NASCAR Driving Techniques Exposed

[jump15vc]

oval racing may very well be difficult but put one of those guys in an f1 car and see what happens, it would be like when hammond tried it on TG

[kingofthering]

oval racing may very well be difficult but put one of those guys in an f1 car and see what happens, it would be like when hammond tried it on TG

Jeff's Formula One Detour

Jeff Gordon tried Montoya's BMW F1 car a few years ago and did pretty well.

[culver]

oval racing may very well be difficult but put one of those guys in an f1 car and see what happens, it would be like when hammond tried it on TG

It would be a new experience. Things happen faster in an F1 car and the physical demands are higher. That does somewhat shift what the driver needs to be able to handle. In Nascar you see many older drivers because the game is more mental or at least the physical demands are lower. That simply means that more drivers who are mentally and skill wise capable of the challenge can compete. Now we could say that the lack of physical capabilities is a reason why F1 drivers are "better" than NASCAR. I believe there is some truth to that but be careful with that line of reasoning. We could potentially design cars that on some tracks would cause drivers to simply pass out. At that point the "winning" driver would be decided almost exclusively by being the last driver not to pass out. It would be a test of stamina only. Furthermore, the addition of say a G-suit might alter the outcome.

I also suspect that if we were to look back at previous Grand Prix and Indy winners over the decades we might find that when speeds were lower at least some of what made a winning driver was different. When the physical demands were lower was the average age of a Grand Prix driver older than today? Of course in the old days with less safety in the cars and tracks you likely needed a different mind set.

Anyway, in the end I think we can conclude that F1 and Nascar are two different types of driving (both in terms of the cars and the typical circuit). As such, the skills needed to be tops in each while similar are not identical and success in one would not guarantee success in the other.