27 replies to this topic

[Amadeus]

Hi all,

I've been watching quite a bit of rallying now that the F1 circus has packed up for the winter and we've all been sent cold turkey....

And the thing that has struck me more than any other is just how good the drivers are. I know that the cars are nowhere near as powerful as F1 machines, but the car control on display is awsome - far and above that on show on tracks in any category. Vastly different surfaces, no gravel traps or tyre walls (more usually trees and drops - just ask Colin McRae!) and yet they seem to be driving at 110% all they way. And you always get a fuss made when F1 drivers have to drive on a new circuit, or mass adulation poured on someone like Button when they are competitive on a circuit they don't know - compare that to the Rally boys who depend on someone yelling the direction they should be taking a bend or two before they get there!

And speaking as someone who has experience in Karting on tracks but has only recently put wheels on a rally stage I was shocked at the vast difference and how much harder it was to go consistantly quickly in a rally situation. All in all I think Bernie is lucky that Rallies aren't as TV friendly as F1 or he would have a real battle on his hands....

So to sum up (and not at all contoversially!) put the best Rally drivers (McRae, Burns, Tommi M.) and the best F1 boys (The Schumi brothers, Irv the Swerve and Villenuve) into simaler cars and put them over a mixed surface circuit for a dozen timed laps each and my money is on the rally boys walking away the fastest.......

[mhferrari]

Gilles Villeneuve is on top.
The F1 driver who drove like a rally driver.

I don't know who is better, because there haven't been crossovers.

[Ali_G]

It really is hard to tell. Some say that Schumacher is as good a rally driver as he is an F1 driver. But both of these codes requiers different driving skills and techniques.

I would think that Schumacher is the greatest. Its just your own preference really.

Niall

[edi malinaric]

Mmm - I've tried both. Believe me I far prefered 12 - 15 hours of rallying to 15 minutes around the circuit!

Our National rallies ran through the night and into the next morning - that's a long time on adrenalin - not to mention the odd set of teethmarks on your pericardium!

The tall stories at the prizegiving were also something - after all "in more time, more things can go wrong...."

You are on your own - every corner needs your full attention - I could go on for hours.

Circuit racing, by comparison, almost put me to sleep after four laps. Maybe if I had had a competitive car ...but even so, once one had established the limits of the road surface there wasn't too much more you could do.

Rallying skills translated into a more useful set of skills for day-to-day driving - mainly in anticipation and foresight.

My opinion anyway - edi

[Ali_G]

With late braking etc I would think that Circuit driving would be harder.

Niall

[Amadeus]

mh - Wasn't there paper talk awhile back about Colin McRae being in line for an F1 test? Does anyone know if anything came of that???

And Ali_G "With late braking etc I would think that Circuit driving would be harder."

Isn't it harder to late brake into a corner when you don't know how sharp it is!!

[MacFan]

McRae was in line for a Jaguar F1 test, but it hasn't happened so far. There was talk of him moving to F1, but I think all parties involved have now realised how unlikely that is. He did drive a Jordan F1 car several years ago, and got to within 1 second of Brundle pretty quickly.

Whether F1 or WRC drivers are better depends very much on your interpretation of "better". F1 drivers are superb at driving just under the limit on tarmac with about 10-20 corners they know very well. Rally drivers specialise in driving just over the limit, on a variety of surfaces, with corners they see only once a year, relying on their pace notes and co-drivers to call the corners correctly. IMO, Rally drivers are better at reacting to changing circumstances and F1 drivers are faster on tarmac, however a real talent from either could probably be good at both disciplines given time.

[TAB666]

I did sea a program about Mika H. It was after his first world championship. He hade tried Tommi M rally car ( before he became champ). He was only 1 second slower then Tommi and that was his first drive in a real rally car ( i think).
Before he drove he was taken around the stage by Tommi.

Does anyone know if Button will compete in the race of champions (rally)? It would be great to sea a f1 driver compete against a rally driver and a roadracing rider ( Valentino Rossi) in Rally.

[Amadeus]

I though it was Jaguar, but I wasn't sure. Presumably the story had as much to do with PR as driver line-ups.

In general, MacFan, some excellent points. In addition I would imagine that it's pretty easy to spot the F1 drivers that would do well in Rally cars - if you can turn it on in the wet (like MS and RB) then you can cope with changing conditions where you exceed the cars grip. If you go missing in the wet (like a double world champ driving a silver car, not that I want to point any fingers!) then you should probably stick to circuits....

