They’re not leaving any “speed on the table”, a race track has turns. So like I said, maximum achievable speeds are rarely achieved and only on a few race tracks.
Of course the cars are geared for the specific track they’re racing on, but that doesn’t mean they are always at their maximum power.
Drafting is exactly what allows a car to achieve higher speeds with at lower RPM, because it allows the pursuer to short shift and get into a higher gear than the person in front of them. So yes, they would have RPM to spare since they’re in a higher gear and can shift down for more power.
You know you can just get any decent racing simulator game and test your theories? Wherein ‘Forza Horizon’ and ‘NFS’ aren’t decent sims.
You aren’t getting significant advantage from drafting unless you’re at a high speed, i.e. at those same long straights for which gearing is tuned. If the car isn’t close to redlining the last gear when it reaches the speed where drafting allows for overtaking, that means it lost speed that it could’ve been gaining during the acceleration by having closer gearing.
Maybe your hypothesis works in bus racing, I’m not familiar with that.
They’re not leaving any “speed on the table”, a race track has turns. So like I said, maximum achievable speeds are rarely achieved and only on a few race tracks. Of course the cars are geared for the specific track they’re racing on, but that doesn’t mean they are always at their maximum power.
Drafting is exactly what allows a car to achieve higher speeds with at lower RPM, because it allows the pursuer to short shift and get into a higher gear than the person in front of them. So yes, they would have RPM to spare since they’re in a higher gear and can shift down for more power.
You know you can just get any decent racing simulator game and test your theories? Wherein ‘Forza Horizon’ and ‘NFS’ aren’t decent sims.
You aren’t getting significant advantage from drafting unless you’re at a high speed, i.e. at those same long straights for which gearing is tuned. If the car isn’t close to redlining the last gear when it reaches the speed where drafting allows for overtaking, that means it lost speed that it could’ve been gaining during the acceleration by having closer gearing.
Maybe your hypothesis works in bus racing, I’m not familiar with that.