The Austrian Grand Prix saw Formula 1 share its race weekend with Formula 3 and the W
Series. And last year, Formula 2 supported the main grand prix so this might well be
a prime opportunity to have a quick comparison of the four series to see how they perform
against one another on track.
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to Austria! The Austrian track is on the shorter end as
tracks go, featuring long power sections - some quite steeply uphill, sharp cresting corners,
a winding fast section in the middle and a couple of fast corners to wind up the lap.
An F1 car will complete a lap of the circuit in Nintendo 64 seconds while the junior categories
are… some way behind. We’ll soon see. We’ll use the classic Chain Bear magenta
for our F1 car, a blue for our F2 car, red for the Formula 3 car and that limey kind
o f colour for the W Series machine. While the F1 car is mostly designed and developed
by each constructor, it is of course boxed in by regulations.
Cars this year are about 5800 millimetres - or 19 feet - long with a wheelbase of around
3700 mm, and max out at 2 metres - or six and a half feet - wide.
The F2 2018 model is a Dallara designed chassis and shorter at 5200 mm - ir 17 feet - in length,
with a 3100 mm wheelbase and just a smidge narrower than it’s F1 counterpart.
Dallara also make the F3 2019 model car which is smaller still and just a small evolution
over their GP3 chassis. It’s just under 5 metres long with a 3 metre wheelbase and
a width just 15 millimetres shorter than the F2 model.
Easily the smallest of the bunch is the W Series car, which uses the Tatuus built F3
T318 model, also used in Formula 3 Asia. It’s only 4600 mm - or 15 foot - long, has
a 2900 millimetre wheelbase and is a tiny bit narrower again than the Formula 3 car.
Weight wise, the Formula 1 car is the heftiest at 752 kilograms, with the Formula 2 car weighing
a surprisingly heavy 720 kilos, the Formula 3 and W Series are in the lower weight bracket
at 673 and 650 kilos respectively. All weights include the driver.
It’s also worth noting that while the F1, F2 and F3 cars have DRS - the ability to open
up the rear wing for straight line speed boosts on the straights - W Series does not.
The four series also run different wheels and tyres from each other.
Currently Formula 1 runs 13 inch rim Pirellis with a 670 millimeter overall diameter tyre
with 305 mm wide tread at the front and 405 mm wide tread at the back. Real chonky bois.
Formula 2 have already graduated to the 18 inch tyres that Formula 1 will adopt next
year. These are a little larger overall at 705 mm but still run a good bit narrower than
Formula 1, front and back. Formula 3 run smaller high profile Pirelli
tyres than F1 - the same 13 inch rims but about 100 millimeters smaller in diameter
overall. Smaller diameter tyres don’t make two much of a difference to performance, especially
with lower expected top speeds but they will be slightly easier to accelerate with a smaller
power supply. While the Formula series all run the Pirelli
P Zero branded tyres, the W Series tyres are supplied by Hankook to a similar but slightly
smaller construction to that of Formula 3. The Hankook compound is less soft and sticky
than the P Zeros we’re pretty used to and tend to run about a second slower over a lap.
Engine-wise, we know Formula 1 has a turbo hybrid power unit with a 1.6 litre V6 petrol
combustion engine. Formulas 2 and 3 both have bigger 3.4 litre
V6 engines supplied by Mecachrome with F2 sporting a turbocharger as part of its power
train. Despite its relatively small size though,
the F1 internal combustion engine reacher power levels of around 1000 horsepower PLUS
an extra 160 brake horsepower from the electric motor at full deployment.
F2 and F3 run power levels of around 620 and 380 brake horsepower respectively - a marked
difference as spec engines designed to meet series requirements over the Formula 1 engines
being constantly pushed to design extremes. W Series, meanwhile, runs a smaller four cylinder
1.7 litre turbocharged engine supplied by Alfa Romeo, outputting at 270 brake horsepower.
While Formula 1 reaches top speeds of 340 kilometres an hour (or about 210 miles an
hour) in a non extreme Monza Style configuration, the Formula 2 cars hit a not-disrespectful
320 ks with F3 a bit further behind at 300 kilometers an hour.
The acceleration of a modern F1 car is particular noticeable over its second phase as, while
the run from 0-100 km/h is reasonably comparable between F1, F2 and F3, Formula 1 cars are
lighting fast on the run from 100 km/h to 200 km/h, leaving the other cars in the dust,
frankly. Accurate speed data was not readily available
on the Tatuus T318 used in W Series so I can’t give you hard numbers to compare other than
the fact that it’s… slower. Which you’d expect.
Comparing the cars on the same track is not an exact science. As you go down the series,
the drivers also get more junior and potentially further from being able to extract the car’s
maximum and more prone to error. Plus, while I’m using the pole laps from
the Austrian Grand Prix weekend for F1, F2 and W Series, I’m using the 2020 pole lap
for Formula 2 as… well, they weren’t taking part in 2021. The cars are basically the same
but it’s important to note the different date.
So, bearing in mind the differences in tyres and pilots, we can run all cars simultaneously
across their hot laps. I’m going to divide the track into my own
little sectors so we can look at the time differences (or deltas) between the cars at
various points like through the corners and across the lengths of straights.
Remember these are hot laps so this isn’t comparing from standing starts.
As expected on the run to the first corner, the cars spread out with the F1 fastest and
the W Series at the back of the train. Look, though, at the highly noticeable gap
the F1 car pulls through the first corner with its superior downforce and grip.