For the record my definition of a 'better' race driver, in any formula, is someone who can get in a strange car, in a strange environment, and get on the pace. Hence Button is better than RS (pretty close results, esp in qualifying even though all was new to JB) and Irv the Swerve is better than JH.

I still think that if you took the three or four F1 drivers with the best car 'feel' and control (I still say the Schumi brothers, Villenuve and maybe Alesi) and put them against Rally drivers, in a car none of them knew (say a nice big hairy Group B car from the 80's!) onto a mixed surface circuit none of them had seen, for a dozen timed laps apiece then the Rally team would be faster, quicker.

[Ali_G]

Amadeus: Its a lot harder tojudge braking when you are going at 220 mph than just 100 mph.

Niall

[Jaxs]

Watch out for the Ice racing ove rthe winter, the F1 drivers very rarely do well, The RAC rally has attracted one or two F1 stars but again never any real stars. Uk TV had a drivers challenge a couple of years ago and the rally guys really shone, and that was driving everything from tanks downwards.

Having navigated more than I've driven rally cars it a matter of total confidence both ways, reading pace notes prepared by somebody else is the scarey bit.

[Amadeus]

Ali_G - It's a lot harder to judge braking in a pitch black forest than at a sunny Monza!!

Jaxs - I saw Martin Brundle being interviewed after competing in the RAC a couple of years ago. He admitted to being way off the pace (and terrified!) but he was a little past his peak at the time.

[Mellon]

The Tunturi-ralli which is a snow/ice rally ran in northern Finland in January / February each year usually attracts a few drivers from other series. JJ Lehto has participated more than once. He is quite good but has never had good enough equipment to be compared to the best Finnsih talent which is very close to the best drivers in the world. Keke Rosberg has taken part a few times without any success to mention (he doesn't take it all that serious). A few years ago he had talked Norbert Haug into participating.

BTW - JJ Lehto was by far the best driver in the single-seater category at last years Race of Champions; for the first time ran as a competition between countries, each sending one rally (or offroad) driver, one 'single seater' and one from a two-wheel series. The competition was run over a figure-of-eight track with rally-cars as an elimination competition. Finland (? - JJ Lehto - Kari Tiainen(multiple enduro WC)) won ahead of Spain (Sainz - Gene - ?).

[DangerMouse]

When Damon was in F3 he went head to head against the then current world rally champion Stig Blomqvist in a BBC arranged rallysprint race.

Of course Stig was expected to walk it, especially as Damon had never driven on gravel before, Derek Warwick and Johnny Dumfries were also in the race.

Damon won.

[desmo]

Why not put rally drivers into F1 cars on a circuit and see? Oh wait, maybe not the greatest idea. Two different disciplines, I'd expect most drivers to have difficulty crossing over in either direction. Better? Meaningless question.

[palmas]

Can any of you do better than me in my line of business? Unless you work in the same business, I would say no! You can have better capabilities but you need some time to adjust and learn how to take the best out of you.
My point is that you cannot compare drivers like this. They are specialised in a car/race type, and unless you let them time to adjust, they cannot compete.

[Amadeus]

Desmo/Palmas - you are right, which is why I was asking the theoretical question about putting all of the drivers in an environment where they would have a degree of familiarity but where no-one would have too great an advantage, and asking which category were most likley to be faster, F1 or Rally drivers. In other words, if you take an ability to take a strange car in a strange environment and make it go faster than your competitors as a benchmark of a better driver and then take an environment where all else is equalised (familiarity, machinery) and where what matters is car feel and control would the Rally Champ or the F1 champ be faster??

My point I suppose was that F1 is claimed to be the pinnacle of motor sport, and F1 drivers the best drivers in the world. With ever tighter regulations and the FIA determined to put a timelock on innovations the deeper question was is it still true to say that the F1 World Champion is the best driver in the world?

And besides, it was meant as a bit of fun in the close season - I mean we all know that if we put Schumi and MH in a rally car Schumi would still whip his butt!

[Jaxs]

Amadeus, Tut , tut,,..... Mika got banned from a Euro championship Kart race because the Schumacher family knew young Michael would get beaten.... it's still the same.

[mhferrari]

Correction:

I believe an Austrian, Surer or something like that did rally and F1.

