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Death of the True Sports Car

12 March, 2013 24

McLaren MP4-12C

 

By Alex Ristovic and Eric Plasencia

 

 

You are Jenson Button and you are driving your McLaren MP4 12C at a track day in Silverstone. As you slam on the brakes to turn into a tight corner, a hyper advanced computer commands all hands on deck to perform their duties like Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise. Raise the air-brake, moderate brake pressure on the inside wheels, rev match upon downshifting, load the second clutch for the next gear change, and on and on.

 

Should you be riding shotgun, watching Jenson, you’d never know the slew of activity going on behind the scenes. All a person would notice is the mind-numbing grip and plummeting lap times. How does that make you feel? The thought that surely comes to mind is “wow this car is fast!” Notice how you don’t immediately credit the maestro for his performance. Is the McLaren, along with the horde of other advanced supercars of today, truly a sports car? How can there be a sport without a player? Supercars have progressively advanced more and more, which in turn requires less and less driver input. They are taking the “sport” out of “sports cars.”

 

 

Let’s take a look at the word “sport.” You go hunting to take down a large buck for your mantle. Why do you do this? You hunt for sport of course. Otherwise, your wife could take a trip down to a local taxidermist and buy a pretty mount that includes its own lag screws! Your McLaren is just like your wife and the taxidermist. You aren’t out there hunting for a lap time and lateral G’s. Your car just went out there and got them for you. It wasn’t the driver who feathered the brakes to optimize exit speed, nor did he heel-toe for a seamless downshift. It was a British wizard in a lab coat back in Woking who did that for you. How sportsmanlike do you feel now?

 

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I’m not some grandfather stuck in the good old days. I love tech as much as the next nerd.  When it comes to sports, however, I value skill above all else. It is skill that gives you goose bumps. The way Ayrton Senna danced his car on the edge of its capabilities one handed as he heel-toe’d his way through the cobbled roads of Monte Carlo was truly heroic. I’m not quite sure I can get that feeling anymore with the degree of tech that backs up the drivers today. Ask any one of them and they will tell you Senna was the greatest driver ever; not Schumacher, who holds nearly every record in the book. With that reasoning, we can say with absolute certainty that nobody will ever be as good as Ayrton.

 

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Auto makers are going faster and faster with every year, but how excited can you be anymore? We are just notching belts at this point. Top speed and times around the green hell are just numbers on a screen at this point. The progress isn’t as shocking today, it’s expected.  The science is quickly outpacing the drivers. Racing drivers were once rocket men like Chuck Yeager who tested their mettle to cross into the unknown. This fear and majesty is long gone as cars can dial in lap times with the flip of a manettino switch. If you can just phone in the win, is it really a sports car?

 

 

Alex Ristovic and Eric Plasencia are writers at The Heavy Foot.com, and occasional contributors here at The Smoking Tire.

 

Follow us on Twitter @thesmokingtire


  • http://narrowlanes.net Gilberto Cedolia

    The McLaren is like the gun, not the wife. If you can’t aim, having an advanced gun in your hands won’t do you any good. I don’t like the hunting analogy in general though.

    Sports cars have the same mission statement: be fast. Fast in a straight, around corners, quickest to a stop even. they’re cholk full of tech to achieve that aim. However, its still up to the person behind the wheel to try to get the most out of the car. F1 cars can be driven remotely however, if you remove the drivers, you no longer have a sport.

    • TheSmokingTire

      I think he's referring to how technology is taking away the feeling and skill of a driver. Look at the GTR: it makes anyone look like a hero. A few years ago, going into a corner too fast meant death. Now, many cars can figure it out for you.

      • Mike Fernandez

        I see what you're saying, but even with the advancement in tech there is still competition to be had among drivers. Not what's true is that you can't compare drivers from this generation to those of the last, but you can compare them among each other now. If you give two people a McLaren and have them lap a circuit, one is still going to be faster than the other.

