I'd argue the exact opposite. A conventional high-performance car will struggle with its lacking acceleration and narrow optimal rev-range. Every shift is a pe

I'd argue the exact opposite. A conventional high-performance car will struggle with its lacking acceleration and narrow optimal rev-range. Every shift is a performance penalty, and the transmission itself is inefficient. It's only really acceptable for straight-line 0-400, where the shift range is only gone through once, and even then it's often too much, with people preferring two-speed transmissions for drag. For a real race, it becomes extremely wasteful. The only benefit of a conventional setup is the ability to handle extreme top-speeds that direct-drive will have difficulty with. However, in most races you're quite far from 400km/h, making this benefit useless. Instead, you constantly need immediate acceleration and power from variable speeds, which an ICE with transmission will always struggle with. While this particular car is not that impressive performance-wise, it's tuned for racing, not top-speed. An purely electric racer will run circles around it, with their only downside being tendencies to battery overheating for certain races. On that note, see VW's recent pike's peak record: https://electrek.co/2018/06/21/vw-all-electric-race-car-fastest-time-in-pikes-peak-qualifying-round/ https://electrek.co/2018/06/21/vw-all-electric-race-car-fast....