There are so many rules dictating the design of an F1 chassis/engine that I wonder how much faster a "anything goes" car would go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0
IIRC some of those GT cars that look like snails compared to F1 cars are "anything goes".
However, here is a truly anything goes car (that has broken the speed barrier on land): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQ-xj5C2m8
So yeah, an anything goes car will go much faster than an F1 car. But it's going to suck at cornering. We currently don't have anything that can hold such high average speeds as an F1 car can. Not even in any very lightly regulated sport.
For interestingness' sake, modern WRC cars reach speeds of 220kph over gravel.
Top speeds of F1 cars are around 360kph (the Bugatti Veyron can do 430kph), but F1 cares more about cornering speed than top speed.
From Wikipedia:
> The large downforce allows an F1 car to corner at amazing speeds. 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 (190 mph), whereas the race-spec touring cars can only do so at 150–160 km/h (note that lateral force increases with the square of the speed). 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 and 285 km/h (165 and 177 mph) (in 2006) and experience between 4.5 g and 5.5 g for 7 seconds—the longest sustained hard cornering in Formula 1.
Take for example LMP, which used to go well above 400kph, but not so much car regulations as much as track regulations made that impossible/useless (e.g old Mulsanne Straight), designing top speed out of the cars because it simply was too dangerous. Mulsanne now has a brake zone from ~320kph down to ~100kph, much more humanly manageable.
More downforce also means more drag, and for LMP's long running races this means too high a fuel consumption. Also, ground effects and closed body vs open wheels. Reliability (or lack thereof) is on the F1 side since LMP has to run hundreds of long laps, while a F1, even with "X races per engine" rules has to run continuously for a couple hours at most. Lift such a regulation and you could make a bloody efficient engine that self-destructs over a single race.
LMP have a minimum regulated weight of ~900kg, and as every fellow driver knows, "weight is the enemy of performance". Barring that, and tuned to the problem, LMP would kick the pants off a F1 because F1 is (comparatively) insanely regulated.
The beauty of F1 is that it achieves incredible performance in spite of suffering extremely limiting regulations. My bet is that lifting all regulations would quickly put the human as the sole limiting factor to performance, because the poor pilot of a guy would be on the verge of passing out at braking and inside every corner, unless they're on a balancing seat and have anti-g suits.
Now that's something I'd tune in for! A couple of high budget vehicles and sophisticated driver AIs slugging it out on a racetrack, that would definitely be interesting.
And the driver salaries could be donated to charity ;-)
I googled some and found this: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=598933&hw...
Couldn't find a link to the original article though. Pretty interesting.
Ground effect[0], thoroughly used in LMP to gain downforce without suffering as much drag as with a wing.
Here's what happens when the effect breaks down[1].
From the Wikipedia article: "The BT46B generated an immense level of downforce by means of a fan, claimed to be for increased cooling, but which also extracted air from beneath the car. The car only raced once in this configuration in the Formula One World Championship—when Niki Lauda won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp. To the dismay of its designer Gordon Murray, the concept was voluntarily withdrawn from racing again by Bernie Ecclestone."
The cars could be made so fast that humans could not drive the cars any more. In addition, safety of the audience would be compromised and the costs would be prohibitively expensive to maintain competition.
While there has been a set of rules and regulations always in Formula 1 (that's what the name "formula" refers to), there have been periods when the cars have been ridiculously quick, despite all the limiting regulations.
In the late 1970's ground effect cars were able to produce a huge amount of downforce with very little drag, and the cars would corner at high speeds and had a rock hard suspension, the drivers hated the cars because of the rough ride.
In the 1980's, there were turbo engines that developed more than 1300 horsepower in qualifying trim. They could spin the wheels on top gear when the boost kicks in. This was expensive, stupid and dangerous but the audience loved it.
