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Originally Posted by PhlypSide
Care to offer any odds that even IF in "Bizzaro" world they allowed FWD cars into F1 that any sane, educated, F1 team would campaign such a farce?
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You misread. If F1 required that, all teams would campaign such a car. And given an open choice on driven wheels with all else equal, I'd guess teams wouldn't go RWD either, but rather with all wheels driving. Who knows though.
However, in spite of requirements, here is one thing I guarantee. There will always be teams that will use anything that offers a competitive advantage. If there were ever a situation where the rules allowed certain advantages to a FWD layout, and such engineering existed at the time so as to make that competitive, someone would do it. Not unlike Audi entering diesels this year because the technology finally caught up to the rules, and the leeway allowed diesels (like the 5.5 liters of displacement vs the 3.6L of the R8) gave it a competitive advantage.
It would seem at the time, Lotus felt FWD had a competitive advantage when they designed the Elan. Perhaps as technology has progressed, they no longer feel that way. But you never know what way the wind will blow.
I could say similar about my ZR-1. At the time, DOHC's made sense to get the power and economy and reliability Corvette was after, they couldn't get there with pushrods. Now it no longer makes sense, and they can make pushrod motors that take no prisoners in terms of weight, power, and fuel economy.
It seems to me like you are asking the question "
Can Front-wheel Drive cars be sportscars?" but you are answering the question "Are there any FWD sports cars currently?"
For myself, I don't generally think a car built around FWD is really intended to be a sports car. But there are always exceptions, and anything is possible. I certainly wouldn't say they fundamentally can't be a sports car. Personally, I think if a car is designed around performance as the main objective, then that's really at the heart of being a sports car. And if a car can perform when compared to its contemporaries, it's hard to say it's not a "real" sports car.