[WRC] News & rumours (part III)

[Mirek]

technically speaking yes there is not a contradiction since cornering speed is dependent on traction, but in real life terms when you have 2 corners close to each other the car must have enough power to reach the limit of traction speed.

Sorry, but You didn't get what does cornering speed mean. Cornering speed doesn't depend on power (unless the car needs power slide to turn but let's say it behaves perfectly neutral) and it doesn't depend on traction either. The thing Lundefaret speaks about is lateral acceleration which the car can take in the corner. That depends on many factors, mainly weight of the car, center of gravity position, lateral tyre grip level (depending also on tyre sidewall stiffness), suspension setup (mainly rollbars) etc.

It's very easily possible to have much more powerful car which is much slower in corners, e.g. Audi Qattro may have double power compared to Fiesta WRC but in the corner it is way slower (must slow down much more before the apex). The cornering speed is what changed dramatically through the years.