Quote:
Originally Posted by kyrix1st
You are comparing the wrong sport.
Regulations are usually there to keep the cost under control, as most indy teams would have no chance to compete against factory teams in that sense.
Furthermore, rallies are based on deep tread tyres with less than optimal road surface conditions and slippery off roads where AWD benefits generally outweigh lighter drivetrain of RWD or FWD.
For endurance races where all of them are held on circuits with smooth surface, however, 50kg weight addition to the drivetrain will cost on back straights and hugely hurt cornering capabilities. Remember these vehicles gave an arm and a leg to get the weight down to 1200kg (e.g. Bentley continental GT.); for them it is better thus to focus on aerodynamics and mechanical grip using widest tyres and track width of suspension within the regulations. Not to mention significantly more fuel used in the long run. Professionals manage traction by their driving skills, not by car's traction control and gimmicks.
Now if you want to put priority on practicality AWD was and is always the answer since audi quattro proved that in German winters. I believe M3's target back in the 90s and early 00s was making Ferrari and porsche equivalents, but the brand has since diluted to follow Mercedes examples.
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You’re overthinking it. Look at the regs, AWD was banned from F1, endurance and sprint racing because few manufacturers had the technology and it was deemed an unfair advantage (look at Audi’s history of racing in IMSA and touring cars).
The thing is simply not allowed in many forms of racing, period. Regulations also stipulate a minimum weight for the car, and it would not be difficult to bake-in an AWD setup from the beginning and still achieve the weight target. Then you’d have a car that weighs same as the others on the grid, but has better traction in low grip situations (rain etc.) or slow corners. Historically every time someone figured out how to accomplish this the results were either to ban the technology, or to force the entire grid to match it.
Don’t misunderstand me, I love the M3 the way it is, and as long as it stays under 500-some BHP I want it to stay RWD.