the rules allowed AWD, the teams would still search for places ti shed weight. you act as if only RWD can shed weight. so the real question is this. how much weight advantage must a RWD car have to make up the AWD cars inherent better traction?

the GT-R is an epiphany to MANY people because the old GT-R's were japan only. maybe aus also. with the new GT-R, NO EXPENSE was spared, relatively speaking of course. it took YEARS for them to develop. when i finally came out, it was RIDICULOUS because people didnt believe such a heavy car could accomplish what it does. even then, it doesnt use tons of CF, it "only" has about 500 hp, etc. so it can still get better, FASTER.

and why? because no one dared to make an AWD supercar like the GT-R. 911 turbo is nice and all but the AWD system PALED in comparison. the newest 911 turbo has had to develop new tech like a tq vectoring rear diff and DCT to keep up with a lowly nissan...

um no. again. you act as if AWD cant have TC also. TC works by cutting power. FACT. whether it is by the engine or by applying brakes. power is cut to maintain traction. SOOOOOOOOO if you had AWD with TC, you can NATURALLY have a higher limit BEFORE TC kicks in.

 

Because a race car is different from a street car. AWD wouldn't benefit a race car that weighs 2000 lbs. But I'm not talking about race cars, I'm talking about street cars. Look at it this way. If RWD was so much better on the street, then why is the Audi R8 Street car AWD?

I'm saying that AWD isn't used because race and street applications are two completely different things. Neither of which can apply directly to each other.

For street cars, AWD provides traction coming out of turns that RWD simply cannot match. 4 driven wheels provides more traction than 2 driven wheels. There's a reason why rally cars aren't RWD. Come to think of it, Why do you think that rally cars aren't RWD only?

 

Someone answer this:

Why are Rally Cars AWD? Do you think that if they were RWD would they perform better?

Once you start adding weight, AWD is the better solution.

 

Like I already pointed out to Spoolie, there is no reason modern LMP cars couldn't run AWD if they were so inclined. And they don't. Not Audi, not Porsche, not Peugeot, not Lola. All RWD. The technology is there. They just don't use it. You can speculate all you want, but that is the reality.

 

Ahh. More recently, Audi was allowed to use AWD in Speed GT with the RS6. I believe they won the title their first year, but they did have stiff competition from the CTS-V. AWD definitely has more benefit in sports car racing than prototype/*****-out stuff.

 

Dude. read the official Le Mans rules and regs. Electronic control of clutches and diffs are FORBIDDEN. AWD system without those things would make it archaic and thus no one uses it...

http://www.lemans.org/files/reglemen...t_lmp_2010.pdf

And WHY is it banned? because if you have more money you develop a better system and destroy the competition. Also, it would make cars faster. and faster equals more dangerous for drivers and spectators alike...

EDIT: i just looked at the rules myself.... article 9.4 states: Four-Wheel Drive: Not permitted.

NUFF SAID.

END THREAD...

 

Because 99% of Audi's marketing comes down to how great Quattro is. What would it convey if they didn't put it in their flagship? The car is also designed to be more of a grand tourer than an all-out sports car. AWD is better for that.

I can just as easily ask why the new Gallardo Balboni, the only RWD car Lambo has made in over a decade, has been universally praised as a better driving experience than the standard AWD Gallardo. Does that mean it is faster in all conditions? Of course not. But ditching the hardware up from does change the driving experience.

I think this whole thing got out of hand because we were considering different aspects of the equation. I don't at all disagree that AWD is better for a daily driven sports car. Why do you think I drive an Evo? I do believe, though, that RWD is used in the top tiers of motorsport for a reason, and why most supercars don't rely on AWD.

Rally cars are AWD for obvious reasons. In the conditions they race in, the extra traction makes all the difference. That extra traction under acceleration ceases to be as much of a factor in better conditions, like dry racetracks.

Anyway, I think it's pretty silly we got to this point from comparing the Evo to the 335i. I'm not going to spend any more time arguing over something that engineers have debated for decades.