Heard about McRae, but heard something of it that he didn't do it the test or isn't going to do it or something like that.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Marc Surer was Swiss, but you are right he did both Rallying and Formula One.
A bad crash in a Ford RS200 rallycar destroyed his career.

Colin McRae tested a Jordan 195 at Silverstone in 1996.



Rainer

[colejk]

As far as pure race car driving is concerned, you'd have to say F1 drivers are.

F1 is very intense. They have no time whatsoever to relax for a split second. In F1 you're talking about tenths of seconds whereas rally cars it's seconds. You can make a small ,mistake in rally cars and still save it, yet in a F1 car if you misjudge by a meter, you're into the gravel trap. rally cars never really pass each other much either so all their attention is focused on staying on the course.

I read in an article a few years back about the physical loads an F1 driver takes. They are always under serious G force. accelerating close to or around at 1g, corners up to 3.5 gs and braking up to 4 gs. Their heart beats at close to (?) I think it was close to 150 beats a minute for 1.5 hours straight. (unlike indy cars beacuse of all the yellow flags).

I think rally cars run at higher risk however. There is far greater chance of having an accident in a rally car. There car control is awesome. F1 drivers also have great car control but they can't afford to lose it in a slide.

Everything just happens much quicker and at higher speeds in an F1 car, so that basically settles that argument, as that's what race car driving is all about. Driving fast and passing cars. I think driving an F1 car is equivelant to flying a F15 whereas a rally car a helicopter. Both take tremondous skill, but different.

Besides F1 drivers are paid more. The best in any sport get paid the most. More viewers too. People want to watch the best.

[Jaxs]

And the F1 drives on a nice tarmac surface, specially built to give a very even ride. The Rally driver drives on... anything. The F1 driver drives for approx 2 hour for each GP , the rally driver drives for days. The RAC rally here in the UK attracts more people on the Sunday than the British GP does. And the most highly paid are not necessarily the best. Have a look round...

[TAB666]

colejk: i remember seeing the heart beats of A.Senna during the brazilian GP in 93 ( might have been 92 ). He hade a heart rate of over 180 ! But then again Senna wasn't the best traind F1 driver at that time ,so 150 is prob. a good guess for the drivers driving now.

[lulup]

I think if F1 driver vs Rally driver in a rally race,I'm quite sure Rally driver can beat F1 driver & Vice-Versa.
Last year,Marc Gene drove a buggy raced against another rally driver(I can't remember who? But I remember he's a regular rally driver but not a buggy)in the race of champion!He was much slower than that rally driver.
And few year ago(97 or 98),Tommi Makenien and mick Doohan drove William F1 car at Catalunya circuit,they also much slower than JV's time.I remember TM spun off 2 or 3 times on first lap!Finally need a tow-car towed the car back to the pit!
Another example is Max biaggi drove MS's car at Fiorano,he drove many laps.His best lap was 6 second slower than MS's lap record!

[Hellenic tifosi]

I fully agree with what palmas has said. However, I think that instead of debating on such issues, we should rather enjoy motor-racing. Anyway, I still like rallying most, as it has the element of adventure combined with a lot of srifting and sliding. Doing what my signature suggests, on a slippery and unknown forest road with virtually no traction is really challenging...

[Janzen]

Does anyone remeber the year MH was Mclaren test driver.

He ws in a couple Porshe super cup races as a guest driver and i think he won them, it is not rally but a porshe is very different from a F1.

[Leo]

Jean Alesi has done quite a few rallies. (He crashed out of one aonly last week). Last year he competed in the Rally of Italy (an European Championship round) and finished 5th or 6th, I believe. He was however beaten by his former Ferrari F1 teammate Ivan Capelli, who became third. Both were driving a Subaru WRC.
I remember from Alesi's early years that he drove the #0 car on some occasions (in 1990, 1991??) and sometimes was right on the pace with real competitors. I guess with a little more practice, Jean might just be a top rally driver;)

I always admire Tommi Makinen. His flawless driving style is, I think, unequalled in any racing competition at the moment. He is incredibly versatile, has no real weaknesses and great natural speed. It's about time Mitsubishi gives him a decent WRC car!!

[Hellenic tifosi]

I seriously doubt that Tommi will have a good car. The Mitsubishi will still be Group A for the first part of the season, and almost nothing can be done if he loses many points early in the season.