Quote:
Originally Posted by cntzl
If they ran each car once and only once on the track and came up with these results, I'd agree that it doesn't tell you much. However, car magazines or channels usually run several laps around the same track and publish the best time. I don't know about this channel but I do know SportAuto, MotorTrend or factory tests use the best of several laps. Unfortunately I don't know how many laps these guys did with each car but I bet it's not a single lap. Randy Pobst for instance does at least 10laps with each car on Head 2 Head. In any case, statistically significant or not, M2C was barely quicker than the M3 Comp on this track and nobody is claiming it'll be consistenly quicker than M3/M4 Comp on every track.
|
The other thing that has to be taken into account is atmospheric conditions. I believe C&D adjusts for these, but R&T was not last time I looked - and these guys I have no idea. So if the M2 ran on a 85 degree day and the M3 ran on a 70 degree day, one could argue that the M2's times were high and it would have been even quicker.
Alas, you also have the track condition (temps are going to affect that as well)
As
jlhymb points out, these are chance circumstances and they get more prevalent when the cars are not run on the same day/time.
And I think a lot of people believe we would not be having these arguments if the M3 was .02 faster - but once again
jlhymb points out, that's not the case at all. In fact, what a lot of people fail to realize is that if the M2 and M3 were run on the same day, side by side who knows, maybe the M2s time would be much better?