        You could even make the argument that there's more excitement due to the faster speeds. Look at how much more exciting things got in F1 during Senna's day vs. racing in the '20s. Tech improved making faster driving possible and safer, yet the excitement level didn't deteriorate.

    • Zeus

      Not exactly. The Mclaren is like running auto aim bots in a video game. You still have to play the game, but you have a huge advantage because something is doing that extra bit for you. When you remove that you find the true drivers vs. the guys who are talented, but the car makes up for that extra 10-20% they lack. Trust me dude, I worked as a racing instructor for a while and you have guys who are quick who show up in ferraris etc, but they aren't that fast.

      I grew up racing a shitty volvo 850 automatic which I learned to drive the piss out of and then moved to a 142bhp 2002 Miata which I practiced in every single day for hours. No ABS, no traction control, no computers, just drove canyons all day every day.

      When I got a job as a karting instructor I beat the outright track record by over .150 of a second. The guy who held it prior to me had been karting for over 12 years and racing cars over a decade. I trained hard with equipment that didn't fix my mistakes or help me compensate for my mistakes and I reap the benefits to this day.

  • Kyle D

    A-fucking-men

    I think the consumer car culture of today is obsessed with bench racing. Ring times, 0-60, lateral G's is a big part of the problem. Why would I go out and learn how to heel-toe in a Miata when I can sit around pulling up statistics of which car has the fastest 1/4 mile or has 0.00001 sec faster on a track I'll never visit and if I do I won't be timed.

    Visit any car forum today and you'll see the same arguments over and over, reducing cars to simple numbers on a spreadsheet, nothing more. The best sports car is the result of an equation, and it makes me sad even as an engineer.

  • Kyle D

    Sports cars do not have to be fast, many of the best sports cars over time have been cars that are glacially slow like MGBs and Triumphs, even compared to regular passenger vehicles.

    I think the definition of sports car has been muddled over time by our obsession with statistics over driving enjoyment.

  • Charles Montgomery

    I actually read a definition of the word 'sport': from what I know, it is a playful activity people do for fun – or in this aspect, competition. And in agreement with Gilberto, having an advanced machine doesn't make it fast – its the driver piloting it is what makes it even faster. I remember a quote from an old episode of the Japanese anime I'm sure some of you are familiar with, "Initial D", "Its not the car that's fast, its the driver." I think the advanced technology of cars is what helps mankind push our limits to get faster and faster with time. My only gripe is how these engineers are pulling away more and more from the traditional H-pattern manual transmission and aiming more towards these 'flappy paddles' and automatic transmissions. Call me old fashioned, but I still love pushing in a clutch with my left foot, moving a shift knob with my right hand, and synchronizing the throttle and clutch pedals with my two feet. I'll be H-pattern for life! :D

  • Eric M

    Very well said. There is something to be said about a true drivers car. No assist to the driver, it’s partly why I love standard transmission cars cause when you nail the shifts just right it’s rewarding. Or if you pull off a couple flawless downshifts. And you don’t get perfect all the time but it makes it worth it when you do. Just my opinion.

  • Eric M

    It's alot more rewarding to drive something you have to put effort in or else it will kill you. Cause a car with out computer aids will make you a better driver, if you put the effort in. Just like flappy Padel transmissions yes they are faster but if you can rev match and learn your car and tranny. A manual gearbox will always be more fun. Just my opinion.

  • http://www.carsindepth.com Ronnie Schreiber

    It'd be interesting to put that hypothetical Jenson Button behind the wheel of a Lotus Elan and then ask him which is more fun to drive, that or the MP4 12C. Speaking of Lotus, by the time Ayrton Senna was driving, F1 cars had wings, downforce and it was no longer a question of the driver dancing on the edge of mechanical grip. Senna was great but was he a greater dancer than than Jim Clark or Juan Fangio? I think it's interesting that Gordon Murray, who knows a thing or two about supercar design, says that the Elan is his favorite sports car. With modern cars, ultimately the car is doing your bidding, but there will never be the same tactile sensation there is from a car with mechanical rack & pinion steering and unassisted brakes. Nobody ever complained that a vintage Lotus lacked steering feel.

  • glbrto

    Feeling, yes. Skill? Not necessarily. If the GOAT driver is slower in an MP4 with flappy paddles and no TC, no SC versus an MP4 with paddles and everything on then yes, the sports car is dead.

  • Jacob

    To me it seems like the increase in tech assists doesn't detract from being a sports car. Unless, of course, it is so invasive as to remove fun or skill.

    Before I had even reached the hunting reference in this article, it was the logical analogy that came to my mind. Does having a rangefinder, or a precision optic scope make the hunting experience somehow less than a simple rifle with iron sights? It could. Taking that level of personal knowledge and precise skill out of the equation might drain the fun for some hunters. On the other hand, it could make a level of hunting that was previously inaccessible available to a hunter.

    I personally don't object to the increasing amount of technological aids in cars. But it's important to maintain a range of options. If the only cars we have are drive-by-wire contraptions that autopilot their way around a track, that may suit some. But I know it won't suit every enthusiast, and so we need to have both types of cars.

  • Ferrum26

    Get off my lawn you damn kids!!! Heh, in all seriousness though, people keep making this argument about increasing tech, but the fact is that I'm not going to be able to do in a GTR what Lewis Hamilton can do. Technology can increase the level of capability of anyone, but the people with more skill at piloting their machines are going to always make the rest of us look mortal.

  • Zeus

    This is exactly why I like my 125cc TaG kart:

    Ass + seat + engine – traction control – ABS + low CoG + simple design = ALL UP TO YOU TO CLOCK FAST LAP TIMES.

    I worked as a karting instructor for a while and it was so funny to see guys show up in GT3 porsches, 911 turbos, Ferrari 458s and Mclarens, hop in go karts and suck proverbial ass behind the wheel because it was down to them to perform as opposed to relying on their cars to do it for them.

    Trust me…a lot of guys can be fast in these modern cars, but when you put them in something like a kart it's hysterical to watch the karts body language as well as their own body language as they struggle to cope with whats happening.

  • attenbeer

    The best illustration of this is surely the way in which the 911 has been engineered to overcome its engine position? 930 Turbos have a reputation for being widow (and widower – in the interests of gender equality) makers in the wet, 997 Turbos are credited as being supercars for all seasons. It's still a supercar not a sports car though. If you want a pure sports car, buy an Elise. They're not meant to be everyday things anyway.

    What I don't understand is the writers' mixing between talking about sports cars whilst using the example of a supercar and then referencing an F1 driver in an F1 race. It should also be noted that most drivers honed their craft in karts which have no driver aids at all and so all needed to be born on the superhuman side of normal in terms of reflexes, forward planning and awareness.

    People just love to bitch about F1 being too tech heavy and too business oriented without bothering to search for an alternative. How about GP2, F3, rallies, autocross or karting? Or even the Masters Series if you want truly dangerous old school stuff, albeit usually by gentleman drivers. That's just assuming that the F1 references in the piece were part of the point that the authors were trying to make…something of which I am still not sure.

  • Carl

    I do miss watching the years when Michael Andretti was top of Indycar. I remember watching many races where you would just be able to see both the front and back end sliding. Watching them run those cars right on the edge was almost as thrilling as driving.
    The only place that you seem to see that now is the GP bikes and then you have to have a high end slo-mo camera to see any of the finesse.

  • Brandan

    I agree with everything he just wrote. For the most part supercars are becoming design and engineering exercises to prove race technology. Look at Ferrari. The F40 is universally acknowledged as its pinnacle in design and function but they just produced a new supercar that is supposedly better. I would challenge that because how is it better? Lap times and magazine numbers? I would take an F40 over the LaFerrari in a heartbeat. The thrill of a perfect downshift in a shitbox civic is more fun than pulling a flappy paddle. If I could do it well in a TTV8 with no TC then I would feel like a god.
    I would have to say that American car companies are holding truer to the old school than the Europeans (other than Noble). The new Vette has a real manual option as does the Viper. Most foreign brands are moving towards DCT and more nannies. The big 3 almost look at those and laugh. The Viper barely has TC and the GT500 wants to kills you according to Matt. I want those cars. Give me something that thrills and scares me. Or a BR-Z

  • Adam

    I’m kinda tired of seeing these type of posts on several different sites.

