The aim of all teams is to produce the fastest safest most reliable car on the track. Technological developments in F1 have to be within a very tight set of FIA rules; however F1 cars are phenomenally quick, not just in a straight line, but more astonishingly round tight corners and bends.

Every F1 car on the grid is capable of going from 0 to 160 km/h (100 mph) and back to 0 in less than five seconds. During a demonstration at the Silverstone circuit in Britain, an F1 McLaren-Mercedes car driven by David Coulthard gave a pair of Mercedes-Benz street cars a head start of seventy seconds, and was able to beat the cars to the finish line from a standing start, a distance of only 3.2 miles (5.2 km).

F1 cars can negotiate corners at significantly higher speeds than other racing cars because of the intense levels of grip and down-force. Cornering speed is so high that Formula 1 drivers have strength training routines just for the neck muscles. - Since most tracks are clockwise, most drivers have the neck muscles built up on one side of their neck, thus making counter-clockwise tracks (such as Imola, Istanbul Park and Interlagos) a much more testing race than even the high speed Monza or the tight and narrow Monaco.

The combination of light weight, power, aerodynamics, and ultra-high performance tyres is what gives the F1 car its performance figures. The principal consideration for F1 designers is acceleration, and not simply top speed. Acceleration is not just linear forward acceleration, but three types of acceleration can be considered for an F1 car's, and all cars' in general, performance:

• Forward acceleration
• Forward deceleration (under braking)
• Turning acceleration (centripetal acceleration)

All three accelerations should be maximized. The way these three accelerations are obtained and their values are:
Positive acceleration

Theoretically the power-to-weight ratio of an F1 car  would allow the car to reach 100 km/h (60 mph) in less than 1 second. However the massive power cannot be converted to motion at low speeds due to traction loss, and the usual figure is 2 seconds to reach 100 km/h (60 mph). After about 130 km/h (80 mph) traction loss is minimal due to the combined effect of the car moving faster and the down-force, hence the car continues accelerating at a very high rate. The figures are (for the 2006 Renault R26):

0 to 100 km/h (62 mph): 0.7 seconds
0 to 200 km/h (124 mph): 3.8 seconds
0 to 300 km/h (186 mph): 8.6 seconds*

*Figures may alter slightly depending on the aerodynamic setup.

The acceleration figure is usually 1.45 g (14.2 m/s²) up to 200 km/h (124 mph), which means the driver is pushed back in the seat with 1.45 times his bodyweight.

Negative Acceleration
The carbon brakes in combination with tyre technology and the cars aerodynamics produce truly remarkable braking forces. The deceleration force under braking is usually 4 g (39 m/s²), and can be as high as 5-6 g when braking from extreme speeds, for instance at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit or at Indianapolis.

Here the aerodynamic drag actually helps, and can contribute as much as 1.0 g of braking force, which is the equivalent of the brakes on most sports cars. In other words, if the throttle is let go, the F1 car will slow down under drag at the same rate as most sports cars do with braking, at least at speeds above 150 km/h (93 mph). The drivers do not utilise engine or compression braking, although it may seem this way. The only reason they change down gears prior to entering the corner is to be in the correct gear for maximum acceleration on the exit of the corner.

There are three companies who manufacture brakes for Formula One. They are Hitco, (based in the US, part of the SGL Carbon Group), Brembo in Italy and Carbone Industrie of France. Whilst Hitco manufacture their own carbon/carbon, Brembo sources theirs from Honeywell, and Carb

F1 brakes are 278 mm (10.9 in) in diameter and a maximum of 28 mm (1.1 in) thick. The carbon/carbon (carbon fibre) brake pads are actuated by 6-piston opposed calipers. The calipers are aluminium alloy bodied with titanium pistons. The regulation limits the modulus of the caliper material to 80 GPa in order to prevent teams using exotic, high specific stiffness materials, for example beryllium. Titanium pistons save weight, and also have a low thermal conductivity, reducing the heat flow into the brake fluid.

Lateral acceleration
As mentioned above, the car can accelerate to 300 km/h (190 mph) very quickly, however the top speeds are not much higher than 330 km/h (210 mph) at most circuits, being highest at Monza 360 km/h (224 mph), Indianapolis about 335 km/h (208 mph) and Gilles Villeneuve about 325 km/h (202 mph). This is because the top speeds are sacrificed for the turning speeds. An F1 car is designed principally for high-speed cornering, thus the aerodynamic elements can produce as much as three times the car's weight in down-force, at the expense of drag. In fact, at a speed of just 130 km/h (81 mph), the down-force equals the weight of the car. As the speed of the car rises, the down-force increases. The turning force at low speeds (below 70 to about 100 km/h) mostly comes from the so-called 'mechanical grip' of the tyres themselves. At such low speeds the car can turn at 2.0 g. At 210 km/h (130 mph) already the turning acceleration is 3.0g, as evidenced by the famous esses (turns 3 and 4) at the Suzuka circuit. Higher-speed corners such as Blanchimont (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps) and Copse (Silverstone Circuit) are taken at above 5.0g, and 6.0g has been recorded at Suzuka's 130-R corner. This contrasts with 1g for the Enzo Ferrari, one of the best racing sports cars.

These turning accelerative forces allow an F1 car to corner at amazing speeds. As an example of the extreme cornering speeds, the Blanchimont and Eau Rouge corners at Spa-Francorchamps are taken flat-out at above 300 km/h (190 mph), whereas the race-spec touring cars can only do so at 150-160 km/h (note that lateral acceleration increases with the square of the speed). A newer and perhaps even more extreme example is the Turn 8 at the Istanbul Park circuit, a 190° relatively tight 4-apex corner, in which the cars maintain speeds between 265 and 285 km/h (165 and 177 mph) (in 2006) and experience between 4.5g and 5.5g for 7 seconds--the longest sustained hard cornering in Formula 1.

Top speeds
Top speeds are in practice limited by the longest straight at the track and by the need to balance the car's aerodynamic configuration between high straight line speed (low aerodynamic drag) and high cornering speed (high down-force) to achieve the fastest lap time. During the 2006 season, the top speeds of Formula 1 cars were a little over 300 km/h (185 mph) at high-down-force tracks such as Albert Park, Australia and Sepang, Malaysia. These speeds were down by some 10 km/h (6 mph) from the 2005 speeds, and 15 km/h (9 mph) from the 2004 speeds, due to the recent performance restrictions . On low-down-force circuits greater top speeds were registered: at Gilles-Villeneuve (Canada) 325 km/h (203 mph), at Indianapolis (USA) 335 km/h (210 mph), and at Monza (Italy) 360 km/h (225 mph). In the Italian Grand Prix 2004, Antônio Pizzonia of BMW WilliamsF1 team recorded a top speed of 369.9 kilometers per hour (229.8 mph).

Away from the track, the BAR Honda team used a modified BAR 007 car, which they claim complied with FIA Formula 1 regulations, to set an unofficial speed record of 413 km/h (257 mph) on a one way straight line run on 6 November 2005 during a shakedown ahead of their Bonneville 400 record attempt. The car was optimised for top speed with only enough down-force to prevent it from leaving the ground. The car set an FIA ratified record of 400 km/h (249 mph) on a one way run on 21 July 2006 at Bonneville Salt Flats. On this occasion the car did not fully meet FIA Formula One regulations, as it used a moveable aerodynamic rudder for stability control, breaching article 3.15 of the 2006 Formula One technical regulations which states that any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured.