On 4 September, 2005, during the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Juan Pablo Montoya’s McLaren MP4-20 was clocked at an impressive 372.6km/h. More than a decade later this remains F1’s all-time racing speed record - but could we see a new high water mark set this weekend in high-altitude Mexico?
Montoya’s benchmark was achieved in the final season of the 3.0L V10 engine era - an era that, as many lap records still attest, was a particularly fruitful period for performance highs.
The nature of performance in F1 tends to be cyclical, with the
regulations deliberately shifted at regular intervals when cars get too
quick for the circuits. The last couple of cycles haven’t quite reached
the peak of the mid-2000s, but recent trends suggest the sport is
heading back that way now. Put simply: if the present course continues,
records will fall.
Will the outright speed record be one of them? It isn’t something
that can be taken for granted. The case for centres around the 366km/h
that Sebastian Vettel and Pastor Maldonado hit in the thin air at
Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez last year. Undoubtedly F1’s
engines are producing more power in 2016 than Vettel had in 2015, making
high-altitude Mexico the prime candidate for a broken record.
The case against centres around the fact that the relationship
between horsepower and outright speed is not linear, and also that
outright end-of-straight [EOS] speed is not something teams necessarily
target. Put starkly, there’s more lap time to be gained in going faster
around the corners than down the straights, so Montoya’s record may be
safe for a while yet…
