I was all set to go into a deep discussion on the positives and negatives of each series (note: at Official Overseas Reader Flotsky posited, we've rejoined IRL and ChampCar. It's been 10 years, guys, give it up already!), delving into the minutae betwixt the two and perhaps, finally, coming to a conclusion that would adequately say which should win and why.

But this statistic jumped out at me, and made me just throw up my hands and say "why bother?"

Patrick Friesacher - 1:19.574

Sebastien Bourdais - 1:20.396

What are these times? They're qualifying times for the only track, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, which both ChampCar and F1 race on. "Okay," you might say, "they're really close, so what? Like this proves things?"

Here's the catch: Bourdais was on pole for his race. Friesacher was the slowest qualifier for his (Rubens Barrichello turned no time, so Friesacher wasn't last on the grid).

Friesacher, in one of the slowest cars in F1, was still NEARLY A SECOND FASTER than the fastest car for ChampCar ON THE SAME TRACK!

As everything stands right now, there's no contest: F1 is faster than CART, and it's not really even close. Of course, there's a little thing like "budget" involved, too... Minardi will probably spend around $50 million this season, to end up the worst team in F1. The highest budget in in ChampCar might be $20 million. I'd HOPE F1 was faster.

But it really isn't close right now. Next year, when F1 goes to the smaller engines, lets revisit this.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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