[sivavikram]

Yes both are equally important like most of the guys say. But for a straight line sprint...POWER is everything.

[dhanushs]

The question is what matters most for what?

On Drag Racing: Mostly Power. The skill here is, just knowing your power/torque band and gear ratios inside out.

On track/twisties: Certainly skill.

That said: No point in having a Lamborghini, in skilled hands in Bangalore traffic, when one can do the best with a Nano/k10/A-Star. So, I guess the question is highly relative.

[SS-Traveller]

This thread would not be conclusive without a poll. The options can be

• Horsepower
• Driving skills
• Both
• Something else (please elaborate in a post)

IMO, terrain determines who / what wins - skills or horsepower, or even the specific vehicle putting down that horsepower on the road.

[ecenandu]

Thank you sapna gurukar, for having asked the question.

IMHO its skill that matter the most but as dhanushs as pointed out its quite relative.

If answer to your question is Power, one can easily go and buy a much powerful car.

If the answer is skill, how can one improve their driving skills in the safest possible manner. I did raise this question in another thread, but didn't receive much response.

Don't you guys think we need academy like Ford's Driving skills for life.
https://www.drivingskillsforlife.com/
And it has to be a full fledged and easily affordable.

AMG driving academy is also a good initiative but it is targeted for a niche audience.

[Miel]

"Power or skills! What matters more?"

I am taking that question exactly the way you've it in your title. Of the two, the Skills of the Driver matters more, any day, and anywhere!

Consider this. A person who has honed his driving skills to near perfection in an under-powered, unfriendly and unforgiving (handling-wise) car will be quite a pro behind the wheels of a more powerful and better behaving car. Wouldn't this be true in a general scenario? (please don't consider extreme examples like a M800 and a Lamborghini).

Power does matter, but for a given machine, the more skilled driver can extract the best out of it than a less skilled driver. The perfect examples are found in Formula 1, where drivers in a team use technically similar cars, but do they perform the same?

[karty_83]

Skill any day for me.
"With great power comes great responsibility" and that responsibility is Skill.

[Fuldagap]

on 23rd Feb 2012 Bernie Eccelstone said that Michael can be 2012 champion if he is put in a Red Bull
Skill is relatively important, power is ultimately important

[joslicx]

Saw an interesting program this evening.

A Lambo was pitted against 5 interesting opponents on a circuit (i believe it was 800m)
1. A race bicycle
2. A battery powered toy car
3.
4. An old car (was it a race car, not sure)
5. Some old junk car (your everyday car) with 1/10th power of the Lambo

The caveat was Lambo was to run the circuit in reverse. Came to know Lambo could easily do 90 in reverse!!! (not sure if it was in mph or kmph).

Would you believe it, the bicycle once beat the Lambo (by 0.3s) and in second run, Lambo beat the bike by same margin!!!

The toy car though, comprehensively beat the Lambo by 10+ seconds. It was a great run by the car, and its worth mentioning that its conrtoller guy could hardly see the whole track!!!

The other mundane cars were easily beaten by the Lambo.

[cranky]

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

on 23rd Feb 2012 Bernie Eccelstone said that Michael can be 2012 champion if he is put in a Red Bull
Skill is relatively important, power is ultimately important

The Red Bull is not the most 'powerful' car on the F1 track.

[swiftnfurious]

Very hot discussion! But let me be a spoilsport!

What kind of "skills" are we talking about? We are talking of real life driving & on tarmac. If we are talking about friendly races to prove who is better, I agree that a powerful car with a good handling can beat the one with a lesser rank.

The thread starter also mentioned about Sakleshpur & Ladakh, where straight line speeds are simply out of contention due to bad roads. If the question was how could some one in a hatch tackle these places & roads, shouldn't this attribute more to the vehicle capability & robustness to handle the conditions [Does power & skills really have a role to play in these conditions]?

If we were talking about drag races, 4WD expeditions and all, then the driver skills matter a lot, but do we need so much skills in making a trip to Sakleshpur or Ladakh??

It could very well be that I have NOT understood the terms mentioned in the question, and hence I have raised my doubts - no intention of show off or nit-picking!

[cranky]

In drag racing a good shifter can get .05-.1 seconds over a far more powerful car.

