Moto GP vs F1 - who is faster?

I remember being at Laguna Seca for World Superbike about 6 years ago. The announcer was commenting on qulifying times and the discussion turned to a comparison of motorcycle vs CART (Indy Car Racing Series) times. Turned out that the track record for bikes was over 8 seconds slower than the CART machines. Keep in mind that CART machines are significantly slower than F1 cars and Laguna is a VERY tight circuit. I believe that it comes down to cornering speed and the cars just put too much rubber down on the ground for bikes to match their speed mid corner.

Also, at this years' Moto GP, they had a 250cc go-kart exhibition with many former bike racers competing. The karts were lapping within 2 seconds of the AMA 600 Supersport bikes.

Agreed with all of the above. Something that brings it home is watching (and hearing) onboard footage of the MotoGP bikes (subscribe on the MotoGP.com website and watch it all as streaming video on demand). The bikes have the throttle almost shut for ages through every corner. They just can't feed in any power till they're almost through. THAT'S where the cars nail it all the way. Also, a car has downforce from the wings, but a bike can't have that. If we did, it would become sideways force when leant over, and THAT would be bad.
Jon.

One of the reasons F1 cars corner so fast is because they cheat and use downforce. I suggest stealing the worlds supply of F1 wings, then compare

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

One of the reasons F1 cars corner so fast is because they cheat and use downforce. I suggest stealing the worlds supply of F1 wings, then compare

and nick their diffuser wotsits and watch them literally take off.

no real arguement here, f1 cars on lap times are much faster because of downforce and the extra grip from 4 big wheels. Motogp is real racing though so who cares

Yeah, F1 would beat a bike on the same track... and there are dozens of other vehicles (mostly military or just very expensive) that would blow a F1 car off the track - in terms of performance and the forces they'd generate... and they'd probably all be a lot more interesting to watch than F1.

Reminds me of that pilot story of the planes calling in to get their relative speeds and some guys in a blackbird overheard some **** fighter pilot do his (which was loads more than anyone else's) just to brag. So they checked theirs (all pilots could hear the same frequency and the speeds the others had) and the blackbird was travelling about 5 times faster than the (now humbled) **** fighter pilot.

Agreed with all that's been said, but it still cheeses me off a bit, as a biker and keen watcher of MotoGP, that Schumacher would lap Rossi every 4 1/2 laps or so on the average track. Still, Rossi looks so much more spectacular.
Jon