Um, no not at all. Designers and engineers Always attempt to get The Most HP that the rules allow. Always.
Now, there are reliability issues, fuel concerns, things of that nature that must be taken into account.
And progressive power output is key to letting a race car accelerate quickly through and out of the corners. You do Not want to upset the attitude of the car with a badly tuned turbo for example.
And if were talking top fuel, certainly the clutch has to set right, so that the mind boggling (approximately) 6,000 HP those brutes produce don't just melt the rear tires and not move the car.
There 's a story about the late Mark Donahue coming into the pits and screaming "more HP. I want more HP." The car was putting out 1200 HP at the time. When asked how much he wanted he said "enough to spin the rear tires in top gear down the entire length of the longest straight away."
Mark Donahue is also widely credited as the first person to describe the "friction circle". This may be folklore, but I like to think he was.