One is assuming that a higher powered car will always be better than a lower powered car, all other things being equal.

This is absolutely not true, not even on a racetrack. I remember watching a video of a WRX Subaru Impreza chasing down a Vauxhaul Corsa. The Corsa has a puny little engine but handled so well through the corners that the Impreza was not able to keep up. There are more than enough cases of hugely powerful dragsters losing out to lighter, faster-starting DIY creations.

To your point, yes on tarmac the skills are not always needed. But quick reflexes and thinking ahead help a lot. The trouble with most of the people on the road is that they are thinking of something else. In actual fact, one of the most important skills of driving is the skill of anticipation - whether in real life or on the track. That is what saves lives and separates good drivers form bad ones.

[Fuldagap]

Once i needed to go to Birla Vidyamandir School in Nainital. The 5 KM way to the school starts from opposite of the lake. Though one can take his car/bike to the destination but people easily avoid that due to the steep incline and crazy turns. It was year 2001 and the taxi i booked for those 5 KMs cost me Rs. 175 after a lot of bargaining. The car was an 800 driven by a very skilled driver who had by-heartened when to depress the clutch/brakes/accelerator. He jokingly said he could drive the way blindfolded. The incline was so steep and curves so sharp that I wonder even uptill this day what would it take to drive up there. The 800 was surely underpowered but the driver's skill made the journey look like a piece of cake. I saw a Sierra stranded on the way and an Esteem too, both being driven buy regular family people. Both had to stop midway and were apparently using bricks under their wheels to stop their cars from rolling backwards.

Skill or Power is still a tough one to answer for me though :P. The circumstances one is in, decide what matters more.

[Sathya_sc]

I would say it depends on the circumstances.. In a straight line without any traffic (sometimes our highways look deserted!), a powerful car will take the cake and if there is traffic or tricky roads, its the driver who can make all the difference.

On a diff note, I would like to share my experience once with a TFORT and I was in my T-jet. Both on straights and twists, I was able to stay ahead of the T-Fort (though the TFORT was constantly kissing my rear) and when the traffic started on the highway, T-Fort simply got down from the road towards the extreme left and was maintaining speeds in excess of 150! My t-Jet wasn't able to do that and by the time I sqeezed inbetween traffic, TFORT was gone. What should I say about that?

I couldn't catch up with him at all - In this case, both of us were good in driving and both of them were powerful vehicles.. just that the TFort offroading abilities and sheer GC helped it to smoke me by taking the road (sorry stones-gravel and mud) less taken by "powerful" sedans!

Dreaming about a FIAT Adventure with 1.4 T-Jet engine...

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by Sathya_sc

On a diff note, I would like to share my experience once with a TFORT and I was in my T-jet. Both on straights and twists, I was able to stay ahead of the T-Fort (though the TFORT was constantly kissing my rear) and when the traffic started on the highway, T-Fort simply got down from the road towards the extreme left and was maintaining speeds in excess of 150! My t-Jet wasn't able to do that and by the time I sqeezed inbetween traffic, TFORT was gone. What should I say about that?

I couldn't catch up with him at all - In this case, both of us were good in driving and both of them were powerful vehicles.. just that the TFort offroading abilities and sheer GC helped it to smoke me by taking the road (sorry stones-gravel and mud) less taken by "powerful" sedans!

Sathya, the TFORT guy was actually a bad driver. There is a fine line between skillful driving and rash driving. The TFORT just crossed the line.

[Aroy]

Skill, but to a limit, after that a better vehicle (be it power handling or gearbox) takes over. Skill encompasses a lot of factors
- Anticipation of conditions ahead
- Technique of driving, knowing when to change gears, how to tackle curves at speed, etc.
- Judgement - knowing when you can pass through and when it is foolhardy

Normally on an open highway, better vehicle prevails as there is not much skill can do. In a difficult situation - dense traffic, twisting roads, hills or sand, skill prevails, provided the vehicle is capable of tackling the terrain.

To give an example the M800 (even more so the Omni van) in skilled hands can go practically any where, provided it can get traction. So it will climb hills where even a 4x4 will be strained, twist around steep hairpins others have no chance of negotiating at one go, but put it on gravel or sand it gets bogged down and no amount of skill will help.