How big is a 1-second gap racing?

06 Dec 2017

I’ve completely forgotten what it is and I couldn’t find it anywhere (the closest thing I could find was something about horse racing).

Comments

depends on the length of the race and the track
ex. in a 24h endurance 1 second is insanely close
but in NASCAR 1 second could be between 1st and 30th

I see, do you know what the numbers would be for a track like Laguna Seca?

Depends. In F1, 1 second per lap (so that’s about 60 seconds across the whole race) might be the difference between the leader and someone in the middle of the pack. But in non-professional racing, 1 second is very short and things like the track temperature, air temperature and the driver’s weight could probably add up to that much. Not to mention driver skill is way bigger than all of those.

As for distance, 1 second is about 27 metres at 60mph.