Why do GT3 cars and others used for track racing labelled as slower than their road car counterparts?
In: Other
GT3 cars, like most race cars, are built to go around a race track as fast as possible. To do so they may trade off some top speed in exchange for acceleration and speed in turns.
Racing cars have to adhere to much stricter safety and cost regulations then road cars. So a road car does not require things like anti-roll bar and fire extinguishers and do not have to follow the same regulations regarding engine size, boost pressure and car weight as a race car. This is because a race car is expected to be driven at the limit for extended periods of time and therefore are likely to crash. So the regulation is designed to slow the car down and make it able to withstand harder impacts without killing the driver. A road car however is not supposed to be driven faster then the speed limit and are therefore designed to handle the impacts you get when keeping it under the legal limit. The engine size can also be whatever you want since you are not supposed to use it for more then accelerating up to the speed limit.
Another difference even between different racing car series is the amount of downforce required to be fastest around each track. In order to add downforce a car will have to increase its drag which slows it down on the straights. However this means it can go through the corners much faster and will therefore be much faster around the track then without the same downforce generating elements. This means that if you just look at a single number like the straight line top speed or the lap time at a specific track then cars of different racing series or even road cars will give very different results without it having anything to do with their actual abilities as a racing car.
The added downforce of a wing decreases the top speed of the car while increasing acceleration and handling at high speeds. On most tracks an extra 10mph max speed won’t help much.
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