In most cases people are forgetting that a well spec'ed engine with serious HP particulary with peak power around or past 7000rpm is going to have a healthy dosage of torque considering what happens to them both just after 5k. Therefore I would go with Chip on this one.

I think it all comes down to what the car is going to be used for. WRC cars have mental torque and not so much HP (this is not just to do with the resitrictors) where as a straight line top speed car would benifit more from the raw horse power.