The junior series are spec cars but in F1 they develop every increment of grip out of
these cars. The power run to turn 3 obviously stretches
the gaps somewhat due to the differences in raw power but remember that the W Series is
the only car of the four without DRS to cut drag and increase its straightline speed.
Heading out of turn 3, the F2 car is 3 seconds behind the F1 but 1.9 secs ahead of F3 and
6 seconds ahead of the W Series. The run through the high speed, high G run
from the exit of turn 4 through to turn 8 is interesting.
The F1 does it in just 14.8 seconds, the F2 in 17.5, the F3 in 19.3 seconds and the W
Series in 21.7. By the time they all cross the finish line,
the gaps are WIDE. F1 completes the lap in 1 minute 4 seconds.
Formula 2 is ten seconds back on a 1:14; Formula 3 six seconds later on a 1:20 and W Series
comes through at the back on about a 1 minute 29.
So we can plot these relative times out on a chart to show the gaps between the cars
over the length of one complete hot lap. If we make the x axis the length of the circuit
from start/finish line to start/finish line we can map all of our timing zones onto it,
so - for example - this represents the entry and exit of Turn 1, , this the exit of turn
4, this the start of sector 3, this the entry to turn 9 and so on…
Now we just plot how behind in seconds each car was behind the Formula 1 benchmark at
these points. So they all start together, zero seconds apart,
but as the lap progresses, the other cars end up about ten, sixteen, 26 seconds behind
the F1 car as we saw a minute ago. Already we can see interesting things. While
the junior cars all constantly lose time to the Formula 1 car, the loss is much more pronounced
through the corners. Look at the jump at turn one in particular
- they lose so much time in such a short amount of space. And look at the fast turns nine
and ten - the lines suddenly take an upturn as the gap grows where the Formula 1 car has
so much more grip and is able to maintain its speed.
We can also plot this in a slightly different format. Instead of showing the number of seconds
each car is behind the F1 car, we can plot this gap as a percentage of the F1 time.
So what I’m saying is, if the F1 car hits a timing marker at ten seconds, but the F2
car hits it at 11 seconds and the F3 at 12, then the F2 car is 10% behind and the F3 car
20% behind. Remapping the chart in this way, we can see
than the lines all flatten out - if we just ignore the bit at the beginning where it’s
settling from zero. Why does it look like this? Well, that’s
because the F2 is generally about 13-16% slower than the F1 car. F3 is about 24-26% slower
and the W Series about 40-43% slower. These lines will get flatter and flatter as
the lap goes on, and flatter still if we let the model run and run as the percentage changes
average out over time so we see less dramatic changes where the car performance differs.
What’s notable in this framing is that the lines slope downwards through the long straights.
Why? Because they are now climbing towards their top speeds. And the cars just running
flat out against each other is where the F1 car’s advantage is at its smallest. The
F1 car’s biggest advantage is through the corners, so as the cars just run towards top
speed, the percentage difference between them tends towards their top speed differences.
And as we said earlier, F1’s top speed is about 340 km/h, F2’s is about 320 km/h - a
difference of about 6%, which is what we basically reach by the braking point of turn 3.
You also might notice the W Series line looking a little interesting, suffering much less
on the slow corners than the others. Still losing time to the F1 car and the others,
but much less pronounced. Meanwhile the F2 car seems to suffer the most through the slow,
“throw it in” first couple of corners. This could speak to the comparative instability
of the F2 car compared to the W Series in this type of corner, managing the power:downforce
and mechanical grip ratio, but I need to note that the W Series line is the least accurate
as I had no onboard to map it to, so everything was marked by outboard video.
We can return to the chart showing the actual gaps in seconds but re-centre it so instead
of comparing everything to the F1 time, we can match it to the F2 laptime.
So obviously, the F1 car is pulling away all the time, but through turn 4 (a fast downhill
corner) and on the final run to the line out of turn 10 we see the F3 and W Series cars
actually making a little ground on the F2 car, suggesting the Formula 2 was very slightly
more twitchy and harder to plant the power in these areas.
But looking at these type of corners is interesting. In fact, we can do a couple of things here.
One is to represent each car’s lap as a stack of all their times between each of our
timing markers, like this. And then from here we can just re-zero each
lap around a particular area. So this is the turn 1 entry point, so let’s zero everyone
to that point. And similarly on the visual lap runs, we can
zero all the car to this point to watch the runs through.
Here it’s clear just how much of a world apart the F1 car is through here. Just an
immense amount of speed compared to our juniors. Turn 3 is interestingly much more comparable
if we watch the cars run through the uphill crest. Much more of a mechanical corner this
one, compared to turn 1. Whereas the run through turns six and seven
again show how the downforce superiority of the Formula 1 cars give it an incredible edge
over its competition. The F2 and F3 cars are actually quite similar
in pure grip but the W Series languishes the most through this second half of the lap in
comparison. We can even look at turn 1 again and go back
a bit further. The track itself has these little painted lines marking 50, 100, 150
and 200 metre distances to the corner so we can observe the cars through the entry and
braking zone to the corners. And it’s clear how the F1 car has the confidence
to carry its speed into the corner, while the others have to scrub off more speed, and
earlier. This was a fun exploration, having been given
the opportunity to see three of these cars together on a weekend. But overlaying them
in this way gives us more insight into the differences between the cars.
The British Grand Prix will see F1, F2 and W Series all running their events but this
time with much more high speed challenges than Austria offered so keep a close eye on
how each car rises to its unique challenge.