Watch Motor Trend's "World's Greatest Drag Race" and See Who Wins

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

Watch Motor Trend's "World's Greatest Drag Race" and See Who Wins

This article was published by Joe Donaldson (@Joey D) on September 23rd, 2017 in the Car Culture category.

 

[Obelisk]

Not surprised at the Tesla winning to be honest. As soon as they launched, I knew.

Still a fantastic race to watch, though!

 

[HuskyGT]

Poor Corvette. Should've brought the Z06. And the lack of Viper, M5 and others is kinda of a bummer.

 

[desmodan]

Good to see the European cars making such a good account for themselves .
But as husky said maybe not the right models were chosen , and where was the challenger demon everyone's been raving about ?

 

[Joey D]

Good to see the European cars making such a good account for themselves .
But as husky said maybe not the right models were chosen , and where was the challenger demon everyone's been raving about ?

It's part of the Best Driver's Car search and I'm guessing outside a drag race the Demon is absolute trash to drive.

The Corvette was a bit of a mystery though, I'm not sure why they chose the Grand Sport over the Z06. I looked around online and couldn't find their selection criteria anywhere.

Oh and for those who want to know which car was deemed the best driver's car:

Spoiler

Ferrari 488 GTB

 

[fatkid]

Such a great to see such a huge collection of cars go at it all at once. And shows the incredible acceleration achieved using electric power. The thing that leaves bitter taste in my mouth is was this an advertisement for Elon Musk? And it wasn't a very subtle one. A model from his automobile company makes a suprise, last-minute entry into the race, and on one of the venues where his Space X program will be taking place?

Great to see these type of mass drag races though.

 

[Eyes Fried Open]

I wonder how many of them had issues with launch control setting and maybe could have been placed differently. I know even the stig had some issuez on top gear with some of the head to heads they had between some of the supercars

 

[snowgt]

Ok, so an EV is fast off a standing start. What else is new? Had they gone 100 metres longer, the Tesla would not have won by quite a margin as acceleration decreases quite substantially at higher speeds. The speed at the finish line is actually a good indication of that.

 

[TheDabbinDave]

Apparently, there is no reason to watch the videos, with the results posted right below it.



What’s even more frustrating is they were too chicken to do a 1/2 mile or even 1 mile run.

 

[Joey D]

Apparently, there is no reason to watch the videos, with the results posted right below it.



What’s even more frustrating is they were too chicken to do a 1/2 mile or even 1 mile run.

The article did state:

"If you’re curious to see how the race progressed, check out the Motor Trend video. Don’t scroll too far though, as we’ve posted the results below."

So there was a warning.

 

[Keithdoom]

For their Best Drivers Car Competition they use new models. Z06 was in a previous competition and the Grand Sport is new. Cars like the 488 GTB weren't attainable for the time period of last years competition so Motor Trend included it this year.

 

[desmodan]

Interesting to see , even if the short run meant it was stacked in favour of the Tesla . Shows how far electric vehicles have come in the last few years though .
Wonder if they are taking the same group to a proper circuit ?

 

[Famine]

even if the short run meant it was stacked in favour of the Tesla

1,320ft = 440yd = quarter-mile = literally the standard drag race distance for 70 years

(although modern top class racers use 1,000ft to allow a longer shutdown area for safety reasons, following a fatal crash)

 

[desmodan]

Not saying it was wrong , just that the outcome would have been very different if it had been only a few feet longer or a full lap of a proper circuit.

 

[Famine]

Not saying it was wrong , just that the outcome would have been very different if it had been only a few feet longer or a full lap of a proper circuit.

The cars in the Best Driver's Car were also taken round a circuit, in addition to a number of other tests. The Tesla was not included in that* because it is not part of the Best Driver's Car group - as detailed within the article.

For this test - a standard quarter-mile drag race - the Tesla won, although its result isn't relevant.


*I asked Tesla about taking a Model S on track. The response was essentially a musing on which component - brakes, tyres, battery - would expire first due to the weight and heat generated by track work. Suffice to say Tesla was not keen.

 

[desmodan]

Not relevant maybe , but still impressive .

