TRDFantasy

Additional information from Ferrari Chat about how the 458 was a ringer, and about how McLaren engineers were furious at Ferrari's cheat "tuning" to prep the car for the comparison.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lfa...results-2.html

To call this a fair comparison at this point is laughable.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Ferrari always "cheats". It's well known in the automotive press, it's just not commonly exposed. Part of the agreement when you buy a Ferrari is you will not allow it to be tested by the automotive press. Period.

Ferrari prepping their car still doesn't make the LFA any better. It is what it is. Slower than a number of other cars as tested in the Lightning Lap.

TRDFantasy

People believe what they want to believe.

The 458 was unfairly "tuned", and was running shaved, super high-performance tires. The 458 was pushed the limit while the LFA was not. The 458 had all possible performance/lightweight additions and options while the LFA did not. The LFA stock comes with what are essentially high performance all season tires. They do well in the wet and in lower temperatures. Were this test to be conducted in the wet or at lower temperatures, most other cars in this "comparison" would have failed hard. These are the facts, and different people will believe different things.

spwolf

yes it is. it always is.

And LFA needs no excuses anyway. It was never a numbers car, and the fact that does numbers well is just a bonus.

As to the Ferrari, you are right... Ferrari cant make LFA faster, but there is a question of which one is faster car and this case they were allowed to cheat.

btw, whats your beef with LFA? You keep repeating how it is slow, over and over... we know by Nordschleife times that it is not... so whats the problem? I am sure you understand tires and that you are not as dense as you try to appear to be... so whats the real story here?

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

The real story on the LFA? Lexus had the chance to build something world beating and they failed. The LFA as delivered in the US weighs more than my 1993 Supra despite spending truly exotic amounts of money on weight saving features. It boggles my mind that Chevrolet can produce a competitive car for less money that weighs considerably less, and that Mosler can produce a car, still less expensive, and BLISTERINGLY faster around VIR that weighs 900 pounds less. YES, thats 900 pounds without woven carbon fibre A pillars produced on a machine only Toyota could conceive.

Toyota knows how to build reliable lightweight cars - the Mk1 MR2 is a perfect example - and yet for their most exotic car ever, they produce a car arguably the heaviest in class. They spent YEARS to get this car to market, and still the competition forces them to make excuses for why cheaper cars are both faster and lighter.

Seriously - are you going to look at the dash display and say to yourself, oh, it's OK the guy in the slightly bumped up ZR1 just smoked me because I have this really cool dash and the awesome V-10 sound?

Maybe it makes sense to some, but it makes no sense to me when they started with a blank sheet knowing very well what kind of gear is available. It's almost as if they aimed slightly low and hit their mark. It pains me when I think about the MkIV Supra and the icon it has become. They had the chance to do it all over again, and chose to do something else.

TF109B

The Mosler has satellite navigation? Alcantara/Leather seats? A F1 derived 4.8 liter V10? 9500rpm redline? You speak like you have a clue, but if you did, you wouldn't make uninformed statements like "no carbon fiber" or compare a stripped street racecar to a GT car in the LFA. Do you think Toyota couldn't take out all the leather/interior amenities, throw some slicks on it and go faster? That's what a Mosler is. There's no comparison.

gengar

This post is just

I'm seriously not sure if it's just joke trolling or what?

TF109B

Yeah, I don't get how people think things like that. Obviously the purpose of the LFA was lost to some. I never heard anything from them saying it would be a world beater.

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Who said no carbon fibre? I didn't. I did say this thread is about the Lightning Lap and nothing more. Spwolf asked me why I have the attitude I have about the LFA. I answered his question.

The LFA isn't a GT car. The Supra was barely a GT. It's meant to be an uncompromising sports car. You say I don't understand what Lexus did, but I do very well understand what they did. They built a technological tour de force they intended to release the same year they finally won an F1 championship (one of the very few automotive crowns Toyota has pursued and not claimed). They never won an F1 championship. By the time they even had a chance the V-10s were outlawed anyway which muted the whole marketing premise of the car in the first place. Had they won an F1 championship, LFA sales would have been quite a bit more brisk.

So, IMHO, they showed up to the party late, with a car compromised by many internal shuffles, not fully focused on any single achievement which is what a halo SPORTS car should be. Performance should be front of class and on a par with the worlds best - a driver's race - but it's not there. You have to add - race inspired V-10 - and other qualitative features to explain something I fully understand. People don't buy the LFA because it's the fastest thing out there, and it's proof positive Lexus never will build the fastest thing on the track. Heck it took them 5 years to sort out the suspension on the IS-F so it laps VIR as quickly as the M3 has since it hit the streets.

So BACK to the subject of this thread - 2013 Lightning Lap. The LFA didn't set fast lap, and it paced more than 10 seconds off the pace of the fastest cars. There are lots of reasons why, and lots of excuses, but really, I'm tired of hearing "if my aunt had ***** she'd be my uncle" because the fact remains, it's an also ran, not the leader. When the green flag drops, the BS stops. Second place is the first loser to cross the finish line. These are what define racing. Not navigation, or 1200 channels on live satellite feed into the video screen on the dash. The Lightning Lap is the opportunity for the manufacturers to provide a vehicle, run it against everyone else (fairly or not as is the well known case with Ferrari) and everyone gets to see how they fared.

And BTW - I'm not buying the LFA being seriously limited by the tires when it set the high mark for braking at 1.2 gs. Stopping at the limit is entirely tire to road grip, so let's just say whomever drove the LFA wasn't afraid to put on the binders hard enough to win the braking competition. For whatever reason, the Ferrari on gumball tires with full factory support didn't match the LFA in braking gs...

gengar

I seriously don't understand what you're going on and on about. The fact that lap times are already a terrible way to evaluate cars notwithstanding, you claim that Lexus "failed" with the LFA because some car mag couldn't drive it around VIR fast enough in one single test. Did you miss the time it made on the Nordschleife? Was that not good enough for you? Is there some reason this particular combination of C+D and VIR is angering you so much?

You keep claiming you're only talking about this magazine article, but you're not. You keep saying things like Lexus failed, the LFA failed to be a halo car, the value proposition is suspect, etc. etc. and putting words into Lexus' mouth by applying your own personal (and wrong) beliefs on what Lexus wanted the LFA to be (hint: even Haruhiko Tanahashi has said the LFA was not uncompromising). And you keep trying to compare the LFA to other cars in absurd ways. I mean, are you kidding me, you're trying to compare the LFA to the Supra or the MT900S...? Are you serious? All these cars had radically different approaches and have different purposes.

You come across like you're being aggressively contrarian just to be contrarian, and that's really too bad.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

You're not reading my emotion. Maybe I'm not clear. I am personally very disappointed. I knew about the car that became the LFA in 2002 from someone I know personally at Toyota. It was very different then, and the car it is today isn't what I heard about in 2002.

It didn't' stop me from visiting the dealer the first day I knew they were taking orders and deciding if there was any reason to consider buying one. I never once said the value proposition is suspect. I said there are cheaper cars capable of lapping VIR quicker in stock form, and it's disappointing to me Lexus spent all this money on development and still isn't on point. No, Nurburgring after hundreds, maybe thousands, of development laps means nothing to me.

Let's leave it at that.

TF109B

Yeah, lets. If you still don't get what the LFA is, then you shouldn't even comment on it. Because from everything you said, you don't get what the LFA is. It's first of all, a LEXUS! 90% of the owners wouldn't even be able to replicate these cars ultimate laps anyway. So that whole fastest lap thing is just a gimmick when considering the buyers.