Also, if you wanted more heat in the brakes, you could just use smaller brake ducts.
Why's this in the Top Gear section anyway?
The R10 for example is said to have done 354 in 2007.
So are LMP cars faster [than a F1 car] in a straight line?
Yes, because tracks like Le Sarthe have extremely long straights like Mulsanne, where 85% of the time is spent on full throttle. Obviously the car will be setup for high speed, rather than pure acceleration.
F1 cars can do 400kph, only with the correct gearing and a long stretch of tarmac. Which is why you will hardly ever see a modern F1 car trap beyond 200mph (with exception of Monza, spa etc), most of the speed is spent on acceleration, deacceleration and high speed corners.
F1 cars have much more money spent on development than any other class of racing car. Draw you own conclusions.
I think you gotta go all the way to the fifties to find a car with closed wheels wich raced in F1.
I'm thinking it's simply because of tradition. It doesn't make sense to spend so much on aerodynamics research and then hang those giant blobs of rubber out in the airflow.
F1 cars are open-wheel mostly for tradition but also due to their very high demand of traction. With an open wheel racer you have a lot of "space" to make use of the oncoming airflow, thats why you see various winglets incorporated all over the car. It is also important yo mention that open-wheel designs have less airflow that gets deflected as it hits the car. In a closed wheel design much of the oncoming air gets deflected by the front fascia, hood, and windshield which in turn gives less air for the rear air package to work with, this is why you see ridiculously large rear wings on closed wheel racers. LMP cars try to circumvent this issue by making the cockpit as small as possible in order to provide more air flow for the rear.