FWIW
F1 cars rarely exceed 200 mph. At the end of some of the longer straights they go right about 200 mph.
Indy cars hit right about 240 mph at the end of the front and back straights at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), and almost 260 at Fontana.
When driving a well set up Indy Car at IMS these days, the driver doesn't lift the throttle or touch the brake pedal to negotiate the corners. Just turning the car into the corner and the added 'side bite' of the tires creates sufficient aerodynamic drag and rolling rsistance to slow the car just enough to get through the corner without loosing traction and spinning the car.
If an Indy Car is not that well set up, it doesn't get to 240 mph at the ends of the straights. In fact, at IMS and Fontana the car's wings are adjusted to a positive angle of attack to reduce the total downforce the aero package produces, so the straightaway speeds can be higher.
F1 cars can corner faster in the middle speed corners they spend most of their cornering time in, and at about 1300 lbs are a few hundred pounds lighter than an Indy Car (about 1550 lbs). (NASCAR minimum weight is by comparison a tank like - 3400 lbs).
F1 cars have a flat bottom and in addition to the front and rear wings are allowed to have a diffuser at the back of the car that generates downforce.
Diffuser (automotive) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indy Cars are 'ground effect' cars and in addition to the front and rear wings the bottom (undertray) of the car is shaped into two undulating tunnels that creates a negative pressure (ground effect) under the car that 'sucks' the car down onto the road.
The total downforce the aero aids generate maxes out at about 4000 lbs for the F1 cars, and 5000 lbs for Indy cars. (NASCAR car bodies plus their front splitter and rear spoiler generate about 2000 lbs of downforce.)
F1 cars cost a lot more (about 4x more) than an Indy Car does.
To field 2 competitive Indy Cars costs about $24 M a seasin. To field two competitive F1 cars costs about 200 million a season.
A big part of the difference in 2 car team costs is because F1 races all over the world.
An F1 team designs and builds their own cars (more employees, more payroll dollars). Since 2012, Indy Car teams all buy their cars from the same source - Dallara -
Dallara DW12 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Both types of car generate quite a bit more downforce than the car weighs. If someone were to build a road that was elevated and had the road surface on the underside of the structure, either type of car could be driven upside down on that elevated roadway. The downfprce (upforce when the car is upsidedown) woudl 'suck' the car to the upsidedown road surface
Many of F1's star drivers have driven in Indy Car, but didn't do all that good. Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell being the 2 exceptions, both having won the Indy Car championship.
Nigal Mansell is the only driver to ever hold both the F1 and Indy Car Championships in the same year (1993).
Nigel Mansell was able to come and drive in a very competitive Indy Car team (Newnam-Haas) because of the car freed up when Michael Andretti went to F1 for 1993.
Michael Andretti made the mistake in thinking he could continue to live in the US and commute back and forth while driving in F1 for a team headquartered in England (
McLaren).
Danika Patrick is a professional racing car driver.
No other woman car racing driver, and most male racing drivers, has come close to equaling Danika's accomplishments so far on a race track.
There is no doubt, she is very marketable and she and her mother are very savvy at maintaining that marketability.
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