Why Fast and Furious wheels are lie?

Every 12-year dumbo kid who watched Fast and Furious was seduced by the big wheels fitted in that car and demanded every road car to be fitted with big wheels. Yes, bigger wheels are appealing enough to look but they are not best suited for racing. Do you know why? If not, Here is the reason.

The wheels of Fast and Furious cars are as large as 18" to 21" which is about half a meter in diameter, which is the same as half the height of a 12-year-old kid. While racing series such as Formula 1 use 13" wheels, while Nascar and Indy Car use 15" wheels. To understand the demerits of a larger wheel, we need to understand the concept called inertia. 

According to Newton, Inertia is the tendency of the body to remain in the state of motion or rest when a body is applied with external forces. Also, inertia is directly proportional to mass, which means more the mass tends to resist the change in state. So simply larger wheels mean greater mass. To make it clear a 15-inch wheel of Michelin tires with alloy rim weighs about 18.1kg while a 19-inch wheel with the same brand tires and rim weighs about 24.5 kg. Which is about 6.4 kgs per wheel and that is about 25.6 kgs in the whole of a car. Which is pretty high for making a race car. Since the weight is high inertial resistance is high and so acceleration is less, at the same time it also adds upon other resistance like rolling resistance, which further affects the performance of the car.

But weight, in general, is not just the one factor that is affecting the performance of the car. Where the weight is located is even more playing a crucial role in performance. Larger the wheels, the distance which tire weight is locates is far away from the center of rotation. Here comes a crucial part called rotational inertia, Rotational inertia is the same as inertia but here a resisting torque is developed to resist the input torque. Rotational inertia is directly proportional to the mass and square of the radius, Say what, square of the radius. So even an inch difference is going to make a significance deficit in performance. 

Take a cleaning rake or floor mob and try to rotate with hand in one corner of the mob. Repeat the same with hands in the middle of the mob. Which is easier to rotate? Yes, the one with hands in the middle, because the radius from the weight of rake and axis of rotation is less than the other case thus having less rotational inertia.

It makes things even worst when it comes to low-profile tires.

In low profile tires, the sidewall length increases compromising with increasing the thickness of tires at the sidewall. Thus the maximum weight is concentrated in the edge of tires making it even worst. And most of the performance road cars these days are simply fitted with these tires without having any benefit other than the aesthetic reason. This is how movies and 12-year old dumbo affect the car market for going into aesthetics rather than what is in the car. It is pity sad the world is filled with these peoples so the companies have to adapt to these new tires else they will lose the market.

This is also affecting racing series like F1 and Nascar where people find it boring and unfashionable forcing the Fia organization to go into new low profile big tires simply sacrificing the performance up to 2s per lap ie about 120s in a race. What do you think about this hippy culture that is ruining motorsport and car culture. Is this change mandatory?