# Why can't I drive an F1 car down the street? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 10, 2010, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180 "2010-07-10T02:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![3waygeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e95f7d/32.png) [@3waygeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3waygeek)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/21 "2010-07-12T15:41:40Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > The lack of a reverse gear might prove a problem, as would the the lack of a speedometer. [F1 cars have reverse](http://www.f1technical.net/articles/66). ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/22 "2010-07-12T18:03:07Z")
> [@EpicNonsense](#): > > Seems like it’d be a bitch with stoplights and everyday traffic. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo) 😃 Hammond: “Oh my God! Oh My God! Holy Mother!..It’s absolutely the most glorious machine in the world!” Pit guy: “Wait 'til you get it into second.” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/23 "2010-07-12T18:33:16Z")
Apart from legal issues, a modern F1 car doesn’t have an onboard starter motor, and has to have warm motor oil pumped through the engine and gearbox (by attaching a pump to the car, not using onboard systems) before you can even think about starting it anyway. The brakes don’t work unless they’re warm. They won’t get warm on public roads. The tyres don’t grip unless they’re warm. They won’t get warm on public roads. The wings don’t do anything above about 50 miles per hour. If you have to stop (stop sign, light, obstruction, pedestrian, whatever) you will almost certainly stall. Even if you don’t stall when you stop, you will almost certainly stall when you try to get it moving again. So yeah, that’s why: you’ll crash. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/24 "2010-07-12T18:42:23Z")
Now, you _can_ drive a Group C racer ([Dauer 962 Le Mans - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dauer_962_Le_Mans)), World Rally Championship car, or something approaching an old-school BRM F1 car: ([Light Car Company Rocket | Sports Cars](http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/vehicles/road/cars/light_car_company_rocket.html)). ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/25 "2010-07-13T14:36:52Z")
> [@Ionizer](#): > > I once rode with a buddy from Oklahoma City to central Kansas in a '72 Charger with a 4.4 rear-end, iirc. His friend with trailer no-showed, so he had to drive his car rather than trailer it the whole way. At ~60mph, the car was turning close to redline in top gear, so _had_ to go slower. “close to redline” at 60mph in top gear? There is no way a car that redlines at 60mph can clock a 1/4 mile in 10 seconds. If he hit 60mph in the first second after the green, it would still take him almost 15 more to get down the track at 60mph. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/26 "2010-07-13T15:19:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If you have to stop (stop sign, light, obstruction, pedestrian, whatever) you will almost certainly stall. Even if you don’t stall when you stop, you will almost certainly stall when you try to get it moving again. Nitpick: Maybe an older F1 car, but modern ones all have anti-stall systems which disengage the clutch if the revs drop too low. It’s a safety feature to prevent colliding with a stalled car on the starting grid. FWIW, [here’s a funny old Fiat commercial](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPCd0MUCNQ) featuring Schumacher driving an F1 car on a city street. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/27 "2010-07-13T15:44:30Z")
The anti-stall system is not infallible, though - you can see Richard Hammond repeatedly stalling in the YouTube video **EpicNonsense** linked to above, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/28 "2010-07-13T15:52:19Z")
Hammond isn’t stalling, that’s the anti-stall is cutting in. The engine is still running. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/29 "2010-07-13T15:55:40Z")
If you are in the US or Canada, your local state or province governs what you can and cannot drive on the road. You will need plates, in most places insurance, and to pass whatever safety or emissions inspection your state or province requires. In the UK there appears to be literally no laws regulating cars at all. People in the UK actually drive [LMP1 prototypes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Sportscars#SR8) to and from work on public roads. You can tie a leaf blower to a shopping cart and it probably counts as a street legal car. I understand the state of Florida is similar in this respect. ---
**Author:** ![ironbender](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ba8739/32.png) [@ironbender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ironbender)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/30 "2010-07-13T16:04:49Z")
> [@crazyjoe](#): > > “close to redline” at 60mph in top gear? There is no way a car that redlines at 60mph can clock a 1/4 mile in 10 seconds. If he hit 60mph in the first second after the green, it would still take him almost 15 more to get down the track at 60mph. Agreed, that is not possible, you need to be going well over 100 MPH to run the quarter in that time. Must be another part of the myth on how fast old-school muscle cars were. Also, some street-legal cars are exempt from the requirement to have catalytic converters or meet mordern emission standards, so MikeS and Wordy, you can’t really go by that either. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/31 "2010-07-13T19:53:12Z")
> [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > Its a car without front and rear bumpers. Which makes it not street legal: > [@](#): > > 1. What are the Federal regulations for bumpers? > 49 CFR Part 581, “The bumper standard,” prescribes performance requirements for passenger cars in low-speed front and rear collisions. It applies to front and rear bumpers on passenger cars to prevent the damage to the car body and safety related equipment at barrier impact speeds of 2� mph across the full width and 1� mph on the corners. > This is equivalent to a 5 mph crash into a parked vehicle of the same weight. **The standard requires protection in the region 16 to 20 inches above the road surface** , and the manufacturer can provide the protection by any means it wants. For example, some vehicles do not have a solid bumper across the vehicle, but meet the standard by strategically placed bumper guards and corner guards. [http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.html](http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/32 "2010-07-13T20:17:29Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Which makes it not street legal: > > [http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.html](http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.html) The NHTSA does not regulate what you can and cannot drive on the street, if that’s what you mean by “street legal”. ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180/33 "2010-07-13T21:37:18Z")
> [@crazyjoe](#): > > “close to redline” at 60mph in top gear? There is no way a car that redlines at 60mph can clock a 1/4 mile in 10 seconds. If he hit 60mph in the first second after the green, it would still take him almost 15 more to get down the track at 60mph. It makes a difference when the tires are changed to drive on highway. A lot less distance traveled per ‘rpm’ without the _tall_ slicks on the back 😉 I had let him borrow some spare tires/rims I had so he could get his car to Kansas and back; circumstances went all to hell for him, but we got there (!). Trust me, an engine of around 430ci meant for short runs that reds at around 6k (iirc) does not like turning at 4500rpm for long due to heat issues, and with the rear-end being specifically meant for just strip-use… We/he should never have made that drive, and it was so darn loud for so long that I inadvertently left a $800 video cam on top of car at a rest area, forgetting that I had put it there between the two ‘slicks’ we _had_ to put atop the car (strapped on securely). I saw many of his ‘time-slips’ that proved that car could do 10’s when properly set-up, tuned/timed, and the right fuel, but putting consumer-size tires (ie _legal for street_) on rear made it very different, of course. Constant highway speeds are not common for such vehicles unless the owner wants to ruin the engine. Many (most?) resto’d vehicles with the tall rear-ends do not travel highway speed for long due to inefficient OEM cooling systems - unless large amounts of money are spent on after-market cooling systems, etc. That was more my point, and probably why it was mentioned about cars going so slow on highway. Been there, done that, quite a bit. Certainly not trying to make an issue over it. This does relate to ~F1-type cars that were not designed, at all, for slower driving for more than a minute or two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-drive-an-f1-car-down-the-street/546180.md?page=1)