Originally Posted by ovalpiston

860bhp is a serious figure..it is really amazing how much they have managed to extract out of a naturally aspirated 5.8l V8 with carbs and pushroad. And i agree with you about the "serious engineering " part,it wouldnt have been possible otherwise.
Yes,the tires which i came across must have been just "show tires" as you say..they were harder than regular production tires and hence my question.But do the teams have the luxury of selecting their compounds for each phase of race according to their strategy? or do they all get one standard compound?

And about F1,each constructor can field a maximum of 2 cars and can carry one extra spare car,they can manufacture a maximum of 4 chasis per year,the engines will have to last for 2 weekends.Like you said in your previous post,to curb the spiralling costs and speed,the engines have been regularly downgraded,today they run a 2.4ltr V8(though the layout can be anything),they are naturally aspirated and produce close to 820 bhp with rev limiter set at 19000,until 2005,these were naturally aspirated 3.0ltr V10 producing almost 900bhp,the cars cannot weigh more than 600kgs including the driver after the completion of the race.Unfortunately,these so called "restrictions" have done very little to help the non-factory cars,most of the private teams have a budget of around 350 million$ per season and that is way short of what the manufacturer teams spend.

When you say multi-car teams ,how many cars usually each of these teams have?Are the manufacturers responsible for only the engines?Who produces the rolling chasis?What exact R&D do each of these private teams do after getting an engine and chasis from the manufacturer? Since NASCAR's doesnt tackle corners,i beleive traction control and launch control are not used or are they? what other electronic aids do the drivers get?Finally,what transmissions do these cars use?Is it completely automatic?or paddle shifting sequential shift or seamless shifts? or is it manual?