Drag race: 2021 F1 car vs Top Gun Jet – which is quicker?
Can Lewis Hamilton’s W12 F1 car keep up with a fighter jet?
Ah yes, the age-old question of whether a Formula 1 car can beat a fighter jet. This is something that fans of the sport have been wondering about for years, and now we finally have an answer.
In a recent YouTube video, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team decided to see if its 2021 W12 F1 race car could beat a Top Gun fighter jet in a drag race.
Now, one thing that becomes quite apparent from the get-go is that the plane will inevitably take off at some point, but we would imagine the car won’t be able to keep up for that long…
Your bog-standard fighter jet is capable of flying well over 1,000mph (no, that isn’t a typo) so it isn’t exactly easy for the little car to keep up, but here’s what it’s got on its side:
The Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 car is powered by a 1.6-litre hybrid V6 engine that puts out 1,050hp which propels it all the way up to around 200mph. This might not be much compared to the jet’s insane performance figures, but your average F1 car does have a 0-62mph time of roughly 2.6 seconds – so they aren’t exactly slow.
In fact, this exact car that Lewis Hamilton drives in this video is a car that nearly won him the championship in 2021, had it not been for some controversial decisions by the FIA at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which led to Max Verstappen taking the win in his Redbull.