 

[aguia]

The Tesla P100D only wins because... have no Rimac ))
and my top look design goes to lhe last, LC500

 

[Nissan_S14]

I wanted to see a 1/2 or a mile run, but whatever, the 488 did it better than i expected.

 

[Hanswurst2k]

The difference between the other cars and the Tesla is, that all are cars are capable of doing this multiple times. Run the Tesla a second or third or even worse fouth time and it will be beaten by a Golf Diesel.

 

[Obelisk]

Run the Tesla a second or third or even worse fouth time and it will be beaten by a Golf Diesel.

This seems a bit strange to me. What do you mean?

 

[AudiMan2011]

This seems a bit strange to me. What do you mean?

Maybe he means that the batteries will begin to overheat when doing multiple runs at max power or something.

 

[Hanswurst2k]

This seems a bit strange to me. What do you mean?

Maybe he means that the batteries will begin to overheat when doing multiple runs at max power or something.

This is called derating. The more the battery heats up, it will allow less power to be taken from it. The Tesla crosses the line at 125mph. I've got 0-120mph measurements from a P100D with multiple runs.

Run1 11,9s
Run2 12,7s
Run3 18,6s
Run4 35,1s !!!

The 911 Turbo S will do the same times until you run out of fuel or you get sick.

 

[Liquid]

Not saying it was wrong , just that the outcome would have been very different if it had been only a few feet longer or a full lap of a proper circuit.

And if my auntie had a pair of bollocks she'd be my uncle. Both are meaningless hypothetical scenarios. The fact is that the Tesla won over a competitive, well-established drag distance.

 

[desmodan]

Again . I'm not saying the test was wrong .
Just that it played to the Tesla's ultimate capabilities perfectly .

 

[Danoff]

Spoilers, if you don't want to know who wins, watch the video.

Thinking about this one a little more after watching the videos... the Ferrari and Porsche are 0.1s behind the Tesla after the quarter mile. The shifts in the Porsche and Ferrari are done by hand (paddle-shifted), which means that you lose a few milliseconds per shift and you shift at a sliiiiightly sub-optimal point in the RPM range. I'm seeing drag racers point to potentially 0.1s loss during a quarter mile using a PDK transmission due to shifting below the redline.

I wonder if you set a computer up to shift for you at the perfect time, whether these cars could overtake the Tesla in a quarter mile.

 

[Vegard]

I wonder if you set a computer up to shift for you at the perfect time, whether these cars could overtake the Tesla in a quarter mile.

The Ferrari's power curve is flat for the final 1600/1700 rpm and it has very closely stacked gears so you're at peak power all the time in the low and intermediate gears. In the Porsche the gears are a little more spread out and the power curve isn't flat so perhaps there could be a small improvement if indeed the shifting points in the race were less than optimal. I don't think it would be able to take down the P100D though.

 

[Sage Ages]

Not saying it was wrong , just that the outcome would have been very different if it had been only a few feet longer or a full lap of a proper circuit.

"Dude, I almost had you."

 

[Danoff]

The Ferrari's power curve is flat for the final 1600/1700 rpm and it has very closely stacked gears so you're at peak power all the time in the low and intermediate gears. In the Porsche the gears are a little more spread out and the power curve isn't flat so perhaps there could be a small improvement if indeed the shifting points in the race were less than optimal. I don't think it would be able to take down the P100D though.

The ferrari was like half the distance from the Tesla as compared to the Porsche. So for the ferrari it might have been less than a tenth and rounded up. We might be talking about as little as 50ms. These times are well within driver reaction time, and possibly within the interruption in power from a series of dual clutch shifts. I don't know what gear these cars are in at the end of the quarter mile, but if they go through 4? shifts? That's 25ms per shift to make up the 0.1s difference, assuming driver reaction is nullified.

My point is that really, ultimately, regardless of who won that particular drag race, those cars are evenly matched. You might get a different order each time you ran it. If the Tesla being 0.1s faster is to be believed, it might simply be due to the fact that it doesn't change gears.

 

[TB]

With all the cameras they already had for the shoot, I would have loved a stationary drone shot from above for the entire race in addition to all the jumps to other cameras.