Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
Per, power is a value. It is a value made of torque multiplied by engine speed which means power is always a thing of high rews (high relatively to the used restrictor).

If I say I don't believe that there are big differences in power between the cars I mean they have roughly same value of peak power, which means they can all reach about the same top speed if they had the same drag coefficient and were not limited by gearing. That's simple physics.

However what is important the most is the work the engine can deliver over a certain used RPM range (energy delivered). If you know how power curve looks, this work (or delivered energy) is the area of the graph between the RPM-axis (X-axis) and the power curve in the given RPM range (it's really that simple).

Why is torque important? Because power is torque x engine speed, i.e. when RPM is +/- given by the regulations what you can work on is the torque to achieve as flat power curve as possible (because the largest achievable area is square - when power curve is parallel to the RPM-axis). The most difficult part on that is IMHO to keep the engine efficiency over wide range of RPM, hence why the difference isn't usually in the peak power but in the curve shape.

In simple words. If you put the cars on a drag track and shift ideally you will probably have nearly same finish time for all. But now do the same but shift from 3rd directly to 6th gear and you will see the diffrence between the cars.

On fast events the engine use is closer to the ideal drag track while with more and longer turns (especialy with uneven radius) it gets closer to the second scenario because you need to use much wider RPM range than the ideal one.

I hope it's understandable now.
I might not understand you correctly because of a bit of a language barrier but i don't think you are correct here. In the theoretical situation you mentioned where the peak power of the cars is same but some have a more flat powercurve and you dragrace them in perfect situations the car with the smoother curve will win. What it means is that the top speed of all cars is the same providing they are not limited by gearing (or are geared the same).
My logic is that the torque of the engine does not matter. What matters is the torque going to the wheels and that can be changed with gears. The amount of torque needed is limited by the grip of the tires so the cars that have a more acute power curve will be geared shorter so the torque in the wheels will be similar as the cars with a smoother power curve. If you have a better engine torque delivery it gives you much more freedom in the gearing and the ones with worse torque delivery need to optimize more. Where it will matter more is the type of stages where the cars will be near their top speed as neither the Ford or Hyundai have been physically limited by lack of power but rather by the rev limiter. So the lack of engine torque will be a bit less important in the more technical and slower rallies where the drivers will be on wide open throttle for shorter amounts of time.