In the early 2000's, aerodynamic advances and improvements in computational fluid dynamics made it possible to get immense amounts of downforce. Cars regularly reached top speeds of 340-360 km/h, and ran at more than 400km/h outside of regular racing/testing in special top speed configuration. The costs were ridiculous and only a few top teams were competitive. The teams used up to 8 engines per weekend (that's roughly as much as they use in the whole season).
"Anything goes" is just not a good idea when it comes to motorsport. There are things that have been banned in the past that could be incorporated in a fast and safe racing formula, though.
Maybe people would want to watch it on video or even VR so it seems like they are actually there. Who knows if done right it could be a better experience then looking at 1 piece of a race track for hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010
The limit becomes G-forces that a driver can bear, especially over a race distance. They limited it to 6G. For an engine they interestingly picked a 3L V6, where the new F1 formula is a 1.6L V6.
Also here's an interesting comparison betweek the X2010 and X2011: http://xn-games.net/okra/2011/10/29/gran-turismo-5-red-bull-...
Finally, tech specs and diagrams (indicating load & downforce) for the X2010: http://jonsibal.com/blog/2010/10/red-bull-x1/
To keep the audience alive, the track safety upgrades would be unfortunately expensive for track owners.
To keep the cars on the road, I suspect expensive track modifications would eventually be required. Perfectly vertical turns, perhaps.
The last straw for Can-Am, really, was Porsche simply pouring money into it with the 917 until no one could compete with them, rendering the racing kind of boring. Tight regulation in F1 and other racing forms keeps the focus on the driver, not the car.
F1 has always been about the car, and the most heralded of driver in one car often becomes completely humdrum in another, and vice versa. Tight regulations simply change the parameters that the car makers have to optimize, and ultimately came about because without continually restricting the engineering, the cars were becoming impossibly fast.
The only series that are really about the driver have identical cars. I believe that is how the Formula E thing is planned, for instance, at least to begin.
Jet powered vehicles are capable of going faster, even mach 1, but they have the same controllability problems.
If we were to hypothesize a future extreme sport of ultra fast racing in the 300mph or 400mph speed range then a few problems become immediately apparent. First, you'd need a specially designed course with very gradual turns. Also the roadway would have to be kept immaculately clean of debris. Second, the races would not last very long due to high rates of fuel consumption. For example, the Bluebird CN7 consumes fuel at top speed at about 260 gallons per hour (and has a 25 gallon tank), while the ThrustSSC consumes fuel at a rate of 24 gallons/mile. Third, passing would be extremely dangerous because even disrupting another vehicle's aerodynamics in any way, let alone physical contact, could cause it to become uncontrollable resulting in a very damaging and life threatening crash.
But by this point, you are effectively left with a rocket that just happens to have some circular things that touch the ground.
It would start resembling aerobatic aircraft like Extra 300.
High aerodynamic acceleration is an old thing, it's how they actually discovered G-induced loss of consciousness. If you are mostly doing the racing with electronic motors, there's less noise and it's not as interesting anymore. Therefore some airstream operated whistle or siren would be useful, as you could deduce the speed directly from it:
1) Total fuel limit (of specified type etc.). Gives all cars equal energy budget to use. Maybe some fuel could be traded for pre-charged batteries for KERS type systems.
2) Size limits. Must be narrow enough to overtake, short enough to fit in a pit box and maybe a height limit too.
3) Safety requirements and possibly a minimum weight to allow for sufficient safety without overly compromising safety.
There would still be plenty of things that could be done that are currently forbidden such as active aerodynamics so the car could actually have one or more rudders to assist with cornering etc. and that wings could flatten into aerodynamic shapes.
I could almost imagine the cars no longer using their brakes before corners but instead increasing downforce enough to take the corner and that increased drag being the only reason that they slow down at all.
As to the question whether or not this would make for "great telly" or not, I leave to those far more cynical than me.
The cars have been able to go faster than drivers can handle for a long time.
I don't think a race at 228 mph would be safer than a restrictor plate race and I am pretty sure it would kill more people.
1) look at all the attention to the Nationwide Race where the catch fence failed