    “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”

    -Ben Franklin

    Like Gilberto said, it still requires a good driver to do amazing things in even modern day Sports Cars. But if you want that “old school feeling” there’s still plenty of old school sports cars out there. How about a kit car? Or a bare bones track car like the Super 7?

  • Chris

    i agree with this when held up to motor sport. That said, i think its a paralell that can be drawn to every sport, golf balls and clubs that can hit/go faster but there are only so many technical advances that sports equipment can take. When it comes to cars, they are technology so they can be taken alot further. Yes, agree it does detract from the sport but it also makes it more exciting to an extent. Drivers can push the cars harder and do so in a safer way. Do i appreciate the skill of Senna, yes, absolutely. It was so sad to see how much of an impact the williams car had on a race track.

    That said, i think for the consumer market, the landscape is diversifying. You see cars like the FR-S and thats a car that is a blast to drive. Yes it could benefit from some more power, but its a drivers car. So, while the Pagani's and McClarens will have their place, so too will the FR-S and miatas. I also think there will be a revival of the "drivers car" you already see trends in this from the likes of Porsche who released a version of the boxter that is all about the driving experience and gets rid of many of the distracting technologies that have become commonplace in cars.

  • http://www.AdvanceAutoParts.com Advance Auto Parts

    This post makes me think of the skinny tires Subaru / Toyota put on the BRZ / FRS. They make the car alive and much more fun.

    True "sports cars" might be more like the BRZ / FRS and MX-5 and less like the MP4-12C.

    Think about it like this. Supercar manufacturers have to appeal to their target market, which can sometimes mean drivers with more money than skill. Those buyers probably appreciate and need the automation found in the MP4-12C and other cars like it.

    • TheSmokingTire

      in all fairness, if the MP4 were as easy to get into a slide as an FRS, you'd see them wrapped around telephone poles on a daily basis.

      • AdvAutoParts

        Isn't wrapping supercars around telephone poles one of supercar owners' favorite pastimes? That carbon monocell will probably save more than one MP4 owner!

        • TheSmokingTire

          **probably has saved….

  • Ryan

    I would have to agree. While the tech can be impressive, I would take that argument even further to say that even the tech has lost its sport as well. Gone are the days of true innovation, such as Can-Am, old Le Mans, and Group B. Today we are stuck in a technology limbo where regulation limits innovation to incremental levels, but is so intrusive that driver skill(and relevance) is being edged out. What we are left with is motorsport that is no longer pushing the drivers, and tech that is no longer pushing boundaries. Perhaps that could all be forgiven if original point of racing(to see who had the fastest car) was still the driving force, but homologation seems to be dying. Whether it’s NASCAR, rallying, or endurance racing, all that’s left is the indulgence of drivers and a place to sell sponsorship, as you won’t find any of them on a dealer forecourt. I think we have all celebrated motorsport as long as one of the holy trinity is there, innovation, homologation and skill. We gave up homologation for innovation in Group B, or skill for innovation in Can-Am, or innovation for skill in IROC. To me though, and it might just be me, we have none of the three today.

    On a side note, while I think Senna was a fantastically skilled driver, and completely agree with your comparison to today’s racing, I think there has been a bit too much concentration on him after that wonderful documentary was released. Fangio raced death defying rally races while being driver and mechanic, and started racing(and winning) Formula 1 when most drivers retire and take up commenting. He beat great drivers who were half his age, in cars that had no safety features, and still has the highest winning percentage in Formula 1. He’s a fantastic read if you get the chance.