I have been at a race once, it was at Monza in 1994. One of my great moments. I had a seat at the enterance of the Parabolica. Just awesome to see them coming at you at top speed and a short brake just 100 feet before the curve and then hit the throttle thru the Parabolica.
When cart was running here in the US before the merge with indy (IRL) Honda along w/ mercedes, and Ford and Toyota was turning out 18000 RPM's w/ 40PSI of boost.
And in Formula one, Honda has the V10 cranking 18000 RPM but BMW is hitting 22,000 in their engines.