I saw someone on Quora saying F1 cars are heavier than FE and FE's “handling capabilities on the same road course are generally comparable”. That's cute, but naw, man. Now, I know F1 cars, even as bloated and heavy as they are, are still lighter than FE, and I know that even the Gen 3 FE cars are still way slower than F1, so I decided to do a little digging and find out just how slow they are.
FE has never run on the same circuits F1 runs on until recently, and there’s a reason for that - the same reason they choose small, narrow street courses - so they don’t look so slow. The one F1 circuit that FE has raced without changing away from the F1 layout is Monaco.
Even on F1’s slowest track, F1 cars were miles ahead of FE in 2023. So were the F2 cars. And the F3 cars. Current FE cars are comparable to 50 year old F1 cars from the early 1970s, but not new ones.
Fastest Qualifying Laps:
F1: 1:11.3 F2: 1:21.05 F3: 1:23.2 FE: 1:28.9
Fastest laps in the race:
F1: 1:15.6 F2: 1:21.7 F3: 1:25.1 FE: 1:31.1
At that time differential, F1 would lap FE about every 5 laps. F2 would take 8 or 9 laps, & F3 something like 15 laps. The closest time that I could find to an FE 2023 car for a top runner at Monaco was the 2022 Monaco Historique Serie E winner, in a 1973 McLaren M23. Stuart Hall put it on pole with a 1:29.4. He also won Serie D that year, in a 1971 McLaren M19A, with a pole time of 1:30.1.