Actually vrsik a cars performance isnt JUST based on acceleration. It's a combination of acceleration, handling, braking and top speed. It's great to have acceleration and top speed, but if you can't handle that sharp right up ahead whats the point, you'll get overtaken in the turn anyways. And if you don't have the braking to back it up, other cars with shorter braking distances will be able to hold there speed longer before entering the turn. When your talking about a cars performance there are lalot of factors involved, and personally (I've always been this way though) I like to have a car that can hold the road, and that can pull hard out of second or third. I don't know where the video is now, I found it somewhere on the internet, of a Lotus Elise racing a Corvette. The track had many long straights and many tight corners. At the end of the race, even though the Corvette had a good 200hp over the elise, the elise managed to hold it's ground not leaving the Corvettes bumper through all the turns. However on the straights it would fall severly behind, but once the Corvette was back in the corners again, the Elise pulled right back onto it's ass. Probably could have passed it easily, cept the track looked a little narrow, and I don't think they wanted to smash a car up if one of the drivers made a mistake.
But the point is, the Corvette may have more power and better accel/top speed but it couldnt hold it's own in the turns. I used these too cars as an example cause I saw a video of them, and it works out perfect to solve this argument. A straight line car vs. a car that can handle like it was on rails. If i find the site with the video I'll post it. But I'm not going to go looking for it. Hopefully someone else has seen it, and knows the link.